Pure Michigan

I woke up this morning to beautiful snow covered trees. My mom lives more in the country, where tall old trees surround us. The snow here is stunning and peaceful. We're enjoying being home in Michigan, and our winter experience here wouldn't have been complete without snow.

Sometime in the 3 years that we've been in Japan, Michigan has changed it's motto from "Great Lakes, Great Times" to "Pure Michigan." I was born and raised in Michigan, and I hated the change. The different state signs, the cheesy commercials, all of it.

The state website says "Pure Michigan... where unspoiled nature and authentic character revive our spirits." And as I sit here staring at the peaceful snowfall, I suppose today is a day that I appreciate this new motto. I still may not like the change, but I understand it.

Jet Lag

Jet lag sucks. There's just no other way to say it. Anyone who who has traveled across multiple time zones knows how incredibly difficult it is for your body to adjust. It's hard enough for an adult, who is aware of what's going on. But what about for an 18-month old? Our poor little E just doesn't understand why she's tired all day, can't sleep at night, and doesn't feel well.

So what do you do with a baby who wakes up at 4AM? It's hard to stay home because then you wake up everyone else in the house. Not to mention when she wants to sleep all day and is super tired and crabby, it makes it difficult to go anywhere or do anything else during the entire day. So if you don't get out in the morning, you might be cooped up in the house all day.

So we thought, we might as well take advantage of our early morning rise! At 5AM, we ventured out for Sweetwater's Doughnuts and a trip to Meijer's.

Yep, she's in her jammies alright! She loved the doughnuts and had a great time playing with all the toys at the store. Crazy to think that we went out to breakfast and finished grocery shopping by 7AM. At least we took advantage of our early morning: got out of the house for a bit and were productive. :)

The first two nights E slept from 9-4, and I really shouldn't even complain about that because past trips to Michigan she's been up from about midnight-5AM wide awake! So this trip is going much better so far, despite the lack of sleep and some very tired parents. But let's hope the third night goes even better and that we make some progress!

Hadaka Matsuri - "Naked Man Festival"

When most people think of Japan, they think of peaceful shrines, respectful people, Tokyo, electronics, and sushi. But did you know that there is an annual naked man festival here? Yep, Hadaka Matsuri, or "Naked Man Festival," is held nationwide.

photo from here

Konomiya Hadaka Matsuri is the closest one to Nagoya, held on Friday, February 22. Darn, we fly to Michigan this day, so sadly we'll miss it. ;) 

The festival dates back to 767 when the local governor initiated the festival in an attempt to ward off a plague epidemic sweeping the country. Apparently 10,000 nearly naked men will participate in this festival, attracting about 300,000 spectators! The main event starts when a chosen male volunteer, designed at the "lucky" Shin-Otoko,  re-enacts an old ritual of being chased around a shrine naked, caught, beaten, and then driven out of town taking all bad luck with him. There are numerous events leading up to the climax, but basically for about an hour after he appears, he becomes the center of attention as thousands of now intoxicated naked men try to touch him to get rid of misfortune for the new year.

photo from here

I read that it's brutal and barbaric, yet traditional, and of course just plain weird to a foreigner. Interested in reading more? You can here, here, and here.

Just thought you should know what we're missing out on to come home. ;) 

またね Nagoya!

Announcement

I forgot to post these photos with our Two Feet announcement. They were taken by Yumi's best friend and professional photographer, Kurosaki Etsuko over the Christmas holiday. Enjoy!

14 Weeks

Baby Schreurs #2 is the size of a lemon this week. I'm one of the lucky ones who never had any symptoms during my entire first trimester... well except for being tired. But I'm glad to be headed into my second trimester - hoping to regain some energy, and of course find out the gender. :)

My first pregnancy went extremely smooth, and this one seems to be headed in the same direction. YAY!

Doughnuts, Cookies & Love

When we moved to Nagoya, the only Western fast-food chains here were McDonalds, Subway, Dominos, and KFC. In the three years that we've been here, 3 Krispy Kreme Doughnut shops have opened, as well as a Burger King. I've always refused to go to Krispy Kreme in Nagoya, for 3 main reasons:

1. I don't really like Krispy Kreme - I can have real, homemade, fresh donuts anytime I'm home at Sweetwater's. I'm sure most cities have better local bakeries and doughnuts than Krispy Kreme.

2. The lines in Nagoya have been ridiculously long. I'm not waiting 2 hours for a doughnut, period.

3. How much are these doughnuts in the U.S.? Because here they are 180yen, or about $2 EACH.

Picture is from Krispy Kreme Nagoya.

But it's Valentine's Day, my hubby likes these doughnuts, and I decided to give in and go there. I went early in the morning to the underground shop in Sakae to avoid the crowds, and luckily there was no line! If there would have been, I would have likely turned around.

