Today's adventure

Spring is definitely here!  This is a fairly close up picture of blossoms.  I was able to occasionally get a whiff of blossoms occasionally. 
This morning I decided I wanted to bicycle to Costco in Iruma.  It is about a 17 km ride one way.  I have bicycled there before, but it has been a year or so.  I decided to rely on my iPhone's map's directions, which was probably my first mistake.  I was remembering the way and came to a spot where I knew I usually turned right, but the directions was telling me to go straight.  I didn't stick to my gut and went straight.  It wasn't nearly as good of a ride.  There wasn't much bicycling space on the road.  I do believe I have been on parts of that road before since I recognized parts.   
As I was moving along, I was coming to the end of the directions, but wasn't seeing Costco anywhere!  The other thing that was happening is my battery on my iPhone died.  That left me using only my instinct.  I did get to a place I recognized and was able to make it to Costco.  I wasn't terribly far off, maybe a couple of kilometers.
One of the main reasons for going to Costco was to purchase a couple of items and to change my membership from the US to Japan.  Membership in Japan is a bit cheaper and actually since I use my card here, I thought I'd switch it to Japan.  Fortunately they usually have people who speak English and I got some help filling out the forms and getting my picture taken.

There it is!

Here's my official card.  I am now a certified Gold Star Member of Costco Japan. 
After paying for my items and packing them in my bags, I brought them to my bicycle and discovered that I had a flat tire.  It would be a 17 km walk back home.  I put my bags in my baskets and decided to start walking, thinking I would probably run into bicycle shop at some point. Remember my iPhone had died, so I was not able to search for a bicycle shop.  One of the things I learned living here, is that there usually is a bicycle shop by a train station.  I ended up walking to the Sayamagaoka station.  I was walking around quite a bit and truth be told, I kind of thought, "I'll just start walking home."  Wouldn't you believe it, as I made that decision in my head, I came to a bicycle shop.  The older man even spoke some English. 

My bicycle in the forefront, it looks pretty full in the store.

It took about 20 minutes.  He found a leak in my tube, put a patch on it, I gave him 1000 yen and was off to bicycle home. 
All tolled, I was gone for almost six hours, had walked/bicycled a total of about 35 kilometers and have a new membership at Costco!  I am very grateful that it was a beautiful, sunshiny day.  I'm also glad I am home.  Ready to put my feet up and watch a movie. 

Second Harvest Japan

Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ) received an email from an intern working at Second Harvest Japan a couple of weeks ago.  Second Harvest Japan is an organization that "aims to create a safety food net in Japan."  They are involved in four different programs.  They have a Harvest Kitchen where they make meals for and hand out to homeless folks in Ueno park.  They have a Food Bank where people can come to pick up food.  They also have a Harvest Pantry where they store food and distribute to families who are in need.  The fourth program is promote advocacy and development of food usage in Japan.  Second Harvest Japan states that there are about 17.8 million tons of food a year wasted in Japan.  You can find more information on their website:  Second Harvest Japan.
They asked if CAJ would be interested in having a food drive to support their efforts.  The Middle School Student Council, a High School Chat group, and the grade two class have decided to work together to collect food.  We thought it would be a neat idea to tie this in with Lent. 

Food drive area for High School and Middle School.

The Middle School began collecting food last week.  The High and Elementary school began collecting food this week. 

The Middle School Student Council decided to make a thermometer to monitor how much food we have been collecting, by weight.  

The students took most of the food on the table and weighed it.  Based on what the students have weighed thus far, we have collected 113.6 kg!  Whatever food left on the table pictured above, has not been weighed yet. 

CAJ's mission is, "equipping students to serve Japan and the world for Christ."  This is one way we are trying to equip students to serve Japan and the world for Christ.  

Saturday activities

What do you usually do on Saturdays?  I try to sleep in some.  By the time I get to Saturday, I'm kind of tired and would like to "get caught up."  I know, the theories about keeping the same sleep routines, but I do like to sleep in, especially if I've had a couple of nights where there wasn't as much sleep as I may have needed.  It is one of the reasons why I am so grateful for weekends. 
I also use Saturdays to do things I may not have time to do during the week.  One thing I do is laundry.  I am fortunate to have a decent dryer, but I usually only use it for the towel/underwear load.  The rest of the laundry gets to dry naturally, meaning they hang to dry.

I have a bar out on the deck where I hang my shirts to dry.

