Can We Find A Little Bit of Christmas?

Do the Japanese like Christmas?  Yes, they do. Even though Japan is not a Christian country, they seem to like Christmas.  We have heard from multiple people that a big tradition on Christmas Day is to eat “Christmas Cake” and KFC, yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The day after they take down Halloween decorations, they start putting up Christmas Decorations.  We don’t mind seeing them go up early.  It is such a nice time of year.  Christmas brings out the kindness in people, people helping people, helping to make things, teach things, decorate things, leaving anonymous surprises, writing letters of appreciation.  So, it is fun to see the decorations go up.  It isn’t everywhere, but we see it here and there.  Some are big, and some are so small, if you blink, you might miss it. 

Somethings we don’t see are nativity decorations, about Christ’s birth.  We have internet access to some wonderful videos about the real meaning of Christmas.  Life has ups and down, but this time of year helps us to stop and count our blessings, such as wonderful family, and great friends, health, a safe place to live, safe water and food to eat.  We are thankful for each of you.

Our gift to you is a link to Christmas videos and more:

https://www.mormon.org/christmas/purpose-of-a-savior

https://www.mormon.org/jpn/christmas/救い主の目的

Here are a few of the fun decorations: 

 

The beautiful Christmas at our Kagoshima chapel.  The women are so talented to tie bows as they string the continuous ribbon around the tree.  We enjoy the white flowers mingled with the ornaments

 

This is in Kenmin Koryu Center,  Very interesting with only bows.

 

We caught the men setting up this big tree the first of November.  There were ladders, lots of smaller trees waiting to be placed around the train station mall. 

 

Lots of workers helping to place all the little trees around.

 

One of the first store windows to decorate.  Yay!

 

We don't have any electrical outlets by the front door, but we found these lights at one of the stores.  They are run by a battery pack.  Small LED lights, only 450 Yen ($4.50).

 

Our cute Christmas tree.  We added Daiso dollar poinsettias  last year. 

 

The red becomes dominant when we turn off the room lights.

 

The elders in Satsuma Sendai have a tradition of hanging these giant stockings.  We wonder how long these stockings have been in this apartment, and whose big feet did they come from?

 

The only decoration at the toll way rest stop.  The children really like it.

 

If you blink, you might miss this one.  They have a cute tree, and a light up wire reindeer.

 

This is at one of our missionary sister's apartment in the Kumamoto Zone.  A daycare is on the main floor.  They only have a few decorations, but they have the spirit.  The women who run this daycare are really nice, and always say hello to us. 

 

The shoten, is a covered shopping street.  Most of the stores have decorations.  It is a fun place to go, although we don't have time to go shopping very often. 

 

Here is the cute tree at the Rojin Home, Assisted Living Center, where we teach a free English once a month to the cutest group of grandmas and grandpas.  They really practice speaking English.  One woman is 101 years old.  We wish we had more time to spend with them.

 

 What a super delicious Christmas Cake.  This cakes serves four people.  Yum!  Too bad I am allergic to chocolate.  It's really ok, because my desert is yummy fruit.

 

One of the businesses put up a string or two of light, wouldn't you say?

 

This area had lights wrapped on two long rows of trees.  It was so pretty and intriguing.  It makes us want to walk along this street.

 

Dolphin Port is a tourist center by the water's edge.  Some of the blue shapes are dolphins.

 

Another side of Dolphin Port.

 

 The volcano has been very quiet the last few months.  We caught this little tuft of ash coming out of our wonderful Sakurajima.  If you look back in some of our past blogs, you will see a variety of sizes of ash coming out of the volcano.  We love Sakurajima. 

Thanksgiving Miracles

Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Japan.  It is an American holiday to remember the Pilgrims and Native Americans working together and sharing a feast.  It causes us to stop and think of all the things we are thankful for.

One year ago we invited English class friends, church friends, and missionaries to the church for a Thanksgiving dinner and Family Home Evening/ Katei No Yube.  I prepared a huge pot of cooked chicken in gravy, rice, cut fruit, with people bringing other misc. food.  We had about 20 people.  We went around the tables and had everyone say something they were thankful for.  It was a great night and a good memory.