After a successful morning, I decided to bake my favorite chocolate chips cookies. Sorry in-laws, I know you swear by Grandma Tichota's recipe, but I just can't get into putting Crisco into my cookies. After testing a variety of different recipes over the years, I've discovered that the Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is my favorite

Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips (I use more)

- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Stir flour with baking soda and salt; set aside.
- In large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy.
- Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, mix on low speed until incorporated.
- Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Drop tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown (I usually do 9 or slightly less, so they're nice and gooey).

While eating heaping spoonfuls of cookie dough, I started to think about the raw egg and how the U.S. tells me that I shouldn't eat it. It got me thinking - people in Japan eat raw egg every day. It's a common ingredient in many dishes here - they mix it with rice, include it with noodles, plop it on top of pasta dishes, etc. Even their scrambled eggs are super runny... and a hard-boiled egg is a joke. So why is it that Americans can't eat raw egg, but Japanese can? No one gets sick or dies here from eating raw egg. This thought eased my egg anxiety and justified my cookie-dough eating frenzy. But, do you want to know something interesting? The Japanese wouldn't eat raw cookie dough because of the egg - that's no problem - they wouldn't eat it because they believe eating raw flour will make you sick. hmmm it certainly makes me wonder why the differences...?

We had a nice Valentine's Day, filled with doughnuts, cookies, chocolate, and most importantly... love. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dessert Buffet

The elegant Sir Winston Hotel in Yagoto has an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet in their cafe. Apparently the menu changes each month and centers around a theme. This month was 'green tea.'

You start with a set plate of 5 themed desserts. As you can see, each was made with green-tea as a main ingredient. Unfortunately green-tea is NOT my favorite taste in Japan. Even walking past the green-tea shop underground in Nagoya Station makes me nauseous (and no, that's not a pregnancy related thing - I just really don't like green tea). So go figure the one time that I go here, is the month they have green-tea themed desserts! Actually though, these 5 desserts had a very subtle green-tea taste. Although not my favorite, it was certainly tolerable.

After the initial set, you can help yourself to the dessert buffet, filled with a variety of cakes, pastries, puddings/cremes, and even cake pops to dip in chocolate fondue. None of which had green-tea in them, whew! It was soooo good. I liked every single dessert that I tried, and you better believe I had about 10 different ones!

You have 90-minutes to eat as much as you'd like. M, how did we not know about this when you lived here? This is a place I could have seen us going all the time. :)

 

 

It was a nice girls afternoon, and we left with very full tummies. But it would have been that much better without the kiddos. Even though they were all well-behaved and enjoyed playing together, it would have been a bit more relaxing for the mommies if they wouldn't have been there. So we're planning to go again - but this time on the weekend, and leaving the babies at home!

TV Show: ポコポッテイト(Poco Potteito)

ポコポッテイト(Poco Potteito) is one of Elodie's favorite Japanese TV shows. I've tried to get her to switch over to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sesame Street, and even the Wiggles, but she still prefers the Japanese shows.

Large stuffed animals of the characters of Poco Potteito were displayed at the Sapporo Snow Festival. Elodie was SO excited!

Below is a quick 30-second youtube video of the beginning song on the show, so you can get a quick glimpse of what it's about. I'm pretty sure it's about these characters living on a small potato island... but who really knows since I don't understand a word of it!

The children's shows here are cute, and I'm glad E enjoys them, but it bothers me that I'm letting her watch something that I can't understand. It also worries me for when we move back to the U.S. because they won't be available anymore, so I don't want her to get too attached. A couple friends and family have suggested other U.S. shows that E might like, so we'll give those a try and hope she's interested. We're going back to MI at the end of February for a month, so I guess that will be a good way to test out new shows.

Sapporo Snow Festival

After a 3-hour bus ride back to Sapporo from Niseko, we finally arrived around 6pm. After quickly checking into our rooms, we headed straight over to Sapporo Brewery. They have a variety of restaurants, but we went to the one that specializes in Hokkaido's original barbecued lamb/mutton and crab. We decided on the all-you-can-eat BBQ, and WOW was that a good choice - it was fantastic! I wasn't a huge fan of the lamb, but I ate my way through numerous plates of crab. Unfortunately I couldn't have a beer, but Joe and the rest of the guys who participated in the all-you-can-drink Sapporo beer would vouch that it was also good. Obviously no Bells or Pyramid microbrews, but Sapporo is Joe's favorite Japanese beer, so he enjoyed it nonetheless.

The next morning we headed out for a day of sight-seeing at the Sapporo Snow Festival. This year marked the 64th annual festival! It had 216 beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures, which were all very impressive.

Among the snow sculptures, there were 126 total: 5 large, 6 medium, and 115 small. The large snow sculptures were over 50-ft tall! The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force personnel and the local Sapporo citizens come together and work on the sculptures.

Here is just a sample of the many sculptures that we saw.

There's even an international snow sculpture contest, and 11 teams from around the world participate. Ironically, Joe's friend and co-worker knows one of the American team members, so Joe was able to chat with him and get the scoop on the sculptures. We were there in the beginning of the festival, so each country was just beginning to start their piece. I wonder how they all turned out, and which country won...?

