How awkward I am!

The other day I went to a friend's house, and learned this new sweet. Sorry I don't know the name.
It didn't seem to be difficult to make it.


First, we put two oranges and water into a pot, and boil them for 30 minutes.
After that we drain the hot water, and we do the same thing twice.

 

 



After that, we slice them into rings.

And major the weight.

We add 60 or 70% of sugar of the weight to the pot.

And we simmer them without water for 30 minutes.

 



 

 

Then we dry them on the pat.

 

The taste is good, but how awkward I am!

What are good points to scold someone?

These days every one says it's better to praise than to scold. I understand it, every one is very happy to hear words to be praised.
Every thing has both sides of good points and bad points.

What are good points to scold someone?
If we were  small kids, when we  were scolded, we could understand what is right or wrong clearly.
It means, we, adults have to scold kids when they did wrong things.
If we were were teenagers, when we were scolded, we could find out our week points.
In this case, we, adults have to scold them  while  we have to encourage them.

While I'm writing this blog, I'm thinking when was I scolded recently?
When I see my daughters, we often have a quarrel, and they often complain about me. But I'm not scolded. On the other hand, I think I give a good advice to them, they might think they would be scolded.
Yuki also sometimes complains about me, but I'm not scolded. I'm me. On the other hand, I often complains about Yuki's daily chores, he might think he would be scolded. But, when I complain, Yuki sometimes changes his attitude to do daily chores. So it's not bad to complain.

I remembered when I was scolded. Yuki and I god in trouble for touching the panel of air conditioner at N's house.  It was completely our fault. I say again "sorry J&N".

Well, what difference is there between "scold" and " get in trouble". "Scold" hears more seriously.

TOMOMI's group exhibition

Since I updated this blog, one week has passed. This weekend Yuki and I went to TOKYO to visit  "Paper work exhibition" organized our elder daughter T.

It was a nice exhibition. This time we finally met Mr.I who is Turkey. When he was  in his 20's, he came to JAPAN, and stayed with us. And since this spring he has worked in Japan as an official. Now he is in his 40's. Of course he got promoted and we aged. Three of us visited T's exhibition, and four of us had lunch together.

 

On the other hand Ms.M is to return to GABON. She completed her Ph.D.at Utsunomiya university. So Yuki and I had dinner with her. Unfortunately she couldn't find a job here in Japan. So she decided to return to GABON. While she continues her research, she becomes a teacher at a university in GABON. It must be the best choice for her. Additionally she is going to marry with her fiance in a year. Congratulations!

 

In March, I had a lot of opportunities to meet various people. It was exciting, and talking with them made me rethink myself.  ---- I know no one is same. Every one has a different background. I know, I know. Though it's important to know verious life styles, it's sometimes difficult for me to adjust to them.

Last weekend

How was your last weekend?

This weekend, my elder daughter is going to hold a group exhibition in Tokyo.

Before going to see it, Yuki and I went to two art museums.

 

One is Utsunomiya Art Museum. They are holding an exhibition to introduce artists who lives in Utsunomiya. Some of them are our acquaintances, and used to be our daughters' teachers.

 

 

A few of them can earn their livings with their works, but most of them have another job to earn money, though they are called "a professional artist". And some of them sell their works mainly in Tochigi, and  a few of them ignore Utsunomiya as a market, sell their works abroad. So some of them are popular as local artists in Utsunomiya, on the other hand, a few of them are not known in Utsunomiya even though they are  a little bit famous abroad.

 

And we went to another museum, in OYAMA which is next to Utsumoyia city. It is KURUMAYA Art Museum.

 

 

The artists are active in Japan. One of them live in KANUMA which is also next to Utsunomiya. I didn't know about him. It means he isn't a local artist. (It might be popular in Kanuma.) You can see all works on this hompage.

 

All of works are very interesting.

It's a public art museum, so they don't sell their works, but the homepages of each artists are introduced.

Let me record them for myself.

