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

This past week was national earthquake week here in Japan. Bet you didn't know they had that, did you? Seriously, look it up on Wikipedia. They reviewed earthquake records from the last 100 years and saw that earthquakes are most likely to happen during this period in August for some reason. So it's been declared National Earthquake Safety Awareness Week, crazy huh?? And it sure wasn't a quiet week this year!
The first one happened Sunday night Japan time, just before 9 p.m. We were staying in Yokohama, and I'd been lying down sleeping due to some sort of stomach flu. The quake was enough to wake me up, and Yuki and I sort of stared at each other for a very long while and waited for the waves to stop. I think at one point I even said 'I want off this boat', it lasted so long (which really didn't help with the nausea!).
Wasabi, for her part, woke up and dove under the bed about halfway through; so much for pets being able to predict impending natural disasters! And I'm glad that the waves weren't more damaging; had the bed collapsed, we would've had one kitty pancake! But that quake was apparently quite deep and didn't really do much damage, thankfully.
Monday night, though, I was again woken up, this time I think around 1 am. And once more, it was a pretty long quake but with no real damage in Yokohama. Finally, also mimicking the previous night, Wasabi dove under the bed after waking up about halfway through the quake. We apparently need to work a little bit on our reaction speed!
...When we turned on the news later that morning, we heard that Shizuoka (where we live) had been the epicenter for that one. The toll road had been closed due to damage, the bullet train stopped for a while, and part of the wall around the prefectural castle had collapsed, along with the roofs of some houses. Yuki's company had quite a few broken windows, as did other businesses in the area. As far as I know, there was only one casuality, though--a woman died after a bunch of her books fell on her. How sad! Who knew that a love of reading could ever be a bad thing.
We came back here on Wednesday evening and discovered some damage in our apartment, too: a couple of wine glasses had fallen off the shelf and smashed all over, plus my own bookcase in the attic suffered some structural damage and books were strewn about the floor. So nothing too bad, but from what I hear, most people were really shaken up (no pun intended) by the whole thing.

Aftermath of the earthquake....or a night of wild partying?


Finally, when we were climbing Mt. Fuji overnight on Thursday, another quake struck here in the late afternoon. No notable damage from this one, although I have to admit that the sheer number of quakes in such a short time is rather nerve-wracking! Shizuoka is rumored to be the site of the next 'big one', but that rumor's persisted for at least 60 years. Here's hoping that Mother Earth's gotten rid of her indigestion with these few burps and will quiet down for a while now!

PS Ok, it's actually not National Earthquake Week; there's no such thing. I just pulled that one out of my nether regions...Since we had 3 earthquakes within 5 days, I'm taking the liberty of declaring it earthquake week, though!

