Snacks and a Break from Homework

Quick walk for snacks and a homework break...in the pouring rain. Not surprising here, but definitely enough to use an umbrella for more than just listening to the rain patter on it and having it be fun to carry, which is my normal use for them. I generally like rain to fall on me for a rain walk, but not necessarily for running errands.
Nothing amazing in this post, but here is a photo of some random bits I bought at a Japanese Seven Eleven. The smoked cheese pieces are the same I mentioned the other day. The little candies are the size of Ice Cube chocolate...those who know me well know those are some of my ultimate favorites. I haven't tried this yet to see how they compare.

Food Update

I found CHEESE today that wasn't all that expensive...well, I mean compared to other cheese I have found around here. Still expensive for what I'm accustomed to buying...

Anyway, there are individually wrapped smoked bites of cheese that come packaged as a bunch of them that I found at the Seven Eleven here! I got some for on the hike today. Mmmmm. Tasty! Well, for those who happen to like smoked cheese, like me.

Also I tried the hot cocoa tonight. Much more delicious than the chocolate milk mix by far. Not quite like the dark hot cocoa that I make back in the US, but there is some darker cocoa that I can add in...I plan to try that.

So I will post hike pictures as soon as possible, but it is slow loading photos to this blog, so I'm going to see about posting them a different way and linking. Probably not tonight, though...homework and stuff to do.

Everyday Stuff I Eat

(Edit: Those of you who can read kana and/or kanji will realize that I put some of the packages in the photos upside down. I was in a hurry to make this post and just grabbed a bunch of my food to take pictures. Haha...now it is kind of silly, but hopefully the idea is conveyed.)

I have been asked a few times about what kind of stuff I eat and how it is different or the same.　　I eat other types of foods at restaurants and such, just as most people do, but these are many of the everyday foods that I eat or have bought to try.

Rice, made in the happy rice cooker for which I traded some stuff with a friend, who had got it from a friend. :)









Canned fish and my favorite crackers --- easy and quick.









If you know me at all, you probably already know I'm eating Pocky and Pocky-style stuffs. :) I have been eating this stuff for years, but here there are so many new fun flavors and varieties to try.










And dark chocolate:









Hot cocoa mix and chocolate milk mix -- the chocolate milk mix is weird. I don't think I recommend it. I haven't actually tried the hot cocoa yet, but hoping...









Bread, which I really like, but it is somewhat expensive and the texture and thickness is quite different than most bread in the US. Some people don't care for it, but I do as long as I get whole grain or wheat bread. I do not like the white bread here, but I'm not a huge white bread fan anyway, unless it is hot, fresh homemade white bread. Japanese bread comes in a package with five thick slices in it, no heel pieces, and costs about double what a medium-priced loaf of bread in Washington state costs right now.









Snacks, of course. I'm planning on taking these hiking this weekend.









Lemon drink powder. I love this stuff.









Yogurt, which isn't much different here except that there are flavors such as green tea that I really don't see in the US. I've had strawberry, blueberry, and apple.









Spaghetti, which those of you who can read kana can easily see this says. If you buy sauce it comes in pouches...and tastes sort of like a slightly upgraded version of Spaghettio's sauce. Kinda weird. I have to admit I like my own homemade sauce better.









Cheese is quite expensive here. I don't know if this particular kind is good or not. I bought it to experiment in making a pizza with a friend who has been pretty busy so far, but I also brought some stuff with me from the US to put on the pizza. Anyway, I miss having readily inexpensive access to cheese a lot probably the most of any food. I am quite fond of cheese.









Tofu: Inexpensive protein that goes in almost anything without changing the flavor much.










Mochi, it's a tasty business. Mmmm. Hard to explain if you haven't had it. It's squishy, and delicious.









Milk, juice, and gingerale...yeah, imagine that. Well, Kagome is much less expensive here than in the US -- a happy bonus as I really like that stuff. The gingerale is not the same --- even though it is the same brand I buy in the US, it is not at all the same. Slightly different taste, and unbelievably a slightly different texture...or something. I'm not sure, but it is definitely different!









Random vending machine juices. The kind in the purple can is my favorite drink I've ever had in my life, I think. It has the texture and thickness of half-set Jell-o and tastes lusciously and richly of Concord grapes.









Breakfast cereal. Well, corn flakes, since there isn't much other to choose from that is in what I consider a reasonable price range. Not much cereal here anyway. I would like to try some of the granola I have seen if I can find some at a little better price, or on sale. These come in plain, frosted, and chocolate. Pretty nice texture and flavor for corn flakes --- well, I only got them the other day and have only tried the plain ones, but they were much better than I expected, not being a huge corn flake fan.