This year we had a couple of miracles.  Last July, Chie sent us Reynolds Oven Turkey Cooking Bags, and a few other American products.  We are friends with her parents in Tokyo.  I didn't think I would ever use the cooking bags but held on to them.  Her mother likes to send us a surprise box every few months, and sent us a 14 lbs. turkey.  It miraculously fit into our small microwave/convection oven!  She bought it at Costco in Tokyo.  It was like $36.  She also sent a Costco package of instant potatoes. The week before Thanksgiving I cooked the turkey, deboned it, and stuck it in my little freezer.  Someone gave us a pumpkin-like squash.  I cooked it, scraped it out, and mashed it with spices, eggs, and milk, to make a pumpkin (pie) cake.  I made wassail with apple juice, orange juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove.  We invited the missionaries, 4 elders and 2 sisters, and had turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, cut apples, cut pineapples, wassail, and pumpkin cake, with a dollop of ice cream.  It was a lot of work, but we all enjoyed it.  We watched a short a short video on giving thanks, about three minutes long.  We are thankful for so many things:  family, extended family, friends, coworkers, a safe community to live in, good water and food, a house to live in, and knowing why we’re here in this life and where we are going after this life.  We are thankful for all of you and your good examples in our lives.  Thank you, thank you.  We love you all. 

(If you want to watch the video go to: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-11-39-in-the-spirit-of-thanksgiving?lang=eng )

 

 

 The 14 lb.turkey cost about $36

 

 The Reynolds Oven Bag was very helpful.  It keeps splatters off the oven.

After cooking the turkey, I deboned it.  We even saved the wishbone.   

 

 From left to right:  wassail, mashed potatoes, turkey in gravy. 

 

 Chocolate chip cookie, pumpkin cake, ice cream.  Yum.

 

 

 Our thankful group.

 

 

Our grandchildren helped to make the (hand) turkey decoration last year.  It is the gift that keeps on giving.  We will enjoy it many more years. 

 

And yet another amazing view of our volcano.  We never grow tired of it. 

 

Planting Winter Flowers and Heavy Rains

 Our landlord also showed up at our house unexpectedly again with her husband this week.  We had never met her husband previously.  They were very kind.  They came with a trunk full of plants to plant around the house.  There were odd things like garlic and onions, celery and parsley, lettuce and cabbage, morning glory and lots of tulips.  Our first thought was “more things to weed around!” and the weeds grow fast.   It seems like a never-ending job keeping the jungle under control.  Then two days later we had an amazingly heavy rain.  We think we heard someone say that more rain fell in the matter of a few hours than has fallen in ten years.  We had water in our genkan / front door area and pools of water a few inches deep all around our yard and driveway.  One news report said it was, “The heaviest rainfall on record pounded the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu. Rainfall of 10.1 centimeters (about 4 inches) per hour was recorded in the southern region of Kagoshima.”  It was great for the new plants and cleared up very quickly the next day.  We are blessed to be safe in a house that doesn’t leak, in such a beautiful green area, and have good people around us.    

 

Some of the plants our landlord brought to plant around our house.

 

Our landlord planting on the side of the house.

 

A moment with our landlord's husband.

 

Swimming in our genkan anyone? 

 

This doesn't do it justice, but the rain was like a wall of water with very little wind.

 

Yet another view of the volcano.

 

Halloween in Japan

While Halloween is really a popular activity in the U.S. it is growing in popularity in Japan and other countries.  They don’t go trick or treating in neighborhoods, but people can take their children and go from store to store in the shopping areas.  When they see a sign or symbol on the store window here they know they can go in and receive a treat. 
 

We began planning some kind of a Halloween Family Home Evening activity nearly a month before Halloween.  We were pleased to have quite a few people come have fun with us at our church the day before Halloween.  Most of them dressed in really interesting and cute costumes.  The children loved it!  Missionaries helped plan the games:  Eating donuts on a string; black mystery boxes (with textured things to feel like brains, bones, eyeballs); relays where they had to wrap up in toilet paper like mummies; the limbo; and lots and lots of fun food!  In keeping with the theme of a Family Home Evening we had a short spiritual message at the end using a clip from Brother Randall Ridd’s basketball analogy video, staying focused on the right things in life.  Watch it.  You’ll love it!    (See if you can count how many times the ball is passed)

 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2015-01-1040-focus-test?&lang=eng

 

To see his talk and hear the point he was making you can watch the entire talk here: 

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/worldwide-devotionals/2015/01/living-with-purpose-the-importance-of-real-intent?lang=eng

 

We only go to Costco (4 hours away) about every three months.  On our last visit we picked up these microwave popcorn, to make party treats. 

 

We made about 80 of these, to give people at the end of our party.  They were all very surprised, and seemed to love it.

 

We put Hershey's Kisses in the tips of some of them to use as decorations.

 

We didn't have any decorations, and had a large room with a tall ceiling, but picked up a few things at the Daiso dollar store.

