We got on the road later yesterday than we had planned, but we arrived at U's parents' place mid-afternoon. Any awkwardness was quickly abated when U tried to enter the house by one of the sliding doors on the side - and his mother and I simultaneously reprimanded him, saying we should enter the house properly by the front door. U just shrugged his shoulders, seemingly unsure why such formality was needed, while his mother and I laughed.
My chocolates were a big hit, his sister particularly pleased with the nuts on the one she chose. We chatted a bit over iced coffee, talking about ice hockey and Toshogu shrines - at which point I somewhat tongue-in-cheek apologized for the strange hobbies I was causing U to pick up. His mother laughed and his sister said "not at all, I'm just happy that my big brother has found somebody that fits him so well!"
The four of us headed out to U's aunt and uncle's house on the other side of the stream to visit his grandmother - a tiny old woman curled under a fuzzy blanket in a hospital-type bed set up in a tatami room in the house. She was overjoyed to meet me, repeatedly reaching out a shaking hand to clasp mine and shake it much more vigorously than her frail body seemed capable of! Over and over again she thanked me for visiting and entrusted U to me (U ha yoroshiku oneigai shimasu). As we were about to leave she gripped my hand and leaned towards me, looking me straight in the eyes and said "I must get better very quickly so that we can all go to the restaurant down the street together." I squeezed her hand and assured her that I looked forward to going to the restaurant with her, and yes, she had better get better soon. As we then left I heard her saying to U's younger sister that "U's bride (oyomei-san) looks very kind, doesn't she?!" Apparently she followed this up with a vow to get better very quickly so that she could attend the wedding. (ummm... wedding? ummmm....)
Having had a quick cup of tea with U's aunt and uncle the two of us then escaped for a wander around his old neighbourhood - the local shrine and a big park just a few minutes walk away. We found a bench in one part of the park, overlooking a large grassy area dotted with young families playing catch, running about, and chasing dogs. As the sun set, however, it got a bit chilly - and then we were dive-bombed by a toy airplane so we decided to head back.
U's father arrived home and the five of us headed to the nearby restaurant (I somehow felt guilty that I wasn't waiting for grandma to get better and join us!). Dinner went over well, conversation and much laughing. The best part of the evening, however, came when we went back to the house and U's father pulled out the old home movies and his mother pulled out U's (very dusty) baby albums! U and I had a great time looking at his old photos and we all laughed over movies of the other baby sister making a mess of a rapidly melting popsicle, and of U pulling a minor temper-tantrum when he couldn't quite get the hang of riding his bike.
U and I headed off to repeated requests from the entire family to come again soon - and promises for his mother, sister, and I to go to an ume-shu bar I know in Tokyo! U's mother later texted him to thank him for the visit, saying that him bringing me for a visit was the best mother's day gift she had ever gotten.
I'd say the day was a success, eh?
Monday, 10 May 2010
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Ready, set...
I decided to follow Liz's advice, and go with a sweet gift to give U's family when we visit them later today. I couldn't resist making it myself, so the other day I spent a number of hours making maple truffles - based on Bakerella's oreo truffles recipe.
I started with maple truffles covered in white chocolate and sprinkled with maple sugar
but ran out of white chocolate so mixed in some walnuts to the truffles mixture and covered them with dark chocolate and maple walnuts (that I managed NOT to burn when I put them under the fish griller on my stove - yay!)
When I ran out of maple walnuts I gave them an extra covering of dark chocolate, ending up with three different types of chocolates. They have been wrapped up all purty-like and are sitting in the fridge ready for us to take.
I started with maple truffles covered in white chocolate and sprinkled with maple sugar
but ran out of white chocolate so mixed in some walnuts to the truffles mixture and covered them with dark chocolate and maple walnuts (that I managed NOT to burn when I put them under the fish griller on my stove - yay!)
When I ran out of maple walnuts I gave them an extra covering of dark chocolate, ending up with three different types of chocolates. They have been wrapped up all purty-like and are sitting in the fridge ready for us to take.