Inside, I have this handy hanging contraption I use to dry my pants and such.

The sweaters usually have a space on my love seat, under my towels to dry. 

Cleaning the apartment is one of the things I tend to do on Saturdays.  I do my dishes and vacuum, some dusting.  It feels good when things are in order and clean.  
Today I also went on a bicycle ride.  The weather was nice and sunny, about 11ᵒC.  I rode with Ruth and we went on a route we have gone before. 

Here's the map of our route.

There is a planned Starbucks stop on our route, before we head back.  It's a great place to stop and enjoy a cup of coffee.

This Starbucks has a nice place to sit outside.

One of the things I enjoy about Japan, is the vegetable stands.  You can find these stands in many places usually not too far from fields that grow the vegetables.  The vegetables are seasonal, so if you're looking for cauliflower, you may not find it.  Today I bought these vegetables.  I hope to use the spinach for making dinner this evening. 

Big radishes!

Spinach

For the rest of my Saturday, I intend to work on some homework for my class and probably watch a movie.  It was uneventful, but I'm happy with what I did today.
So on a total side note, this past Tuesday evening I went to Harajuku to church to attend a Bible study.  On the way, I walk past a Softbank store and there in the window I saw one of these robots that were featured on CBC's The National.  These robots were used with sick children in a Toronto hospital.  I thought it was amazing that within days of watching that show, I saw this robot! 

I hope you are able to enjoy your Saturday and that you have an even better Sunday! 

Middle School Brain Bowl!

Last week I went with nine Middle School students from Christian Academy in Japan, to the Kanto Plains Middle School Brain Bowl.  Brain Bowl is kind of like the Reach for the Top TV show, or It's Academic TV show, except it's at a Middle School level, and the teams are made up of students from different schools.

I apologize for the blurriness of the picture.

There are three different rounds.  The first round consists of ten to twelve questions.  The questions can be a variety of topics, ranging from math questions to questions about novels, to science questions to geography questions.  The groups have an answer sheet and write the answers down to the questions as they are read.  There is about 30 seconds between questions and about a minute after the last question is read.  The papers are collected after each set and graded, points awarded for correct answers to the teams. 

The second round is what we call the buzzer round.  Two teams compete against each other on the stage.  They have about ten questions and the first student to buzz in and answer the question correctly will receive points for the team.  There were twenty-four teams, so we had twelve sessions in the buzzer round.  The questions were from a variety of topics. 

The third round consisted of what I call, theme questions.  One of the sets of questions were visuals of famous landmarks from around the world.  Each group had to identify the landmark, the city and the country that the landmark is located.  Another set of questions were sound bites of anthems from various countries and they had to identify which country's anthem was played.  Another set of questions were country outlines that were skewed and the students had to identify the countries.  Another set were pictures of rare animals and they had to identify the animal.  Some of the questions were difficult to answer and I know I wouldn't be able to answer them all. 

The students had fun making new friends and working together with other students.  I am sure they were able to learn a lot. 

CAJ team

The CAJ team funny looking picture

We were at AOBA - Japan International School in Hikarigaoka.  This year the event fell on a Japanese holiday and their students were not at school that day, so it did not inconvenience the running of their school that day.  We are in the gym for the competition and for lunch the students were outside.  It was a nice day, so they were able to be out on the play structure or sitting at tables to playing on the grass fields. 

Image used for the Brain Bowl event. 

If you are interested, you can go to this link that has study stack questions to a variety of topics. 

Winter Break

This past weekend was a long weekend for staff and students at Christian Academy in Japan.  It was our winter break.  The VanderHaak's invited me to come with them to the cabin up by Tagajo, near Sendai.  I do enjoy going to the cabin as it usually is a chance to relax.
It was pretty windy there when we arrived and stayed windy until yesterday, Monday evening.   There have been a lot of construction in the area, but the beach seems to change every time I come back to visit.  They have completed much of the berm, at least halfway down the beach. 

Lone seagull

Part of the beach still being worked on.

Completed berm, so far.

A close up of the berm.

Here they are taking the casings off of the cement jacks.  This is across the road from the beach.   On the beach they have used these cement jacks as barriers and a way to control the erosion.  
Each morning when I got us, I took Hana for a walk around Takayama Beach Company property.  Tuesday morning,  I took my camera along and took some pictures.   You can see that it was windy the last few days, lots of ripples in the sand.  There are some interesting rock formations.

