Japanese friends

2008: English club learning to make chocolate chip cookies.

In April 2006 when my middle son entered Japanese kindergarten at age 3 1/2 he joined a remarkable class, from my perspective that is. 

His year level was split into four classes. In his class, a group of only about 12-15 kids (my memory is already fading), two of the mothers, spoke some English. Not too long after that the three of us started up a fortnightly English club for mums of kindy kids. A club that we ran for the three years that our children spent at the kindergarten. During those years I usually saw those two ladies twice a day five days a week. It is when you spend time like that with Japanese that you make friends.

In 2007 our English Club did a bilungual puppet play on The Hungary Caterpiller for the whole kindergarten (300+ kids).

Today, five years later, I have proof. I went to one friend's house and my other friend along with another mutual friend from that first kindergarten class joined us there. Wow. My Japanese friends. We haven't been all together since they farewelled me two years ago when we left for Australia for a year.

2007: Me with my two friends on my left. I taught them how to make Apple Pies, in 30 degree heat!

You might find that a strange thing to be excited about, Don't you have heaps of friends? Actually no, not Japanese friends. It is hard to make good Japanese friends, especially when you speak Japanese as badly as I do. I am very grateful for these three ladies. 

Thankful too that they've agreed to get together every month or so. To practice their English and just to enjoy one another's company. Yay! None of them are Christians. They're not even particularly interested, as far as I can tell. But if they do become interested, I'll be around...

What're you doing over the summer?

There are only 18 school days left for my kids. So we're getting this question.

In Australia it is usually framed, "Are you doing anything over Christmas?" or "Are you going away in the holidays (US=vacation)?" Because, of course, summer coincides with Christmas and New Year in Australia so "Christmas" has a broad meaning usually including holidays and often going away somewhere.

In an international environment the question gets ramped up a bit, "Are you going back home over the summer?" This is much bigger, because it involves an expensive aeroplane trip, not just loading up the family car. And "over the summer" is the usual phrase. We don't say that in Australia, it seems to be an American phrase.

It makes for a good conversation opener, but recently we've been asked this a lot and it can be tiresome. And the answer is "No, we're not flying back home to Australia." Often I am talking to someone who has fewer family members than I. When I point out how expensive it is to take a family of five on an aeroplane trip to Australia they quickly understand why we might be staying put this summer. Besides which, this is the first May in three years when we haven't been planning to change countries in a month or so. I'm very happy to not be doing some major packing right now!

So what are we planning?

I mentioned back here on January 1 what our summer plans were.  We're planning to do some camping. And we're thinking of buying a family yearly pass to a "somewhat" local water/amusement park. Trying to think "cool".

There is one other event we're looking forward to, and that is having some friends visit for a fortnight in June/July. It's been a long time since we've had people come to Japan just to see us. Our friends have two young children about the same age as our own, so it should be a fun, crazy time. Over the weekend I wrote out a rough schedule for the two weeks they'll be here. Phew - I think we'll need a holiday to get over the holiday! We're going to try to cram a lot of stuff in. Museums, lots of parks, trains, a volcano, waterfalls, the Imperial Palace and Tokyo Metropolitan building (202m observation platform) and maybe even Tokyo Disney.

It should be fantastic fun. They've never been to Japan before, so we're playing the tour operators. It will be nice to have an excuse to play tourists. Anyone noticed that in a place where you live you don't do the touristy stuff unless you have visitors or make a special effort?

So, in case you're thinking of asking me "the question", you already know my answer and we can move onto more important things like..."How are you really?"

A church doesn't need a car park

Every church I'd ever known had a car park (US=parking lot) until six years ago. It was inconceviable that a church would not. If the church didn't have on-property parking, the streets around it were free for parking. Australia; the land of free car parks, most of them long and thin.

The first church car park I remember was the unsealed one I spent all my childhood arriving in, running around in, waiting for my parents to stop talking in and finally driving a car into myself and parking it. This one even had it's own climbing tree - not that I did that in my "Sunday best"!

The second church I ever spent significant time in didn't have a car park, now that I think about it. But it had the next best thing. It had unregulated parking in all the streets surrounding it. We never hesitated to drive to church.