Some random memories of Grandpa Raelson....nothing huge, just some good times with him that bring a smile to my face. I'm trying to keep them mostly lighthearted so that I don't start crying again...that, and it was a joy to have him as a grandpa, so hopefully I can convey that to some extent.
1 It's summertime. Grandpa is coming over to babysit us while my mom goes out somewhere. The doorbell rings, and we race to it, throw it open...nobody's there. Confused, we start to turn away just as my grandpa leaps out from the side of the porch, fingers pulling his eyes into slants and laughing as he yells 'HALLOWEEN!!!'
2. Before taking us to get Dairy Queen one night, Grandpa pulled into an ATM to get some cash out. My brother and I were squeezed into the back of his 2-door truck cab, and Andrew, never one to miss an opportunity, managed to shove his legs against the driver's seat, effectively trapping Grandpa between the seat and the steering wheel. Grandpa just yelled 'Andy!' and 'No ice cream!' until Andrew got bored enough to release him. And yeah, we all still got ice cream.
3. Hanging out in Grandpa's workshop while he did various projects...the smell of freshly cut wood still reminds me of him. He could take forever to make something, but it was always gorgeous when he finished.
4. Watching Grandpa chase Gigi, their pet poodle, around the house with a new garbage bag, before he would toss her in it and drag her around for a few steps. She always popped out a little dizzy and disoriented but never seemed to mind the almost weekly ordeal.
5. Going shopping with Grandpa on Christmas Eve to help him pick out Christmas presents for everyone. For some reason he was really good at taking off when we weren't looking, and we'd spend up to 20 minutes searching for him in addition to doing all the shopping.
6. How he'd always make my brother a hot dog on a hamburger bun for lunch, because that's how Andrew ate his hot dogs when he was little.
7. The time we spilled pop all over the kitchen table and Grandpa let us lick it up instead of wiping it with a paper towel first.
8. Grandpa fell asleep on the couch sometimes when he babysat us...we'd use this opportunity to jump on the poor guy. He gave the most painful tickles ever, so we once resorted to putting on snowsuits in the middle of summer and then stuffing them with clothing so that he couldn't defend himself against our attacks.
9. Going to visit him at Ace Hardware, where he worked part-time after his retirement. I always thought he looked so cute in his red vest!
10. The infamous 'Andy, you're a weiiiiiner!' comment. This came about from a very long car ride back from Michigan, during which Andrew was amusing himself by smacking Grandpa repeatedly with a Slowpoke sucker and chanting 'Grandpa, you're a slowww poke' over and over. After who knows how long, but I'm sure it was much longer than a person of average patience would tolerate, Grandpa turned around and calmly retaliated with the above phrase, which has now been etched into the family history for all eternity.
11. The times he'd drive around the just-lowered railroad gates and calmly proceed over the tracks, ignoring both the blasts from the train horn and our screaming. And then he'd laugh. I'm sure that it wasn't close enough to actually cause any danger, but it was more than enough to scare us when we were kids. =)
12. He didn't like to say 'I love you' It was always 'Same here' whenever we'd tell him, 'I love you, Grandpa'. We used to tease him about it a little when we got older. I'm just ever so thankful that when I talked to him for the last time on Friday, that he replied 'I love you, too' when we were saying goodbye. But even 'Same here' would've been enough.

My Grandpa Raelson died today, at 1:18 in the afternoon Florida time. I got the message on my cell phone about 3 am Japan time; needless to say it didn't make for a sleepful rest of the night. We all knew that he had liver cancer, but the speed at which he passed is still shocking. It was just last week that they discovered the tumor, although the doctor was pretty certain it had already metastisized. Still, I'm pretty certain that nobody expected him to leave so quickly--plans were being made to fly down and see him this coming week, and my uncle is apparently still on his way down, driving his motorcyle the whole way. It makes me cry even more to think about the news he'll receive when he arrives, so close yet not quite in time to tell his dad goodbye.
But. Through the sadness, my heart is also glad to know that he has finally completed his journey to be with God. I have no idea how long my grandpa was a Christian, or even how he became one, but I don't doubt that he was. Perhaps he got to know Jesus after he met my Grandma Carol, or perhaps he was one well before then; I'm not sure and at this point it honestly doesn't matter, other than in my curious mind. What I do know is that he was always kind; I can't remember him ever saying a mean word about anyone. A truly admirable man, although us grandchildren used to spend most of our time harrassing him (albeit in a loving way). I wish that I had known him better, instead of only seeing him through a grandchild's eyes.
It's too painful to type right now, so more will have to follow later....

We drove to Yokohama this morning after stopping and buying some gear for our upcoming Mt. Fuji hike. Wasabi wasn't too thrilled about being stuck in her cage while we (quickly) shopped, and she made sure to let us know when we came back. I'm willing to bet that half the parking lot could hear her through the open windows; she's gotten quite vocal in the past week or so! She stopped howling after we got moving and let her have free reign of the car, and she even quieted down enough during the last half hour to take a nap with me!





Dashboard surfing












This afternoon, while Yuki studied, his dad and I went off in search of soy yogurt. (Yeah, it was a really happening Saturday). But in my defense, I realllly miss yogurt and this is the first soy yogurt we'd seen advertised in Japan. They have soy everything else here, but no soy yogurt. And the dairy-containing stuff kills me; if you're lactose intolerant, don't believe that crap about the active cultures in yogurt making it milder on your stomach. It's propaganda and lies, pure and simple!
After much searching (and many attempts at 'reading' labels on my part---this involves sounding out words like a 5-year-old and then trying to guess the contents based on the vocab I actually do understand), we never did find the soy yogurt unfortunately (and his dad indulged me to the point of going to not one but two grocery stores, the kind man). But...we did come across Mango Pudding Kit Kats!


