Matcha

 I like Japanese green tea, kind of!

It's very bitter, so whenever I drink it, I usually have some kind of Japanese sweet with it. Traditional Japanese sweets are very sweet.  I love Yokan, a jelly like sweet made from red bean paste and agar or Dorayaki, small pancakes with sandwiched together with sweet red bean paste.

The tea or the sweets alone don't work for me; they are at the extreme end of the taste spectrum, very bitter or very sweet. But taken together, they are really nice!

But matcha is something that I have never wanted to try.

Matcha is a finely ground green powder that is made from tea leaves that are grown in the shade. Because all of the leaf is used, it delivers a richer, more concentrated flavor, which is earthy and slightly bitter.

The powder is whisked with hot water to create a frothy drink. Matcha is also used in desserts, ice cream, and cakes. There is even a match latte.

I have shied away from matcha after my first experience with it many years ago when I first came to Japan.

I was in a store that was selling ice cream. There was green ice cream on sale. I assumed it was mint. So I ordered one. Turned out to be matcha ice cream and not a good one at that!

Since that disappointing experience, I've kept away from matcha until now.

The other day I was listening to a podcast, I forgot the name of the doctor I was listening to!! He was talking about the health benefits of matcha, saying that there is some chemical in the matcha that stops the stem cells of breast cancer from growing.  Since I've already had breast cancer, I'm always looking for ways to stop it from coming back. I know that stopping sugar is good, but I'm having a hard time with that at the moment!

It's also rich in L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes relaxation and focus, something I really need! 

So I bought some matcha and have been drinking it for the past few days. It's not as bad as I remember it!

Hot matcha

Today was a latte matcha

 Christopher makes it for me; he doesn't make it too strong which helps.

The podcast was talking about food as medicine, something that I find very interesting.  

I've managed to download a few books on this idea and am going to try and see if I can start to prepare healthier meals without losing taste!

Throw Back Thursday

 I've noticed that some blogs and Facebook groups have different themes on different days. I always like the idea of Throwback Thursday.  A chance to wander down memory lane, so I thought I would add it to my blog! I don't think I'll be doing it every week, but sometimes it's nice to share where we've been!

This first one is about Hannah. 

This is from Christmas 2011. Hannah would have been 9 years old. We had been in the old house for about a year and a half. Our little school had taken off, which meant I was very busy, so the holidays we had were very important to me, a chance to be with my family without the time stress of getting ready for work.

I had the tradition of putting up the Christmas tree at the end of November. A bit early but I always took down before the New Year's holiday!

This was our Christmas tree, this is from a different year, but gives you some idea of what it was like!

Our Big Tree

To get this up meant moving furniture and doing a big clean of the living room. It would take most of the day, and after we would watch a movie together with the first batch of Christmas cookies!

The year that Hannah was nine she helped out with decorating the tree. Once it was up I told her that Santa would be watching closely from now on, so she had to be a very good girl!

Her answer was a classic Hannah answer!  She said, with a very serious face, "I'll try to be good, Mommy, but you know life happens!"

I couldn't believe what she came out with! I actually wrote it in my journal!

This is Hannah with the tree that year!

Hannah with the tree

This was also the year that we took 3 hours to get one photo for the New Year's greeting card!

This was the image we used; the ones above were part of the daftness that day.

The kids were copying this image. I have no idea where this came from!

My kids version

evolution?

This was a great Christmas!

I'm glad that I keep a journal, and that I have a load of photos from these times!  Very precious!!

David

 David always seems to have funny stories!

The other day he climbed on top of the storage building!

David on the roof of the storage building

I asked what he was doing up there. He said he went up to clean out the gutters but found that it was the best place to see the mountains! He was wondering if he could spend time up there reading!

The next day he sent me this photo!

Snake

David said that he was picking up some of the tree limbs that he had cut down. Went to grab one and it slithered away!  

I forgot about the snakes here! Another thing to look out for!

The other day I was telling David that Hannah was having problems with her ears, that they felt blocked. David told me that last year he went to the doctor because he had the same problem. 