Our church in Sapporo with the car park out the front.

The third church I became a member was a country church. It was just down the road from my house and I now shudder with disbelief as I recall driving such a short distance to church! There were a few placed on the property around the church to park, but again street parking was never a problem.

Even a little church we worked in in Sapporo, northern Japan had a car park - for four cars. It seemed small until you had to shovel it in the winter time!

Then we moved to Tokyo and discovered a church that truly didn't have a car park. Nor did it have street parking. People walked, trained or rode to church. Unless, like us, they lived too far away and had a mob of little kids to transport to and from church. We drove to church every Sunday and paid about 400 yen to park our car in nearby paid parking. 500 yen if we talked a bit longer.

We are still at the same church and are grateful to live close enought to be saving 400 or 500 yen a week by riding to church. Here is where we park our bikes - behind the church in a free, but crowded double-level bike-park.

Have you ever ridden a bike to church? Some of my "Sunday best" isn't that great on a bike!

"So, when you're in Japan, what do you cook at home?" #1

Progressing on from my last thought in my last post. Here is what we ate at dinner-time a couple of weeks ago, I guess photos would have been good, maybe next time.

Monday May 2 Tuna Mornay on brown rice with veggies. A nice easy meal, cooked from scratch.

Tuesday 3rd Slow Cooker BBQ ribs with vegetables and pan fried (heart-smart) potatoes. Mmmmm. Yum. This is a relatively new meal for us. Both because ribs are a pretty rare find in Japan (these came from Costco) and we're still fairly new to the slow cooker crew. The finely cubed potatoes only fried in 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil, but flavoured with pepper and with their skins on - they were yummy too.

Wednesday 4th Sweet and sour pork with brown rice and veggies. Also very yummy. This is a old favourite that's recently reappeared on our menus. I stopped cooking it for ages because of all the complaints about the capsicum (US = bell pepper, I think) and pineapple from the kids. However David and I love it. So now I cook the meat and sauce separately (and from scratch). So the boys don't have to have their meat contaminated by the sauce. The aroma from this meal cooking is scrumptious. Wednesday night is icecream night (along with Saturday and Sunday nights). So, no doubt that is what we ate.

Thursday 5th Chicken Paprika with mashed potatoes and veggies. This was a new slow cooker recipe. A bit of a failure because the chicken was so dry. Not sure how to improve this for the future.

Friday 6th Left-overs. Usually I only cook five dinners a week. One week night and Sunday nights are left-over nights. Love these meals. The boys do too, usually. Because they get to choose what they eat. Only rules - they must have some protein and veggie (the last one is usually no problem).

Saturday 7th Cheese and Tuna Quesadillas. I'm really glad I planned this meal for Saturday night because we left home at 6.30am to go to our 11 y.o.'s track meet and didn't get home until nearly 6pm. This was very easy and well received. Merely sprinkling grated (US = shredded) cheese and tinned tuna with tomato sauce (US = ketchup) on a tortilla (sourced from Costco) and plopping on on top, then put the whole "sandwhich" in a dry frying pan to brown and melt. The adults had a couple with Sweet Chilli Sauce instead of tomato sauce.

Sunday 8th "Catch" (or shake-the-cupboard-and fridge-and-see-what-falls-out). I think there were a few leftovers, perhaps we had some toasted sandwiches, I cannot clearly remember. Sunday nights are usually very relaxed. For lunch on Sunday (in case you think we never eat Japanese food) we ate Udon. A common, thick wheat-based Japanese noodle dish.

That's probably enough to digest (excuse the pun). I'll give you another week at a later date.

Cool rainy weather is good for one thing

The weather has been challenging recently. It's been up and down. I am thankful that we aren't walking around in coats, scarves, gloves and hats anymore, but I have struggled to get my clothing right. Just this week we had Tuesday at 25 -17 (I'm talking Celcius if you're wondering) and Wednesday was 17-14. That is a big drop. I don't like it either way, to be truthful. Suddenly getting hotter or suddenly getting colder, especially in that range. A sudden drop from the 30s down to the high 20s is fine, but jumping back and forth over the 20 degree mark is more difficult.