Some other snacks that I saved the packages for so I can remember to go get more! The mult-colored crackers I expected to be salty, but they were actually sweet, well, with a bit of salty flavor, but not at all what I thought. I like both of these.









Well, I also eat random fruits, vegetables, noodles, and such, but other than lotus root I don't have any unusual sorts of those things to photograph right at the moment. The rest are things similar to what I use at home such as potatoes, onions, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, green onions and such.

Lotus Root: Delicious!

Ok, so it would have been nice if I had saved some of the cooked ones so I could take a picture, but they were quite tasty!

I wasn't sure I even wanted to eat these things when I first saw them, but after being introduced to them in my cooking class, they have become quite a favorite. When fried, they have somewhat the texture of a fried potato, but not quite. They have a sort of sweet flavor to them, but not like a sweet potato at all. Delicious! Pretty, too.

Edit: Here is a picture of some we fried in the cooking class, but these are done more like potato chip texture. These tonight had more of a texture of fried potatoes rather than chip style, and you could still see their shape a bit better.

Japanese Language Classes

Being a small school and coming from a variety of levels of Japanese language ability, Japanese language classes are separated into three levels.

The beginning class includes those who have one semester or less of Japanese, or who have had none at all. Most of the students here are in that class. I don't know much about it, as I'm not in this one, but the book they use is similar to the one for the middle level, as it is in the same series.

The highest level class has only one person in it. He has lived in Japan at least a couple of years and has attended Japanese schools in the past, as well as lived in China for year studying Chinese and also Korean. I don't know anything about his class other than that he is definitely above the level of the rest of us with his language experience.

The middle level includes those who have Japanese language experience in either classes or by having lived here. I am in this class. The other person in my class has lived here a school year, but that was her first year of learning Japanese, so in most ways she is more comfortable with the language and knows some of the ins and outs of actually speaking of it that I don't know yet. I have more book learning and kanji knowledge than practical usage knowledge. We have some similar grammar knowledge, but we've learned from different books, so she has some grammar and vocabulary that I don't, but it goes the same the other way.
I love my class, as we speak Japanese almost entirely, with perhaps one to five words of English at most during the whole two hours of each class period. I also enjoy having just two of us and a teacher, so it is basically a private lesson with a lot of personal attention to what our specific needs are. I'm not used to hearing the Japanese as much, so I sometimes feel kind of lame, but hey...that's what I'm here for most specifically. I can feel that it's working some, and can only hope that it will continue to improve as I'm here. I spend a little too much time doing homework to be out in the community as much as I'd like, interacting in the language, but that is to be expected while attending a university.

The book we use is is pretty good, having all the Japanese in kana and kanji, having a nice dictionary at the end with book specific words, and having English translations for a good deal of the work, so we can understand if we are learning the grammar and structures correctly. There is an accompanying workbook which allows us to reasonably practice the grammar from the lessons, as well as a CD that can be used to listen to the conversations, vocabulary, and also has listening assignments to complete in the workbook. The book has kind of a cheesy story going on throughout it and occasionally has silly vocabulary words like space alien (宇宙人　　うちゅうじん　　uchyuujin) for those who might NEED that word in their Japanese vocabulary. I'm sure I'll use that a LOT in everyday speech or interacting in the community or business...hahah! The cheesy story is probably the only thing that makes me crazy about this book, but it's not bad, just a bit silly and it does serve as a setting where we can comfortably practice conversations with each other.
An online resource is also available for this book with vocabulary lists (although they are already in the book, itself) but also with a quiz section that gives the words in either kana or kanji, and with other features that I haven't really explored yet.

Buddhist Temple

Today for school, we visited a small Buddhist Temple that appears to be part of someone's home. I wasn't completely sure they lived there, but it is in a residential neighborhood, in a building that looks approximately the same size and general construction as the surrounding houses, and doesn't particularly stand out in any other way other than inside there in one largish section (large for a Japanese home) there is a temple area with Tibetan Buddhist decor and structure.

A garden area out the side door adds greatly to the setting. The place was peaceful and very comfortable. We sat on cushions on the floor as we listened and learned of some of the teachings and history of various sects and styles of Buddhism.

Receiving permission to take some photos, I spent most of our break doing so. Apparently, we were scheduled for a one and half hour session but because of the level of interest of our group, the teacher continued sharing with us for three hours.

Of bugs and creatures

I wish I had pictures of all of them, but I've run across some unusual creatures since being here. Most of them fall in the category of insects or spiders, though I have a also seen an adorable tan weasel that apparently lives around in the greenery by the apartments here. I hope to eventually have a photo of him, as well as of the blue-tailed lizards that live near the driveway.

