Japan Week 19

December 10- 16, 2009

Happy Hanukkah!!! Hanukkah began at sundown on Friday night, which for us is about 4pm! On Friday we had a small Hanukkah celebration with Genevieve and Eric's parents... unfortunately their attendance was via Skype (and even more unfortunately for them, it was the middle of the night) but we had a lot of fun!! We taught Genny all about Hanukkah which of course led to lots of basic info on Judaism in general... I hope we didn't bore her, but it's fun to talk about all of the things I have been learning. As expected, we were unable to buy a menorah here in Japan so we made one ourselves of a small piece of wood, and 9 bolts. It's nothing fancy, but it serves its purpose and it sure is unique.

Every year, including the year his parents were pregnant (85) , Eric has gotten a Hess collectors Truck for Hanukkah. For those of you who don't know, much like I didn't until I met Eric, the Hess trucks are released annually the week before Thanksgiving and are sold in the Hess Truck Stops all along the East coast. In order to keep the tradition alive when the Malloff's moved to AZ in 2004, Glenn's good friend Joe has faithfully mailed one to them every year, even this year!! Glenn and Patti opened it on Skype and showed us all of the fun features, including lights and sounds. This year that it was not an actual truck... this year it was a race car, and inside of the race car, was a second race car!


After lighting the menorah and chatting with Glenn and Patti we started cooking!! We had Matzo Ball Soup and Potato Latkes! It was the first time I had ever made Latkes and only the 2nd time I had eaten them, so I was a little worried about how they would turn out, but they came out quite good!! We also enjoyed some Hanukkah crafts! Glenn and Patti mailed us a window cling making kit. We used a special paint and traced some designs on a piece of plastic and after the paint dried, we peeled it off and placed it on the window! Now we have a really festive window! And, of course, we taught Genevieve how to play Dreidel!

We spent the majority of the weekend snuggled up inside watching movies! It is very cold out, but since we don't have any snow sticking yet, the winter sports have yet to begin. In fact it's so cold outside that I hung the laundry up to dry, and it froze.... onto drying all of the laundry indoors, without a dryer. Thank goodness for dehumidifiers.

On Saturday we did our holiday shopping! We went to Gosh together and split up inside the mall and conquered all of our shopping for each other! It was so fun to finally get to buy Eric lots of presents!! I hope he likes them all :)We also made holiday cookies, the top one is a Menorah (or it's supposed to be anyway), and the bottom one represents a very dear friend of mine... my 1/2 mouthed 'White Bear'.

One of the presents that Eric gave me for Hanukkah was a CD of Christmas Carols that are sung in Japanese!!! Talk about a multi-cultural gift. It is a lot of fun to listen to, I have started to memorize Jingle Bells so now I can sing along in the right language! If you have skype, I can play it for you online if you are interested in hearing it!

On Sunday we were both craving a taste of home and we have read about a restaurant in Hirosaki called El Jalepeno!! And yes, it is supposed to be decent Mexican food in Northern Japan. Eric stumbled across a review of it online, and I had actually seen the sign for it in passing before, I guess I never dreamed it could actually be a mexican restaurant so I never checked. We tried to go with our couch surfer after he expressed his love of taco's to us, but it was closed :( We drove to Hirosaki on Sunday just for Mexican food, and again it was closed. It is on the 2nd floor of a building and in the past the outside door was locked, so tonight when we saw the door open we sure were excited. Unfortunately when we got upstairs there was a sign that said "Hasta La Vista" and then some Japanese, and then something about April 30th, so we aren't sure if they are closed until then (places close for the entire winter here) or if they closed as of then :( We were quite sad, but we decided that the night shouldn't be a total loss and we went out for Italian food! It was actually really good! I had Eggplant Parmisean and Minestrone Soup and Eric had a pizza and a croquet and we shared Garlic Bread that was truly delicious! Although it was more of a taste of Italy... it still reminded us of home!

Come Monday we were getting pretty anxious for the snow to arrive. Ski season was supposed to begin over the weekend but there was not nearly enough snow, in fact the ski runs were starting to look a little brown :( All I could think about Monday was how badly I wanted it to snow. As I headed off to the grocery store I was thinking about how blistering cold it was and that it didn't make much sense that there was no snow.... And, as I walked out of the grocery store I noticed something pecuiliar... everything was covered in snow!!! It must have started right after I got inside, it was the heaviest snow fall I have ever seen, I was jumping up and down (with bags full of groceries) in excitement. Meanwhile, my fellow grocery shoppers stared at me and laughed. I think I'm a little more excited about the snow then they are. I drove home at the same time the elementary and Jr. High students were walking home, I think they shared equally in my excitement as they were making frequent stops for snowball fights! For the past 3 days it has snowed every day and every night, on and off. The ski resort should be opening on Thursday!!
By sundown, the snow was constant, and absolutely beautiful. We were watching a movie and heard the joyous sounds of snow crashing into the window so we got up to check!
I was so ecstatic about the snow I just had to be in it!! I ran out onto the patio for a quick photo op, did I mention I was barefoot?? And by morning we truly had a white winter wonderland :)

As a close to week 19 in Japan, we drove our dearest Genevieve to Hirosaki to meet her chariot (aka a greyhound that she will ride in the night for 9 very long hours) to whisk her off to Tokyo, as the start of her journey home to celebrate the holidays with family. We decided to make it more than just a long, cold drive... but rather a fun last night out in 2009 with Genny. So, we had a family Pizza Hut car date :) It was delicious (and overpriced) as always, but it really did the trick. After our funtastic dinner, we were left wondering what to do for another hour or so before we abonded Genny at the bus stop, and as it was 10pm on a Wednesday night in the bustling city of Hirosaki, our options were of course endless (joking of course)! Fortunately Genevieve thought of Lemon, a Jazz "bar" we have visited with her before so went by, and they were open! Not only were they open at that late hour, they had live music as well, which is not typical of a week night. The owner contemplated allowing us in for a moment, we thought because she might have already closed, but we were given a warm welcome. We then noticed that the 4 people inside all had identical, and fancy, meals. A few minutes later, we realized we had a crashed private, after hours, birthday party for a particularly jolly man. Although we felt horrible about crashing the party, he sure seemed excited that we were there, he even offered us the food that remained on his plate, and when we explain that we had just eaten dinner, he sent his wife to the car and much to our surprise.... she brought us a big bag of apples. We crashed his party, and he gave us presents :) Welcome to the hospitality of small towns in Japan :) It was a great final note for Genny as she heads home to relish in the joys of a luxurious American Christmas. And it was a great close to our 'teenage' weeks in Japan. Now, it's onto week 20!