Christmas Cookies!!!

My favorite part of Christmas, ever since I can remember, has always been decorating Christmas cookies. Unfortunately here in my house Japan we don't have an oven, so I can't actually make any of the wonderful Christmas shaped cookies from my childhood, but my wonderful mother was kind enough to send me a big ol' box of powdered sugar, so at least I was able to make the buttercream frosting! This year I made up a big batch and had a Christmas cookie making party for my students. It was a big success and here are some of the finished cookies. Enjoy! (Also a little thank you to Justin who gave me some motivation to start posting again!)

Boys' Day

Boys' Day is May 5th, but the stores are already filled with Kintaro and Momotaro dolls, helmets, armor and carp-streamers. My favorite was this doll with an 愛 helmet. I think we'll probably just stick with some small streamers for Rin though, since the helmets etc. cost an arm and a leg.

If you want to learn more about Boy's day check here.

Happy Girls' Day

Today is Girls' Day in Japan when parents of girls decorate their house with a set of beautiful Hina dolls. They are lovely but unfortunately ridiculously expensive. This set here is about $1,105 and it's not even a full set.

We also eat a kind of sweet cracker called hina-arare and drink sweet sake. (It's for kids so it's not real sake.)

PS Be sure to check out the new posts on Let's Signing (Me 'n' Erica's Blog, to the right)

Happy Year of the Tiger!

It's a little early, but Happy New Year to everyone from the whole Kanou family! I hope you all have a grrrrreat new year!

Merry Christmas 2009

Have you been good? Here is Santa-Rin to bring you some Christmas cheer!

'Tis the Season.... to kill!

That's what this Santa seems to being thinking anyway. God what a scary Santa; he's enough to give you nightmares. (Found at the entrance of my local supermarket BTW).

Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately we were too busy to do a Halloween party this year, but we did get Rin dressed up in his little pumpkin suit and here he is!

Happy (belated) Easter!

This Sunday's Easter party was a big success! Ten kids and eleven adults attended and we held an Easter egg hunt, played bingo and decorated eggs. Here are some photos from the big day!


This is Chika, with the clover egg she decorated. Quite a young artist!


These lovely ladies are, from left to right: Chihiro, Yoko and Akiko.
(P.S. If you look closely at the background you can see the puzzle I mentioned a few posts ago!)

Chocomania!!!!

Today is Valentine's Day and you know what that means....

Chocolate, chocolate, and just for the flying heck of it all, a lil' more chocolate. I know a lot of single people like to hate on Valentine's but I never did, even when I was a lonely singleton myself. Who needs a boyfriend when you can console yourself with a 24 pack of Russell Stover chocolate creams, or even better: a Godiva sampler.

I love you Valentine's Day. I love you chocolate. (Second only of course to my wonderful sweet Sho-chan, my shy Baby X, my fantastic family back in the States, and my lovely Rosie).

丑年: Happy Year of the Cow!

Here we are, another year come and gone and it went so quickly! I'm too lazy to do the yearly wrap-up today, but we had a great year in 2008 and are looking forward to an even better one in 2009. Check back later for a longer post.

Anyway here's wishing a happy, healthy and joyful new year to everyone out there!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, 鈴が鳴る！

Nothing really blogworthy has happened recently, but I feel bad about not updating, so here is a picture of the little Christmas tree in the classroom. I went all out with the Christmas decoration again this year. It just makes me feel so happy and festive to be surrounded by glittery ornaments and shiny tinsel garlands.


Also here's a pciture of Sho-chan cutely sleeping while holding my stuffed frog. Doesn't it just make you go "Awwwwww!" Don't tell him I posted this picture here, he might kill me.

It's that time of year again!

