Moe and I are enjoying getting our hands dirty combining cooked soybeans with rice-yeast and salt.

Let's make miso!

I've finally decided that it is about time that I contribute to the blog, so that said, here's a post about a Sunday, a couple of weeks ago when Dave and I rolled up our sleeves to make miso; a fermented soy bean paste used to flavour soups and stews in Japanese cooking. Our friends (with the impressive collection of Japanese dolls below) have a family tradition of preparing homemade miso once a year at the end of February, and this year we were lucky enough to be invited to join them. So, after a timely but fun process of mixing, mincing and molding a thick paste of soybeans, rice-yeast, salt and vinegar, the mixture was then put to bed to ferment for 6-12months. By that time, it should have darkened somewhat and developed an alcoholic aroma (nice!).
Hopefully, a year from now we'll be able to sample our miso, and of course (with our humble inexperienced taste buds) give it the thumbs up/down.

This is a dolls festival being taken seriously!

A new post...

Sorry for the long delay but we have been very busy at work this week. We will continue to be VERY busy this week but it should start to ease off next week.
The 3rd of March is Hinamatsuri 雛祭 - Girls day or the dolls festival. It is very important for families with girls. Intricately decorated dolls sets are displayed. We have been given a small set which is incredibly pretty. I will try to put a photo of our set up on the blog sometime soon. The picture you should be able to see on this page now is an impressive display from our friends house (they have a daughter).
Families with boys wait until May 5th for the Boys festival (Tango no sekku) which, unfairly in my opinion, has degenerated into a general childrens festival... If girls get their own day why don't the boys?!

Mein Schloss .... UPDATE!

A long overdue picture of Mein Schloss (the German beerhall we visited a while back)

You can buy some unusual stuff at our local Uniqlo... Get your feminine sweat here!

If you know what I'm talking about it might be useful to you....

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Really great mp3's for people studying japanese

I just found these mp3's. They are great if you want to top up your textbook studies with some real-world examples.
Gambatte!

In Japan they make standing lamps that look just like people.

A vending machine selling tea, juice, vitamin enriched energy drinks, Pepsi.... and beer! Yay!

Valentines day was very expensive this year.

Big!

We saw this wedding taking place in one of the temples. What you can't see is the huge crowd of official photographers and wedding organisers.

Nara is famous for deer. They are a little dangerous. Signs everywhere warn that visitors should be careful when feeding them. In this picture you can see two lookouts. Inside the shop an armed robbery is taking place. When the closest deer saw my camera he stuck his tongue out at me (as shown). It just shows the lawlessness of these evil creatures.

Trip to Nara

Feeling better now.... Woohoo! Work is VERY busy though so this is just a quick one.
Just read an email from a friend I met on my TEFL course. He has a job with Rockstar Games (the makers of GTA). Congratulations!!! Now.... Where's my copy of Liberty City Stories??? ;)

At the weekend we went to Nara. It was once the capital city of Japan and so it has a wealth of interesting temples and monuments. Due to the way blogs are published you will see the pictures before reading this so I hope you like the pics.

O-genki desu ka? Iie, genki ja arimasen.

No updates on the captions. Both of us are feeling very poorly at the moment and trying to cope with work is tough.
When we are fully recovered I'll take the time to post something.

D

Our new year trip to the temple and Kakegawa castle

I have posted some pictures of our excursion yesterday. I need to get ready for work so don't have time to write anything but I'll try to improve on the boring captions this evening.

Kakegawa castle

Kakegawa castle

Kakegawa castle gate