Fresco by TSUJINO GOU: glass works  http://www.studio-freso.com

Misao-Yajima; plates misao330@gaia.eonet.ne.jp 

Toomoko Soda; hats   http://mimiyama-mishin.net

Flame ;lamps http://www.flame-product.com

AFLO+ ;accessory http://www.afloplus.com

LA+h by Otani Keiki: cloths http://lath-/ath.com/

M pattern ;furniture http://www.m-pattern.com/

Ayako Sano; accessory http://atelieromoya.jp/mb_aya.html

RYo Chohasi furniture http://ryo.chohashi.com/

Hajime Tamura; pottery  calm@v1pgmail.com

Kuri Botella; socks www.kuri-botella.com

Fuki+Fushikino l clothes  http://fijiifushikino.com

Akira Higashi; toys and sculptures. www.akirahigashi.com

Maho JunHarada; cups  http://sodo.jugem.jp

Morie Yorigami ; furniture yrgm11@gmail.com

Junko Yoshida ; glass http://metrocs.jp/n-crafts/

Coova; clothes www.coova.co.jp

Takashi Oyama glass living in KANUMA http://www.808glassworks.com

 

 

Indian feast

Last Sunday an Indian couple invited Yuki and me for lunch. They came to Utsunomya last spring. For them this winter must have been a very tough season.

We sometimes go to an Indian restaurant to eat just "curry and rice or naan, but it was the first time to visit an Indian family. They are vegetarians, so we were really interested in their foods.

Their main spices are salt, cumin, coriander, garam masala, turmeric and red chilly pepper.

They served beans curry,

 

 

The tast was very rich and delicious. Though I don't like something hot very much, I like it.

And the white one is yogurt -----(sorry I forgot the name.) It's sour and salty. We (Japanese people) tend to eat yogurt as a dessert. So for me it was very interesting.

The yellow one is fried potatoes and vegetables. This tasie is familier for Japanese.

And we ate them with chapatti. (not naan)

As a dessert, they served this white one. It's kind of rice pudding, but not so sweet. It's an intresting taste.

 

The most surprising thing is  Indian pickles.

They served three kinds of pickles. This one is mango pickle.

 

When I hear pickles, it sounds sour, but they are very salty.

Then I understood the feeling when foreigners were served UMEBOSHI or NATTO.

They were interesting taste, very salty.

I got some mango pickles to serve my friends. I'm interested in seeing how my friends will respond when I serve it.

 

 



A French boy came to stay with us.

Now I removed the HINA dolls from the shelf. Because it's said that if we keep decorating HINA dolls after March 3, the girls in the house will not be able to marry. I put things about Easter on the shelf.

Last week a French boy who is 19 came to stay with us.
He came to do his internship in a art craft workshop near my house. At night he joined my class.
He made crepe, and tuna mossue.

  So I taught him how to make OKONOMIYAKI. I hope he'll make OKONOMIYAKI in France. In France it might be difficult to get thick sauce, but they have brown sauce. Probably it suits to OKONOMIYAKI. Or they yous ketchup and mayonnaise.

 

I'll show you the rechip of crepe and tuna mousse.

 

tuna mousse

1 kg of tuna (drained)
• A small concentrated box of tomato
• 4 tablespoons of lemon mayonnaise (or mayonnaise + lemon juice)
• Box of liquid/fresh cream (little square box)
• 1 bag of jelly in Madeira (24g of salt jelly)
- First, put the jelly in a pan with a half of a water glass and mix (to heat with a small fire),
- With a mixer, mix all ingredients except the jelly,
- Then, add the jelly when it is more cold and mix a second time,
- At the end, put it in a charlotte mold tupperware (tupperware box),
- Put in your fridge and wait the next day,
- The next day, turn out it in a plate [and decorate it with lemon slices and parsley].
IMPORTANT : Make it the day before eating !

