Just When You Think You've Seen Everything, You See Something Else

Koi at Ofuna Botanical Garden

I have never had to remove my shoes when passing through security at Tokyo's Narita Airport and, until today, had never seen anyone else remove their shoes either.

The Ancient Mariner and I were loitering near the security gate doing our best to embarrass College Boy when we saw a young female guard approach two comely young Asian girls in his line. Both were fashionably dressed in short skirts and tall boots. The guard solemnly presented a pair of slippers to each of these girls. They changed footwear and padded compliantly through the metal detector.

Ah, the civility!

United Airlines gets a thumbs up as well for not charging Matt $200 for his overweight suitcase. The counter clerk waived the fee and wished him a happy new year, thereby changing one teenager's opinion of the airline that extracted $400 from him at the Norfolk Airport when he was returning to Japan from college last summer.

When I was his age, I hadn't flown enough to have opinions about airlines. I also didn't have $400 in my pocket. More like $4 on a flush day.

The Year of the Dragon, Day Two

The Year of the Dragon is off to a rather inauspicious start. The camera has not yet surfaced. What? Me worry? Not until I work my way through a backlog of pictures I've been meaning to share. Surely the camera is somewhere under all the Christmas debris that I fully intend to tackle once we get back from escorting College Boy to the airport tomorrow.  Or maybe I left it at the Indian restaurant in Hayama last week in which case it won't take a lot of arm-twisting to convince the Ancient Mariner to make a return visit.

While I can't speak for College Boy (more's the pity), I imagine he'll be feeling terribly sad when he boards that airplane and leaves Japan for what could very well be the last time.  We will have moved back to the States by the time his school year ends.  When will he see his girlfriend again?  This is definitely the downside of living overseas during high school.  "You can never go home again" takes on a whole new meaning.

Now for some pictures.  I snapped these in early December when we went to the Ikebana International Holiday Bazaar in Tokyo.  The first is one of those rare arrangements to earn an "I could do that!" response from me.  The fences bordering two sides of our Norfolk house are covered with vines that I am forever hacking into shape.  Sticking the debris in a vase would probably be a lot easier than wrestling it into a lawn and garden bag. 

We saw this sign over the restroom door in a subway station near Shiba Park. It cracked me up. Go figure.

Lucky Bags: A New Year's Day Tradition

More than a hundred years ago, in the late Meiji period, a Tokyo department store came up with the brilliant idea of bagging up their excess merchandise from the previous year and selling those "mystery bags" to customers for deep discounts on New Year's Day.  The idea caught on with other merchants and these days fukubukuro (lucky bag, mystery bag) are more often filled with new products than last year's leftovers.

Fukubukuro come at a variety of different prices. Most bags we eyed today went for $20 or $30 but I also spotted some tempting $100 bags stuffed with yarn at the craft store, all the more tempting because the bags were clear.

We opted to fork over $30 to a pair of charming young clerks manning a table outside the new Tully's coffee shop on Blue Street.  Their fukubukuro was packaged in a nice zippered case rather than the usual paper or plastic bag and the case alone seemed like a pretty good investment.  The cases were available in two colors, pink and grey, and I had my hand on a pink one until the Ancient Mariner suggested a grey one would make a nice "man-purse".

When I remember where I put my camera, I'll snap off a few photos of the case and its contents:  five coupons for free coffee, a 5-pound bag of Guatemalan coffee, six instant drip coffee packets, a Year of the Dragon ceramic mug, and an airtight humidor for storing coffee.

If the Ancient Mariner hadn't been with me, I definitely would have carried home one or two of those yarn fukubukuro too.  I'm counting the hours until he goes back to work.

A Snippy Dragon, a Semi-Braided Wreath, and a Melancholy Mother

We finished our kimekomi dragons yesterday. Fearless offered her house and I offered to help with the food. She was making her yummy curry soup and thought a Pampered Chef braid in the shape of a wreath or candy cane would make a nice entree. "Consider it done!" said I, failing to mention that I had never before attempted to braid refrigerated dinner rolls.

The finished product looked about as professional as the Blonde Wonder's hair the time she asked me to fashion it into a French braid. Few things are as simple as they look in books.

Peevish earns an A for effort and a D for execution

Matsuzaki-san emitted a little groan of pleasure as she swallowed her first bite and most of us went back for seconds. I'll give this recipe another try when I am feeling very patient.

We spent eight hours completing our dragons. I skipped off to the beauty parlor for two hours in mid-afternoon, hoping the teacher would present me with a finished dragon upon my return. That didn't happen but at least I got to use my little scissors to snip fabric this time around. That's why I'm calling my dragon Snippy. You probably thought it was for an entirely different reason.

