eating with friends

So I know this picture isn't amazing, but it was such a nice night with amazing people that I wanted to share it. My friend, Miho, invited us to have dinner with her family the other night. She came here from Japan less than a year ago. She cooked us a delicious traditional Japanese dinner. Her cooking is fabulous! It was fun to learn more about manners and how to actually eat the foods we are learning about. And, to try some new to us foods. Plus, we had fun using our limited Japanese and her family got to practice there English with us. There was lots of laughing involved! Especially of interest was Husband's shoe size. Haha! Fifteen was mind-blowing to them and pictures were taken. :D

I fell in love with their summer drink of choice: Barley Tea. I had to order some, because I loved it so much. This isn't going to sound appetizing, but the closest I can describe the taste is coffee water with hints of toast. If you want to say it in Japanese it is called: mugicha. I call it YUMMY!

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Bon Odori

There is so much to catch up on with blogging! I didn't bring my computer with us on vacation to Tokyo, so I am a tad behind. Before we left, Husband's co-worker invited us for a BBQ during the day and then we'd go together to Bon Odori at the kid's school. Obon (or Bon) is a festival to remember your ancestors. Often people have family reunions and clean the graves of loved ones. They cooked us sooo much food and so much of it was unusual to me and so fun! He cooked fish on a grill. He cooked it whole with salt on the outside. It was delicious!! He also cooked beef tongue, which was good. And, chicken skewers (some of which were chicken cartilage). It was all yummy, although I was so stuffed and couldn't eat much. It was also hard to eat because it was very hot outside. The family has three kids and they played in a little baby pool that barely fit all 5 of them standing up. But they had a blast anyway....

jelly soda

We went shopping yesterday with my sensei and she showed us the place to buy cheap snacks. My kids spotted these Kirby Sodas and asked what they were. She told us jelly soda. Well, of course we had to try that!! They were thick like jelly and had hard cubes of jelly in it. It was sooo weird!! The only bummer was that it must have had artificial sweetener in it. My kids and I are sensitive to that stuff and we don't have to have much before we feel it. But, we saved them for husband and when he got home he enjoyed the uniqueness as well! The other day we went to the school to register the kids. The school is sooo big!! G will be in grade 2 here and there are 5 classes of 27 kids! We got to go on a tour of the school. It's very old. I'm pretty sure it only has squattie potties not western toilets so that should be interesting for the kids. G has a friend from New Zealand in her grade alread...

swimming

The kids and I ventured out to the swimming pool last week. It's about a half mile walk from our house. I knew there wouldn't be older kids there since it was during school hours, but we were the absolutely only people there. It was a little awkward, but the guards didn't seem to mind and tried to speak with us in broken English/Japanese. It was interesting trying to figure out the rules. You buy a ticket from a ticket machine. Then take your shoes off in the genkan (all houses have these areas- it's where you leave your shoes), put your shoes in a bag provided, and then hand your ticket to the pool worker. She gives you a locker key and you are free to go swim for 2 hours! The pool was really nice and had a fast racing slide in the kiddie area. We swam the entire time and had a blast. We invented a new game that we call crab tag. The kiddie pool is really big and shallow, so you can only use your arms to propel you in...

Tweedles in Japan

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