The week in review

This week has been busier than anticipated. FIK just realized we are only here for 3 more weeks and has loaded on the volunteer work as a result. Plus, we’ve been running all sorts of last minute errands trying to prepare for our departure. Under 20 days!!! It’s a little scary. I have a few photos from this week…

First, we spent Sunday with Anna’s family at the Aiina One World Festa. We were all surprised at how many foreigners live in Morioka. Several dozen countries were represented, including much of asia, but also Paraguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Barbados, and other surprises. It was very busy and I didn’t take any photos of the international fair itself, but here are a couple of Catie & Anna playing in Aiina and heading over to lunch. 

 

 

 

 

On Monday morning before class, Andy & I walked up to see the swans. It was a beautiful morning and we met a chatty amateur photographer who showed of photos of osprey catching fish in the lake, him climbing in New Zealand, and him on Mt. McKinley when he was younger.

 

I love this tree! Clearly Andy does too...

 

 This time of year you see all sorts of produce drying. Here are some daikon radishes and persimmons...

 

Catie likes the food trucks that visit Big House, so we stopped at the imagawayaki truck for a warm bean cake to eat as an after school snack.

On Thursday, we had our monthly mom’s morning out. Tomiko invited 2 new moms this month. Since one is a surgeon and the other a special ed teacher, normally they are working, but they both took time off to come play with us. We went to a funny little shop and made creatures from silk cocoons. Your reaction to this statement might have been the same as mine (and Mika's!)- um, why? Bug cocoon crafts? Really? But, it was fun! Apparently silk cocoon crafting is quite the thing to do in Iwate. After our craft party we went out for a fun okonomiyaki lunch!

Tomiko's blinged out sheep!

my owls

 

if little creatures are not your thing, they sell cocoon jewelry, and...

dolls! Here's an entire hinamatsuri set made out of cocoons.

lunch was great! We all laughed as Tomiko took over half the table with her monjayaki.

Lovely November Saturday

Andy had to work today (this whole weekend actually), so Catie & I headed out to the Sports Park for some playground fun. I think a good chunk of Morioka had the same idea- the playground was a zoo! The amazing ‘Safety Town’ side of the complex was closed for the season, so Catie couldn’t ride any of the bikes or cars, but she had fun at the playground anyway. Sadly, we missed one of her friends by minutes! After leaving the playground, we headed back up to Gandai where we fed the sheep and played around the lily pond. 

this is the best playground in town. You can see it doesn't hold a candle to Glen Miller!

I've tried getting Catie on this awesome zip line a few times, but she is not interested :-(

 

These things always remind me of Twinkies.

and back on campus...

Catie likes to run laps around the pond.

 

I think the reflection is better than the actual view!

As usual, Catie demanded her usual Saturday night steak from the meat truck. There is a yakitori (grilled meat on sticks) truck that parks in front of Big House every Saturday night. The owners called out “Catie-chan!” before we even made it to the truck. This was probably a good thing, since it wasn’t until we arrived at the truck that I realized I have no idea how to say ‘steak kebob’ in Japanese! Catie yelled “steak”(in English), I said “4” (in Japanese), and they gave us the right stuff. Sometimes it pays to be a regular (you know, like those times when you are alone with your kid in a country where you don’t speak the language and where your kid is going to have a meltdown in the parking lot if she doesn’t get her Saturday night steak- THOSE times)! 

A morning adventure

Snow on Iwate yesterday morning- I forgot to post this earlier!

Andy and I had a few errands to run this morning. We’re trying to get a little Christmas shopping done before we leave and I really want a sakiori weaving tool that is much, much cheaper to buy in Japan. We biked over to the weaving studio a few km away to order the tool I want. After leaving the weaving studio, we stopped by a couple of the nambu tetsu (ironware) studios in town. Morioka has been famous for its ironware for centuries. An iron artist’s husband pointed us to a nambu tetsu exhibit going on at the Morioka Central Community Hall, so we biked back up to Route 4 (where we started) to see the exhibit. When we got there we discovered a beautiful garden outside the community hall. It’s quite close to our apartment and simply lovely! We saw the ironware exhibit, then stopped by the Baeren Brewery for some beer tasting on the way home, and then headed to our neighborhood ramen shop for lunch. It might be drizzling and cold out, but it was a fun morning adventure!

Nambu tetsu! This artist actually spent a semester teaching metalwork at Earlham

Nambu tetsu at the exhibit

 

Meanwhile…The FIK kids were pretty excited about Goiaty visiting school this morning. Apparently Catie couldn’t keep her eyes or hands off him. This complicated the TV station’s attempts to film the class with Goiaty behind them. Oh well!

We were told that the kids will be on TV 2 times a day for 2 weeks beginning Nov 25^th. After a little research, Goiaty appears to be the mascot for the Iwate Asahi TV station. Here’s a little video showing what he looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyT5k3G2WR4