So, those who know me know that I battle with arachniphobia, though I've gotten a lot better over the last few years. Anyway, the first night when I arrived, I had been awake for about 23 hours already and was quite disoriented at that point, but I sort of woke up again with interest and excitement to see my room here, and somehow just had to unpack everything. I went to dust off the bookshelf and sitting there was a very large, dead spider. Now this was better than it being alive, in my opinion, but the fact that such things had ever walked around in my room was not one of the first things that I wanted to find out, especially since my bed sits right on the floor. Obviously spiders can get pretty much anywhere, anyway, but still...
I was not favorably impressed. I did, however, need to get that thing out of here and I wanted pictures of it for a couple of reasons...I wanted to be able to identify it and I knew I would want to remember being able to adjust to sleeping in a room where such a thing was found a few feet from where I was to get into bed.



I haven't been arachniphobic all my life, in fact I used to like spiders (not necessarily big huge things like that in my ROOM by my BED!) I still find them somewhat fascinating when they are outside where they belong. I've seen a lot of interesting, larger than what I'm used to, spiders around here.





This sign is posted at the top of hill on a fence by a dense forest that is all around this area, as well as the fact that the forest comes down that hill within less than a block of where I live. If I understand the kanji on this correctly, it is saying that bears appear, take notice. I may be off on this, but being as it is a yellow sign with a bear on it and the first one definitely is the kanji for bear and the others represent somewhat what I just said...

It feels a little odd to think of being warned of bears in a city, but I guess it's better than not being warned. Apparently there are boars around here, also. Not sure which I'd rather see.

I look forward to seeing the monkeys that live fairly near here! It seems fun to live near them. I'm rather anxious to get over there before too much longer. Hopefully I'll have some photos to share of them.

Sometimes lizards like to be here in the apartments. Better lizards to take care of excess bugs inside than spiders, in my opinion! This little one was in the doorway of another apartment. I caught it and put it in this small cup to show the size.



I have no idea what this is, but it was on the wall in the hallway one night.
I mentioned in an earlier post the giant praying mantis in the shower room, but as I don't generally take my camera in the shower with me, I sadly don't have a picture of him. I've never seen a mantis that huge. I hope to see one again. A smaller one was on the wall in the hallway, but my photos turned out a bit blurry. I'll post one anyway, and replace it with a better one later if I can. This little guy was kind of cute, so I wish his pictures had turned out better. I think he didn't like the flash so much, though.


I tried to take a photo of something that seemed to be a cross between a bee and a humming bird the other day, but it flew off before I could really get a decent picture of it. I have some photos of the smaller bees around here, but there are some gigantic ones that I would like to photograph if I can, those and the huge dragonflies.

Cooking Class

Edit: I tried labeling the photos, but apparently I still fail at blogging because no matter how well I arrange it in the composition window, when the blog publishes the comments are scattered all over the place. I hope to learn to utilize this correctly soon, and come back and label these. The photos are of tofu being strained, grapes being peeled, konbucha powder, shaping rice, prepped eggplant, frying tofu balls, edamame which is soybeans picked when still green, fried eggplant with shrimp and scallop, and autumn salad with sesame dressing.











So periodically, up to once a week through early December, I get to attend a Japanese cooking class with a very talented lady here in Kyoto. Today's class consisted of various dishes using a kelp powder seasoning call konbucha, which tastes delicious, by the way. I wasn't all that excited when I first heard this is what we were doing and saw the basket of strange looking vegetables, but WOW!!! All the food tasted fabulous!

There were even 2 different kinds of mushrooms that were part of two of the dishes. Not being a mushroom fan, I wondered if I would like those, also, but unlike the mushy texture of some cooked mushrooms I've not enjoyed, these mushrooms had an enjoyable texture and flavor to me.

Random Thoughts and flowers

I'm sure it has been said before, or something like it, but today in a conversation, someone asked me about death and seemed concerned about it.

Even though I have found myself quite depressed over a lot of heavy life situations in my life the last few years, one thing that seems apparent to me is that it is more refreshing to live for one's life than for one's death. This is not an "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die" philosophy, but rather a "live today for that's what you have" belief. Not only live, but live well today, for tomorrow may or may not even be there...whether or not there is something after you die, NOW is still all there is now. I want to make the best of it and find what joy I can in it by sharing joy with others, as this seems to be what makes me happy. At the same time, I plan and hope for things that might happen, also, and in so doing have had many joyful opportunities.

Happiness, for me, comes from doing things for family and friends. I can't be in charge of what they do back to me, only of what I do. It has been harder with the heaviness of heart to do as much as I want to do, but I live with joy when I make one of them smile.

Posting a few more flowers from my neighborhood walks, as I'm not sure what kind of post this really is, but I was full of thought this evening, rather than blogginess.