Getting Lost in the Wilds of Sagamihara

One weekend in late November U and I headed out on a Toshogu crawl, as we often do (but hadn't in a while). Sunday being his one day off we started late, and weren't out of the house until early afternoon. Then we ran a few errands, and before we knew it it was starting to get dark! We headed off to the first Toshogu on our list, but by the time we got there it was dark and so we decided to visit again another day when we might actually be able to see the shrine!

Thus started our adventure.

U took a wrong turn as we were leaving the neighbourhood of the shrine, turning left when he probably should have turned right. The road wasn't on our navi system, and going by the piles of equipment still littering the area, the road had only just been completed. There wasn't anywhere to turn off or turn around, so we kept going.

We were on a new road through rice fields in a valley ringed by tall hills. Suddenly we came to a small village - it could have been just about anywhere in rural Japan, and probably about anywhen from the past 40 years too! We slowed down and drank in the view, amused by suddenly happening on this little town not all that far from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo and yet so far far away from it all! The guy behind us wasn't too thrilled with our lazy pace, however, so U veered off onto a side street to let the mini-pick up truck pass.

We drove down narrow little roads and before long came to the edge of town. A bridge took us across the river and to the other side of the valley. Familiar blue signs pointed the direction to various places, and U started to go into the right hand lane to turn and head home. I looked left, and saw another little village tucked away around a bend in the road. Impulsively I asked U to go left.

He grinned and switched lanes, turning left with a big smile on his face.

We drove along, feeling like little kids exploring a new park. The road dipped and went around a bend and we stared out of the windows watching with delight.

Unfortunately the scenery that unfolded was all to familiar urban sprawl. I sighed and sat back, disappointed. But then I saw what appeared to be a michi-no-eki. My stomach was telling me it had been a while since lunch, and michi-no-eki often have yummy food on sale, so I pointed it out to U and he pulled into the parking lot. By the time we had parked and gotten out of the car I realized it was not a michi-no-eki, but a bakery complex. The banners proudly proclaimed an-pan to be the specialty, and my heart sank. I do really like bean paste, but most an-pan is rather boring. But we had parked and our stomachs were growling, so we headed in.

Ogino-pan (Ogino Bread) turned out to be a delightful discovery. At 6:30 Sunday evening the store was hopping, full of customers and the staff were busily putting out tray after tray of items fresh from the ovens. Free samples were copious and enthusiastically pushed onto customers. And the bread was delicious! We bought the ever-common Japanese cheese bread (a round loaf with cubes of cheese in the middle, and found it to be so much more flavourful than is common, with an array of herbs mixed in with the cheese), a cheese and kimuchi bun (that was still hot and ooooooohhhhh so yummy!), and a few other bits and pieces. As we were leaving the doughnut counter lady offered us a nibble of their doughnuts - wow! Soft and chewy yet crunchy outside, sweet but not overly so... So U went back into the store to buy a few doughnuts!

Mmmmmm!

Most of the bread didn't find its way back home, although we did a few hours later, after taking another detour to a local kiddie amusement park...! But that will have to wait until tomorrow... ;)

Wordless Wednesday - Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

I thought I posted this on Wednesday, but turns out I didn't... Oops!

Chocolate shortbread cookies - sinfully good and they didn't crumble away to nothingness when I took them off the cookie sheet!

Turkey Leftovers

Last night we had openface hot turkey sandwiches and today I tried to put a Japanese twist on turkey leftovers - turkey stirfry (with the brussel sprouts I found at the grocery store today!) and sweet potato korokke with the leftover maple mashed sweet potatoes. And of course white rice.

Christmas Rice

The turkey (two drumsticks and a kilo plus-sized breast) with gravy, stove-top stuffing, roast onions and potatoes, carrots, broccoli with almonds, and mashed maple sweet potatoes went over well yesterday evening. The chocolate mocha yule log was pronounced delicious (and not overly sweet!). The breakfast bubbly and orange juice and breadmaker version of cinnamon buns were devoured (the whole loaf disappeared in minutes and we contemplated making a second loaf). The lunch cheese (cranberry stilton, soft goat cheese, and cheap Japanese knock-off camembert) and pate-ish substitute disappeared too.

So food-wise Christmas in Japan was a huge success... right up until half-way through Christmas dinner when U gave me what he somehow thinks is the ultimate compliment a meal can be given - "This dinner needs some rice."

