A Beautiful Summer Afternoon

Today is a perfect summer afternoon. The colors are bright and strong from the deep blue of the sky to the golden sun at its center. They contrast nicely with the abundant greens of the trees, bushes, and grass. Best of all the strong breeze keeps the sun's rays from beating too harshly and makes the rice fields sing.

Rice fields surround me on my rides to and from work, and it's almost time for harvest. The canals have been running lower and lower, and the fields are finally drying out from last week's endless rain. The plants are full and alternating dark and light green as the wind sways them. The rustling sounds remind me of home.

Not my hometown. Not really. For all that I grew up surrounded by corn and soybean fields, I lived in town, not on a farm. Also, corn grows tall so quickly you don't spend a whole lot of time looking down on it. Even if you can look down on beans, when you're driving past, you don't so much hear the plants rustling, as you do the wind whipping past the open windows.

No, this sound puts me in The Northwoods of Wisconsin, where I have spent many summer weeks. It reminds me of those days in late June and early July when it was finally warm enough to go freeze yourself in the lake and then lay in the sun and listen to the water lap. It reminds me of laying in a hammock in between the two cabins, listening to the birds and the breeze in the trees.

Wind is a strange phenomenon, isn't it? We can't touch it, but it touches us. We can't see it, but we can see where it's been. We can't smell it, but we can smell things on it. It doesn't have a sound, except when it touches other things. We can hear when it wanders over fields, winds through trees, and whistles in the hollows of our ears. It interacts with the world, without fully being part of it.

In a few hours the sun will turn the distant white clouds red, and the wind will usher in the slightly cooler night air. Today has been a good day. Let us hope tomorrow is just as nice!

Studying

Hey there. The school year is wrapping up, so I've been finalizing tests and marking at work. In my free time I've been studying for the JLPT or Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which I'll take tomorrow (July 5th). This boils down to spending most of the Fourth of July inside organizing my notes and cramming some more kanji into my head, listening to my sizeable J-Pop playlist on repeat. It's actually a good day to stay inside, because the rainy season is in full force this week. The forecast is nothing but rainstorms, even if today is turning out to be more of a steady drizzle day.

Well, I just wanted to check in with y'all. And this is a practical and timed study break!

Update: I just learned that the kanji for America is 米国 which is pronounced beikoku and literally means rice country. This struck me as incredibly strange, so I looked it up. Turns out that back when, before using katakana (the writing system for foreign loan words), countries' names were often written with kanji, using the Chinese readings for pronunciation. So, America was written as 亜米利加 and pronounced amerika. The 2nd kanji (米, me) was picked as a shortened form of the word, because the 1st (亜, a) was already used as the shortened form of Asia. The pronunciation was eventually changed from the Chinese, me, to the Japanese, bei, but I couldn't find a reason for it. This has been your Japanese language history lesson for the day. It is appropriately America related. 

Food

I've had some people ask me what I'm eating and if I do a lot of cooking over here. The answer is I'm doing more cooking than I ever have for a longer stretch of time then I ever have before. But that's true of everyone who is living on their own for the first time. I mostly cook dinner and weekend meals. Most weekday breakfasts are cereal or toast or just some fruit, and I eat lunch from the cafeteria when at work. I definitely wouldn't call it gourmet or particularly well-balanced cooking. There's a lot of pasta involved. But I like pasta and I'm aware of what I'm putting in my body and that's the first step to well-balanced eating habits. So here's some pictures of what I've made and/or eaten in the past few months.

Yakisoba!

Cake and tea in a cafe during the Tanabata Festival

Another attempt at yakisoba, much better this time. I added carrots and peppers and cooked the cabbage with the other veggies instead of throwing it on top at the end.

One of my plates from a visit to a tabehodai, AKA all you can eat

Udon in soup with egg, cabbage, and crunchy stuff, made at home

Homemade pasta and chicken with milkshake!