Beach is calm today

Interesting combination of rocks

Distinctive layers

Ripples in the sand

Power plant towards Tagajo

On the last day, before we left to go back to Tokyo, we stopped at the look out, which gives you a 360ᵒ of the area.  At this look out there is a shrine.  I took a couple of pictures of this shrine, as well as taking a couple 360ᵒ videos.

You can see Shiogama through the trees

Add caption

Looking East

Here is the videos that I put together. 

I didn't get as much homework completed as I had hoped, but it was still a great time away from Tokyo.  Tomorrow, it's back to work, although I've had a couple of teachers text me, warning me about snow in the forecast.  😃 

Some videos

Over the last few months, I've been taking pictures and some video of some of the interesting machines, trucks and such around here in Japan.  Some are quite similar to what you would find in North America, some are a bit different.  I have some friends who have children that may find this little video interesting, so I put it together.  If you're interested, you're welcome to look at it.  The best part is the little firetruck you find in the back of the big firetrucks.  I couldn't get a video of one coming out of the big truck, but I did get pictures of the little truck in the back of the big firetruck.

It was fun to look for pictures or take advantage of videoing machines at work.
This past month, I decided to go with each of the homeroom classes on their Homeless Outreach.  We would meet at 5:45 a.m. at the Higashi Kurume station and go down to Ikebukuro to pass out lunches to the homeless who stay in the station during the night.  One of the mornings, I ended up staying at the wickets in the Ikebukuro station and took this time lapse video.

Here is a compilation of pictures and videos of our homeless outreach during the month of January. 

I have just begun our winter break.  I have been invited by the VanderHaak's to go with them to the cabin up by Shichigahama tomorrow.  I am looking forward to a time to catch up on my class's assignments, maybe even work ahead as well as spending time relaxing, listening to the sounds of the ocean and spending some quality time with the VanderHaak's, Gibson's and well, my walking partner, Hana.  :)   

DEARAW

Every couple of months or so, I have what I call a DEARAW (Drop Everything And Relax At Winnie's).  I am trying to provide a time and space for MS staff at Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ) to gather together in a different setting and for a purely social purpose.  Yesterday, Friday, January 23rd, was a staff work day; a day to prepare report cards for the semester.  I thought it may be a good opportunity for teachers to spend some relaxing time after the day at my apartment.  There was also a Senior Talent Show in the evening, so this time could provide a nice reprieve between working on report cards and attending the talent show. 
On the previous occasions, my theme tended to be anything with nuts, since CAJ's campus is nut free.  I made peanut butter cookies, had peanut M&M's, regular peanuts or almonds in a bowl, and other snack type things.  
This time however, I thought I would try something different.  Many of the staff are not familiar with some of my 1950's Dutch cultural heritage.  (My parents immigrated to Canada in 1952.)  This time I thought I would make oiliebollen, which is like a Dutch cake donut. 
Here's how they are made:  

Yeast and warm milk.

First you warm up some milk and add yeast and let it do its chemical reaction thing. 

Flour, salt, apples and raisin mixture.

Next mix together, flour, salt, raisins and cut up apples.  I knew there were some of the staff that do not like the fruit, so I made a separate batch that did not have apples and raisins. 

Eggs and milk mixture.

In another bowl, mix together eggs and milk and add the eggs and milk mixture to the flour mixture.  After that you add the milk and yeast mixture.  The batch I made was very large, so it took some arm power to mix it all well.  Once it is well mixed, you let it sit for an hour. 

First ones out of the deep fryer.

While the dough is rising, you do need to heat up the oil.  This is the part where my apartment gained its new oil fragrance, which remains the next few days.  I do not have a deep fryer and was able to borrow one from a friend.  Thanks, Rie! 
I was also able to borrow an ice cream scoop (Thanks, Martha!) and used that to scoop up the dough and deep fry them.  Just before you eat them, you sprinkle on icing sugar. 

There were some left over...

As people came through the door, I would deep fry whatever their preference was, with or without raisins and apples.  By the end of the evening, I still had a quite a bit of dough left.  You cannot store the dough, so I continued to deep fry more oiliebollen until the dough was gone.  I let them get cold and put them in ziplock bags to store in the freezer. 
Over all, I believe it was a success.  Those who tried them, said they were delicious.  I was so glad to be able to share a bit of my heritage with the CAJ staff.  I am very grateful for all the work they do for our students.  I am blessed to see how God uses these staff members to make an impact on CAJ's students.  I work in a great place!