Luckily for him my fork was loaded with turkey with gravy and cranberry so he didn't find it embedded in any soft parts. But after two days of being up til 3 am preparing and nearly two straight days of cooking (with some help from the two men) funny how I didn't see the suggestion of rice as a compliment. I suppose it has to do with all the strong flavours and wanting to savour them properly, but seriously, white rice with Christmas turkey?

There are plenty of leftovers, and even some bones, so we'll have plenty of chances for left overs, maybe one night I'll do a turkey stir-fry to serve with rice?

Christmas Baking

My little oven is certainly getting a work-out.

I started yesterday with a half-batch of shortbread cookies (without the jam) in white, red, and green; and a half batch of what turned out to be hazelnut brownie bites.

Today (after loading up with butter and flour and sugar) I made a batch of florentines that ended up sticking to the baking sheet and falling apart so they got a chocolate cookie bottom and melted chocolate (half of which was ruined when I melted the plastic spatula too) to pour on top to hold them together and I ended up with chocolate florentines. Then a batch of my grandma's icing cookies (all baked and ready to be iced tomorrow) and a second batch of shortbread (minus the cherries and sprinkles) - half plain and half with cocoa added. But nearly the entire batch have crumbled into nothingness when I tried to take them off the cookie sheet.

Thank goodness the butter shortage here seems to have ended, as I seem to be going through an awful lot of the stuff!

Tomorrow I want to make brownies (or maybe bites again?) and the yule log for Christmas and, if I have time, maybe a nanaiamo bar too? Wheee...!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Christmas Tree

We finally bought our tree (210 cms! It barely fits in the livingroom!!) and lights (the first string we bought wasn't anywhere near long enough so we had to go back for the longest in the store!) and decorated! We bought decorations from Ikea and Tokyu Hands and made some and it doesn't look sad or empty like I worried it might!

Somedays are Tuesdays

It seems as though Lulu and others have given up on "Somedays ate Tuesdays" posts, but I never was very good at keeping up with the popular kids, so here goes...

Somedays I am frustrated and bored with work and despair of improving or ever having a "career" as opposed just doing a job. But most days recently I have been loving work. I've been editing the proofs for the book (a Japanese translation of a collection of essays in English) we are publishing in the new year. It turns out that being anal has its positives too, and means that I enjoy and am actually pretty good at editing, even in Japanese! I'm not looking for or catching grammatical errors but have been checking for overall consistency (use of Arabic versus Chinese numbers, etc).

Somedays I regret that we won't be going back to Canada for Christmas this year. I'm going to miss seeing family and friends, the Christmasy atmosphere, buying clothes that fit at the Boxing day sales (this year I have to work Boxing day!!)... Most days, however, I'm excited about all the new traditions we will be creating and the Christmasy things we've been up to - like going to see the Tokyo International Players' production of "A Kabuki Christmas Carol" - which was actually really really good and U enjoyed it too!

Somedays I get to have a good nap during my morning commute. Most days recently, however, I've had the elbow of a puffy-coated old guy (never the same guy) in my side. I've discovered I really dislike being touched on my side. It isn't that I'm ticklish, but somehow it just seems way too intimate a place for a random stranger to be in contact with me. Since it happens all too often I should be used to it, but apparently not!

Somedays I go home after work and U and I have dinner together. We've been enjoying the cold weather and having plenty of nabe, stews, curry, etc. Most days this week, however, between end-of-year parties (Mon and Fri for me, Thurs for him) and his students suddenly realizing the year is coming to an end and they don't have the experiment results they need and thus wanting to stay late (Tues, and perhaps Wed too) one of us is late and we're eating on our own.

... Christmas?!!

Yesterday I pulled out the box of decorations and got out the Christmas stuff. I started decorating and when U came home from work we went Christmas tree shopping. We quickly discovered it was both easier and more difficult than we had expected. Easier in that there were more stores selling trees than U had thought and more difficult because more choice made the actual choosing more difficult as we became very picky very quickly.

Height - We knew we wanted something big enough to be a focal point in the room and that could be surrounded by gifts - so at least 150 cm but ideally 180.

Shape - After turning down all the options available at Tokyu Hands we finally realized they were all "slim" trees. They just didn't seem right. I guess the slender trees take up less space and thus are better in small Japanese homes, but they just looked spindly - not in a pathetic Charlie Brown tree type way, just... wrong... But since your average Westerner is wider than their Japanese counterpart I suppose it makes sense? ;)

Fashion - Not only could we choose between ones with pine cones, or brown artfully mixed in among the green on the branches, but there was a "Great Canadian Pine" and little ones with glowing branches. Then there was the choice between a set or a "nude" tree. The idea of a tree that comes with all the decorations seems wrong to me as I remember my mum buying me a decoration every year and we still have the dry pasta angel I made in second grade and the baked clay wreath I made years before that! So nude it is.

