Town Undokai...

Sunday, October 8th was our town's sports day/undokai. Yes that means the kids in our town have 2 sports days a year. 1 for all elementary school students PLUS town undokai. And same for the local one and only JHS they have their regular JHS undokai and also have to attend town undokai too. If you don't show up, you will be marked absent. The bright side is you get off school on Tuesday. So that's sort of nice. JHS kids have to stay from like 7am to 5pm-ish. I remember this when Bran was in JHS. But elementary kids need to be there only from 9am to 11:30am. And elementary kids only have 1 event. Noah's grade did a basketball race and as soon as that was over and done with, we were allowed to leave and go home. So 9am to 11:30am is not too terribly bad at all. Because this is town undokai. You *must* sit according to neighborhood. Where you live dictates where you can sit. We live in a newer housing community and so our "housing community" has their own 2 tents (1 for JHS kids and 1 for elementary kids) and we all sit behind our housing community's tent. The other housing communities have their own tents and they do the same. The older parts of town also have their own communities too and they sit behind their own tents too. Meals/lunches are bought courtesy from where you live. We live in our housing community and we pay month's HOA fees (homeowners association fees) so because we do that...we can order up to 4 obento if we decide and it will be paid for totally 100%. They pass around the monthly kairanban/information booklet a month in a advance and you can order however many lunches you want, but they know how many family members are in each house. I packed my kids sandwiches. And I made myself a salad. An easy town undokai meal. And my husband absolutely looks forward to the seafood/fish obento. So he always orders two meals. And so he feasts on fish on town undokai day. Hahaha. : ) Here is a pic of Noah and his 6th grade friend and classmate sitting in the same area and that's because he lives in our same housing community too. The older JHS boys sitting near Noah but on the older kids JHS leisure sheet also live in the same housing community as us too. 

All kids regardless of which grade do warm up exercises. You can see Noah in his bright colored New Balance sneakers warming up in this particular picture.

Noah and 3 of his classmates ran this race together. You have to run and then at a certain point you have to pick up a basketball and start bouncing it down your running lane.

Branden and I were standing on the sidelines next to eachother cheering on Noah. Go Noah go!!!!! And Noboru was meanwhile video taping Noah run his race on the other side of the field.

Noah came in first place! Branden was so proud. We all were! Good job Noah. We love you!

After Noah's race, we stayed for lunch and after lunch we packed up and went home. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying our Sunday at home. For dinner we decided to go to Narita City to our nearest pizza place and bring home some Domino's. 4 large pizzas. We had a pizza party here at the house. And because Monday was a national holiday in Japan, Branden and Noah did not have school that Monday. And Tuesday Noah didn't have school either, because he had town undokai. So all in all, Sunday was really nice. We did have sports day, but it was really low key. We didn't have to wake up super early either. An excellent Sunday October 8th and super low key town undokai. : ) 

Town Undokai...

There are so many posts, I'd like to get up. Such as this town undokai one, Branden's first JHS Cultural Day post, observation day at both Branden and Noah's school already happened too. Plus the day to day stuff that happens on top of that. Will, I ever get the chance to get everything up? Honestly, I don't know. I will try my best though. Plus consider Thanksgiving is coming soon, 7 days from now, my dad will already be here (so happy about that) This week, I will be heading to Costco to find the biggest bird (turkey) I can find! : ) So without further ado...here's the town undokai post. : ) Town Undokai (sports day) is mandatory in our town... if you attend either of the 2 elementary schools or the 1 and only JHS in town, otherwise it's marked as an absent day. Usually we hope and pray for rain, so that town undokai is canceled. : ) However this year our family actually needed town undokai to happen. Because it would have meant the boys would miss 2 days from school when we went to Tokyo Disneyland, versus just the 1 day they took off. Town undokai happened October 12th. A Japanese holiday was on the 13th (Monday) which meant Tuesday was their official day off school for attending town undokai. And then Wednesday we just let them miss that day. However if town undokai didn't happen they'd have to be absent Tuesday and Wednesday and we really didn't want that. Because we do have other trips throughout the year, that we have in the works. Such as March we plan to head to Hakone. Long story short we don't want to take all the days off in 1 fell swoop. So this year...we really and truly needed town undokai to happen. : ) However honestly by the time town undokai rolls around... we're frankly undokai-ed out...sports day-ed out! We had Bran's and we already had Noah's. Anyway...I bought both the boys a handful of snacks (pictured). All kids that we know, usually take tons of snacks, and while I don't pack mass amounts, I do take them a small amount of snacks. Each child had cider gummys, 2 small pack of cookies and 1 small pack of chips, that type a thing. Because undokai for the kids starts early, Branden needed to be at school by 7:30am and he stayed until 4:30pm. Noah had to be there at 7:30am and could leave immediately after lunch/noon. Though we stayed for Branden's events and we left around 2:30pm. Branden had to stay with the rest of the JHS kids and watch the senior/older folks compete. Because they had to dismantle all the tents and whatnot around the field. 