Salad and store-bought nikkuman (meat bun)

Ham, egg, and cheese open-faced sandwich and tea

carrot cake and milk tea at a cafe in Hidaka

Salad, with chicken

Pasta and garlic-y toast

Trying my hand at making tomato sauce

Not too bad!

Ham and cheese sandwich and green beans with butter

A typical lunch: donburi (rice bowl) this one has chicken and egg and toppings, soup (usually miso), and pickled vegetable things.

More tomato sauce pasta, this time with oranges!

I found mac and cheese!!! And watched Gilmore Girls, because I was feeling a bit homesick.

Ham and cheese omelet and hashbrowns with tea for breakfast

Grilled cheese sandwich and apples! Yum!

Pizza Hut pizza! I finally figured out the ordering/delivery system! It's full of meat and cheese pockets in the crust and lovely, delicious grease!

I tried a new pasta recipe: penne in cheese sauce with sundried tomatoes. I worked out delicious (even with regular, non dried tomatoes) and best of all made enough for four meals!

I finally bought bacon!

I try my hand at baking bread. It works out pretty well for not having a pan or anything to bake it in. White, but crunchy outsides, and delicious with butter and honey!

Tried making the chicken and egg donburi (rice bowl) I like so much from the school cafeteria. I used a supermarket packet for the chicken and egg bit and it wasn't very good. I'll try cooking my own egg and chicken next time.

Gyoza! AKA dumplings, store bought, as is the breaded pumpkin thing (kabocha kuroke), but fried at home by me.

Sakura tea and a sweet plate at a cafe in Harajuku

Pie for Pi Day! One apple and one meat and tea of course

Baking cake turned out much better than baking bread. Probably because I have purchased a microwave safe loaf shaped pan. The cake is more bread/brownie shaped as a result, but it tastes like cake, so success!

Thailand Trip Post 8

January 5, 2015

              We woke up late-ish again and breakfasted on rice soup and fruit. We checked-out, but got to leave our bags in a locked room at the guesthouse. We would pick them up when we came back to catch our scheduled ride to the airport at 11pm. Our flight home left at 2 am, so we still had the whole day to explore.

              We finally checked out some Bangkok temples. Wat Pho had a pretty big complex that we wandered around and got lost in once. Then we figured out the ferry system and went across the river to Wat Arun. Wat Arun has a really old chedi (Buddhist stupa). You can climb up it for a small fee. So, we paid 50 baht to risk our lives scaling the steep steps/ladder to the top. Pretty awesome view though.

Wat Pho

These were scattered around the complex of Wat Pho and caused us to get quite turned around.

We learned through observation that Bangkok temples tend to have very decorative roofs and insides, just like the ones we saw in Chiang Mai, but the rest of their outside walls are starkly white.

We made friends with some temple cats.

The Wat Arun chedi

SUPER steep stairs!

I made it though!

     We also saw the Hall of the Reclining Buddha. He's a pretty huge deal.

       

I wasn't kidding about him being huge.

     
         We had planned on visiting a park full of copies of famous and old structures from around Thailand, but our guidebook informed us that it was closed on Mondays. Instead, we took an express ferry down to Chinatown. The friendly British man with the bus map yesterday had told us there was good food and cheap stuff to be had there. There was LOTS of cheap stuff. Narrow streets full of stalls and shops full of randomness. We ate noodles and roasted duck and I had chrysanthemum juice, because why not? It was very flowery and sweet. Unfortunately, we saw several bugs crawling around, so we booked it out of the restaurant and made our way back to the ferry landing.

              We saw advertisements for a River Walk, but when we got off at the stop, we found the place was brand spanking new, and most of the shop fronts were empty. We hung out in a café for a while and walked up and down the river before getting back on the ferry.

Here's a pic of our ride over to Wat Arun.

Here I am hanging out at the River Walk.

              We wandered up and down Khaosan road until dinner time. After dinner at the Elephant Bar and Café again, we found a massage place. This guy worked magic on my shoulders and neck, which always give me problems, but were extra tight from all the walking and carrying of things. Then we collected our bags, did a final check of everything, and waited for our ride to arrive.

