Author: Sarah Joy Albrecht

Tonight we went out for dinner at a ramen noodle restaurant. We purchased tickets for our soups and then handed them to the hostess. She tore off the ticket and handed us back the stubs.

The restaurant is one of many ramen restaurants in this little “Ramen Town” located in the back corner of our mall.

All of my kids – except for Thomas – seem to love ramen.

Tabitha enjoyed adding the various condiments to her soup – soy sauce, vinegar, minced garlic, and pepper. After every addition she’d say, “Mom, you’ve got to try this… it’s soooo good!”

Leah, who was on my right, kept stealing soup from my bowl. Whenever I’d catch her dipping in her spoon, she’d smile sweetly and offer it to me – as if her goal was to feed me all along.

Micah sat on my left. He, too, was sharing my soup (the bowls are quite large!). He could not stop eating the pickled konbu kelp! After he ate mine, he asked for Tom’s!

Aomori Bank is closed, and we had attempted to get some cash out of the ATM thinking that the ATMs would at least be working – it was not! Even the ATMs are closed for the New Years holiday!

We finished our outing by going to the grocery store. Leah and I got separated from Tom and the rest of the kids, and we were attacked by Leah’s fan club – all the old ladies who tussle her hair, tickle her, pinch her cheeks and cry Kawaaaaaaiiii!!!!!!

When we came home, we finished watching The Forbidden Kingdom (starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan).

Off to soak in the tub!

Tomorrow is Bible Study at my house :) We are still in John 1, continuing with Piper’s Sermon “In Him Was Life” as a guide.

To try to imagine the meaning of “thou shalt have no other gods before me” sometimes seems a bit of a stretch in the United States. To apply this commandment to every day life, one must figuratively extend the word ‘gods’ to include the Internet, chocolate, and football on Sundays – or, in my case, an orderly house.

However, here in Japan, out of tradition, or even out of sincere belief, people are celebrating the gods this week. When we came home from our trip to Misawa, our neighbors had left for us mochi cakes, oranges and a kadomatsu, an arrangement of evergreen tree sprigs and bamboo on our doorstep. These decorations are to be displayed in the entrance way, as part of New Years celebrations, to ward away malevolent spirits.

At the beginning of the year, people visit temples and shrines – this is called hatsumōde, or the first shrine visit of the year.

While we have a diverse culture in the United States, most Americans have never seen the worship of false gods to this extent. Back home, “religion” isn’t a topic that most people discuss – of fear that they may believe something different than someone else, and they may offend them. However, Buddhism is so blatant here, there is no helping being confronted with it at every turn.

We are not displaying our kadomatsu :) We did give our neighbors a gift as well – a Christian calendar with passages from the Psalms in Japanese calligraphy over beautiful watercolor paintings for each month, along with a half-dozen gingerbread men!

Nothing super-exciting happened today, unless one factors in that, like it or not, just being in Japan makes everything super-exciting.

Today, Thomas and Tabitha played RockBand2 on XBoxLive with Andrew, Peter and Joe. It’s hilarious to me that my 1st and 2nd grader are perfectly playing and belting out words to songs before their time like, “Shooting Star” and “Eye of the Tiger”. XBoxLive certainly adds to the depth of enjoyability – to be able to play with your friends and family on the other side of the world!

After responding to some various loose-ends in PA, we bundled up and set out for the two-hour mountainous trip to Misawa AFB. Most of the roads were decent, but on the more remote curves through the forest areas the sun doesn’t reach the pavement enough to completely melt through the ice. By nightfall, it was particularly slick and we did see a one-car accident being cleared off of a section of road with a dropoff — thankfully, this section had a guardrail (they don’t always around here!) and the car had stopped upon impact.

Because the weather here can be so treacherous, some of the roads between here and Misawa actually close. Tonight, we stocked our pantry and new freezer to the tune of $356.00.

I tried tongue tonight at dinner. I think it was cow’s tongue, but I’m not exactly sure. It was sliced very thin, and we cooked it on our grill at our table. Leah’s highchair was unfortunately right in front of the gas knob – so as she would “bump into it” with her foot, the fire would flare up or wither accordingly. Tom grilled and ate skewered tiny octupi – whereas the octupus I ate was battered and fried in one of my new favorite snacks, takoyaki. They are little fried dumplings of octupus and chive goodness, drizzled with mayonnaise and a hoisin-type sauce, topped with more chives and wafer thin bonito fish flakes that twitch from the heat of the takoyaki as if they were alive. Some places only lightly fry the takoyaki, and so the uncooked dough oozes out as you attempt to pop it whole into your mouth. However, I prefer that they are a little “overcooked”, so that they stay intact and my mouth doesn’t get scorched with scalding but not yet breadlike batter.

Throughout dinner, Leah became increasingly squirmy. Time revealed that her princess-pullups weren’t so beautiful, and neither were her leggings. I changed her using packs of disposable oshibori from our table to clean up the mess. I confess, I was the one that left the stinky diaper in the restaurant’s trash. Sorry! There was no way it was going to sit in the car for two hours and induce a vomiting reaction x 7!

I find myself enjoying listening to the audiobook rendition of Harry Potter during our cartrips. We’re about 1/4 of the way through book three, Prisoner of Azkaban. One thing I appreciate about Rowling’s writing is her character development. As she described Professor Lupine, she described him as unusually sleepy during the daytime. It’s not till nearly the end of the book does the reader find out what he turns into at night. When character’s identities or plots are revealed, it always seems to fit together beautifully and I look forward to each cluelike morsel.

Well, it’s off to bed. Today we learned that the driving class is tomorrow at 10am at Misawa. Tom is required to take this class, essentially a crash (lets hope not!) course in Japanese driving etiquette and street signs, in order to purchase a car in Japan, as a foreigner. The only difference is that we have to leave the house by 7:30am to be there on time.

I’m off to bed. I’m reheating the bathwater from last night for a warm-me-up soak before bed. There is a little switch in my living room connected to the hot water system in the bathroom. I can see that the water temp is at 42 Celsius by the indicator light :)

Our landlord is, I am guessing, in his 70s. He is so hardworking, especially for an older man. A few weeks ago, in between the snow storms, I watched him go out to his field and examine some plants that needed to be covered for the winter. He went into his garage and then brought out a big roll of burlap. He then rolled it out on the driveway and cut the burlap. Next, he sat down on the concrete wall along the driveway and _hand sewed_ ten long pouches in about an hour. Then, he went back out to the field and put them over the plants. They fit perfectly.

Today, I was out shoveling the ice away from the garage and he brought me a bag of each : potatoes and apples. Since we moved in, he has brought us food from his garden about twice a week. He has given us apples, huge cabbages, potatoes and persimmons – an sweet orange fruit that is hard to find in the US. When I get my kitchen items, I hope to cook some goodies and take them over. (I have about a bushel of potatoes now from him – anyone have any good stovetop potato recipes?)

The landlord is just a little taller than me. He wears coveralls and rain galoshes every day. He has short, white hair. He is always smiling, and is kind to the children.

I just wish I could understand what he’s saying!