 

crepe

For ~25 (big) crêpes
– 500g of flour
– 200g of castor sugar
– 1 pinch of salt
– 4 eggs
– 60g of melted butter
– 1 liter of milk
– 1 pocket of vanilla sugar (if you do not have it, you can just put a little of vanilla extract)
– (You can also add 1 tablespoon of rum alcohol)
• Mix the flour, the salt, sugar and vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
• Add the beaten eggs (Mix the white and the yellow of egg together before to add at the first mix) and, add also
the milk
• Then, add the cooled melted butter
Advices :
# Mix with a whisk in order to obtain a homogeneous dough without lumps
# Let the dough rest a bit before eating
# Grease the pan with a paper towel oiled
# If the dough is too fat to be baked, you can add a little of water.
# (If you have a blossom orange extract, you can add 2 tablespoon of it)

HINA festival

HINA festival is on March 3. It is the day to wish for girl's growth and happiness.  Most families, mainly families which have girls, celebrate the day with decorating HINA dolls.
This is my entrance. Main dolls were used to be my mother's. The round dolls were presented by my grand mother. Woody dolls were made by my daughters when they were little. Other paper dolls were presented by nursery school students.

    Today I went to UJIIE town. There many old HINA dolls remain, and the owners show them during this season to attract tourists.
These doll are made about 200 years ago.

 

These dolls are another type. It's called TURUSHI BINA, haning dolls.

 

AND this set is an original in TOCHIGI. TOCHIGI is famous for strawberries, so they are strawberry dolls.

 

 

These are flower dolls, dolls clothes are made by flowers.

 

I had a good day.

Valentine's day has finished

How's your weekend? we had heavy snow again. Yesterday Yuki and our neighbors shoveled up snow, so the road in front of our houses are clear. But lots of snow still has remained so much that it's dangerous to drive .Fortunately it's sunny today, so I hope the snow will melt.

Last week we and my students enjoyed Valentine's week with sweets. Today I put away all decorations for Valentine's day, and put HINA-dolls to celebrate Girls' day in March. Girls' day called HIMATSURI brings spring. So spring is just around the corner.

It means a new school year for me.

 

From spring a few adult students might join us. I made a mind-map to introduce ourselves. Now I'm really interested in showing my ideas on a mind-map.

We had heavy snow this weekend.

This weekend we had heavy snow. Fortunately it was Saturday, so Yuki didn't need to go to work. And he "couldn't" go playing tennis on Saturday, and he "couldn't" go playing golf on Sunday.


It was snowing and windy. We huddled in the room all the day.  We made "hot" curry noodle for lunch..
And we were watching TV, though Yuki was working with his computer.
At night, it was still snowing, but we decided to go out to a nearby small restaurant. It takes about 3minutes there on foot. And it's Yuki's favorite restaurant, and he is familiar with the master. We knew it was open in despite of the bad weather, we expected no one would come there.

So we decided to surprise the master.
==== but it was crowded. Fortunately we got seats. (20 minutes later 4 customers came, but they couldn't get seats.)









Next day it was sunny, but the snow piled up high. So it was time for men.
All  male neighbors went out to shovel the snow. They seldom meet, but on such a snow day it's a valuable opportunity to communicate each other.

Excuse consumption

"Excuse consumption", I knew this word recently , of course in Japanese. I translated this word literally in English.

When you feel conflicted whether you allowed to buy buy a thing or not, you don't like to buy it depending on your mood,  so you make a legitimate reason unconsciously. This way is excuse consumption.
And people who do excuse consumption are more satisfied with things they bought.

Now I'm thinking whether I will take a one-day training workshop or not. It costs 45000 yen. If I attend the workshop I'll be a more skilled teacher, or leader. But I don't know how long I will run this school in the future. For me it might be more useful to attend a health program.
On the other hand sometimes I think that appearing something new is a time when I need it, so I should learn it without hesitating. And at least I'm working. I can afford to pay it (though I go out for lunch or dinner less.)

What do you think of it?

Three anchors

The other day I attended a workshop about coaching. It was really interesting.
The lecture was a woman who was almost as old as I.
She introduced the word "anchor". And she said "to make yourself calm, if you have three anchors, it's easy to do it."
The first anchor is to recall when you worked hard and made it.
The second anchor is to recall when you enjoyed
The third anchor is to recall when you relaxed.
Is it easy for you to recall all situations?

