Fun with Fabric

A friend of mine here is always making me things like hats, bags,
pins, pickles, etc. She is the crafty-est person I have ever met. She
knows how to make just about anything. When I first showed her the
knitting needle case I made a few months back, she whipped out her
measuring tape and started writing numbers down. However, right before Christmas I asked her if she had made it yet and she surprisingly
hadn't even started. So I told her not to bother and to let me make
it. I bought plenty if fabric so I made a lined zipper pouch to match.
I hope she likes it and I hope her expert-seamstress eyes don't look
too closely at my seams.

It's a New Year

We just wrapped up the holidays here and are settling back in to our normal everyday lives. After sorting through and labeling the hundreds of pictures we took since late December, I've made these two photo albums. The first is our Christmas experience in Rumoi, which includes making mochi (basically pounding steamed rice into goo), cookie decorating with my chat club and the English club in Rumoi HS, and a gift exchange with Jim and Dave. It was really fun, but both of us felt a little homesick, having to open presents on skype with our families.

The next slideshow is of our Tokyo and Kyoto adventure. This really made us feel like we were in Japan. So many beautiful, crazy, weird, and hilarious things! This is a long slideshow, and the captions explain a little, but here were our highlights:

• lots of women in kimono
• beautiful temples and shrines, all of which have been burned down at least once in their lifetime
• eery bamboo forests
• scary statues of gods that we're sure moved when we looked away
• the biggest buddha I will probably ever see in the biggest wooden building (50 meters high) I will probably ever stand in
• sushi on a conveyor belt
• quiet cobblestone streets with little bridges to doorways of tea houses where geisha might be entertaining
• ridiculously-detailed roofs
• a whose whole second and third story are covered in gold plating
• hilarious signs everywhere
• several people pushing dogs in strollers
• transvestite being photographed by a homeless man with a disposable camera
• a rare sighting of Mount Fuji

We Found (or lost) Wisdom in Japan's Dental Services

Christine has been having a toothache for the past week or so and she finally braved going to the dentist to find out what the problem was. It turned out that one of her wisdom teeth was rotten and she needed it pulled. So they numbed her up and did it right there. They didn't tell her to make a second appointment in a week or something, just right there on the spot, which was good because if she had time to think about it she would have chickened out. She is feeling OK just a little sore, she is taking a refreshing bath right now with bath salts she got from a Christmas gift exchange.

She got x-rays (by a machine that played music), the tooth pulled, pain medication and antibiotics handed to her by the dentist (no run to the pharmacy) all for 40 bucks. They have some good dental insurance here. She asked to keep the tooth and you can see that she is still taking good care of it. (my appointment is next week, wish me luck).

It's just a little chilly.

This is just to give you an idea about how cold it has gotten in our house. Don, the human furnace, is under there somewhere. And yes, we really like blue plaid.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Or Antarctica! It's too bad the snow isn't really piling up. That's
probably because 40 mph winds aren't letting it land. Oh yeah, and I
can see my breath in the bathroom. Who wants to place bets on when
the toilet water freezes?

Holiday Time

I love the smell of pine around the holidays, and there's no better
way to experience it than by getting sap all over your hands. I went
hiking with a forest group here and collected some fallen branches and
flowers to make this. Let's see how long it withstands the wind!

Grocery Store!

I snapped some shots at the grocery store tonight. My favorite is the octopus tentacle. If you're wondering what product is on the bottom, maybe you should guess. . .?