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JapanTakai!: December 2010
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010. Back in August we were lucky to hang out with these guys at the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud, Bali. This guy was by far our favorite though. Check out his advanced tool usage:. The other day JL and his sister bear went to the monkey onsen in Nagano. They made friends with these guys:. And this little cutie:. And watched this intimate parent/child interaction for a while:. Last night we had tons of fun playing cards with a fellow MN couple. Links to this post. Links...
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JapanTakai!: 3 charming things in our town
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Monday, May 9, 2011. 3 charming things in our town. There's this statue between town hall and the post office. They change his outfits often so that in the winter he's wearing a stocking cap and scarf, for instance. Unfortunately, he's wearing this right now. Older ladies ride around in these funny bikes. They have mitts on the handlebars so their hands don't get cold. Too funny. We love the mossy fountains with fresh mountain spring water (sometimes hot! Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom).
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JapanTakai!: January 2011
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Saturday, January 29, 2011. Fall down 7 times, get up 8. 10 men, 10 colors. Clear sky, cultivate, rainy, reading. The pheasant that keeps its mouth shut is least likely to get shot. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Links to this post. Friday, January 28, 2011. One year in Japan. We've been in Japan a year now! Here - from all over the world and of all different backgrounds. It's nice to have people to talk to that understand our every day life. 3) Nice Japanese people. Not sure how we would ha...
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JapanTakai!: What we'll take away from Japan
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Friday, May 20, 2011. What we'll take away from Japan. Sometimes (mostly in the cold cold winter) we wanted to strangle Japan's little neck. All in all, though she was really good to us. Here are some of the things we'll take away from living in Japan. An appreciation for seasonal food. An appreciation for regional foods. And inago (fried locusts). Our town is known for unagi (eel), which John also had the other night. An appreciation for seasons. An appreciation for sacred spaces and mindful moments.
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JapanTakai!: Eating vegetarian in Osaka
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Friday, January 14, 2011. Eating vegetarian in Osaka. We hardly eat out at all in our town. It's expensive, there's not much for vegetarians and what there is, we've already tried. (By the way, if you're wondering if you can use sushi rice to make risotto, the answer is yes! We made squash risotto with amaretto last night and couldn't even tell it wasn't arborio.). Back to Osaka. We ate Thai food, Indian food, izakaya (Japanese pub) food, street food and food from the combini (convenience store sushi!
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JapanTakai!: John's Guide to Japanese gestures
http://japantakai.blogspot.com/2011/03/johns-guide-to-japanese-gestures.html
Thursday, March 24, 2011. John's Guide to Japanese gestures. Here's John explaining all of the Japanese gestures we've adopted in the last 14 months. This is how you point to yourself - you point to your nose, not your chest. This is how you indicate that you're kidding - wave hand back and forth in front of yourself. To think, now we use this with each other even. This is how you say "no" or "none". Do we even have a gesture for this in the US? Maybe just 2 fingers crossed? April 14, 2011 at 12:52 PM.
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JapanTakai!: Mt. Chogatake
http://japantakai.blogspot.com/2010/11/mt-chogatake.html
Saturday, November 6, 2010. Josie climbed Mt. Chogatake yesterday with a friend. Here's a view from the top:. I had to wake up at 4:30am, it was 4 hours up and 3.5 hours down. Almost the whole way it was snowy/icy and we were the only ones without cramp-ons. I'm super sore today. But here's the thing: It was totally worth it. The Japanese Alps are beautiful! The icing on the cake? If you're not familiar with Japanese snow monkeys, this should give you an idea of their cuteness:. July 22, 2012 at 1:47 PM.
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JapanTakai!: Children's Day
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011. Today is Children's Day in Japan. It's one of the holidays making up Golden Week this week which means no school for us! All the neighbors have hung these carp shaped koinobori flags. It used to be called Boys Day but they changed it to include girls. It's one of those Japanese things that they make seem like it's very traditional and ancient but really was started by the government in 1948. Here are some of the koinobori from around our town. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom).
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JapanTakai!: JapanTakai FAQ and Sayonara
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Monday, May 23, 2011. JapanTakai FAQ and Sayonara. After 16 months in Japan, we are moving back to the USA and will not continue to blog here anymore. We feel we've accomplished our goals for the blog which were: 1) Keep in touch with family and friends 2) Keep a record for ourselves of our time here and 3) Give back to the blogosphere a bit since we were helped by many blogs as we prepared to come here and in our first months. 1 Where does the name of the blog come from? 2 Who wrote the posts? We wonder...
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JapanTakai!: Rice Cooker Chocolate Spice Cake
http://japantakai.blogspot.com/2010/11/rice-cooker-chocolate-spice-cake.html
Friday, November 19, 2010. Rice Cooker Chocolate Spice Cake. I'd been meaning to try this for a while and I'm happy to report - it works! I used this recipe. Looks like a cake, right? It definitely needed something though. Then I remembered a recipe for vegan chocolate ganache. Only I was too lazy to find it at the time and ended up using this one. Plus, I don't have nice pans here and with the teflon coating of the rice cooker pan, the cake flipped right out and the clean up was easy. Me and Joanie Lee.