It wasn't easy for me.
The first anchor was easy.
I learned a lot about kid's English method
I made a speech as the head of PTA when I was busy at mother's duties.
I succeeded a project when I worked hard at an electronic company as an engineer.
I studied hard to enter into a university.

How about you?

The second anchor was --- I needed time  for a while to think about.
I enjoy talking  with some  of my friends -- in my mind there are three friends.
How about you?

The third anchor was difficult. So I asked my husband Yuki.
He said " you definitely relax  when you are reading a book "in" the bed".
How about you?

I also asked  Yuki his anchors.
(The other day he went work out) I did 20 squat, it was his first anchor.
I enjoy golfing. it was his second anchor.
And he also asked about his third anchor.
So I said "You completely relax when you watch TV  with a glass of beer while dozing off.
/

foreigners and relgions

"Probably" here in Japan many people especially young people say " we don't have a particular religion." On the other hand though they don't have a strong faith, foreigners who come  or live in Japan say " my religion is ----". When we talk with them, if we don't know their religion well, it's sometimes difficult to understand them.

And, though I say "I don't have a particular religion", my character seems to be built by Buddhism.
I don't know about Buddhism very well, but some friends who are from foreign countries say "Oh, you idea comes from Buddhism." It's interesting that I don't know about Buddhism very well, but other people who have a faith, know about other religions.

The other day I talked with a lady who has a (mild) Jewish faith. We talked about volunteering which means doing something  for free. ( I read English picture books at library, I go to nursery school to do English activities for free.)
What she said was very interesting. "The good point of Christian faith is that they have an open mind to volunteer for others. The people who have the Jewish faith tend to be interested in only the people how have the Jewish faith."
In my case, I don't have a strong volunteer spirit. So I always think about my volunteer activities (or I always think whether it's a volunteer activity or it's my hobby.) So sometimes I think   that if I were a Christian, I would never hesitate my (volunteer) activities.

Recently I became a friend with a Indian lady who has the Hindu faith and is a  strict vegetarian.
It's fun to talk with her, but sometimes we are surprised at each other.

Before knowing others, I need to understand what is Buddhism, --- though I don't like to read such kind of books.

School uniforms

Have you ever worn school uniforms? The other day I talked with my students about school uniforms.
Here in Utsunomiya they have school uniforms in most of junior high schools and high schools.
School uniforms are usually separated into two groups. In girls' case, one is a blazer type and the other is a sailor type, and in boy's case , one is also a blazer type and the other is a stand-up collar type.
When we were talking about them, there were three students. Each of them goes to different school. They have a school uniform but each of them is different.

The good points are that ---
It's easy to wear without worrying about what to wear on the day. Students wearing a school uniform look the same, so we don't need to compare with others.
A school uniform is really useful, it's a kind of formal wear. So when we have to attend to a ceremony such as  a wedding ceremony (though girls wear more bright clothes.), and a funeral.

The bad points are that
They are  a little bit dirty because they are not so often washed.
And a girl said that she often mistakes her friend for others because they look the same, and she often mistakes her school uniform for others when they change the school uniforms into their training wears, because their school uniforms look the same.

For the youth it's a usual thing to break rules, so at school they have a dress inspection once a week or several times a month. Students are checked whether they wear school uniforms keeping the rules by skirt length, hair style, front hair (bangs?), eyebrow, etc.
A student said it was too strict.
Another student said it was trouble some. and she also said "it's unnecessary, waste of time. Because I wear them neatly, so I don't need to be checked, why I have to go to the cold hallway to get such an unnecessary inspection."
These days girl students tend to shorten their skirt length.Do you know how the girls shorten their skirt length?  They fold the top of the skirt twice or three times.

A student mentioned COSPLE which means costume play. Some adults enjoy costume playing. When someone cosplays as a high school student, they usually wear a sailor-style uniform. Actually a sailor-style uniform is popular among high school students, though they are not accepted by most of high schools.
Additionally I've never worn a sailor-style uniform so I had wanted to wear it. 

a book

This is a Japanese book. The title is --- though it's my translation, "the elderly who are liked by others & the elderly who are not liked by others."