Friday, 7 May 2010
Dum da dum dum da DA!
The Vapors may have sung about turning Japanese, but the opposite happens too. I've been seeing it happen - and U hasn't even been to Canada yet! So, here's my top 5 ways to tell your Japanese partner is turning Canadian.
5) They love poutine (but seriously, who doesn't love fries with gravy and cheese?!?
4) They appropriate your Taiga jacket (for non-Vancouverites Taiga is an outdoor wear and gear store in Vancouver, its goretex rain jacket is the unnofficial municipal costume).
3) They would rather eat sausages with maple syrup or eggs benedict with smoked salmon for breakfast than natto or grilled fish.
2) They becoming a huge hockey fan.
1) When waiting in the car they hum the old Hockey Night in Canada theme song and drum their fingers on the steering wheel in perfect time.
5) They love poutine (but seriously, who doesn't love fries with gravy and cheese?!?
4) They appropriate your Taiga jacket (for non-Vancouverites Taiga is an outdoor wear and gear store in Vancouver, its goretex rain jacket is the unnofficial municipal costume).
3) They would rather eat sausages with maple syrup or eggs benedict with smoked salmon for breakfast than natto or grilled fish.
2) They becoming a huge hockey fan.
1) When waiting in the car they hum the old Hockey Night in Canada theme song and drum their fingers on the steering wheel in perfect time.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Things I love Thursday
With today being the first day after a string of holidays, the museum was closed today so I had the day off. I was looking forward to sleeping in, and had a long list of things I was planning to get accomplished, and was really looking forward to actually watching a playoff hockey game in real-time. I woke up this morning with a pounding headache, however, and barely made it through two periods of the hockey game (Vancouver was down and ended up loosing) before having to crawl back into bed in the hopes that a short nap would help the tylenol do its work. That ended up being the story of my day - try and do something, then need to curl up for a nap until the pain in my head subsided enough for me to get up and do something, only to need to crawl back to bed again.
So not really a great day for a Things I love Thursday, but still, here goes...
- the new shawl I've started knitting - I cast on last night (and then ripped it out and cast on again when I realized I had done so with the wrong needles... ugh) and after doing a few rows I decided that the pattern just wasn't working with the yarn. So I hit Ravelry, found the perfect pattern and started learning how to knit entrelac - a type of pattern that looks crazy confusing as you have little squares going in every direction, but once you get the hang of is very straightforward. I love the way it is working, as the yarn is variegated and instead of spreading the colour out into long long stripes and mixing it all together, the little squares mean that the colour is in blocks, and it looks incredible. Since the shawl is for me, I'm even more excited about it!
- my coworkers - one of the best things about my job at the museum is the other part-time people I work with. They are fun and we tease each other a lot. A new girl has just started and seeing the workplace through her eyes has been a reminder of just how much I like my coworkers (as was how lonely it was being the only one there on Tuesday!)
- my virtual support network - posting the other day about how nervous I was about meeting U's family, and having family and friends, as well as virtual friends I've never met, there to reassure me and give me advice.
- cooking experiments - since I'm allergic to tomatoes I tend to make a cream/cheese sauce for pasta. It is one of my quick meals, normally I'll cheat with a package sauce that I augment with fresh veggies and perhaps some meat as well. One of the things I did accomplish today was to make up a big pot of home-made sauce. I didn't have a recipe, just experimented and ended up with a delicious spinach cream (with skim milk) sauce with three kinds of mushrooms and onions and pork. I'm looking forward to being able to freeze it and have quick home-made meals.
- having a microwave! U was given one by a friend/collegue who recently got married. U had agreed to take it, figuring we could use it when we move in together (yup, watch this space...) but in the meantime suggested that I have it at my place as he doesn't have a kitchen. I still haven't gotten used to having it, and so am not using it all that much, but I love being able to easily warm up the milk for my morning latte!
So not really a great day for a Things I love Thursday, but still, here goes...
