Dahlia Garden

Fantastic.......about 10 minutes from our house

OBON- ancestors are coming back to visit

Obon in Japan is a Buddhist holiday where people think their ancestors are coming back to them. First we had to go get them at the graveyard and then bring them home. We had to pray at the temple and then prepare lots of food for a week and keep it on the shrine. Personally, I think they are always around, but I don't say it. Noi and her cousin, Ryu, had a lot of fun at the temple, banging on all the bells. I guess the priest doesn't care, because Hideto's family donates a lot of money to this temple. Noi is standing in front of the little "jiso" statues that are for babies that died. I always pray there for our first baby that didn't make it and this year Noi and I prayed for Tivka, Gali's baby that didn't make it. I liked the part outside where the kids were pouring water on the gravestones, the meaning was they were giving Hideto's grandma a drink!

Summer Holiday

We had a blast camping in two places- one in a hotspring resort area, one at a huge lake named Tazawako. Noi had a blast playing with two kids, looking for bugs with their bug nets and playing in the lake. The beer photos are taken at a brewery at the lake. Akita is unusual, because they have 4 micro-breweries and they are rare in Japan. Maybe there are only a handful in the rest of Japan, but Akita has 4. I admit when we moved from SF, I was a little sad about not having fresh beer anymore, because we always had SF Brewery beer, as they are a client of YUM YUM. But now, we can have it here too! Thought it was hilarious that Hideto had a car adaptor so he could dry his hair.

preschool pool

They play in pools at preschools! Fun! Noi's in the orange suit with the pink hat.

Kanto Matsuri

One of the Best Festivals in Japan and is right around the corner from Hideto's parent's home- it was incredible! It's a competition to carry these lanterns, lit up with candles, yes, they are paper. They have to balance them all over their bodies, etc. A unique part of it is the women play all the music. They play the flutes and the taiko drum. The men compete doing tricks with the floating lanterns, like walking in high heels, adding height to the poles, balancing on their head or shoulder or hip. Noi had a blast doing the cheering....

Noi in the Pool

She loves it.
I had it as a sandbox until it became really hot....multifunctional!

Noi and Grandpa

One reason I wanted to move to Japan was so Noi could have a grandpa. It's so heartbreaking for me that my father passed away before ever meeting my child and I wanted Noi to know and love and be loved by one grandpa. Here they are playing together......

Finding Cicadas

I'm trying to raise Noi to have a love for nature, as that was the wonderful gift given to me by my grandpa Elmer and mother and father. The older I get, the more I realize what a treasure that has been in my life. Luckily my husband loves nature too and loves insects, which makes me very happy, because I do too. Yesterday we went to the grove of trees near Hideto's parent's home and searched for cicadas. They are amazing little creatures that sing beautifully. In the early evening they crawl out of small holes in the ground (where they lay dormant for six years). If they are not eaten by Japanese ravens, they will hide in a tree and shed their skin, like dragonflies.. If you can find them in their holes, you can put a stick in the hole and wait for them to grab it, then pull them out, just like ice fishing! Otherwise, you walk around with a flashlight and look for them crawling out and then grab them, put them in a bucket, and bring them home. We found two last night and we brought them home and put them on a curtain. Then they crawl up the curtain until they find a cozy spot and prepare to shed their skin. After shedding their skin, they are bright green.

Then we went to sleep and in the morning, the cicada was sitting on the curtain, all brown, waiting for it's wings to harden. Shortly afterwards, we released it outside.

Meet the Mamas

One day I saw a foreign lady at the gym near our new home, so we went up and introduced ourselves. Turns out she organizes a Mama group with lots of Mamas from different countries- here we are in the photo. I'm the tallest! Funny.........Terrific group- Indonesians, Filipino, Chinese, Polish, Mexican, Taiwanese and most of them speak some English, they all speak Japanese. For me, since I'm not Japanese, I find it weird to speak to other non-Japanese in Japanese, so I spoke English and they all seemed to like it. I guess they didn't think to speak English, since none of them are Native English speakers anyway. I realized how Americans miss out somewhat on a great experience by not learning at least one foreign language. All these people could speak English and their native language, plus Japanese. Does learning another language make you wealthy? That is the question many Americans might ask, the answer is No, but it gives you confidence. Anyways........here's a photo of how I'm looking these days up close..........

Whoa, this zoo is amazing.......

Akita has an amazing zoo. Yes, we were really this close to the lions, their heads were on the glass and I was touching their faces. The only thing between us was a thin piece of glass. I guess the Japanese don't worry that the lions or tigers might get pissed off and try to crash through the glass, which they obviously could if they wanted to. Noi had a lot of fun playing on the little stuffed animals with this boy. He asked me "How do you say 'Mango' in English?" That made me think, is Mango an English word or a Spanish word or what language is this word? One thing that surprised me is Noi loves the snakes. Right after we got there, she said, "I want to see the snakes." Next to the snakes were these star turtles from India and Pakistan and they were eating these super yummy salads!

Futon Days coming to an END

Thank God!!!!!! I have been rolling and unrolling these things everyday for almost a year. They are a nightmare. Totally uncomfortable and sleeping on the floor sucks. I can't wait to have a bed! We already picked them out. BUT, look at this photo....this is the one great thing about this whole house-building journey, seeing Hideto and Noi together like this. Here they are watching TV on Hide's mobile phone. All phones have TV on them in Japan...........I skipped TV on mine and instead purchased a Global phone. Anyone can call me from around the world and I can call from any country I visit.

Fireworks

Noi thought this was fun. She did it with Ryu after the day at the beach. I thought it was dangerous for her to be doing it, but Hideto's family all said it was okay. You can see how I feel in the photos, in one I'm smiling for the camera, so Hideto will not feel bad, in the other one, I'm holding my hands up with a shocking look on my face thinking "Watch out!" It was one of those times when I couldn't make my opinion heard, so I stood there praying one of those sparks wouldn't go into her eye. It seemed so obvious her arms are still a little too short for this activity. Well, once I have my own house, I can control what goes on, these days I just try to do damage control. For example within the last two days, I have picked up a small sharp bobby pin off the bathroom floor, a safety pin off the bathroom floor, caught Noi starting to take the cap off the nail polish her grandma left on the small table you sit at without a chair (very low to the ground), killed a bee flying near her bed, because the screens are left open, moved a toolbox that was left on the floor....and other things too.......All of these things left laying around by a woman that thinks I'm not a good mother because I don't wash Noi's lunch box the minute she comes home from daycare.......And yes, she bought the fireworks without asking me if it was okay first...........Well, in the end, I know she does love Noi and that is the reason we are here, just can't wait to be about 15 minutes away everyday!!!!!!