Lettuce: Day 11

Not too much has been happening this week except for some growth in our lettuce garden.  Have a look.

A few of them are even starting to get a stalk between their leaves!  We aren't really sure when these will need to be moved to a bigger container, but so far so good.

Playground Exposé

I've been making a collection of playgrounds that I've found here in Japan that blow my mind.  Part of me wishes I had been a child in Japan so that I could enjoy these crazy contraptions, but the other part of me feels like I probably would have broken some bones.  It doesn't look like there are any safety regulations to follow when building these things.

This first one has the best slide I've ever seen.  The whole complex is huge but this slide keeps on going. Just don't get scared and stop half way down.

 Here there are monkey bars up so high that a net is placed underneath them for when kids inevitably fall.  I think I'd be a little scared even now to try this one out.

This looks like a serious obstacle course to me.  There is no way as a kid I could have navigated over swinging tires and logs.

 The sphere to the right is there for kids to get inside while their friends mercilessly spin them around as fast as they can. I've witnessed this done to someone and they were not having a good time.  And what's with the super tall tower in the back?  Don't even think about falling off.

I'm not sure what to say about these.  I guess you are supposed to climb on them and then fall onto the concrete when you lose your grip.

Although this is not part of a playground, it was near one and I had to take a pic.  This sign is warning kids to stay away from the pond that is inside this fence.  It is showing that if they get near the pond then the water monster will get them.  I'm serious!  They actually tell children that there is a water demon to scare them away from water.  It's called the Kappa.  

Here is the wikipedia article if you're curious:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_(folklore)

Edo-Tokyo Museum

On Sunday, Drew and I went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum.  It is a history museum that is supposed to be more interactive than most.  Drew took advantage of this and spent most of his time seeing what it was like to live during the Edo period.

He could barely fit

Seeing if he could handle hard labor

This was carried by fire fighters

Some of the best displays, in my opinion, were the models of old Japanese towns.  The detail was amazing.

Japanese style town

This town was built in a European style

Lettuce: Day 5

I realize this seems super pathetic to anyone out there who has grown vegetables before, but I can't help it.  I'm excited.  I officially have a plant!  See his pretty little leaves bursting out!?

I had to share just in case he unexpectedly dies.  I'm unsure of how much to water these guys and I keep going back and forth between worrying about whether I'm watering them too much or not enough.  The plants on the window sill are not thriving nearly as well as the ones near the balcony.  Guess the lettuce likes the super sunny spot best.  This one that is emerging victoriously happens to be from the lot where we sprinkled seeds.  It's possible the ones we buried will just take a bit longer to push up through the soil.

First Scarf

Indoor projects are in full swing around here, including my attempt to dabble in knitting.  After some practice, I decided to start with a simple scarf using the knit stitch.  It's about as basic as you can get.  I was happy to find yarn at the 100 yen shop to support this endeavor.  There is no point in me spending more money to knit a scarf than it would take to buy one.  Especially when the quality could be in question.

Here is my progress so far.  I believe it is almost half way done.

Drew has requested a hat and I'm excited to attempt using my circular needles for that project.  First I have to be patient and finish my scarf.  That has probably been the hardest part of knitting so far.  I just want to know it all at once!  Guess I'll get back to it.

Garden Project

As you may know, Drew and I have a dream that we will one day have a backyard where we can have our very own vegetable garden.  Now, the only issue is that I've never grown a thing in my life, except for maybe some grass.  Luckily, Drew has more experience in this area and he is assuring me that it is not difficult.

I'm getting antsy, so we set out to find something for me to grow.  With it being January, my options are a bit limited.  We did find a packet of lettuce that seemed to say that you could start growing it indoors in February or March.  Lettuce it is!  And no, I'm not waiting until February or March.  We went ahead and got it going.

Besides starting these too early, we also weren't able to find normal potting soil, so we ended up with more of a mulch-like substance.  Not sure how that is going to work, but here is our set up.

As you can see, we have set up different variables.  Some of our paper cup pots are by the door and some are by the kitchen window.  For half of them we buried the seeds and the other half we sprinkled. We have one pot that the strongest looking plant can inherit when it is ready to graduate from the cup.

I have prepared myself that probably nothing will come of this experiment due to the bad soil and cold weather.  But guess what??  Today I see a sprout coming out of a seed!!  It's alive!!

Can you see it?  I'm still unsure if it will survive long enough to become anything of substance, but I'm excited to find out.

Daruma Festival

Over the weekend we went to Kiryu for their Daruma fair at Fumonji Temple.  Here is a "Daruma" figure.  It is modeled after the founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism.

These guys are supposed to bring you good fortune and it is a tradition to buy one of them at the beginning of the new year and color in one of their eyes while making a wish.  When the wish comes true, you then color in the other eye.

They had a stack of old Daruma figures that people brought to be burned at the temple.

Drew and I purchased the smallest one we could find.  We'll have to wait and see if it brings us any good luck this year.

Tokyo National Museum

This past weekend we went to Tokyo to visit their National Museum.  It is something that Drew had wanted to do for awhile, but we were trying to save it for a cold winter day.  Now is the time for indoor activities!

Drew was happy seeing the samurai armor and I liked the painting of the monkeys.

We both enjoyed seeing this panel of the Japanese alphabet.  I can read most of those!