- the new shawl I've started knitting - I cast on last night (and then ripped it out and cast on again when I realized I had done so with the wrong needles... ugh) and after doing a few rows I decided that the pattern just wasn't working with the yarn. So I hit Ravelry, found the perfect pattern and started learning how to knit entrelac - a type of pattern that looks crazy confusing as you have little squares going in every direction, but once you get the hang of is very straightforward. I love the way it is working, as the yarn is variegated and instead of spreading the colour out into long long stripes and mixing it all together, the little squares mean that the colour is in blocks, and it looks incredible. Since the shawl is for me, I'm even more excited about it!
- my coworkers - one of the best things about my job at the museum is the other part-time people I work with. They are fun and we tease each other a lot. A new girl has just started and seeing the workplace through her eyes has been a reminder of just how much I like my coworkers (as was how lonely it was being the only one there on Tuesday!)
- my virtual support network - posting the other day about how nervous I was about meeting U's family, and having family and friends, as well as virtual friends I've never met, there to reassure me and give me advice.
- cooking experiments - since I'm allergic to tomatoes I tend to make a cream/cheese sauce for pasta. It is one of my quick meals, normally I'll cheat with a package sauce that I augment with fresh veggies and perhaps some meat as well. One of the things I did accomplish today was to make up a big pot of home-made sauce. I didn't have a recipe, just experimented and ended up with a delicious spinach cream (with skim milk) sauce with three kinds of mushrooms and onions and pork. I'm looking forward to being able to freeze it and have quick home-made meals.
- having a microwave! U was given one by a friend/collegue who recently got married. U had agreed to take it, figuring we could use it when we move in together (yup, watch this space...) but in the meantime suggested that I have it at my place as he doesn't have a kitchen. I still haven't gotten used to having it, and so am not using it all that much, but I love being able to easily warm up the milk for my morning latte!
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Wordless Wednesday - Sunset on Sado Island
U and I took a wonderful short Golden Week trip to Niigata prefecture and Sado Island. We lucked out with our hotel on Sado - a real room with a view! Arriving about a half an hour before sunset we checked in and then watched the sunset over the water from our window - what a view! We left the window open and fell asleep to the sound of the waves lapping on the beach below.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this urgent update...
No bookcase tour post this Tuesday, although I have a post half-done, it'll have to wait for next week.
U and I had a great Golden Week trip to Niigata, mostly Sado. We went Toshogu-hunting, did a short hike, enjoyed gorgeous weather and beautiful scenery, and just generally had fun. We got back last night and avoided most of the crazy "U-turn rush" only getting stuck in traffic for a few hours. I had to work today, and U went home to his parents and to see his grandmother who had just been released from the hospital. I'll leave for another day my rant over the fact that the doctors and the family haven't told grandma about her diagnosis, and just say that she's been diagnosed with cancer - she's 92 years old and it has spread through pretty much all her internal organs, so there isn't much the doctors can do.
U and I have been talking about me meeting his family for nearly six months now, and his family has increasingly been bugging him about bringing me home - to the point where they've all but told him not to bother coming home unless he has me in tow. But not getting regular vacation at the museum, and then things like Girl Scouts and whatnot taking up what weekends I do have off...
We had finally begun talking days, and decided to go next weekend, but that all changed this evening. U dropped me off at work this morning and then went home to see his grandmother. She is doing worse than he had thought, so he asked me to take Sunday off work and go with him to meet her and his parents. I assented immediately without a second thought and there is no doubt in my mind that I am going. But now that I start thinking about it... my shoulders are starting to tense up with nerves!
Sure, I've done the meet-the-parents thing before. And normally (KNOCK WOOD!) parents love me. There was my first boyfriend, in high school. I met his brother and parents and grandmother at his birthday dinner at the family favourite diner. I as so nervous I made myself sick to my stomach and could hardly eat anything. Besides worrying that I didn't eat enough, his parents and I got along well. More recently, I met my American ex's parents and aunt and uncle and cousins at the family American Thanksgiving celebration (a month and a half after he had met my aunt and uncle and cousins for Canadian Thanksgiving). I was so tense that the softest of touches on my shoulder was enough to make me yelp in pain. By the next time I visited his parents, however, his very non-demonstrational father gave me a hug and his mother had raided her jewelry box for me.
