Kamakura

Adam, Hannah, Leslie and I visited the popular temples in Kamakura. With the arrival of Zen from China starting in the 1100's Buddhism came into the hearts of the people, and they built 5 historic temples to embrace their faith and to be used in every day life. Kamakura is the preservation of this lifestyle. The different buildings are joined together by stone stairways that bring harmony with the natural environment. The small buddha you see beyond the flowers sits among many other duplicate buddha's that honor dead babies. The Great Buddha is a National Treasure, and you can try to get an idea of how big it is by seeing the people gathering around his knees. There are many things to see in Kamakura, but we only had the energy for two since cutie pie was with us. We ate a meal at a little place that had a beautiful carved wood wall that had a tiny door that the waitress crawled through to get to the kitchen to get drinks and food for us. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

Tokyo Adventures with Leslie

Our first stop today was in a rich part of Tokyo called Ginza. We went to Cafe Ginza Paulista which was John Lennon and Yoko Ono's favorite coffee cafe. Yesterday would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, so we were excited to get to experience this special spot. Then we went to Shibuya which is where the young people love to hang out and show how eccentric they can be. We walked 15 minutes from the station to Harajuku to visit the famous Yoyogi Park. We were thrilled to catch a show of the "Rockabilly" performers. I posted a video of them on my Facebook page. They have huge attitude and great dance moves. They love drinking and smoking and getting their pictures taken. The park was huge, with many performers throughout the park like a pantomime, jazz band, drummers, goth kids, dancers, etc. It was all very amusing. We ended up at a restaurant called La Boheme which had great Italian food.

Friends

The Drake family (David, Jaclyn, Abby, and Dawson) left Japan and they are stopping in Hawaii on their way back to Winchester, TN. We are sad to see them go, we had lots of fun times with them. We are very excited that our friend Leslie will be here October 8th for ten days!
I went to see the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" on Friday morning while Hannah was in school. My Japanese friend Sayuri went with me. The movie was as good as the book! It was the cleanest theater I have ever been in, and there was no smell of popcorn. Next time I will investigate further to see if there was even a concession stand. I did not see anyone eating or drinking. It was very interesting to me to see that when the movie ended, instead of everyone rushing to get up and move on to the next thing, everyone actually sat through the entire credits and did not attempt to get up until the lights came on!!! It was soooo different from what I am used to. I relaxed into it, and actually enjoyed seeing how many people are involved in making a film, and then at the very end it tells you the titles of the soundtrack. This movie had a great one. Sayuri has a 4 yr old daughter named Lisa that Hannah holds hands with on the way to school. Sayuri told me that when we were at the Sumo event, Sylvestor Stallone was there! I saw the crowd on the other side of the arena rushing to someone and taking pictures, it must have been him!!!
I have been very grateful because my friend Abby has been taking care of my cats Hunter and Chyna since we have been gone. I got word from her that Hunter died on his 14th birthday. He had a good, long life. Abby buried him in her pet cemetery.
We are elated to find out that my friend Beverly delivered a healthy baby girl today, named Sierra Isabella!!! The TN phone has been by our side getting the updates of her two days of laboring. "Bella" has a black hair mohawk, long eyelashes, and she took to breastfeeding immediately.

Bento Box

This is Hannah's lunch today. This morning I cooked one cup of the sticky rice in a Japanese double boiler type pot on the stove. After it cooled, I used a Hello Kitty mold, and then cut out the seaweed for the face. The bow and circle face are made out of cheddar cheese, and the "Cherry's" are Cherry tomatoes on a bed of salad. I threw in some cookies since this was her first time for this kind of lunch. There has been some anticipation build up around the lunch box, so hopefully with that and the peer pressure of her teachers and classmates, it will come home empty and she will have earned her afternoon sweet. I used the remaining rice to make myself a traditional triangle shape with tuna in the middle, and wrapped with seaweed. It is a good, filling, nutritious meal. I bought one at the grocery store this morning to compare the two, and even though there's is very fresh, mine tasted better!

Lost in Translation

September 28th Adam turned 34 years old. Jaclyn gave me her birthday decorations, so I hung up the sign last night for Adam. I have shortened the saying to Happy B-day, but I have never seen Happy BTH DAY. I checked out the movie theater by our home today, and they have two movies in English this week "Eat, Pray, Love", and "Resident Evil"...except their sign said "eat, PLAY, love and PRESIDENT evil!!! You have to laugh, at least they try!

Adam was happy to have strawberry shortcake for his b-day sweet that I got from the local baker. He came right in the door and started rolling around on the ground with Hannah, and he even did a spontaneous headstand! Thank goodness I still have a "young" guy, even though his Japan medical exam says he is "almost normal", because he is 15 pounds overweight compared to Japan male standard!

Japanese Home visit for Lunch

Sunday we took the long train ride towards Adam's office to have a "welcome party for Adam" with his co-workers. These are the guys that sit on either side of Adam at Nissan. Both couple's have just one son. The apartment was very small as we expected. The coffee table that we are posing in front of is where all 9 of us ate our leisurely meal of many options. The hostess (woman sitting to my right) spoke no English, but she provided us with many sandwich options, hearty soup, pasta salad, chicken/cheese balls, and brown algae with beans. Both family's gave Hannah a gift of sweets and stickers as soon as we arrived. We brought organic red wine and Ghiradelli brownies. The host served beer to the men and opened the wine for the other woman and I. The host watches for your glass to go down a few sips, and then fills it back up immediately. Also, there is no room for big plates, so we ate off of small pretty tea size plates and the hostess would take a chop stick and put bites of food on your plate. The co-workers speak above average English, and the mother of smaller child spoke well enough to converse a little. They got out the translator several times in the middle of a topic so we could understand each other. The children played happily all around us. After the meal we went outside to try out their electric bicycle. It felt like someone was pushing you up the hill when you put your feet on the pedals. They seemed content to hang out with us all afternoon, but after about 4 hours it was time to get back to Yokohama to have dinner with the Drakes and all ride the HUGE Ferris wheel together.

SUMO

Sumo was a serious crack attack! They would grab each other by the butt strap and carry them out of the circle by giving them a wedgie. There was a man with a hand fan that sang in between every wrestle, and then each wrestler would do some stretches and throw salt on the circle to bless the space. Each wrestle only lasted around 30 seconds. Some of the guys were thrown onto the crowd that was sitting around the edge of the stage. There were men assigned to constantly sweeping up the salt. It was interesting, but not as stimulating as Western Sports.