Some characters are a bit too stylized for me to make out

Afterwards, we went to a Spanish restaurant because I was craving paella.  The menu said that one dish would feed two people, but we were not impressed by the size.  It looks deceivingly larger in this photo than it actually was.  That dish was more of a lunch/salad plate size.  We ended up having a second, and much cheaper, dinner at a sushi restaurant near our apartment.

Adding that lemon juice

Odaiba

There is an island in Tokyo, Odaiba, that began as a set of small islands and was built up into one large island by landfills.  It has become a popular tourist attraction and is home to more shopping complexes than I could ever visit in one day.  Drew and I traveled to this island on one of the beautiful days he had off.  Here are the highlights:

Statue of Liberty Replica

The significance of this replica is attributed to the relationship between Japan and France, rather than Japan and America, but it was nice to see something familiar.



Gundam Statue

I am unfamiliar with this character, but there was apparently a TV show about Gundam.  This is the size he was supposed to be in real life.  It sounded to me like it was similar to Transformers.  He is supposed to move and light up every now and then, but we never did catch him in the act.



National Museum of Emerging Science

My favorite part of the trip was probably this museum.  We were able to see Asimo, a robot created by Honda, that we had previously seen in news stories.  He is pretty impressive.  Drew got a video of him running and one of him dancing.

Almost just as exciting for me was an infrared sensor that you could stand in front of.  It finally justifies to me that I am not just a baby about the cold.  Look at Drew's hands and nose on the right.  They're nice and red/orange hot.  Now look at mine.  My fingers are blue!  And my nose is that green dot of coolness!  He literally is warmer than I am all the time.  Thank you for the scientific proof that allows me to have a legitimate reason to complain about being cold.

Venus Fort

Venus Fort was the coolest shopping mall I've ever seen.  It is designed as an 18th century European town.  The ceiling of the place looked like a night sky.  It was fantastic.

Rainbow Bridge

This is the bridge that we traveled over by train to get to the island.  It is always lit up at night like a rainbow and is an iconic symbol of Odaiba.

Snow

We've been told that it normally does not snow in Oyama.  It gets cold enough but the position of the mountains tend to block any snowy weather from reaching Oyama.  Well, we got lucky!  It snowed!

View from our apartment

We took a walk around town to explore.  There is one decent hill for sledding in Oyama and we spotted a few teenagers trying it out.  Unfortunately, this was more of the slushy snow, not the best conditions for sledding.

The cold weather had me in the mood for noodle soup.  For me, the closest Japanese equivalent is udon.  It hit the spot.

I'm not sure why, but watching it snow out our window made me feel like I was back home.

Monkeys!

The trip Drew planned over his break was to Yudanaka and it went much better than our Mt. Fuji trip (of course).  Yudanaka is famous for having hot springs that are used by the monkeys living in the mountains.  If there is a cool monkey around, I want to see it!

Even the train ride to and from Yudanaka was fun.  The conductor sat in a second floor section so that the front of the train was open for passengers.  It kind of felt like a roller coaster.

Our view out the front

Next, the hotel was awesome!  It was a traditional Japanese set up and had all sorts of great warming features.  The best one, and I hope to one day own this thing, was a kotatsu.  It is a table that has heavy blankets built around it and an electric heater underneath it.  Wow!  It really doesn't get much better than this in my opinion.

We also had a nice breakfast eating area and a toilet with a mind of its own.  When you opened the bathroom door, the lights would come on and the toilet lid would lift.  There was a waist level button that Drew could push to lift up and put down the seat (now there were no excuses).  Of course it had a heated seat, but it also automatically flushed.  At one point I even walked in on it cleaning itself, bubbles and all.  Not gonna lie, it was a little awkward...

The first day we walked around the town, enjoying the foot baths and snowy weather.

Pretty views

Eggs boiled in the hot spring water

Hot foot baths were all over town

That afternoon we took a dip in our hotel's onsen.  Boy it was hot!!!  There was a cold water spigot that we could turn on to feed into the bath.  We left that on the whole time and were even dumping the hot water out of the bath and down the drain.  It was still hotter than any hot tub out there.  After you get out of one of these things you tend to feel dizzy and will stay warm for hours.

Even just a toe was too much at first

The next morning we headed to the monkeys.  I was surprised at how many monkeys were there and how close we were able to get to them.  A lot of them looked like they were about to fall asleep.  It must have been comfy.  I was a little jealous standing out in the cold watching them.

Monkey families

This guy was the Alpha for sure.  So serious!

Taking a break

I almost forgot!  We finally saw Mt. Fuji while we were on the train ride to Yudanaka.  That's right, Drew's trip to see the monkeys was so much better than my trip to Mt. Fuji that we even saw Mt. Fuji on our way.  I guess a curse is a curse.

Bouldering

I have now had my first experience with bouldering.  In case you're unfamiliar, bouldering is like rock climbing but you don't have a rope and you don't climb very high.  There is normally a soft pad beneath you in case you fall.  Drew took me to the rock climbing/bouldering gym in Oyama so that I could try it out.

Wow!  It had been awhile since I'd rock climbed and I had forgotten how tired your forearms get from trying to grip the wall.  I had to stop long before my legs and biceps wore out because I could no longer grab anything.

Look at how Drew almost takes up the whole wall.  Once he reaches out his hand he is already at the top!  This is probably why I was more scared to fall off the wall than he was.  It was a longer way down for me.

We were sore for days after this and it was impossible for me to open any jars.  Maybe next time we will try the rock climbing wall so I can be roped in.