December is just around the corner.

First I'll tell you about vegetables. The Mongol high school girls didn't like broccoli (or green vegetables), but now it is a season of broccoli . Some friends give me their home-grown broccoli. It is a really thankful thing, but --- I'm little bit tired of them.

And Turnips are also another seasonable vegetables. We love the leaves of turnips. When we boil, saute, or simmer them, they taste a little bit bitter, but we deep-fry them the bitter change into moderate bitter.

What are the seasonable vegetables in winter?

From next week, December starts. December means Christmas for kids, and cleaning for me.

Anyway I prepared something for Christmas.

In my class we are going to make apple pinatas and everyone is going to take one back to their home as a Christmas present. So I made lids of the pinatas. The green things are not candles, just twigs.

And fortunately I'm asked to read English picture books at some schools, so I chose these books.

Christmas is now, a world festival. In Mongolia, most of them are Buddhists, but they were affected by the Russian Church, so they celebrate Christmas 1st on January, and on the eve (31st on December) an old man with white beards called "tsugan ubugun?", kind of Santa comes and gives presents to kids.

I have been a cold.

Today, I'm getting better. Last week I was suffering from slight fever and dizziness. Anyway I did all events. The big event was home stay of two Mongol high school girls.

It was fun! They were actually "high school kids".

To say the result, they didn't like vegetables as usual kids. I asked them " do you eat salad?".

They said "yes".

So I served green salad with tuna. They picked only tuna.

I asked them "is it different from Mongol salad?"

They said "yes".

Their "favorite" (later I knew they have green salad in Mongolia) salad means potato and ham salad with mayonnaise.

Next morning I served broccoli as a host "mother". Of course they don't eat. Their faces wore frown.

I asked "do they have broccoli in Mongolia?"

They said "yes, but I don't like them, though my mother tell me to eat them".

In Mongolia, they have such sentence, "eat carrots more, and you'll be tall".

On the other hand, they love "rice". So we had no problems except green vegetables.

I baked chlorate cake for breakfast, they ate 3 pieces.

Sweets are popular in all kid's world, aren't they?

October has gone, and November has come.

The last week of October I named 'Halloween week". So instead of usual lessons, my students and I baked cookies and exchanged them saying "trick or treat". And the last day we baked pumpkin pie, but unfortunately some pies were burnt. (but we could eat inside.)

In autumn we can get many kinds of fresh fruits. Some people are worried about my situation saying "Do you eat enough?". Because they know I have me

als alone. So, they bring some saying "here you are, though only one". So, on my table, there is one big Japanese pear, that is called NIKKORI, and that is a special product in this area. They are twice as big as usual Ja

panese pear. There is some persimmons , there are 4 apples that grows in this area. There are some tangerines. And today some kiwi fruits were sent . They were wrapped in straw. They are still hard. So I have to let them sleep in straw nest for a while. The straw were also made (grown) by the friend.

This week end here and there some festivals are held. My husband and I went to a Jazz festival. Do you know Watanabe-Sadao who plays the saxophone. He was born in this city. And his brother also plays Jazz as a drummer. It was the first time to hear his play. And to be surprised he was over 70. His play doesn't look passionate, but the sound was really exciting and full of beats.