My Japanese book club ladies are coming tomorrow to chat about a book set in World War II. Then the Ancient Mariner and I are going to fill three suitcases with Christmas and wedding presents and a fourth suitcase with clothes and toiletries. We are heading to Dallas bright and early Thursday morning to find a Mother of the Groom dress before we witness the union of James and Emily on Sunday evening.

This is an exciting, bittersweet time. The little desk I am sitting at as I write this is covered with initials carved by English school children fifty or so years ago. I bought this desk for James when he was ten years old. Down near my left knee, there's a more recent inscription: James wuz here.

Yes, he wuz. But not for nearly long enough.

Holiday Inspirations from Sweden and Italy

Today I am supposed to finish that kimekomi dragon, get my hair in wedding mode, and try to remember the names of all my relatives so I can label their gifts before I see them next weekend, but I just can't concentrate until I wrap up the Yamate holiday home tour.

The Ehrismann house (he was Austrian) is decorated in the style of Sweden this year. The dining room is heaped with boxes numbered from 1 to 24. I almost wish I'd been born in Sweden. I wonder what the average size of a Swedish family is. I wonder how many gifts my parents would have had to buy to let each of their six children open a box every day in December.  I have a hard time multiplying 24 by six in my head so I get on with admiring the decorations.

The sunporch is festooned with pennants. Last week I volunteered to sew something like this for the JAW Superbowl party at the end of January so I snap dozens of pictures.

The living room couch and chair are decorated to look like holiday gifts.

Some of those numbered gifts are the dining room centerpiece

The primitive dining room table appeals to me. There are glass-covered insets scattered around the table; some are filled with candy and others with cookies. Highly impractical, I know. Seriously. I know from experience how many crumbs of crackers and how many ounces of spilled milk can collect in those cracks.

"A marshmallow wreath?"

"The coordinator of this house must be related to the coordinator of the French house."

"I'm getting hungry.  Let's hit the duplex and then head to Chinatown for lunch."

Thanks to a couple of Pinocchios and a table scattered with bits of Murano glass, we quickly label the duplex "Italy."

Two of us survey the duplex in record time. There really isn't all that much to see here other than dozens of cross-stitched Santas and such on the walls. These remind Peevish of her mother. She lingers. Wallowing in nostalgia is one of her favorite things to do during the holiday season.

A calendar on an easel near the front window on the second floor catches her eye, or maybe what catches her eye is the maple outside the window.



The calendar, upon closer inspection, seems to be a lace sampler of sorts. Peevish takes a picture for her fellow KnitWit, Hannele, a young Navy spouse from Finland who is becoming quite the expert lacemaker.

Will I miss the Yamate holiday tour next year? You bet. But I'll try to incorporate some of these incredible ideas into my own holiday decor.

All I need is a bag of marshmallows.

It Turns Out Estonia and Guatemala Have Much in Common

Berrick Hall was once a school, I believe. That would explain its somewhat utilitarian facade. I can't think of any explanation for the palm tree.

"Good Lord! That decoration suspended from the dining room chandelier must be at least six feet high. Do you think it's made out of popsicle sticks?

"A remark like that does not deserve a response. What country do you think we're in now?"

"My money's on Guatemala.  Come take a closer look at these colorful little disks hanging from the wooden geometric thing."

"Guatemala? Not Honduras or Mexico?"

"Okay, I'll go with a vague 'South America'. What I do I know about Guatemala anyway?"

"Apparently nothing since that docent lady just told me this house has been decorated to represent Estonia."

"Estonia? Where's that?"

"Not in South America, Peevish."

"I bet if we look up Estonia on Wikipedia we'll find that wool is one of their chief exports."

"You might be on to something.  There are a lot of yarn-wrapped wreaths in this house."

"I have been wondering what to do with all my leftover yarn!"

"It seems you'd feel right at home in Estonia. Guatemala, too, for that matter."

Ho, Ho, Ho: I See London, I See . . .

...France!

"How did you guess so quickly?"

"Pink and frilly! Remember, this is not necessarily how a French home would be decorated at Christmastime. It's how a Japanese person imagines Maurice Chevalier's home would look."

"That table's rather 'busy'."

"And really pink. But I love those window treatments!"

"I like the marshmallow tree in this little white room overlooking the garden."

"I like what they did to this long side porch. It seems to have a bird theme of sorts. They used a twiggy wreath on the horizontal and scattered eggshells around it so even Peevish would be able to figure out it's a bird's nest."

"I like how they spaced eight or nine of these simple twig and yarn trees at regular intervals along the window ledge."

"We could make those! They look pretty easy."

"Speak for yourself."