I make a fantastic obento for Branden's undokai and for Noah's undokai. However, by the time town undokai rolls around, I'm kinda "over it" for the year undokai obento-wise. And so I keep it superly simple. I bought these all white meat chicken mini cutlets, no skin, so good actually. I threw them in the toaster oven the morning of the town undokai to sorta get crispy again. And I made simple chicken cutlet sammys. I brought a small bunch of bananas, to munch during town undokai. And I threw that salad in a dish for myself, picked up some "Crunky" (yep that's really the name of the chicken... crunky...lol not crunchy though it is also crunchy) chicken from Mini Stop their chicken is so good, all white meat, no fat and delicious, to add to my salad. 

At town undokai everyone *must* sit by where you live! For example see those tarps in this pic. That was specifically for our "housing community" Those 2 giant blue leisure sheets on the ground, the one on the right with backpacks was for all elementary kids who live in our housing community. You can see, Noah's red and blue Mario backpack in this pic. Meanwhile the tarp in front of that person standing was for all JHS kids who live in our specific house community. And all other housing communities had their own tents and sheets for their community of kids to lay their bags on. Also each housing community provides obento for the folks who live there.

Noah and some of his fellow 3rd graders. Also, see that kid far right bending down? His shirt has no blue ringer how the other 4 do...right? He attends the other shogakko/elementary school. This is the 1 time a year the 2 elementary kids see each other. : ) But the majority of kids attend our school, which is why there was only 1 of them running this particular race. : )

Yay Noah! : ) 

First place...proud of you Noah! : ) 

Remember last year when Noboru and I had to pass out the food? Hahaha. Anyway see those 3 sandwich variety packs in the center. You had a choice to pick sandwich or Japanese obento. Those were the choices given for our housing community. However I did make Branden and Noah sandwiches,  and myself a salad that morning. Like, I just said...I had a salad, a nice filling salad with chicken. And thousand island dressing. The Frozen water or green tea was free to each of us in our housing community (1 for each of us) I think our housing community did a great job with meals and drinks this year. Noboru had 1 of the variety sandwich packs and the other 2 packs he gave to his coworkers at work, later that evening. : ) Because we just had brought our own lunch, we always do at undokai. : ) Even if it is a simple one. : )

Noboru enjoyed his Japanese obento and then enjoyed one sandwich variety pack, though I already said that, hahaha. Noah meanwhile is eating a sandwich from home inside his dinosaur sandwich holder/box, which we bought in America years ago. 

My sweetie pie Branden, I packed him 2 whole sandwiches because he's a growing boy and he needs it... to stretch out! : )

They each got a choco banana with sprinkles. 