Ok, I just looked at the Sapporo Snow Festival website, and it looks like Thailand won with an incredible elephant sculpture! You can see it here. Nicole, you will love this! And actually, I have a "before" picture from when we were there and the team was just starting the project. If you look closely, you can see the tiny elephant figure that they were using as their model on the very top of the snow mound (right next to the man standing on the left). Do you see it? I find it amazing that people can create these beautiful sculptures just from using a tiny figure as a model, truly a work of art. You should be able to see the sculptures from all 11 countries in the link above.

We took an afternoon break to stop for lunch and eat Sapporo's famous miso ramen. Our group took up the entire counter space in this small restaurant. We ordered the chef's recommendation, "butter corn miso ramen." All 10 of us ordered the same thing. A perfect, satisfying meal on a bone-chilling Sapporo winter day.

Do you see the chunk of butter they put in there?! They weren't kidding around.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon looking at the ice sculptures. Large and small sculptures line the city center, and they were stunning - so much detail in each one. You can touch some of the sculptures, or sit on them to take a photo. There was even an "Ice Bar" where you could get a hot drink. They were certainly impressive, but not quite as impressive as the giant snow sculptures, in my opinion. Below are a few of my favorites.

After seeing the ice sculptures, we headed back to our hotel to rest and warm-up. Then later in the evening once the sun set, we went back out to see the snow sculptures lite up. Some of the large sculptures also had animated shows displayed on them coordinated with music - it was pretty incredible. Despite spending the entire day outside, it being late out, and freezing cold, Elodie really loved this part! The lights, music, and shows were not only entertaining, but just beautiful to look at.

You can see all of our photos on Shutterfly in our Niseko & Sapporo Snow Festival album.

This trip has been on our Japan travel list since we first arrived here 3 years ago. But it's expensive to go, and the timing just never seemed to work out. Luckily our good friend Yumi, the only Japanese person in our group to go, organized the entire trip for us. With this being our last year here in Japan, it was now or never. Plus, you really can't give up a trip in a foreign country that's organized by a native person - we didn't have to put any thought or planning into the trip at all. It was seriously the perfect Japanese vacation. Thank you Yumi for all your hard-work in organizing this incredible trip. We all had a great time!

Niseko

We went on a 6-day, 5-night trip to Hokkaido, in Northern Japan, for some awesome skiing and to see the famous Sapporo Snow Festival. We went with a group of friends, which made the experience even more fun.

After a 2 hour flight from Nagoya to Sapporo, we had to take a 3 hour bus ride to Niseko for the skiing portion of our trip. I was nervous about this part: Elodie and I on a bus, winding through the mountains on narrow roads, leads to some serious car sickness. But it ended up being just fine. We stayed in Niseko for the first 3 and a half days of our trip.

My first impression of Niseko was - whoa, are we still in Japan? It felt like we were in a mountain town in the U.S. rather than Japan. The town was completely Westernized and everything was in English. I hardly even saw any Japanese people there, it was almost all Australians. It was an interesting feeling taking a vacation in Japan, but yet feeling like I was somewhere back home... or anywhere but Japan for that matter.

The skiing started off rough, but ended up being fantastic. The first day, it rained in the morning. This turned into ice, which made for some crappy ski conditions. It eventually turned into snow after a couple of hours, and then didn't stop for the remainder of our trip. But it was so windy the first couple of days that the air was blowing all of the fresh snow everywhere - leaving the ice underneath for us to ski on. The high wind conditions also closed all of the top lifts, so we weren't able to visit any other parts of the mountain (you have to either take a bus to other parts, or go all the way to the top to ski over to other resorts).

Luckily, the third day was awesome. Feet of fresh snow, no wind, amazing conditions, with all the top lifts open. This day made the trip worth it.

You can see in the map above that there are 4 different resorts or sections of the mountain. It's seriously huge. So you can see why we were a little disappointed that the top lifts were closed the first couple of days. There wasn't any other way to get over to different parts other than to take a bus, and we didn't feel that was worth our time. Luckily, we were in the middle section, which I think is the best part of the mountain. Below is a picture of Joe and I going up the very top lift on the last day, thanks Sarah.

We stayed in a Japanese-style room, which ended up being perfect for us. I don't usually like to sleep on futon mats on the floor because they are typically pretty thin and therefore you might as well just be sleeping on the hard floor. But what I've learned is that the beds in Japan are just as hard, so you might as well sleep on the floor anyway. No beds in the room made extra space for E to play, and then we didn't have to worry about her sleeping conditions, since she also slept on a futon mat on the floor. It worked out perfectly.

It was also E's first experience in daycare. We put her in daycare for all 3 days that we skied. All in all, it went really well. She didn't particularly like us to leave her, but she got over it and did just fine. I'm glad the resort offered a daycare facility, otherwise Joe and I would have had to take turns skiing... and that's just not fun.

A great ski trip, with wonderful friends, on a beautiful mountain.

I'll write about the Sapporo Snow Festival in my next post. It was amazing.