U has told me there is nothing to be worried about. His family took the news he was dating a foreigner very well (he's 31 and has never mentioned a girl to his family before, my guess is they're just relieved that he's met somebody!) - his mother's response was that she had always thought international marriages were WONDERFUL, and his youngest sister couldn't stop talking about how she had ALWAYS wanted to go to Canada and wasn't this FABULOUS that she could now go to CANADA!
But then I've read lots and lots of blog posts by foreign women married to Japanese guys complaining about their inlaws, the mother-in-law in particular. Stories that don't do anything to calm my nausea or unknot my shoulders. And U IS the eldest son, heck he's the ONLY son...
I've told U we should pick up a couple of bouquets of Mother's Day flowers for his mother and grandmother, but beyond that I'm at a loss as to what to do (I'm thinking muscle relaxants for the shoulders and gravol for the stomach might be a good thing...) eeeeeek.
Any advice?
U and I had a great Golden Week trip to Niigata, mostly Sado. We went Toshogu-hunting, did a short hike, enjoyed gorgeous weather and beautiful scenery, and just generally had fun. We got back last night and avoided most of the crazy "U-turn rush" only getting stuck in traffic for a few hours. I had to work today, and U went home to his parents and to see his grandmother who had just been released from the hospital. I'll leave for another day my rant over the fact that the doctors and the family haven't told grandma about her diagnosis, and just say that she's been diagnosed with cancer - she's 92 years old and it has spread through pretty much all her internal organs, so there isn't much the doctors can do.
U and I have been talking about me meeting his family for nearly six months now, and his family has increasingly been bugging him about bringing me home - to the point where they've all but told him not to bother coming home unless he has me in tow. But not getting regular vacation at the museum, and then things like Girl Scouts and whatnot taking up what weekends I do have off...
We had finally begun talking days, and decided to go next weekend, but that all changed this evening. U dropped me off at work this morning and then went home to see his grandmother. She is doing worse than he had thought, so he asked me to take Sunday off work and go with him to meet her and his parents. I assented immediately without a second thought and there is no doubt in my mind that I am going. But now that I start thinking about it... my shoulders are starting to tense up with nerves!
Sure, I've done the meet-the-parents thing before. And normally (KNOCK WOOD!) parents love me. There was my first boyfriend, in high school. I met his brother and parents and grandmother at his birthday dinner at the family favourite diner. I as so nervous I made myself sick to my stomach and could hardly eat anything. Besides worrying that I didn't eat enough, his parents and I got along well. More recently, I met my American ex's parents and aunt and uncle and cousins at the family American Thanksgiving celebration (a month and a half after he had met my aunt and uncle and cousins for Canadian Thanksgiving). I was so tense that the softest of touches on my shoulder was enough to make me yelp in pain. By the next time I visited his parents, however, his very non-demonstrational father gave me a hug and his mother had raided her jewelry box for me.
U has told me there is nothing to be worried about. His family took the news he was dating a foreigner very well (he's 31 and has never mentioned a girl to his family before, my guess is they're just relieved that he's met somebody!) - his mother's response was that she had always thought international marriages were WONDERFUL, and his youngest sister couldn't stop talking about how she had ALWAYS wanted to go to Canada and wasn't this FABULOUS that she could now go to CANADA!
But then I've read lots and lots of blog posts by foreign women married to Japanese guys complaining about their inlaws, the mother-in-law in particular. Stories that don't do anything to calm my nausea or unknot my shoulders. And U IS the eldest son, heck he's the ONLY son...
I've told U we should pick up a couple of bouquets of Mother's Day flowers for his mother and grandmother, but beyond that I'm at a loss as to what to do (I'm thinking muscle relaxants for the shoulders and gravol for the stomach might be a good thing...) eeeeeek.
Any advice?
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