Pikelets. Some strangely shaped, but they all tasted great.

But, the advantage of a cold rainy day is that I felt like spending time in the kitchen (felt like lying down with a good book, but that wasn't an option). Here's the result - pikelets for afternoon tea. Now I know that is a good Aussie phrase. Pikelets are small pancakes, usually eaten with jam and cream. "afternoon tea" is the snack you have in the afternoon. It is what my boys are always clamouring for after they get home from school.

Our middle son's plate (before salad). He did a great job!

I also had a triumph in the dinner department. I cooked Chilli con Carne in my slow cooker. I guess this is what Americans call "Chilli". We ate it in a mexican-type fashion, with corn chips, sour cream, guacomale and salad. David and I like the meat on top of the chips with cheese etc, but have long known the boys don't like it that way. So we assemble everything at the table according to our desire. Us adults pop our plates in the microwave and very easily get the melted-cheese look that we love. Though I have to admit my 8 y.o. did a nice job of arranging his plate! 

Do the corn chips look strange to you? I don't think I've seen this shape in Australia - a small cone, like a tiny icecream cone shape. It is the first time I've used them. The shop I went to buy corn chips from only had the chilli variety of the usual sort, so these were the only alternative for the boys who aren't yet sophistocated enough to enjoy a chilli chip. I think I'll buy them again, though. They boys loved them. Put them on the end of a carrot stick and they look distinctly like rockets or spears...

Just wondering. When we're in Australia people sometimes ask us what we eat in Japan as a family. Would people be intersted in occasionally seeing a list here of what we've eaten over the past week?

Style with a different twist

Doing something fun today - writing a style guide for the magazine I work for. "What is that?" you ask. It is the document that tells you how to use punctuation, capitalisation, spelling of tricky words, how to write dates etc. And is particularly useful because if you follow it you will hopefully end up with a magazine that is internally consistent.

 Me with my Managing Editor, Gary Bauman.

It is a particularly difficult issue for us because this magazine is published in a non-English speaking country and is put together by people from different "English" backgrounds. Just my presence on the editorial team puts a spoke in the works. For example, I automatically want to correct things to match my Australian English background. However the magazine has an unofficial policy of sticking to the rules from the author's country of origin. 

My American Managing Editor has an American English style guide, but not one for Commonwealth English. So I've now got the job of trying to put together a unique style guide that expresses how we're going to get some uniformity into our magazine editing.


I'm learning some of that grammar that they were skipping in the 70s and 80s in Australian schools. Plus the different words that each country uses for different grammatical elements. 

Some I knew like full stop vs period. I didn't know that American's use of "brackets" differed to the Australian use. These: ( ) are "brackets" for Australians. Americans call them "parentheses". Americans call these "brackets": [ ]. Australians call those "square brackets".


Americans put periods after anything that has been abbreviated, but Australians don't do it for contractions. For example, "Mrs" doesn't have a full stop in Australia, but it does in American.

Then you have dates. Australians write dates Day/Month/Year, Americans write it Month/Day/Year and Japanese write it Year/Month/Day. Totally confusing if you have something like 4/5/11!


Fascinating - yes? Sigh. I might be learning some, but it is tedious. I suspect this is one part of editing that I dislike the most. Details aren't really my thing, though I can push myself to focus on them if I concentrate. And some days are better than others.

New haircut one week on

Last Monday I cut off a lot of hair, you might recall the photos. I bought some mousse and have been working on getting a little less fly-aways. It's worked fairly well and without a hair dryer most days. Here are some photos from Sunday.

But the things that has surprised me the most has been the number of "hair" conversations I've had in the last week with other missionaries. Not just - "I like your hair." but about their own struggles with their hair, hair dressers in Japan etc. 

Hair concerns most women to a greater or lesser degree. Missionary women are the same. Some have a very utitarian haircut that requires little time or money. Many dye their hair and have frequent cuts. Very few have permed hair in Japan. They are expensive and most of us are on fairly tight budgets.

However near "the edge of ordinary" we are, we do still have many very ordinary concerns!

Got those fly-aways almost under control, but I forgot to wear my glasses for the photo.