And the verdict?

After tramping around the shopping mall for a few hours and looking at a couple dozen trees we couldn't make up our mind and decided we didn't like anything we saw. So we put it off until next week... but did buy a bunch of decorations and a few more Christmas gifts!

Things I love Thursday

- making and decorating grandma's Christmas cookies with my cousin
- watching the hockey game with my uncle
- bickering with my dad
- playing with a dog
- roast lamb
- sharing all of the above with U

The Death of Sarah-chan

Apparently I’m not the only one who doesn’t much enjoy the heat we’ve had this summer. There is another Sarah-chan who has fared even worse. I even have before and after pics to prove the point.

But first let me go back, to when I first met Sarah-chan. It was mid-December and she was healthy and happy – she likes the cold weather. Of course, I didn’t call her Sarah-chan then, that was a name given to her many months later by U, but I digress. Sarah-chan and I met in the train station near school, she was gorgeous and caught my eye from where she sat at the front of the florist’s display. Her bright red leaves made me smile and remember my mother’s Christmas tradition of buying the reddest poinsettia she could find for my grandmother every year. While my grandmother’s annual gift tended to be quite large, I was attracted to Sarah-chan because of her diminutive size. I knew she would fit perfectly on my desk beside my computer and give me a little bit of Christmas spirit as I worked on my thesis through the holidays. And that she did, I loved having her there beside my computer almost seeming to cheer me on.

I finished my thesis a few weeks after Christmas and began spending less time at my computer. Sarah-chan became somewhat neglected, no longer did she get asked for advice on which word sounded better in a certain sentence, but perhaps more importantly, her waterings became rather more irregular. By the time I left for Canada in early February her red leaves had all fallen off, and she was looking rather scrawny. I was going to toss her – who keeps poinsettias after Christmas anyways? I’m sure grandma chucked hers a few weeks after New Years every year!

But U came to little Sarah-chan’s rescue. Perhaps he was lonely wanted something to look after while I was away for 3 whole weeks. I happily gave her to him, however, figuring that she’d die on him in a week or two anyways.

Much to my surprise, however, when I came back to Tokyo, U proudly announced Sarah-chan was healthy and green. It took me a while to figure out who or what he was talking about (it was his first use of the nickname for the plant, and I spent the longest time trying to figure out if it was a good thing that I had turned green or not…), but once I did figure it out I told a very happy U that he was welcome to keep her. He was full of plans to lavish her with care and love and bring her back to my apartment the following Christmas. I’m not sure if Sarah-chan will be able to become a redhead again after going green, but I wasn’t about to rain on his dream. He was taking it all so seriously after all – opening the curtains every morning and leaving them open so little Sarah-chan could get her daily dose of sunlight, watering her regularly, and meticulously watching her leaves for any sign of wilting.


Fast forward to the middle of summer. Poor Sarah-chan didn’t much like a week alone in the very warm confines of U’s dorm room. She looked very wilted when he got back, but regular waterings and the use of the AC at night (I convinced U he didn’t need to leave the AC on in his empty dorm room all day for the sake of a plant), and she started perking up.

It was then that poor Sarah was poisoned. U came back from Indonesia to discover his dorm room had been taken over by a horde of dust mites. No amount of sheet washing or dusting or vacuuming was getting rid of them so he went and bought a bug bomb. The first one didn’t get the suckers and he was still getting covered in little welts every night, so he bought a second stronger bug bomb, letting it off as he left to come to my place for the weekend.

When he got back Sarah-chan was looking wilted again. He turned on the AC and gave her some water as he cleaned up the residue from the bug bomb, figuring she was just over-heated and thirsty. A few days went by, however, and she continued to sicken, getting more and more wilted as she gradually lost the strength to hold her leaves up tall. Having realized what he did, U tried rinsing off her leaves and planned to buy special plant food for her. Long days at work, however, meant he wasn’t able to buy the plant food and poor Sarah-chan continued to sicken.


Her once green leaves are now brown and crinkly and still U refuses to get rid of her. He is heart broken that he let down poor Sarah-chan. I think he feels he let me down in letting her die and I can’t seem to convince him that he actually saved her and gave her an extra half year of life.

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 6 - Cinnamon Buns

Christmas morning for my family would normally begin with one of my excited younger cousins dragging us all from our beds. We'd gather in the living room for stockings - all still in our pjs. We'd open the gifts Santa had left in our stockings, and the adults would sip champagne and bubbly.

