Birthday/Christmas/Sorry It's Been A While

It was my birthday earlier this month. I had a good birthday. I got a card from my Grandparents that was waiting on me when I got home. So far its been the only card to arrive, but I’m sure more will come in. It was all in all a good birthday. Samantha got me a Takoyaki maker that we have already used. For those that don’t know what a takoyaki is: it’s a ball of dough with a piece of octopus in it. The takoyaki maker is a special pan that has 20 round holes in it so that you cook and flip the takoyaki to make them round. Then you eat the whole thing topped with mayonnaise, sweet sauce, seaweed, and fish flakes. It’s really good and a very stereotypical Osakan food. You can also make mini muffins in it or what we did for dessert was use pancake batter with a bit of banana and dark chocolate in it. The dessert we made in the thing was heavenly. Earlier in the year my parents sent me bike clothes as a gift and they have been great. Though I rarely bike to school anymore I still bike around town for things. My neighbor Stephanie got me a Guinness, which I believe that James Joyce said, Guinness is the, “wine of Ireland.” I can’t say that I disagree. Samantha also got me the great cake you see below.

Also, its been snowing off and on for three days slowly and steadily. To give you an idea how cold it was the shower room had icicles hanging from the ceiling and window frame. The floor had ice on it and the body wash was frozen. Oh and when I got out of my nice warm shower the mat and towel were frozen. Every morning I open the shower room window to look out side and see the weather. . The toothpaste was frozen solid and the body wash was frozen to the window sill. I had to spray it with hot water to be able to use it and even after that it was like rubbing ice on my body. The answer to the question of can toothpaste freeze, yes it can or at least is so cold you can hardly use it. According to Stephanie her olive oil has started to freeze in the mornings.

We are taking a lot of Japanese steps to stay warm. One, I moved our bed into the room next to the living room so we just live in the two. Two, I insulated the big glass doors and windows in the house with bubble wrap. To do this you get sheets of wrap and moisten the windows and then stick it up there. Three, using the kotatsu, which Samantha already posted about. Four, using Japanese style house coats, which are quilted and very, warm. The thing about them is they are most associated with Japanese old folk so we are dressing like Grandparents. Five, stobu are the kerosene heaters for when its the coldest. They call heaters stobu which is Japanese English for stove. They were shocked that we called them heaters and called gasu renji(gas range) stoves.

Play
The video of our performance of a Christmas Carol didn’t turn out. Here are some pictures of it below. We had a great time doing it for people. My favorite group to perform it for was the church. We mixed in Japanese and two of the Church ladies gave a summery of the plot and story that really helped. The crowd got into it and it was just a lot of fun. They were really appreciative of it. The schools liked it to and want us to do a play next year. We are already bouncing around ideas for it. So email me any ideas for it.