It's rainy season in Tokyo...

...and this year it's been so dry I've not even had a good reason to wear my new rain boots yet. I've heard that we're now into the second week of rainy season, but we've only had two days of rain. Students tell me that during the usual rainy season it rains every day for two or three weeks, but this June there has been unseasonably warm and dry weather. We've got all of the humidity and none of the rain; during the day, humidity hovers at about 70-80% and temperatures about 85°F. Pretty nice blue skies though. I took the picture just this morning from my balcony. (Also note-worthy: my neighbor's new pink paint job...)

Fuji-san ni ikimashita

Yesterday I went on my long-awaited trip to Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, the weather forecast wasn't as accurate as I'd hoped. It turned out that the mountain--which is so large it can sometimes be seen 60 miles away in Tokyo--was so completely covered in clouds that you couldn't see it from the city at its base. I had a walk around the town for a few hours and got to see one of the nearby lakes, so it wasn't altogether a disappointment. Here are a couple of pictures:



Photos:

• Left: a view of the mountains across Kawaguchi-ko (Lake Kawaguchi)
• Right: somewhere behind those clouds is the biggest mountain in Japan. If you look very closely on the right side of the photo, just between the train cables and the rooftops, you can see a little bit of snow on the side of the mountain. The darker color that runs across the entire photo, immediately above the houses, is the base of the mountain. That's about as much as I saw all afternoon.

Family Visit, part 3

Here are a few more pics from my family's visit a couple weeks ago:





Photos:

• Top left: though the Imperial Palace in Tokyo is only open to the public on two days each year, we could still see a little bit from across the moat.
• Top right: the next day, my sister and I went to Nikko (my first trip out of the city!). This is a picture of rice fields as viewed from the train on the way there.
• Middle left: this is a picture you'll be hard pressed to find elsewhere. I took it in the "No photos" area of a temple when we we the only people around...I just couldn't resist. But I also forgot to turn off the flash on my camera, so when the flash reflected off all that gold, let's just say we made a quick exit.
• Middle right: at the entrance to Nikko's Toshogu Shrine. If you want to see more of Nikko, use this link--they've published the whole guidebook online.
• Bottom left: the world famous "Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil" monkeys actually come from this carving on the Imperial Stable at Toshogu Shrine.
• Bottom right: the sunset over the mountains, as seen from the train on the way home.

Family Visit, part 2

More pictures from the family visit:




Photos:

• Top left: my dad and my sister in Kamakura
• Top right: only in Japan will you find a "Cup Ramen" game at an amusement park
• Bottom left: a view of Tokyo to the north from the top of Tokyo Tower. In the distance you can see a group of skyscrapers in Shinjuku, which is where the next picture was taken later that night.
• Bottom right: a view of Tokyo to the west (I think) from the 51st floor of the Sumitomo Building in Shinjuku.

Family Visit, part 1

My family's here this week for a quick visit, and I am so excited to see them! Here are a few pics of what we've been up to for the last couple days:

























Photos:

• Top left: Asakusa Kannon-do Temple, right before the lightning storm.
• Top right: painting on the ceiling of the temple
• Middle left: Torii outside Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park. You can see my parents at the base of one of the posts.
• Middle right: even though we'd had lightning and thunder earlier in the morning, the sun came out for a while in the afternoon while we were at Meiji Shrine.
• Bottom left: We went to Tokyo DisneySea today and arrived just in time to see the parade for the Spring Carnival. Nice stilts...
• Bottom right: no smoking sign outside one of the "Little Mermaid"-themed roller coasters.

A second night at cooking school

This week Kim and I went back to cooking school for one more project before the classes get too expensive to afford... This time we made Cafe au lait Bread.

Photos:

• Top left: I made a sculpture with the butter...
• Top right: we got to knead the dough by hand.
• Bottom left: they smelled soooo good when I opened the door to the oven
• Bottom right: finished!

Cooking class in Roppongi

A couple weeks ago, Kim--by chance--found an ad online for a cooking school that just opened up in Tokyo Midtown and teaches classes in both English and Japanese. Since it's a new school in the area, they're giving trial lessons all this month. Just sign up with a partner and pay 500 yen (about $4.50 USD) and you're in! She signed us up last week and tonight we went to the ABC Cooking school in Roppongi and made a Matcha Chiffon Cake (matcha means 'green tea' in Japanese). Here are a few pics of our night:

















Photos:

• Top left: I made the meringue all by myself!
• Top right: that's Kim adding the matcha to the meringue and the egg yolks. Our teacher, Junko, is next to her.
• Bottom left: we did the dishes while our cakes were cooking
• Bottom right: the finished product!!

In a really big effort to get us to enroll in their cooking school, they've offered us another trial lesson--this one will be FREE--next week. We're going to make bread...