Time for Halloween! This year we had two Halloween parties, one in the early afternoon for the kids, and one in the evening for the adults. The attendance at the kids party was great! We had about 15 kids come, along with 3 or 4 parents. And here they are:


Unfortunately many of my adult students were busy, so the turn out was a little low, but we still had a great time. We did bobbing for apples at both parties and it was a huge success! Everyone really got into the spirit and was cheering each other on. Here's my student Masako's daughter Airi with her hard-won prize:


We also did face-painting with the kids and the adults. I was surprised how many of the adults were willing to get their faces painted, but almost everyone was a good sport and joined in the fun. I think my best effort was Chihiro the bunny, her teeth really came out well:


As for our costumes, we were a bit late of the gate on planning this year and ended up going with the old stand-bys: witch and pirate. I think Sho-chan looks awfully cute as a pirate though, don't you agree?

Halloween Curl: OK, so I lied...

I'm actually going to update again right away. Yesterday Sho-chan and I went to the supermarket and we both saw and immediately had to buy the product pictured above.

It's "Curl", a popular corn snack, kind of like Cheetos. What struck me was the jaunty Halloween package. The usual green and yellow color scheme has been replaced with purple and orange and the package is covered with little ghosts and bats and pumpkins. The Curl mascot frog Kerota (Croaky) is even wearing a witch's hat and riding on a broom.

Now what, you ask, is the special Halloween flavor? Is it pumpkin, or perhaps squash? Maybe caramel apple, or Halloween candy?

Nope. It's curry! To be specific, "Western-style" curry. WTF? The special Halloween flavor is curry? God, I love this country!!!

初詣 (Hatsumoude)

Yesterday Sho-chan and Rosie and I went to Hatsumoude (the first shrine visit of the year) at 2 different shrines; Nagata-Jinja in Kobe and Hachiman-Jinja in Sanda. We stayed over his parents house on New Year's Eve with Rosie and we all went to Nagata shrine together at midnight. It was pretty cold, but we had a good time and I got a candy apple. I always LOVE all of the little stalls that are set up around the shrine whenever there's a festival. Candy apples, okonomiyaki, baked potatos, corn-on-the-cob, fried squid, tai-yaki, goldfish-dip, and all the stalls selling multicolored Daruma. It's so festive and exciting you forget how chilly it is!

We took Rosie with us on our second shrine visit, and she was mostly well-behaved, but acted up a little on the way home. She sees other dogs and she just wants to play with them, but she can't. Anyway we had a good time at the second shrine and both Shoichi and I got Dai-kichi (Big Good Luck - the best fortune) for our New Year's fortunes. Yeah!

Goog Afternooner

Happy Year of the Mouse!

In just a few more hours it will officially be the year of the mouse! This was an amazing year for me; my Dad and Julie coming to visit, going to the sumo, TWICE, quitting NOVA, starting up at Yes!, breaking my toe, getting a wonderful dog, seeing my Dad get married and getting married myself! It was quite a topper! Hopefully 2008 will be just as much fun!

Happy New Year to everyone!!!

♪I'm Dreaming of a ☆NUDE☆ Christmas♪

We'll be having a nude Christmas this year at the Kanou house with our "Nude Tree".



Only in Japan.... ha ha ha

Merry Christmaser!

Christmas Kancho

So, the Christmas season is over and New Years is fast approaching. What better way to ring out the holiday season than with a photo of that hole-iest of holiday traditions: the Christmas Kancho! Enjoy!

PS: Tomorrow I'm heading off to Morioka to spend the New Year's holiday the way God intended; freezing my @$$ off!

P.P.S. Check out

Erica's Blog

for more Christmas pic goodness

'Tis the Season

Time to start putting up the old Christmas Decorations arond the house! I wish I could be back home for Christmas and the awesome hard-core decorations that my Mom is sure to be putting up, especially the frickin' excellent nativity scene complete with geese and camels and what-not, but I'll have to content myself with a few smiling Santas and snowmen made out of felt. Oh well...

P.S. Mom if you're reading this please, please, please, please, please, send me some decoration cookies this year! They would make my Christmas!