The doctor examined David's ears and then tried to explain what was wrong and the course of treatment. David couldn't hear, so he said in Japanese, can you say that again please. The doctor then switched to English, but still speaking in a low voice. David asked again for the doctor to repeat himself, at which point the doctor started to use his phone and Google Translate.  David gave up at that point!!

I have had the opposite problem with doctors, when I can't understand they start shouting at me in Japanese. Doesn't help!

David is shy and doesn't like to be with people, except his family! But he loves taking selfies, he took so many that his phone camera doesn't work! Here are a few.

with Hannah

pulling the same faces as the cats!!

Always pulling faces!

A Bit Of Progress

 Since the end of April, I've been rather sick with a stupid cold.

I think the fact that my seasonal allergies kicked in at the same time really didn't help at all!

The past few weeks, I've had no energy to do anything beyond the very basics. Just making lunch or teaching exhausted me. I tried to clean outside or do more deep cleaning inside, but found it very difficult. 

I really wanted to set up my classroom but everytime I looked at the tatami room I just felt so drained that I couldn't be bothered. 

Tatami room

It doesn't look too bad, but the cats have peed on it. I've tried to keep it clean by cleaning up as soon as possible. But tatami soaks up any liquid.  I thought it would smell very bad but it doesn't.

Today I vacuumed it very well, got into all the corners, and then got Christopher to wipe it over with a damp cloth. Feels a lot fresher.

I wanted to buy some sort of cover, like lino but it would be very expensive as the room is rather large. So I'm going to use the old carpet that I had before. I asked Mikey to put the carpet outside just air it out, I hope tomorrow to put it down. Then get the tables and chairs out of the storage place.

One problem is the air conditioner. 

old air conditioner

This air conditioner was put in when the house was built, 33 years ago. It's never been cleaned! I wasn't going to buy one for this room as it isn't used, but if I'm going to teach in there, I need an air conditioner. 

This morning, I got brave and opened the front. It wasn't that bad. I took out the filters and washed them. Christopher used the vacuum cleaner to get some of the dust out and wiped down what he could. There is a special spray that cleans the deeper part of the machine. I'll have to get some soon. We turned the air conditioner on and it works!  It's old and doesn't have energy energy-saving mode, but it will do until I can make some money.

After all that, I made a nice lunch. Roasted pork chops, vegetables, and gravy!

lunch

I'm not sure what happened, but just as I started to put the lunch out, my energy dropped. David had to finish putting the lunch out.

I'm glad I could get a lot done this morning. I hope by the end of the week to have my classroom set up. My plan is to start teaching from June!  Wish me luck!

It's early evening now. I'm going to rest. I've realised that as I recover, I need to take it easy until my energy levels are stable. I tend to try and make up for the time I haven't been able to do things by doing everything at once. This leads me to getting sick again!  I'm going to try and be more sensible this time. 

Rainy Season

 According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the rainy season has started in southern Kyushu and Shikoku. This is the first time in 62 years that the rainy season has started somewhere other than Okinawa. Also, it's about 2 weeks earlier than usual.

Where we live, in northern Kyushu, the rainy season hasn't started yet!

But last night we had an awful storm, very heavy rain and wind.

In the old house, I never worried about these storms as there were no mountains or rivers nearby. Here we live at the foot of a large mountain.  

There have been a few landslides from this mountain range. I can see that part of the vegetation is stripped away up on the mountain. There were some blue tarps on some areas, those have gone! Moved by workers or washed away?

I think we are far enough down from the mountain, plus there are other buildings between us and the mountain, but it is a worry. 

Japan has a lot of landslides every year! Seventy percent of the country is covered by mountains. The small flat lands are highly developed, as the population has grown villages and towns have started to creep up the mountains, meaning that more and more places have the possibility to be hit by a landslide.

Add to that the weather, a rainy season and typhoons, and ground-altering earthquakes it is inevitable that landslides will occur!

What to do? 

Nothing! Well, not really nothing. I think being aware of the possibility of a disaster is wise!

Have supplies of food and water (and cat food in our case), have a first aid kit, and any medicines that you need at hand. Have a family plan, where to meet up, who to call for help, etc. Keep informed of the possibility of a problem.

My kids say not to worry. If it happens, it happens; worrying is not going to stop the mountain from falling on your head!

