Hula Progress Report

I’ve been going to hula for four weeks now and let me repeat, it’s harder than it looks. The ladies have been dancing together for a long time and are very good.  They are all helpful and nice, but I can’t help thinking they will soon be tired of this beginner.  The teacher frequently motions for me to get lower when I feel like my knees are as bent as they can be.  Maybe she can’t tell how tall I am in my hula skirt?

There are some basic steps, and a lot of variations on those steps. All of the arm motions have meaning – and there are about a million different motions. Besides the legs and the arms and moving the hips and not moving the shoulders and staying low, you are supposed to be looking a certain way.  I think that’s a long way off for me.  I have to be either looking at the teacher in the mirror or at the feet of the person in front of me.

I can’t figure out if the names of things are Japanese words or maybe Hawaiian words, with Japanese pronunciation?  When I hear “hula” it sounds like “fura”.  One arm motion looks like rain falling and it is called ame – rain in Japanese. Other motions sound like all vowels, so I don’t know what the words are.  The skirts we wear in class are big and poofy, with several rows of elastic in the waist.  I thought they were called “puff” skirts, but when I was looking up hula steps on the internet, I saw the skirt word  is “pa’u”.  Their skirts all stay at hip level.  Mine starts there, but the elastic makes it migrate up to my waist. With six or eight inches of elastic rows, it comes to rest much higher than it should.  I can’t be yanking it down all the time because my hands are making rain or waves or some other motions.  You can just imagine how unlike a hula dancer I look.

The polite way to address someone is by name followed by “san”.  These ladies are all good friends and call each other by a short form of the first name followed by “chan”, like they are little girls. They shyly practice their English with me and say “sugoi” (amazing) when I say any little thing in Japanese. One woman told me I will be good at hula because I am maru! (Maru means round). I am having a good time with this and hope that their patience with me will continue.

The first snow may have been late this year, but it’s been snowing like crazy to catch up.

The car on the far right is ours

The Clothes Dryer

I’ve written before about there not being clothes drying machines here and how we hang our clothes to dry.  It’s been nice to hang things out on our balcony all summer. Clothes dried fast with the dry breezy warm weather.  I held out as long as I could, but this week I’ve had to admit, the outside clothes drying season is over.  It’s been cool and rainy and now snowy. Even clothes left out two days won’t dry. It’s inconvenient to dry things inside because the apartment is so small, but this clothes dryer we purchased at the Big American Store (Cosco) keeps it all somewhat contained. The drying rack folds flat when not in use. 

 

Seeing clothes hung to dry inside is more evidence that winter will soon be here.

Kinro Kansha no Hi

November 23^rd is the National Holiday Kinro Kansha no Hi or Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan.  The purpose of the holiday is to commemorate labor and production and to give one another thanks. Grade school students make drawings and give them as gifts to the local police stations.  The modern holiday was established after World War II in 1948 as a day to mark some of the changes of the postwar constitution of Japan, including fundamental human rights and the expansion of workers’ rights.

 Even though it is a national holiday, Ted is off on a field trip with students today. I’m planning to spend some time stitching today – is that a surprise?  I know, I spend time every day stitching.  I am very grateful to have the opportunity to spend so much time doing what I love.  Here’s what I’ve gotten done on the quilted cat. It's coming along.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

The American Thanksgiving holiday is not celebrated in Japan. This week, Tuesday was Friday at the University.  I did a class on American culture and Thanksgiving. Previously we had talked about food that commonly go together in America: Peanut butter and Jelly, Bacon and Eggs, Turkey and Stuffing, etc.  No one had ever eaten stuffing and thought it strange when I described it, so  I made some in the crock pot before class for them to taste.

They all liked it.

In class, I explained about people traveling to be with family and the holiday events – watching the Macy’s parade and football on television, and the big meal.  I gave them a typical menu for the big dinner from my family and a few recipes, including the stuffing I made.

We had a mini history lesson about the first Thanksgiving and I gave them a Thanksgiving crossword puzzle that wasn’t too difficult.

The vocabulary lesson was a bingo activity.  We had already gone over the words, all having to do with Thanksgiving.  The first time I called out the words, as written on the cards.  After that I gave a description of the word (such as the month of Thanksving – November; the popular bird meat served – Turkey).  I brought buttons to use as markers and gave sticker strips as prizes. The bingo cards came from a website where you can design your own cards. I had some extra cards so they could change for a card that might be luckier if they wanted. I think they liked the vocabulary lesson.

More snow has fallen.  These pictures were taken out the back window.

This is a cross stitch turkey I made in 1989.  It has glass, so getting a picture was a little tricky.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

More Beads on Paper

I finished the beads on the JOY ornament and just have to cut it out.  I’ve also worked a bit more on the quilted cat Mill Hill project. I’d like to finish this and cross it off the unfinished project list, but I don’t know if it will hold my attention long enough to finish it before I work on something else.

Yuki Desu

 

 

 

 

 

Sashiko Bag and Beads on Paper

I made the sashiko panel I recently finished into a bag. The bag fabric is a much darker blue than the sashiko fabric, but I think the simple blue and white print goes well with the sashiko.  (Plus, I wanted to use fabric I had in my stash.) The blue and white print is a bit heavier than quilt fabric, so it gives the bag some body. The sides and the bottom are one piece of fabric, attatched to the front and back.

 

I didn’t have a bag pattern, so it was just kind of trial and error to fit the size of the sashiko panel.  After I made the handles, I realized they were too wide, so I folded them in and stitched them at the top, where a hand will hold the bag.

 

I did all of the sewing together by hand, so I was able to hide the seams inside, where they can’t be seen.  The bag could be reversible, but the purpose is to show the sashiko, so I wouldn’t want to put it to the inside.

 

I’m happy with how it turned out.

Beads on Paper

Alicia, Mikwako and I are working on some ornaments done with beads on perforated paper.

 Alicia is doing a little bear holding some greenery. Miwako is doing a partridge and a pear.  She asked me what that meant.  The 12 Days of Christmas isn’t well known in Japan, like it is in the US.  She changed the brown of the partridge to shades of blue to make the blue bird of happiness. I completed a snowman head and a cardinal at home and started working on another ornament that says JOY.  The patterns for these pieces came from a booklet of ornaments designed by Sam Hawkins and another design by Mill Hill beads.

Second Hand is Good

When Ted first moved here, someone gave him a small refrigerator. He has been wanting to buy a bigger one, but I was reluctant to spend the money to buy a new one when we had one, even though it was small and ugly.  I don’t know if you can read the contact paper on the front of the old one, but it says “Doll Jamaican I’m Dangerous Don’t You Watch My Size”. Ted found a 2011 model at the second hand store for 19,900 yen.  A new model is twice that.  This new-to-us refrigerator is smaller than one in the US, but everything is smaller in Japan.

 

It is quite a bit bigger inside than the old one. The freezer is the drawer on the bottom. Having the refrigerator part on top will make it much easier to get things out.  One thing I found odd is that there are 12 places in the egg tray, but eggs are sold in packages of 10 here, not by the dozen like in the US.

 

The old refrigerator will be moving to Ted’s office.

Ted also bought this slow cooker at the second hand store.  I think he will be trying it out later this week.

 

We put up our gomi Christmas tree to make sure it would all fit together and it did.  There was one loose branch that Ted fixed with a piece of green wire.  Like the refrigerator, it is small, but perfect for our small apartment.

 

I caught this early morning dusting of snow before it melted, but we might get some real snow this week.  Snow is predicted for Tuesday and Thursday this week in Hokkaido.