When I first moved here, I had to buy every new flavor of Kit Kat that came out...and a new one comes out every couple of months, at least. But after about a year, it became obvious that a lot of the 'new' flavors were really similar to last year's 'new' flavors. I mean, how many different kinds of green tea Kit Kats can you make? So I kind of fell off the Kit Kat bandwagon. Still, every once in a while Nestle comes out with either an actual brand-new or somehow tempting flavor, and I fork over (chopstick over?) some yen to try it. My all-time favorites so far are the Soy Sauce Kit Kats. Don't mock them until you've tried them. They're a great combination of salty and sweet! These are followed closely by the kinako Kit Kats. Kinako is a kind of toasted soy bean powder that tastes similar to peanut butter (hence my love of anything kinako).
Anyway, we saw the mango pudding Kit Kats this afternoon, and seeing as how I have an incredibly hard time refusing anything mango, Hiroshi bought me a bag. I was still a little hesitant to try them, mango or not, since the last Kit Kats I'd bought (Apple cider vinegar) really didn't taste like much more than a white chocolate Kit Kat, but Yuki and I both agreed that these are pretty good. They actually taste of mango, for starters! Not too sure about the 'pudding' bit, but we definitely could detect mango at the very least. Yuki gave them an 8 out of 10 due to a slightly artificial aftertaste...but then again, I'm pretty sure that Kit Kats of any sort are processed beyond all belief, so an 8's pretty good, all things considered!
...After the Kit Kat tasting, I continued with my super-thrilling Saturday and had some fun playing with Wasabi and the new hiking socks we bought. She didn't appear to find the sock puppet all that interesting though, unfortunately. She much prefers real skin to chew on over socks. Here's hoping that she at least sleeps well tonight after all today's excitement!



New Socks



Who's enjoying the cat toy more?

Wasabi got to explore the park a little bit more this afternoon....we gave up pretty quickly after I got about 6 mosquito bites in less than 5 minutes, though. We also may have to look into getting her a different carry bag, seeing as she's figured out how to squeeze her head through a tiny hole at the top and then proceeds to stare bug-eyed at anyone we pass by. Which would be ok, except for my worrying that she's somehow going to choke to death or something, that and the couple of dirty looks I received from people on the street. Which may or may not have been a product of my paranoid imagination, but still!

Apparently my niece is still sucking her thumb, despite the fact that she'll be 5 in early December. There's talk of getting her a thumb guard, since she herself wants to stop, too, but can't seem to break the habit. I guess it runs in the family, since my brother used to suck his thumb for quite a few years! We even used to have a family joke that he needed to go to TSA (Thumb Suckers Anonymous). 　
Our baby, too, is a 'thumb' sucker. The first night that we got her, I voiced a bit of concern over the fact that her right front forepaw was discolored, sort of yellowish. We weren't too sure what could've caused it...until she began to settle down for the night, curling up and proceeding to purr and suck on a 'nipple' that she fashioned out of the fur on that leg. It's really cute when Wasabi 'nurses', since she also tries to knead with both paws, too, causing her little head to follow along until she eventually passes out. The vet told us that she may or may not grow out of it...we're hoping that she doesn't, though!

Wasabi didn't take too well to the new collar I got her. Unfortunately it's still a little too big, and the bell really added to her displeasure, poor kitty. I felt guilty for laughing at her so much, but she at least served to cheer me up this afternoon! The video doesn't catch the full extent of her epileptic seizure-like antics, since she won't perform as well when the camera's on for some reason. If you watch, there's a bit of flailing action near the end, though.
Obviously the collar came off right afterwards, and she's spent half the evening batting it around on the floor. A rather expensive play toy, but we'll try again after she gets a little bigger!