So I'm trying to not worry too much!!

This had me scratching my head the other morning!

Alan was staring at the wall.

He sat like this, perfectly still for about an hour. The other cats walked past him but he just didn't move.

I thought it was the resident ghost that he was watching! Turned out to be a big spider that was walking back and forth across the top of the wall. I think I would prefer the ghost!!

Happy

 One question I always start my classes with is "How are you?"

Most kids give the standard answers: "I'm okay," "I'm tired."  Sometimes they reply in Japanese if they have difficulty expressing things in English.

I have a 5th-grade boy who always answers "I'm happy."  No matter how busy he is at school, how bad the weather is, or any other external factor, he is always happy.

During his lesson this week, he told me about his Golden Week holiday. He went somewhere with his family.  It sounded like a nice few days away from the city! He was really smiling as he recalled his holiday. 

This had me thinking about being happy.

Do we lose our ability to just be happy when we get into adulthood?  Are the stresses of paying bills, meeting deadlines and long lists of things that have to be done robbing us of being happy?

Am I happy?

Actually, I'm happier than I thought I would be.  When we lost the old house, I went into tail tailspin of depression. 

In my diary, I wrote that moving to this house was a death sentence. I was that unhappy about being here. But somehow I'm not that unhappy about living here. Are there problems here, yes!! A long list of things that need to be fixed or changed.  Will they be done before the end of the year? Probably not!

Do I have the money I need to do all the things I want to do, plus some left over to do things I would like to do? Again, the answer is no!

So, how can I state that I'm happy?  Because I've realized that happiness has little to do with my surroundings!  I could live in the perfect house, with lots of money, in a vibrant city where I could visit museums or watch musicals, but still be unhappy!

I am choosing to be happy now! Every morning I wake and say to myself, "I'm grateful and I'm happy!"

I can watch my garden grow, scream at the bugs that are starting to crawl everywhere, play with my cats, cook nice meals, and the occasional treat! I have my kids nearby, we can talk and laugh together. 

Does this mean my life is easy? No, there are still challenges! My health is rather bad at the moment, allergies and a cold that seems to be going round and round here!  

We still don't have money, and aren't getting a lot of new students.  

I worry about all sorts of things, but in reality, it's not that bad.

The big question is, why did it take so long to get to this mindset?  

I knew about this, that finding happiness is a choice, but I never put it into practice before now! I guess better late than never!

The full moon the other night made me really happy. I love looking at the night sky. There is very little light pollution here, so the sky is very clear.

These photos were taken in the city, so not so good. 

Moon rising

Beautiful moon

I was going to wait until we got back to take photos, but I realized that it would be a lot later and the moon wouldn't appear so large. 

Now I've written this, I'm wondering what is going to happen to challenge my happiness!

Good News!

 Hannah and I got tickets to see the Les Misérables Arena Tour Concert!

This tour started last year. When I first heard about this concert tour, I thought we would have to go to Osaka or Tokyo, but it's coming to the city nearby. The local run is just 3 days! I didn't think we could get good seats, but we did! 

The only problem is the cost. 

One seat was 19500 yen, about £100.

I know that is crazy, I know our financial situation is not good, but I've been looking forward to this for the past two years! 

When I first read about this concert tour, I really hoped that our financial situation would be a lot better than it is.

But we are still struggling. 

I'm really determined to get new students. Life shouldn't be about just paying the bills or living month to month. 

There are so many things that I want to do. I want to shop without having to worry if there is enough money for next week. I want to see more of Japan, there are many beautiful places I haven't had the chance to go to. I want to help Hannah out more so she doesn't have to work two part-time jobs to pay for her graduate school.  I want to go to musicals with Hannah while we have the chance!  I would love to have this reformed so that it's more livable.

I don't mind working; I actually enjoy teaching. It's just getting students that is the problem at the moment.

I'm looking forward to this concert. I've seen Les Misérables twice, but both times in Japanese. This might be the only chance I'll have to see it in English!

The Japanese production was great. Even though I don't understand all the Japanese, because I know the story and the songs, I could still follow the plot.  

I hope the next good news is that I have new students!!!

Just a cat caught in mid-meow to finish with.

Fred is having a moan!