 

Even though we didn't have a lot of decorations, it looked great.

 

I'm standing with two of my favorite buddies.

 

Children and adults seem to like doing the limbo.  Even people with disabilities did it with the bar high.  All laughed and had fun.

 

Eating a donut off a string was a hit.  Who doesn't like donuts?

 

Glenn and I went as Hawaiian tourists (although, I've never been to Hawaii), here with one of our friends.

 

A wide view of the activities.

 

 

 

The toilet paper mummy wrap was a lot of fun.  We had some cute mummies.

 

 

  We enjoy pictures of our Sakurajima volcano.  Yet another view from the large ferry port.  We haven't had a lot of ash the last few months.  It's been great.

 

Amazing Tunnels!

When the airplane landed in Japan we were surrounded by level ground, big cities, and beyond that farms and some rolling hills.  Not far away are the mountains.  We were assigned a car from the mission and pay a monthly rental fee which is reasonable.  We drove our car from Fukuoka to our assigned city of Kagoshima, four hours away.  There were a lot of hills and mountains between the two cities.  There are many tunnels through these mountains and hills.  We’ve only gone to Fukuoka a few times.  The last time we made the trip I decided to count the tunnels.  I counted approximately 25 tunnels.  We went through 24 of them in about 30 minutes.  They are various lengths.  Some are very short and some are surprisingly long.  The longest one is about 6 kilometers, which is 3.7 miles.  Some have many lights and feel bright, and some have only a few, and some have only a third or fourth of the lights turned on and feel dark.  What an engineering miracle to have these tunnels.  Without them we would be driving up over the mountains or around them.  Either way it would take many more hours to drive.  The longer tunnels have large ceiling fans circulating the air, and escape exits in case of an emergency like an earthquake.  We are always glad when we see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It reminds me of a talk from our recent General Conference, “Choose the Light” by Elder Vern P. Stanfill. He said “There is no darkness so dense, so menacing, or so difficult that it cannot be overcome by light.”

 ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/choose-the-light?lang=eng  or Japanese https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2015/10?lang=jpn&vid=4529950234001&cid=9  )

 

Some of the tunnels have interesting pictures engraved, like this one of the volcano.

 

you can see two tunnel entrances.  We drive on the left in Japan.

 

One of the interesting tunnels.

 

This is one of the long 6 kilometer tunnels.

 

You can see variations in tunnel wall tile colors. 

 

This photo is not clear, but one tunnel ends and in a few feet a second tunnel begins.

 

This was one of the bright tunnels.

 

This was also one if the bright newer tunnels.

 

Another view of Sakurajima.  A cloudy sunrise with our awesome volcano.

Grandma to Grandma

Sometimes I forget my about my age and being a grandma.  Then I look in a mirror and say, “Oh yeah,  I’m a grandma”.  We have two mirrors in our Kagoshima home, but neither is in a useful location, so we don’t look very often.  Sometimes, I see a recent photo or my window reflection and think I don’t look too bad.  Other times I say (as Grandpa Rowe said) “who is that old guy?”  When I’m walking through town or sitting in the train station it is so interesting that the grandmas look at me, a lot, more than other people.  I smile and say “konichiwa” (hello).  They are pretty quick to return the smile and greeting.  I guess you could say that there is a connection of “One grandma to another”.  Usually when I greet them, “ohayo gozaimasu,” they answer back.  Sometimes they start speaking Japanese.  I can only pick out a few words.  I usually tell them that my Japanese is very small, “watashi no Nihongo sukoshi desu”.  It is really fun to smile at these people and make friends.  Oh, how I wish I could carry on a conversation with them, and learn more about them. I have to be content with my limited “baby talk”.  They are so cute, kind, and patient.  I love them, “aishite imasu”. 

 

While out inspecting missionary apartments we took a few minutes to visit the Castle in Miyakonojo, on the same day a group of school children also visited.

 

It was so cute to see all of their backpacks and shoes neatly outside the castle entrance.

 

 

This was a cute farmer's wife and grandma.  I fell in love with her.  We were looking for an address in this city, about 45 minutes away from us.  We went back another time to give them some strawberries.  We felt like old friends.

 

 

This was a cute mother and daughter we met in the bus station, on transfer day, while waiting for missionaries to arrive.  They are so beautiful, and were so nice.  The train station is across the street.  There is a tunnel under the street, where we go back and forth helping missionaries.

 

This is a cute grandma that I met at the Miyakonojo Castle.  Glenn helped translate, when she said she had never met foreigners.  You can't help but love these people.

 

Another view of our awesome volcano, with a beautiful sunrise.