This winter vacation I was knocked by my mother's nonstop talking. (You can say bossy talking, selfish talking --etc.)  I know it's really difficult to change her, because she lives alone  for a long time, so she doesn't use to adjust to others. And my daughters say "it's you in the future". I agree with them. So I bought this book to reconsider myself.

The contents were not so special, reasonably enough.
The author classifies brain into two types, boring brain and happy brain.
He suggests 4 ways to avoid having boring brain.

Don't pretend like being young. (though I pretend like being old enough)
Don't act self-importantly　(though I tend to say that in my time ---)
Don't realize yourself it means don't say that when I get old, finally I realize what the life is.)
Don't be proud of yourself. (Well I don't agree with it, when we get old, we are qualified to proud of ourselves.)

I'd like to give this book to my mother, but if I did, she must be really angry.
So for me in the future, I put the book somewhere to be able to seen it --- it means toilet must be the best place for me and for "Yuki".

Additionally, when I was a child, the elderly had been a little bit arrogant, a little bit selfish and everybody would accept them. Nowadays we seen not to afford to accept such the elderly. Current life is getting difficult to live for both of the young and the elderly.

TODA NATSUKO

Have you ever heard of the name of TODA NATSUKO. She is a subtitle editor. In Japan foreign movies are subtitled in Japanese, though these days dubbed versions are increased. But making a dubbed version is expensive, so subtitled versions still remain. I heard that this culture which means subtitled movies in Japanese is a Japanese culture. Usually subtitled movies are for the deaf. Probably almost 100% Japanese people can read Japanese, so we have such a culture.
But there are not so many professional subtitle editors in Japan. She is one of them.

I went to listen to her lecture. She is now 77 years old. Her behavior is very nice, like being in the 40's. And her talking is really clear. Of course the contents were nice and her behavior made me surprised. Because she is just two years older than my mother.

Why she loos so active? One reason is that she is always surrounded by new experiments through new movies. Keeping a job must make her active.

Why she looks so strong? One reason is that she is single, so she learnt to live without depending others.

After her talking, many people asked her about movies, and her English.
I wanted to ask her about her senior life after retiring her job, but --- I couldn't.
Probably in her case, she ,must have lots of helpers, she can keep her life in an apartment.

Well, well, anyway, lots of young people came to listen to her.
I wish I could be a such senior to which many young people would listen to. My daughters and my mother don't listen to me.

Job has started.

Yuki went to his office. And I called an advertising agency to ask posting my English school fliers.
It is the first day to work.

Last night we went to ASHIKAGA to see a garden with wonderful illumination.

Though it was very cold, it was wonderful. This park is really popular for wisterias. We've take our mother in spring before. Usually in the season of wisterias, this park is crowded with adults. But this time it was crowded with families. The business strategy of this park seems to be in success.

 

 

I read an interesting report.

Why Is Time Management Important?

You gain extra productive hours
Your efficiency and productivity increase
You have more control over your life
Spend More time for enjoyment

 

 

All of them are collect.

When I was busy as a mother, I used to do time management.

But now, I don't want to do time management.

Now I'm free from lots of necessary things what I have to do.

So at first I want enjoy my free time, and I want to chose what I want to do.

I want a laid-back life. I leaned the term "laid-back" from my friend. I want to use this time in a good meaning.

 

Well, well, it's time to go to work out. 

 

Happy new year

 Happy New Year, though three days has already past.
On the New Year's day, my mother, our daughters, Yuki and I were saw the wonderful rising sun from the upstairs window.
Then we celebrated New Year with our homemade OSECHI.
OSECHI is a Japanese traditional feast for the day. This time my younger daughter came here two days ago, so we made them together. Do you remember each dish has a special meaning. If you are interested in OSECHI, please check my previous blog.
Then we were going to go to a shrine, but it was too crowded, and a lot of people were waiting to pray in a long line. So we just saw the gate of shrine from the window of our car.

Then my mother came back to TOKYO by train.
Then Our elder daughter T and I went seeing a friend who was studying even on the New Year's day in a laboratory of Utsunomiya college. Yuki and the younger daughter M were resting at home. At night T went seeing her friends who went to junior high school together.
The others were resting at home, it means Yuki was drinking.

