Calligraphy Lesson

Last weekend we were invited to a couple's house for lunch and a calligraphy lesson. The husband is a calligraphy teacher and offered to give us a lesson using traditional Japanese ink and brushes. It turned out to be very fun and interesting.

First we had to choose what characters we wanted to learn....we decided on love, beautiful, laugh, and travel.

Frank decided to master "love." The teacher kept making us write the same character over and over until he felt we mastered it to the best of our ability.

Melissa chose to learn to write "beautiful." During the beginning of the lesson, she kept doing touch ups after each stroke...which are apparently a big no-no! The amount of brush strokes are very important when writing Japanese calligraphy and there is an order of which lines you write first. Luckily the teacher had a sense of humor and thought it was cute!

Here are our finished pieces which our teacher later matted in a book for us to keep!

Japanese Cooking Lesson

Yesterday, our Japanese teacher Mami took us to a local community center for a Japanese cooking lesson. There were many other foreigners there, mostly Middle Easterners. Even though we were the only Americans, it was still really fun talking to other foreigners. We met a really funny woman from Romania that has lived in Japan for 4 years. She's the one on the left in the picture below. The picture on the right is of some women preparing the rice for the sushi rolls we made. It was very interesting listening to women from all different countries speaking Japanese.

We learned how to make sushi rolls and tempura. Here are some pictures of us making the sushi. First, we put a dried seaweed sheet on a bamboo mat. Then we added white rice over 2/3's of it. We then put cucumber, cooked mushrooms, egg, and crab on top of the rice. After it was all on top, we used the bamboo mat to roll it and it was ready to eat. It tasted delicious!

To make the tempura, we first washed and cut all the vegetables. Next we made a batter with egg, salt, and soy sauce. After dipping the veggies in the batter, we put them in a pan full of grease and fried them until they were nice and crispy. Before eating them, we had to shred a Japanese radish in order to make a dip for the tempura. They said that the tempura is really fattening, but the radish is very healthy, so eating the two together kind of evens things out! No wonder they're all so tiny!

Here we are about to enjoy our feast!

Our Trip to Nagano!

In February, we went on a 3 day trip with Matt and Chelsea to Nagano, where the 1998 Winter Olympics were held. We rented a Mazda here in Gifu City and drove 3 1/2 hours north to Nagano. The car was great because it had a navigation system that was really helpful! Although it only spoke in Japanese, we were still able to follow the arrows on the screen.

Zenkoji Temple

Nagano is such a nice quaint city! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express that was really close to the main area of the city that had streets filled with small stores selling Japanese pottery, paper umbrellas, snacks, etc. We bought a lot of great souvenirs here, including Frank's favorite, a traditional Japanese sword! After shopping, we went to the Zenkoji Temple. It was very crowded because it was the first night of the Lantern Festival, which honors the Nagano Olympics by lighting-up the temple with the five Olympic colors.

Snowboarding

On our second day we went snowboarding! We drove about 30 minutes into the mountains while it was snowing.

Snowboarding was really fun, but a little more challenging than we thought. We spent more time on our butts than standing up! The weather was great. It snowed some of the time but was always sunny.

Snow Monkeys
The main reason we visited Nagano was to see the snow monkeys. So on our third day, we drove an hour from Nagano to Yudinaka. We began by taking a 30 minute walk into the woods to a monkey park where the monkeys run wild and bathe in the hot springs. There were monkeys everywhere!

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Girls Festival

On Feb. 21, we went to our Japanese teacher Mami's house to see her dolls set up for the the Hinamatsuri (Girls' Festival) which occurs on March 3rd. Most homes in Japan that have a daughter have a display of dolls for the month of February in order to pray for young girls' growth and happiness. After March 3rd, the doll display must be taken down or else they believe it will bring bad luck and the daughter may not get married. The picture on the left is of Mami's house. The one on the right is Mami and her husband in front of their doll display.

On March 3rd, the girls wear kimonos and eat hina-arale, which are rice crackers for the Girls Festival (picture below). We were able to try some and they tasted pretty good...a lot like Kix cereal. They also drink non-alcoholic sake (rice wine).

The size of the doll shrine depends on the family. Mami, our Japanese teacher, has 2 daughters and a really beautiful doll display with 7 steps. She explained to us the importance of each step. On the top step, there is an empress and an emperor. On the second step there are three women servants holding Japanese rice cakes. On the third step there are five musicians holding traditional Japanese instruments and on the 4th step there are two ministers. The 5th step are the men servants. On the last 2 steps there are pieces of furniture and household items, including mirrors, a dresser, tea cups and dishes.

Mami and her husband taught us a song that is sung for the Girls Festival. It was really fun learning it! This is a video of us singing the song in Japanese.