After lunch, before the undokai kicked back into gear, they played the Yokai Watch theme song...it's a superly popular cartoon right now. And hoikuen/yochien age kids ran to the field to dance...elementary kids ran to dance the dance...there's set dance moves, that all the kids know. And what REALLY surprised me...is that the JHS kids also *love* this show too. And so they stormed the field and got down and boogied and shook a tail feather to Yokai Watch! : ) Look at Noah smiling in this picture and chatting with his good friend K (the kids who went "trick or treating" with him)

I love this picture because I can see Noah's face and Branden's face in this picture! : ) Yes, apparently everyone knows this Yokai Watch dance! The 9th grade kids in the front row, and the younger JHS grades in the back, near where B was dancing and smiling and laughing. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty great town undokai. Plus that means we could go to Tokyo Disneyland and the kids would only have to miss 1 day of school (remember Tuesday we checked into the hotel, went to Kua'Aina Burger and brought Krispy Skreme donuts back to our hotel room, lol and the next day we went to Disney). So yeah...we were pretty happy to get town undokai under our belts for 2014 and that also meant we could go to Tokyo Disneyland and stuff with only missing 1 day of school. So we were pretty happy.! : )

October's bits and pieces. Town undokai, the typhoon that wasn't, flu shots done and a few other things for good measure

Sunday, October 13th was our town's undokai. There are so many wonderful things about my town. But, I wish we would do away with the town undokai. That's the only thing. : )  Because we already have a school undokai. So adding another undokai already on top of that, is a bit much. But that's my only grumble really about my town. : ) Anyway the interesting thing about our town undokai is we must sit according to where you live in the actual town. All people and folks who live in our housing community for example, must sit between the big white tent/tarp that says the name of our housing community on it. I took out the name of said housing community but it was there on the tarp. : ) 

The 2 elementary schools show up, along with the 1 and only junior high school. 

Noah about to run in this picture! Noah had 1 event only and Branden had 1 event only. But again everyone must attend or be marked abscent.  The town undokai is held at the junior high school. 

Noah probably wondering, "who is that kid" : ) If you look at the last kid, he is indeed from the other elementary school. : ) His uniform shirt is all white verses how our school shirts have blue around the neck and sleeve/arm area. Ours are ringer T, type tops. : ) This town undokai is one of the few times during the year where the kids from both schools see each other. : )  This particular race called for ALL 2nd graders and that meant from both schools. : ) After a couple years the kids do start recognizing the other kids. But Noah being a 2nd grader this is only his 2nd town undokai, so and I'm sure same for that little boy as well. Most of the kids come from our particular shogakko/elementary school. Since our school is the bigger (population wise) school in our town.

Branden came in 2nd place on this, this was a run and then bounce a basketball down the lane. The 6th graders were specifically told from their teacher to try and make friends with the other town school kids because they will be going to the same junior high next April. : ) Branden told me that and I told him I 100% agree and very important. : ) Fwiw, Branden swims with a 6th grade girl name A. And she is from the other town school and so they've taken the swim bus together for years and years. So, because of his friendship with her, the handful of 6th graders already heard of Branden and he's super friendly so he made friends already. And Noah already knows to make friends with them, when he sees them also. : ) Again, it just helps our kids in the long run. So, make friends now! : ) 

Branden in the background bouncing that ball. Noboru and I worked this town undokai. Which is a good thing for me, that the boys were only in 1 event each, so that I could take their pics. And then get to work. We were to wait for the delivery truck that we ordered our obentos for our housing community... to arrive. The truck arrived and we had to haul booty to the truck and carry boxes and boxes of obentos/packed lunches and mass amounts of green tea. Then we ran back to our tents and from hancho to hancho/block leader to block leader, you needed to make sure you fed and passed out the food to the people from your street! So, I made sure for example grandma next door was fed, and that her husband who was at work but also ordered an obento that it was indeed delivered. Rin's family. Grandma with big white pretty fluffy dog, lol. And etc etc. Oh yes, and Ayumi-chan's family, just had to make sure everyone who lives on our street got a lunch and a drink. Then went and crossed out their name on the list. Badabing badaboom! Done and done! We all "job well done-d each other!" "Otsukare sama deshita"-ed, everyone! ; ) And the good thing this year is we usually have this huge mass marching band dancing performance, the same one we saw at regular school undokai, ykwim. However both schools decided let's skip it this year! Yes and yay! Can, I get a hallelujah on that one?! : ) And so right after the food was passed out if you wanted to leave, you could! People left in droves! Sorry to say it, but it's true! : ) I collected both kiddos and we left and went home too. Noboru needed to stay because he needed to disassemble the tent from our housing community but he was chilling with the other dad's and he was having himself a ball. So that's why we took 2 cars there. 