Goodbye Khaosan! (No we did not, at any point, set foot in McDonald's.)

              The bus to the airport arrived on time, and after stuffing in more people and bags than legal or safe, we headed off into the night. We had no problems at the airport, even though everything seemed to be on a different level. Up for baggage drop off, down for security, up again for pre-gate waiting (which had no seats), and a final downstairs trip for the actual gate. The place was clearly built to be modern and cool, with all the chrome and glass and sleek lines and bright lights, but it`s not very well laid-out or relaxing. By the time we got to our actual gate it was 1 am, we had been walking outside all day, and we were exhausted and grumpy. Thankfully, the airport didn`t seem to care about our grumbles.

Here's a look at the inside of the airport.

 

Our sad, dead phones are charging away.

              We both conked out for the first part of our flight and woke up in Fukuoka. I didn`t ever think I`d be relieved to be in a place where I understood only half the signs and language around me. But it is amazingly comforting to be able to read at least half a sign, when you spent the last week not being able to read any signs at all. A brunch refreshed us and then we took turns charging our phones while we waited for our flight to be called and the last leg of our trip to begin.

              My trip to Thailand was awesome and I definitely wouldn`t mind visiting again, especially Chiang Mai. I highly recommend it!

Thailand Trip Post 7

January 4, 2015

              We slept in! And had breakfast at our guesthouse before walking to the nearest bus stop and trying to figure out which bus would take us to the train station. None of them apparently. After about an hour of waiting, and consulting with a helpful old British man who had a bus schedule, we gave it up as not going to happen and hailed a taxi. Once at the train station, it was simple to find the metro system, purchase tickets (black plastic discs), and find the Jim Thompson House.

              Mr. Jim Thompson served in World War II and joined the CIA. When he retired, he moved to Thailand and built a traditional Thai house. He bought traditional Asian art of all kinds, lots of it from China, and basically turned his house into a ready-made museum. He became interested in the Thai silk industry and helped to revive it and keep the traditional way of weaving and dyeing from dying out. He disappeared on a trip when he was in his 60s and was never found. His house was turned into a museum, with all proceeds going to help the silk industry in Thailand.

This lovely woman performed some traditional Thai dance. The finger movements feature heavily and are enhanced with long, claw-like finger pieces.

Part of the extensive garden around the house

The living room

Yummy appetizers

and curry

              After a turn of this lovely house, and a trip to the gift shop, we had a wonderful (expensive) lunch at their restaurant. Then, we headed out to do some shopping! We chose the MBK Center and it`s acres of shops. There was so. Much. Stuff. There was a whole floor of tiny stalls full to bursting with electronics. That floor was so bright and noisy we just headed right back down the escalator. Way too much stimulation. We finished our souvenir shopping here, as well as picking up candies to bring back to our offices as omiyage (souvenirs, usually food, brought back for all your colleagues). We stumbled across a shop that sold tins of Thai tea, so we could make our new favorite drink back home. Yum!

              Our main goal was the shoes though. Japan is full of cute footwear that is usually out of size range for our big American feet. Thailand, however, if full of tourists, and combines cute shoes, large sizes, and low prices to create a wonderful smorgasbord. I finally got new all-weather black boots and a couple pairs of flats for work and everyday stuff. We both ended the day with arms full of bags.

              The top floor of the shopping center had a restaurant called The Fifth. It was a very fancy food court. You got a card with 1,000 baht credit when you entered. You gave that instead of cash when you ordered food from the various places. When you were finished, you took the card to the cash registers at the exit and paid for whatever you had used. There were lots of options, from all different countries, Thai, Arabic, Greek, Japanese, steak, pizza, desserts, etc.

              We made the trek back to our guesthouse through a combination of trains, taxi, and walking. Tomorrow is our last day, and we have to check-out by noon, so we packed up our bags and turned in early.