Grandma Wiebe visits Japan!

CELEBRATING GRANDMA WIEBE DAY--with a Japanese twist!

Chicken Pilough in rice cooker on right.
In the middle of the table is the fish-finger-jello-stuff.

Yesterday was Grandma Wiebe Day--a holiday invented by my siblings and I to commemorate our great grandmother.  Our mom talked about her so much that we finally decided she should have her own holiday.  On Grandma Wiebe Day (January 23), we always eat Chicken Pilough (More With Less Cookbook p. 184) and try to throw dishwater on someone coming up to the house.  My great grandmother always threw her dishwater out the door and one night hit an unsuspecting neighbor coming to visit!  The Chicken Pilough recipe is from the Great Trek, which Grandma Weibe was on.  That group of Mennonites lived in Prussia for a time and I think that is where they got the recipe.  To make Pilough in Japan meant searching for raisins in the grocery store and figuring out the correct rice to liquid ratio to make it with Japanese rice in the rice cooker.  Yeah!--it worked.  Anna added her own Japanese addition to the meal--a 3x5 inch grey speckled block the consistency of finger jello that had a savory, fish smell/taste.  You dipped it in soy sauce.  Blech!--I tried it. . .We decided to forgo the dishwater tradition since Anna lives in an apartment and we did not want to make ice in the stairwell.

Jess, Anna, and Annie

Another recipe Anna wanted us to make from home was ground beef stroganoff.  I could not find sour cream at the grocery store after looking long and hard.  Anna found it on her way home and got two little 1/2 cup containers for about $5.00!  When we used it in the stroganoff, it was super thick and creamy--almost the consistency of cream cheese.  That was some REALLY CREAMY stroganoff!  Anna invited her friend, Annie, over for that meal.  Annie is a quiet girl who is a JET from England. It was fun to get to know her a little bit.  She teaches at a middle school.  She was one of the girls that Anna helped renew her faith in Jesus.

KOKSAI JOUHOU KOUKOU (Anna's high school)
On Monday, Jess and I took the bus to Anna's high school. Anna showed us the teacher's room, where there are 80 desks for the teachers.  Anna spends her day there when she is not helping with a class.

Some of Anna's students

She had us introduce ourselves to one of her classes.  I tried the Japanese introduction I had been working on--"Hajime mashite Naome des. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." (I said my name and the greeting you give when you meet someone the first time).  She had the students ask us questions.  One boy, an exchange student from Italy asked, "Why do Americans think owning a gun means freedom?" and a Japanese boy asked about how dangerous it was in America compared to Japan. Then he asked for advice for traveling in America.  Anna broke the students up into small groups and had Jess and I each in a small group.  This was my favorite part!  We worked with the students to come up with the top 10 world events for 2012. Then we had time for conversation in our group.  I asked them what they ate for breakfast.  Two girls in my group ate scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, and the other two had a traditional Japanese breakfast (rice, fish, and maybe seaweed).  One of the girls in my group crochets--she was so cute!  On the way home a group of deaf students got on the bus.  There is a school for deaf children near Anna's apartment.

TAKING THE SUBWAY TO DOWNTOWN SAPPORO

Our lunch at the mall near Sapporo Station

Jess and I took the subway by ourselves to downtown Sapporo Wednesday.  It was a nice sunny day and the warmest we have seen. We got to the station just fine.  We set out to find the tourist information desk with the goal of finding out how to get a bus to a zoo 3 hours away.  After feeling like we went in many different directions, we found the bus tour desk and the bus terminal.  The lady at the desk did not speak English so we got stuck.  (Later that evening, Anna told us her supervisor had found a less expensive bus to the zoo and would order the tickets for us).  After that almost fruitless endeavor, we found a food court in the huge mall. There were lots of little food stands to get many different kinds of cold food.  We got chicken, pork, and chicken livers on a stick.  I did NOT intend to get chicken livers--I thought they were beef!  We also got some Japanese style pickled cucumbers.

After lunch, we went to a bookstore that foreign books and Jess found a gift for Wren--"Goodnight Moon" in Japanese Hirigana!

The pool where I swim twice a week

INTERESTING THINGS WE HAVE SEEN THIS WEEK
--school children skiing down slopes on their playground.
--heavy duty graters that grind up the piles of snow on and beside the roads at night.  The snow is loaded into trucks and hauled to snow dumps.
--cute little kids in colorful snowsuits playing in the snow at the deaf school
--men using ice picks to break up the thick layer of snow on sidewalks outside businesses (they do not use salt here)
--school children sitting on their heels in rows outside on the playground while their teaches give instructions

Anna apartment building.
Her apartment is on the second floor to the right of the front door