I bought both the boys a choco banana and myself one too. And we hit the road and went home! Rice field across the street from the junior high walking to my tiny red car. 

This is what the lunches looked like, that we passed out for free to whoever lives in our housing community. Your homeowners association (HOA) fees cover the meal. Which is why we only feed who lives here. : ) But you know, behind the scenes what people don't see, we need to decide which place to order the obento from. Also there was a complaint that last year someone who doesn't live here was getting a meal? @_@ Oh holy goodness, really? I mean so much behind the scenes stuff that is work real work on top of our own regular life stuff ykwim and night time meetings at the place near the tennis courts, the place we cleaned in April. Heck, a month ago, Noboru was off making 200 copies of something to make sure it got passed around the keiranban. I mean it is work. Work that people don't realize. If you have a gripe or you think your neighbor has been putting his trash out on the wrong day? Your dog bite the neighbor kid? Do you need a squabble settled? Well more then likely we're the ones trying to unravel said mess. : ) Eeek! : ) I am trying pretty hard not talking about the workload on the whole hancho and fuku kaicho front, but it is work and we will be doing a jig next March when our household is done with this job and our term is finally over, let's put it that way. : ) Boy next door's mom is up next year though she'll probably just be a hancho and not the fuku-kaicho like we were nuts enough to do, hahaha! Ganbatte! : ) Anyway, that's enough of that for now...

I meanwhile was going to make an obento which is why I prepped the chicken and had bought the mac and potato salads the day before, however Noboru told me, not to bother since we could go home right away. So, we had lunch at home. So this would have been our town undokai obento, but we had it at home instead. : )  Being fuku kaicho and even the block leader/hancho is really hard you guys. It is very time consuming, every time the gardeners landscape the community they come here to our house when they're done and I have to whip out the stamp and take responsibility that it is done and I approve it. I mean yikes, you know. : ) Anyway, we were just happy to be over another hurdle regarding that. March is our last month of that duty! 

The day after town undokai, Monday. We went and stocked up on some of those cassette bomb things. For when you cook on the dinner table and make nabes or whatever. These are typically used a lot in Fall and Winter time. Noboru likes to buy these in bulk because he often tells me, if we had a serious earthquake or yadayadayada, we'd be happy we had these. 

We were all over Chiba New Town that Monday after town undokai and we had lunch from Costco in the car on the way home. Noah had a hot dog with ketchup.

Branden had a huge slice of pepperoni pizza.

I had the hot provolone chicken sandwich.

Noboru driving and that's his hot dog on the dash. Every red light we had, he'd take a few big bites. : ) 

Noboru has been keeping both cars full of gas, totally topped off type full.

We bought yet another rotisserie chicken and a hunk of cheese for cheese and crackers or whathaveyou. : ) 

The cassette bombs.

Stocking up on body wash and antibacterial hand soap yet again. 

3 cases of water from Costco. Our town has well water, like super deep well water. It's so delicious. But, again better to be safe then sorry. : ) 

A box of matches and long lighters. Again just to make sure we have them on hand. Anyway....

Apples are cheap around here. I'm not sure why, but they are. : ) 

Making the crumble for my apple crisp. 

Buttered the bottom of the dish. This was the day before the big typhoon by the way. The big one, that caused the landslides. School had already been canceled for the next day. And so I wanted to bake a nice apple crisp. 

Apple mixture done, a little flour for thickening, cinnamon.

A few nubs of butter in there to give it a real mellow flavor. 

About to throw in the oven. 

Homemade from scratch apple crisp! The whole house smelled so good! Like apples and cinnamon.

The rain was really coming down hard by now. And I was making supper by now. But I let the boys each have a little bowl of apple crisp before supper. So they went and sat down on the couch enjoying a small bowl each of this. Meanwhile I got back to cooking dinner. 