About the time we finished opening the gifts (my grandmother ALWAYS being the last because she got distracted watching others open their gifts) the house would have filled with a delicious scent of cinnamon and our Christmas breakfast of freshly baked cinnamon buns would come out of the oven. A generational battle would be waged every year with my uncle and father arguing for raisins and me and my cousins staunchly anti-raisin. Since we had cuteness and youth on our side we won most years, and we'd gleefully inhale our sticky buns - still warm from the oven and oh so ooey gooey good.

I don't have an oven of my own, so I can't make my own cinny buns this year. I had to cheat and buy a Starbucks cinnamon roll. I enjoyed it with my morning coffee, however, as I opened gifts sent by friends and family.


(photograph from the Starbucks Japan website)

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 5 - Stockings

I never met my maternal grandmother, the woman whom I'm named for. She died before I was born. In fact I don't know many people who did know her, which I think is a shame, for the little that I have heard about her makes me think we would have gotten along well. She was a craftswoman, her passion was weaving and she created some gorgeous things. She also made beautiful evening gowns and other clothing for my mother's dolls - dolls that I played with as a girl and I look forward to giving to my daughters some day. My family's Christmas stockings were also all made by my grandmother. My mother's older sister, husband and two daughters, my mum, dad, and me all have my grandmother's handiwork complete with their name on the top. Each one is slightly different - but the three granddaughters all have a reindeer on the toe. The third reindeered stocking was found, without a name, in my grandmother's things after she died. It may have simply been that she made an extra when making the two for my older cousins - it could have been expected that my mother would have at least one kid, after all. But I like to think that my grandmother made it especially for me, her namesake.

I love my stocking and have used it almost every year. This year in early December I suddenly realized I desperately wanted my stocking to hang in my room, even if Santa didn't come all the way to Japan to visit me. So I fired an email off to my dad to ask him to mail it to me. His reply? It was already in the mail to me!




Over the years when new members have joined our Christmas I've made them stockings. I haven't stuck with my grandmother's template, and each one has been unique. This year I decided to make one for U. I couldn't decide on the design - reindeer and snowmen just didn't seem right (in an aside - despite the fact that western snowmen are three snowballs, the snowman on my stocking is only two - like a Japanese snowman... I wonder why??). Then U told me how he used to put out a regular sock on the end of his bed for Christmas. So I decided to decorate his stocking with the same tartan-type pattern that decorates most of his socks. I'd like to think that my Scottish grandmother would have approved!



(and yes, U's stocking still has pins in it, it is not finished. A bad bout of something has flattened me for the past 10 days and my thesis is due in less than 3 weeks... I have promised U that it will be fully finished and pin-less by next Christmas! His stocking does have his name on it, but I decided to block it out, so you'll just have to trust me on the fact that it looks good!)

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 4 - Gingerbread

As a little girl I remember trying to make a gingerbread house from scratch with my mum... and having our gingerbread bake up into odd shapes which then caused the A-frame house to collapse multiple times on us! We made a few attempts, but ended up deciding to just admire the incredible works of art on display at a nearby annual Christmas fair.

Years later I was looking for something festive to do with a young second cousin and found a gingerbread house kit. We hit the local candy store and loaded up on decorations, made some colourful icing and created a masterpiece that my cousin proudly took home with her at the end of the day. We continued making houses for a few years, including one that we covered entirely in bright blue icing. And every year my cousin took the house home with her. She grew up, however, and I started making gingerbread houses (still from a kit) with my young step-sister. We had to keep her very active younger brother from the kitchen as his "help" tended to end with the house flattened and candy-less...

A few weeks back I found fully baked gingerbread house kits for sale at Ikea and was very very tempted. I don't have a young friend to send the house home with, however, and would thus have to display it in my small apartment (and then eat it or chuck it or whatever people do with a gingerbread house after they've made it), so I decided to go for a packet of heart-shaped gingerbread cookies instead...

U and I took a break from studying last night and decorated the cookies. I had picked up four colours of little chocolate writers and only one mini-star sprinkles for topping - not nearly enough choice! Unfortunately he chocolate writers were much more difficult to use than icing as the chocolate would harden and need to be re-melted in warm water.


Our cookies were definitely not works of art, but after solving one rather impressive mistake by sticking the cookie in my mouth I realized that while maybe decorating gingerbread cookies is not a tradition I want to continue, EATING them sure is!

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 3 - Cookies

One of the mainstays of my family's Christmas was making - or rather icing - Grandma's Christmas cookies.