On 2 T drove to TOKYO with Yuki. According to Yuki, her driving skill was getting better. She seems to have a car in Tokyo, but----.
On the other hand, M and I went to Tokyo by bullet train. Because her belly felt bloated easily. (Did I tell you that she is four month pregnant.)
M's husband came to Tokyo station, and they came back to their house. The others attend Yuki's relatives reunion. And we dropped by my mother's house and met my brother's family and went back to Utsunomiya.
What busy days they were. Fortunately during this new year's vacation, it was warm than I expected.
Well, our silent day has come back.
Now I'm thinking about New Year's resolution.

I was always thinking how I use "time" effectively. Now I have to change the way. I try to think how I use "time" with satisfaction. For example, I used to cook by myself to "save" money. it means if I were rich I could hire a made.  Well, well, now I can afford to buy prepared food at a good quality store, though it's sometimes. So we could buy OSECHI at a good quality department store, but I didn't. I enjoyed making OSECHI, Of course some people prefer going abroad to cooking at home.

2014 has started. Let's enjoy this year together.

New Year is just around the corner.

I put away Christmas ornaments, and put New Year's ornaments.
We finished Christmas with disjointing our Christmas cookie tree.

How "was" your the year of 2013?

The biggest event  for us was our younger daughter's marrige.
I often write about my empty-nest symptom. But this time I found her indevendence.
And this New Year's vacation, she will come back with her husband --- for me -- it's a little bit troublesome. It means we wellcome the couple as a kind of guest.

The next thing was that I could join some interesting workshops, like mind-map, vission-map, like that.
There I met people who are in their verious generation. It made me inspired and made me confusued. It's comfertable to be in an inner circle, but I want to have connection with outside world.

And the thrid thing was anyway my bad health condition. Though it's my favorite phrase "it can't be helped", anyway I often have feeling that I don't want to do anything. Thanks of my English classes, or because of my English classes, anyway I have done something. I don't know whether it's good for me to continue my English classes.

And the forth thing was that I have been keeping this blog. It 's amazing though my English skill seems not to be imrpoved. Writing something in Englihs makes my brain clearly. And my readers inspire me. Thanks to my readrs.

I wish your New Year!

Washoku

WASHOKU is registered as one of intangible cultural heritage. What do you think of  from the word of  "WASHOKU"?

I read an interesting report on the newspaper.
Japanese people think typical WASHOKU is -- that
SUSHI, SASHIMI, MISO-soup or SUIMONO, KAISEKI-dishes, TEMPURA, NIMONO, and NIKUJAGA.
They are traditional Japanese food, and the common thing is soy-sauce or soy-beans, (When we cook MISO-soup, we don't use soy-sauce, but we put MISO (soy beans paste) to taste it.)
How many things do you know?

And WASHOKU which is recommend to foreigners by Japanese people are ---
SUSHI, TEMPURA, SASHIMI, and SUKIYAKI.
All of them are kind of feast, not usual meals.

Do Japanese people always eat WASHOKU? No.
Is WASHOKU expensive? Some of them are expensive, but some of them are inexpensive.

There is such a question; Do you think these familiar Japanese foods are WASHOKU?
YAKISOBA;  45% people say yes.
RAMEN; 35%people say yes.
EBI-FURAI; 28%people say yes.
TARAKO-spaghetti ;28% people say yes.
Japanese curry and rice ;23% people say yes.

My foreign friends who live in Japan, say "they are Japanese food".
What difference is there between WASHOKU and Japanese food?

If you know the difference, why don't you come to Japan?
Additionally I'll treat "Japanese food".

Merry Christmas

I know it's a little bit early to say "Merry Christmas", But in Japan it's not a holiday on 24th, and 25 th. But we have three-day weekends now. So many people enjoy Chirstmas this weekend.

All days of last week my students and I enjoyed Chirstmas lessons,--- it means cooking.

These are baked by elementary school students.
And this week we are going to break that cookie tree.

How do you enjoy your Christmas?
Anyway just a week is left until our new year's vacation.