Saturday, May 03, 2008

the closest thing to a normal day we have had in way too long.

After an absolutely crazy shopping trip that had to be done (payday weekend and a tent sale on the major base here including an obnoxious DJ blaring unfamiliar pop music, and car salesman and clowns in the aisles - UGH) we returned with just about everything we have been looking for in the previous three days of dragging the kids through Japanese department stores. Two fans, a bath mat, dish drainer,
hangers, laundry baskets, clothesline, etc.
The best part though
- we stopped in at this little yoa-ya (veggie stand) on the side of highway 20 between here and there. I didn't get everything on the list on my one-pass-only-no-turning-back-for-missed-items shopping trip to the commissary on Friday, but I managed to find what was left of the produce part of the list at this tiny little open air market. I brought my own mesh bags which I crocheted from yarn from the 100 yen store - thank you very much - and one grocery bag-bag which I finally made for myself.
Fresh and mostly local - lettuce for 80 yen, a pineapple for 298 yen, 4 okinawa cucumbers (very thin and long), 2 local goya (bitter melon), bag of local tomatoes for 129 yen, kiwi, bag of presliced dehydrated mushrooms (I can't remember what kind - the package was in Japanese except for the phrase 'reasonable and original'), all for less than 1500 yen.
The calm afternoon here at our new house was a definite contrast to the insane shopping trips. The kids played with their new toys, I made a fruit salad which they ate on the tatami with chopsticks. Dinner was light - quasi-chef salad with the local lettuce and tomatoes and cukes, leftover shelled edamame and some deli cheese, egg salad made with local Japanese eggs - 8 to a package, not 12 - and served on Japanese deli rolls, something like honey wheat. It was a successful mix of American menu with local groceries.
SO after dinner, the kids worked in their origami book they got today, while
Tim and I sewed curtains for the shower room. There is a HUGE window in there- foggy, but HUGE. The owner of the house stopped by the first day we were here to check on us and he 'recommended' we get a curtain for that - right away. Every window in the house has the runners and rings for pleated drapes. We found the clips to adapt regular curtains - or in our case fabric lengths, left the factory edge as is and hemmed the ends.
See picture.
The fabric was pricey, 780 yen per meter, and we needed 4 meters, and 398
yen each for 2 packs of 12 clips.
Still it was better than anything we had seen ready made.
Still need curtains for our room, and the kids room, but the downstairs is pretty much covered.
Our tatami room has built in shoji, paper screens that slide out of the way.
Tim brought sashimi from our local Union, Japanese market, just two blocks away, and he's cooking
us some ribeyes to go with it. i know, i know...

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