Someone, usually my Grandmother (my father has taken over the tradition in recent years), would make up a couple of batches of dough and leave it in the fridge. When the kids (and kids at heart) had been gathered we'd pull out the Christmas cookie cutters and bake sheets of bells, ornaments, Santas, trees, and snowmen. The icing, often upon my insistence and to my grandmother's disgust, would be made with too much food colouring, creating violent shades of magenta (never quite red), bright blue, lemon yellow, electric green, and vibrant purple.

Over the years various family and friends of all ages have tried their hand and created works of art...

(these two cookies iced as a surprise present for me from my young step-siblings)

This year my dad sent me the recipe and suggested I try making them to give to friends here. Since I don't have access to an oven, however, I decided instead to share them virtually. Then, when La Fuji Mama posted about the 12 Days of Sharing Virtual Cookie Jar (hosted by In Jennie's Kitchen to help raise awareness about childhood hunger in America) I knew just how to share my grandmother's recipe in a way that she would have supported fully.

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Christmas Rolled Cookies

1 cup margarine
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2-1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cream of tartar

Cream margarine with sugars, add egg and vanilla. Then add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Form into logs and wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate the dough for a couple of hours or up to a few days, then roll and cut into shapes.

Bake 8-10 min 350 oven until golden. Cool then ice and decorate.

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 2 - Tree

In the comments to my last post, Cathy asked if I was going to have a Christmas tree this year. I wasn't planning on it... I really wasn't. But... well... I was shopping at the local mega-100 yen store and they had little fake trees for 300 yen... and suddenly there was one in my shopping basket! I couldn't help myself!

After being spoiled having grown up in an area of Canada with plenty of beautiful bushy and wonderfully pine-y real trees, and especially over the past few years when my father and I have gone out to a local tree farm and clambered through snow banks to pick and then cut down our very own tree... well, I thought that a fake tree just wouldn't cut it. But I pulled it out of the box and set it up anyways...


And while it didn't have a pine-y smell, it did litter little "needles" everywhere!


I still wasn't convinced, however...


And neither was the angel when she was placed atop the tree!




Hold on, what's that??


a baby penguin?


What are penguins doing on the tree???

The lights and most of the decorations (my penguin paper-clips aside) were bought at the 100 yen store along with the tree, so it is a rather simple affair, but with U's help...


I think it turned out alright after all.

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 1 - Traditions

Over the past few months, as my relationship has developed with U, and a number of my Japanese friends have remarked - either jokingly or with relief - that this likely means I'll be here for the long run, I have started reading the blogs of a number of foreign women married to Japanese men and raising bi-cultural kids in Japan. I'm certainly not anywhere ready to take any vows, but it has got me to thinking about the possibility of that future for me. Reading through past posts (can you tell I'm procrastinating from the thesis?!) written by these women I've realized just how difficult it can be to celebrate occasions and continue traditions important to only one parent.

Since I'll be spending my first Christmas in Japan (thesis is due January 13, not conducive to trans-Pacific travel!), and U, who has never celebrated Christmas before, and I will be spending our first Christmas together, I began to think about the traditions I want to hold on to, and some new ones I want to start.

Growing up, Christmas was a day of family. When I was very young my parents and I would fly to Vancouver to spend the holidays with my father's family. We moved to Vancouver the summer before I started grade one, and I still remember my excitement of living permanently in a city that for me was full of good food, presents, and grandparents and other relatives (I was the first grandchild) spoiling me rotten. We continued to spend Christmas with my dad's family, which grew to include my two younger cousins as well as aunts, an uncle, and my grandparents. Every year we'd gather at my grandparents, then in later years at my aunt and uncle's place. After my grandmother passed away, however, and my cousins and I grew up, getting all of us together for Christmas began to happen less and less. The past few years its been just my dad and I - with family friends joining us for dinner. This year will be only my second one away from Canada and my dad, my first being 5 years ago when I was volunteering in India.

This year, with my thesis hanging over me, I don't have a lot of time, but I don't want the holiday to slip by without recognition, so I'm plotting to include as many traditions as I can. With the cultural collision that is bound to happen, if they end up coming out looking nothing like what I'm used to, that will only make it all the more memorable - like door-to-door caroling at the homes of Hindu friends in the warmth of an Indian evening dressed in a red and green sari and reindeer antlers! So, stay tuned - while there may not be 12 days of Christmas for me this year, there will at least be a few, and who knows what will happen!

my usual Christmas dinner role - making gravy
Only this time it accompanied fried chicken, had to be enough to feed 40 people,
and I had to try not to stain my festive sari!