The song is called "Ureshii Hinamatsuri" which translates to "Happy Girls Festival Day." The song's English translation is something like this:
"Turn on the light. Let's decorate the flowers, peach flowers. Five musicians with whistles and drums. Today is a joyful girls festival day."

Reminders of Home!

We always get excited when we see a place that reminds us of home. Here are the places we've seen in Japan that we also have in America!
McDonald's: There is a McDonald's a couple of miles away from our apartment. We often go here when we get sick of Japanese food and need a taste from home. It's almost just like the McDonald's we're used to but with a Japanese twist!

The menu is a little different. This is a picture of the shrimp burger that's only in Japan.

Also, throwing away your trash is very confusing if you're not used to the 4 different compartments to throw away your trash...you have to separate the plastics (straws & lids), pour your extra ice and drink in a hole, put your combustibles (paper items) in another bin, and if you smoke then you pour your ashes in a hole and set your ashtray in a bin (smoking is still aloud in restaurants here.)


Denny's: We recently ate breakfast at Denny's for the first time. They have both Western and Japanese breakfasts to choose from. We ordered a Western style: scrambled eggs- Japanese people like them runny, toast- bread is very thick here, which makes for good toast, sausage- which is actually a small hot dog, bacon- same, salad- breakfasts in Japan always include a small garden salad...which is strange for us! We also had coffee that had unlimited refills...something VERY rare in Japan. The Japanese style breakfasts include white rice with a raw egg to mix in the rice, miso soup, salad, and fish. Sounds appetising, huh?


KFC: Unfortunately, they don't have mashed potatoes here (which is the best part of KFC). The chicken tastes the same, but it's pretty expensive...around 1,000 Yen for a value meal ($8.30). We weren't here for Christmas day, but supposedly most Japanese people go to KFC for a bucket of chicken.






Starbucks: Our true love in Japan is Starbucks. Whenever we have the chance, we always stop in and get a coffee. It is almost exactly what we're used to. The menu is in both English and Japanese. The only difference is that they serve green tea and green tea frappachinos here. We've actually began a collection of Starbucks travel mugs from all the different cities and countries we've visited in Asia!


Other Restaurants: Subway, Outback, Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, and Domino's
Shopping: All the major fashion designers (Louis Vuitton, Coach, etc.)
Gap/Gap Kids, Virgin Records, The Body Shop, Claire's, Sports Authority, and Toys-R-Us

Gas Stations/
Convenience Stores:
Gas stations are always separate here from convenience stores. The gas stations here are much different than in America. 90% of the time they are full service stations, so someone is always waiting to pump your gas for you. Also, the pumps often come from the ceiling (as seen in the picture). When you pull up to the gas station, someone will come to your window and give you a damp towel for you to wipe down the inside of your car. While you're waiting, they also clean your windshield and side mirrors. Gas is expensive here...about $5 a gallon!
Gas Stations: Shell and Citgo
Convenience Stores: 711 and Circle K
Amusement Parks: Disney's Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios

Melissa's Birthday!

On Jan. 11, I turned 27....which is way too close to the big 30! I had a great birthday this year! Everyone here really went out of their way to make me feel special. When I went to work that morning, I found my desk decorated with balloons and a "Happy Birthday" banner (which they later informed me was very hard to find in English). Around lunch time, I found out that Frank had invited everyone from work to our apartment that night for dinner! We had a great time...Frank made spaghetti and everyone brought a dish to share. Zelie brought some paper necklaces for everyone to wear.

The next night, Frank took me to dinner at a restaurant in Nagoya, which is a large city 20 minutes away by train from where we live. The restaurant was on the 52nd floor of the train station. It had a great atmosphere and a nice view of the city. The singer was really amusing to us...she sang all English songs! She sang everything from Bette Midler's "The Rose" to "Amazing Grace!" In between songs, she spoke to the audience in Japanese. At one point, I heard "blah blah blah Merissa San blah blah blah." At this point, everyone turned to me with HUGE smiles and sang "Happy Birthday" to me! In Japan, there is no "l" in their alphabet, so they all pronounce my name with an "r." They even misspelled my name on the cake! This will definitely be a birthday I will never forget!

Frank climbs Mt. Ibuki!

In December, Frank hiked up Mt. Ibuki, which is the second highest mountain in Gifu Prefecture. He left with Steve and Taka around 5:00am and drove an hour to the mountain. It took them about 2 hours to hike to the top, where they found a few Japanese statues and a small shrine, there wasn't really a good view of anything because of the snow storm. Taka came prepared with a small gas burner that he used to make hot ramen noodles for lunch! The hike down took about half the time...Frank was actually so excited he ran down half the mountain!

Thailand Village Video

This is a video of some adorable kids we saw during our trek in Thailand. Spending our first night in this village was one of the highlights of our trip!