Getting Beeped

Yesterday on the train home from work, the subject of crêpes came up and two of my coworkers and I decided it was necessary to seek them out as soon as possible (which was today). From Sannomiya station, we began our short pilgrimage to Hysteric Jam, a crêpe shop I had seen while wandering around window shopping.

Above you can see the enticing window display in front of the store, as well as a close-up of the blackberry and raspberry crêpe with chocolate and cream (ordered by one of my coworkers), the store sign, and a close-up of the rare cheese cake with blueberry sauce crêpe (which I ordered!).

So yummy! I never had crêpes before coming to Japan, and it had been about 4 years since the last time I tried one. If you are like me, and lacking crêpes in your life, I sincerely suggest seeking them out.

Note: If you try typing crêpe in an iPhone message, auto correct changes it to "beeped," which--at least to me--can result in a rather humorous message.

Walking Along I Saw...

...cute little octopus pictures on the ticket gates at Asagiri train station!


Thanks to directions from one of my lovely coworkers, we were able to enjoy amazing yakiniku at One Kalbi near Asagiri station (and also see these octopuses!). We had so much fun hanging out with Chad's mom and brother, and were really sad to drop them off at the airport today. Going to be lonely having our apartment all to ourselves after having such a riot with them over golden week!

Goodbye Mie, Hello Hyogo

Huge going away party in Nagoya

About a week after coming back to Japan this March, we decided to take a job working at an international kindergarten in the Kansai area. This meant that we would finish work at ECC on a Wednesday night, and come to start our new job the next morning in Osaka. It also meant traveling several times back and forth between Yokkaichi and Osaka for work (a 3 1/2 hour commute one way). It also meant living out of a hotel for several days and trying to find an apartment every day after work. Not to mention getting used to a new job and working on closing our Yokkaichi apartment.

Chad's last futsal game in Suzuka

You can imagine we had more than one stressful moment where we were screaming at asking ourselves what we had been thinking leaving so quickly. However, after finding an apartment and getting settled, we're feeling very glad.

Here's a glimpse of our new place, located in Kobe!

We really like the layout of our new apartment, and also its location! It's so near to Sannomiya (a huge city with awesome shopping), to Kobe port, to Kobe China town, and more. Check out the awesome view from our balcony:

At night you can see the city lights and watch trains passing through, and during the day you can see Kobe port and listen to the boat horns in the distance!

We feel like there's not enough time in a day for all of the fun things we can see and do near our new home in Japan. Chad's already found several places to play futsal, and our to-do list keeps growing.

One thing I must mention is the inoshishi situation. And by that I mean wild boar. You would think that living in Mie, which is considered to be the countryside, we would've seen all kinds of interesting wildlife (well, I guess we did see suzumebachi). But we never expected that after moving to the big city we'd encounter wild boar! Our first week in our new apartment we saw two of them, and learned that it's a normal occurrence (especially at night--yikes!). There are even warning signs placed around garbage areas telling us not to put our trash out at night so the inoshishi don't get into it.

I get a little scared walking home at night by myself. Can you blame me?

Guess we'll have to be careful. Thanks for your patience over our lack of posting over the last couple of crazy months. Mom Dykehouse and Quint are coming to visit next week, and we're super excited. We'll try and keep you updated, and close with a lovely picture of the cherry blossoms in Ashiya.

These past two years...

...have been full of so much excitement and joy, but also a lot of really hard, life-changing events. We are so thankful that we have been able to have the strong support of family and friends to lift us up in difficult times. We are also thankful that we have been safe despite the current tragedy in Japan. We plan on getting back to regular blog updates, but first we wanted to provide a few links that give information on what's happening in Japan and how you can help.

http://www.directrelief.org/Index.aspx

http://gimundo.com/news/article/simple-ways-to-help-victims-of-the-earthquake-in-japan/

http://www.justhungry.com/japan-earthquake-how-help?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+justhungry+%28Just+Hungry%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Walking Along I Saw...

...an old --but working!-- telephone booth:

There are a few of these telephone booths in an older part of Yokkaichi near our bank. I just love that area of town. I feel like I can get a glimpse of what was, like when we went to Decks in Odaiba and found an entire floor devoted to the 1950's.

Yokkaichi Sewer Cover

A couple other things that made me happy recently:


These AMAZING Anpanman cookies from our friend Joel. His lovely wife Yumi made them and they shared some! Aren't they cute?

Also, Comfort Food #8!

Yudofu (Boiled Tofu)

A student taught me how to make this simple dish. Put water, firm tofu (sliced), and a piece of kombu (kelp) into cold water and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiling, turn off the heat and use a slotted spoon to scoop out the hot tofu. Add a little soy sauce (yes, I know it looks like our tofu is drowning a bit) and green onions on top. Serve!

Happy Valentine's Day!

~

We've been working a lot lately (and will be working tonight!), so we decided to celebrate Valentine's a day early. After finishing work yesterday, I came home, made dinner and got dressed up.


We had grilled steak and grilled vegetables, both cooked after marinading in a Worcestershire Sauce Steak Marinade. We also had a side salad and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert!


In Japan, girls give boys chocolate on Valentine's Day, and the favor is returned a month later on White Day (you can check out our post from two years ago on White Day here). Look at the cute chocolates I found for Chad!



It was so nice to relax and have a date night after the last two hectic working months. Best of all, despite Japanese tradition, Chad got me chocolate too. Hope your day is lovely, and --at the very least-- involves chocolate!

Setsubun

Yesterday was Setsubun, or the Bean-Throwing Ceremony. On this day, Japanese cleanse themselves of the former year and try to drive away evil spirits. In order to do this, they throw beans our their windows at demons! In supermarkets and convenient stores, you can find bean sets like the ones below:

I've always thought Setsubun was kind of exciting because everyone participates, even adults. And they just decide at some point during the day to start throwing the beans. Apparently, some families actually schedule an appointment with nearby temples to send "demons" to their houses. The demons pull up and knock so you know they've arrived, and then it's time to get to business.

Luckily, I was fully stocked with beans because -- to my surprise! -- an oni, or demon, came to our apartment!

See how surprised I am?

You're supposed to shout the equivalent of "DEMONS OUT! LUCK IN," but in my fright I only shouted, "NO!"

After all the commotion, I settled down to eat some of the leftover beans. You are supposed to count out a bean for each year you've been alive, and add one for good luck in the next year.

A more recent addition to Setsubun tradition is eating eho-maki, an uncut sushi roll. While eating it, you're supposed to face the lucky direction for the year (this year it's south east) and refrain from speaking or laughing. Which -- to me -- sounds like an invitation for giggles! For now, we'll stick with the crunchy leftover soy beans.

Hope we've made ourselves some good luck!