Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

     Right as we were leaving our apartment for good last week, our farmer friend (the one I mentioned saying good-bye to in the previous post) appeared and gave us a HUGE bag of satoimo. What he thought we'd do with a big bag of potatoes en route to England, I'm not sure, but it was kind of him nonetheless. And we did find time to use them, luckily. Too bad I don't know his name or address in order to thank him. We usually just called him Doc, since he resembled Doc Brown from Back To The Future. Minus the Delorean, unfortunately.
  ...Known by the name of taro root in English, satoimo is a kind of starchy vegetable/potato that is rather slimy once peeled. You can avoid the sliminess by boiling the satoimo first and then getting rid of the resulting gunky water, or I'm told that you can also fry them to form a sort of crust on the outside, thus preventing said sliminess from occurring. Or, you can embrace the sliminess and use it as part of the dish you're making. Which we did when we made this big batch of satoimo/tofu crumbles. It was a really easy recipe and tasted even better after chilling overnight. Yet another Japanese food that I'm going to miss!
 PS This may be the last post for a while, since I'm told that our internet and telephone in England won't be up and running for another couple of weeks. Sigh. Resisting the urge to compare it to Japan's ever-speedy service and keeping fingers crossed that weekS is an exaggeration!

                                       Raw, unpeeled satoimo

       
                                    The cooked product: looks unappetizing, tasted great!

  Our now-former apartment wasn't actually in the country at all, but if you walked to the next street over and started hiking up a hill, this is what you came upon. Such a beautiful area in the middle of housing developments; it's basically a group of plot gardens lining an old road, with the land in these pictures located at the very top, where the road dead-ends. I was hoping to walk up it with Keila one last time before we moved, just to tell the local farmers good-bye, but we were so busy on our last day that I never got the chance to. We did get to tell one farmer who was always working the land behind our place that we were leaving, however. In typical farmer fashion (they were constantly giving me food), he kindly sent us off to Yokohama with a bunch of sato imo (taro root). Now to figure out how to make something with them....

   Well, it's definitely fall here in Japan, as evidenced by the abundance of Mont Blanc-flavored products appearing on shelves recently. The latest I found is Gateau du Mont-Blanc Kit Kats. They're a bit pricier than the usual pack, but you get 6 minis to a box so I guess it justifies the rate hike. We tried them after lunch, and they were quite good! Maybe an 8 out of 10? Definitely worth buying if you come across them. Keila once again preferred the box, however. Still working on learning what's edible and what's not!

  Keila turned 11 months on Thursday! Unfortunately, our internet service was turned off that day due to moving, so we're a bit late in posting.
  Here's what's been going on with her in the past month:
 1. She's talking a LOT more lately. Definitely saying 'Mama' on the rare occasions that I'm not around, and she'll also call for 'Dada' when he leaves the room. However, she tends to call any and all animals 'Daaaa' or 'Dadadadadaada', so we're working on that one. I'm sure it's more than a bit confusing when Daddy tells her the cat is called 'neko' and I tell her that the cat is called 'kitty' or 'kitty cat'.
 2. Keila's fangs are now fully in, so she's definitely ready for Halloween! However, her upper middle teeth just broke through as of yesterday, so she might not get to be baby Dracula on the 31st after all. In addition to those 2 new ones, another upper tooth came in some time earlier, but I didn't notice it for a bit because it's off to the left side of her top canine. Meaning, she's now got 9 teeth in all, and she knows how to bite!
 3. In terms of sleep: she nows goes down for naps on her own on most days! This is a MAJOR accomplishment, even though I hear it's the norm for most babies. Night-time wakings are still pretty much a given, although she is sleeping for longer periods at least. Maybe one day she'll begin sleeping through the night again....maybe...
 4. We're still scooting all over the place and terrorizing the cats; no walking yet however. Standing has become quite routine, especially at night when I'm trying to get her to lie down and go to sleep. There's nothing quite like the sight of baby Keila in her sleep sack, wailing and shaking the bars of her crib!
 5. I've fallen behind on introducing many new foods since we've been so busy with moving preparations. Once we're in England I plan to get right back on forcing organic veggies into this kid. Cheese is still a huge favorite, as are crackers. We have been attempting more textured foods, but so far they're simply spit back out and then flung at the wall.
 6. New favorite activities include: feeding Mom or Dad whenever she gets full herself; pulling up Mom's shirt in order to pinch her stomach (OWW); and Keila will also clap her hands on cue now! She's realized that we get really excited whenever she does this however, so she'll then keep clapping and clapping...and clapping. Give her some cymbals, and she'll rival the Energizer Bunny!
 7. Separation anxiety will still rear its ugly head off and on, but for the most part fear of strangers is a thing of the past. Now if we can just train her to let anyone besides Mom put her to bed at night, life would be even better!
 8. Finally, Keila is still around 9.5 kilos, so she's at least maintained her weight since last month. I think she's in about the 60% percentile currently, so she'll see how she does come November and the 1 year mark.