Conference pictures

I've uploaded the pictures I took in Tagajo and Matsushima while at conference. As always, double click on one of the slideshows running at left and it should take you to my Picasa Albums. Click on an album to view the pictures.

OMF East Japan Conference

These are most of us, taken in the parking lot of the hotel in Tagajo where the conference was held. I love it when someone goes to the second floor and sits on the window ledge to get a group shot. No double chins in this picture! (Some of us can use all the help we can get.)

Our annual conference is a great time to see folks who work in the far reaches of our area or who do jobs where our paths don't often cross. We had an afternoon to sight see in the Matsushima area. Did a walking tour of a small island connected by a longish foot bridge with several others. Hit all the souvenir shops, of course and sampled pear ice cream, which in Japan is called La France for reasons I have not yet discovered, and a local specialty - Zunda - which turns out to be chopped, cooked, sweetened edamame. They use it in the same things they do sweet bean paste. It may be an acquired taste.

The Pie Lesson

Today, I had four Japanese women over to my place for a pie lesson. It all started with the apple pie I made for the Christmas dinner last year. One of the people at the party decided it would be great if I would give a lesson on how to make American Apple Pie. It's taken almost 6 months, but we finally did it yesterday. Wouldn't my mother have been amazed that I was teaching women in Japan to do what she taught me as a child?

There are also some pictures of my apartment here on the slide show. None of the kitchen or bath though, maybe later. To view the album with captions with the pictures, double click on the slide show. When your browser takes you to Picasa and my Albums, click on 'Georgia's Apple Dumpling', or view any of the other of my public albums by clicking on them.

Isogashkatta !

I am really busy this week. It's all the part time jobs I do, wanting to be more like full time ones.

Summer weather is definitely on its way and people are shifting to short sleeves a bit before the traditional change-over day of June 1st. Yikes! I need more summer clothes! I was so worried about not being warm enough I don't have enough cool things!

Must run. Rooms to clean, weekly prayer meeting, feed the cat. All sorts.

Middle of May

The first week of May (depending on the days of the week the holidays actually fall) in Japan is called Golden Week. There are 5 holidays and some people are able to take a few more days and add all that to the weekends to get a decent Spring Break. Most offices are closed and most stores are open. This year there was a special deal for those going by car on the major toll roads throughout the country so even more people than usual opted for car trips.

Rather than go somewhere and relax, most Japanese feel that if you go somewhere historic or famous, you need to run around as much as you can and see everything, and of course take pictures.

I went into Tokyo and visited an exhibit of antique Japanese fabrics and crafts one day, and went in the other direction to visit a big craft store for some findings for a bag I was making. Mostly I enjoyed having less people to share the trains with and having a couple days off work.

Now it is the middle of May and small signs of summer are appearing.

Nikko

I went to Nikko this weekend with a couple friends. (Thanks to Ruth we got an excellent deal on travel and hotel.) The really famous thing about Nikko is the shrines and temple on the edge of town. It's a large grouping of buildings and even on a very rainy day there were plenty of people there.

On one of the buildings are carved various scenes including monkeys engaged in different activities. It is one section of this that contains "See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil". If you watch the slideshow or go to the album on Picasa (double click on the slideshow picture) you can easily see that the little carvings or other kinds of replicas we have seen most of our lives look very little like the real thing. What a shame, because in the original the characters have a liveliness and charm missing from the drab carvings I've seen most commonly.

In town I did see a wood carving in the window of an antiques store that was quite different, showing, again three monkeys - realistically carved - a mother covering the eye of one young one, while he in return had his hand on mother's mouth, a second youngster had one of his hands on his own ear. It was darling, well done, and incredibly expensive.

The other buildings in the complex have delicate, intricate carvings, paintings and gildings. Flowers, birds, angry looking elephants carved and painted on many surfaces. Inside the buildings are buddhas and sleeping cats and weeping dragons, priests making offerings. There are repairs and refinishing works going on all around. I'm sure the environment under the dark ancient forest is hard on the wood and metal, not to mention the steady stream of visitors.

Moving right along

The Cherry Blossoms are a thing of the past in Ichikawa. They were fading fast over the weekend and then we had a heavy rain followed by strong wind. So now we are enjoying tulips, primroses, pansies, and seeing the first show of purple on the fuji (wisteria) among many flowering trees and plants. In all the concrete and stone and asphalt and with the buildings unbelievably close (to American eyes) you can usually see some spot of color in it. Small flower boxes sit on front stoops. The tops of stone walls often are lined with plant pots with flowers blooming. It's a colorful time of year here.