We had curry nabe on the kicthen table. You can see the flower mat underneath. The winds were howling like crazy! But we had a nice piping hot curry nabe and homemade apple crisp for dessert. We had a very well stocked house, so we didn't need to go anywhere. : )  The next morning we woke to the rice fields flooded and the road back there under water. Crazy.  

Remember that pic of the road still drying out after that big typhoon? Well, I was coming back from the laundry mat. It was a nice sun shiny day after the typhoon. So I went and washed all the bedding from Branden and Noah's beds. And I also washed my pink and turqouise fleece extra blanket too. Both Branden and Noah's washable duvets were in the washer to the right. 

Tons of soap. 

Threw in a couple dryer sheets. And the blankets were so fresh and clean. Went home and made both of their beds. This week, I went to the laundry mat and washed my bedding from my bed. : ) 

I made baked chicken parmesan, date says October 19th. 

Bought a baguette from the bakery, sliced it in half and made garlic bread. Baked in the oven. 

One of our dinners, this past week. I like to eat Italian once a week, if I can. 

Says sale, but this is pretty much the price around here for a full bag of sweet potatoes, 70 yen. Could be because they're local. My cheap meat shop and meat store are both in Ibaraki. : ) You know how we live teeter tottering between Chiba and Ibaraki. : ) Being able to buy veggies and fruit and meat at such prices really helps the monthly grocery budget. : ) 

I steamed them and after they steamed for an hour, nice and slow, I sprinkled with salt and then roasted in the oven for about 10 minutes. Oh man, they were so good and sweet. : ) The boys like munching on one when they get home from school. Same for Noboru when he's home he'll munch one. I love them too. : )

Okay by now the big typhoon had already hit and by now we were expecting the other typhoon that was a dud. But boy were we happy about that. : ) Anyway, went and stocked up on meat. Bought about 10-11 nights worth. Some gorgeous thick pork for fried pork chops (we haven't had these yet), 2 pork roasts, 1 beef roast for beef stew, tons of chicken, like lots. : )  That is one thing I love about our fridge we have massive amounts of space, freezer space and just space pure and simple. It helps especially since Noboru likes to stock up and so do I. : ) 

Bought some treats for the boys. To put in their pumpkin here at home. : )

Then went to my normal store, bought some roux, (stew and curry) karaage powder. Again just nice to keep in the pantry, you never know. 

Coffee. I mix this with a spoon of the pumpkin creamer and it is nice. : ) 

For crackers and cheese type snackin'. 

This was last week, I went and bought enough drinks to ride out the typhoon if it was big or to ride out the weekend either way. : ) That grape juice is really good.

Our 1 and only grocery store for our town went out of business. : ( Yes it did. This has caused quite a few problems. Noboru being the fuku kaicho head (since the actual kaicho is living in Thailand doing tanshinfunin), and at town meetings with other areas and housing area heads. Noboru heard that the elderly are having a huge problem since the store closed. Just the ones who do not drive. Sure in the bigger cities, most can get by with trains and bus or walking or bikes. But here in the countryside. You need a car. There are no buses in our town, we have a town minivan and I'm not kidding, I'm serious and it's free and it only goes once an hour but doesn't leave our town. There's no real mass transport like in the bigger cities unless you count the 1 and only train that runs once an hour. The space or land from town to town is vast/big. We have 1 teeny tiny train station that runs once an hour and cuts off at 10pm. : ) So long story short, while younger people and families drive. And to be fair there are also many older folks, who do drive also. But still, some older people don't drive. And this 1 and only grocery store is their only place to shop. Since this store closed.... the handfuls of elderly that do NOT drive have had a very hard time. Stories have been told to the heads. That they have taken costly taxis to the nearest store which is FAR btw. Or hopped trains wearing backpacks and we're not talking genki seniors, we're talking more frail seniors. The elderly who don't drive in our town are having an awfully hard time. However the good news is, a chain is going to take over where the old store used to be. So hopefully in a month it will be back to normal. Anyway, the old shop was closed for 2 weeks and then they opened and said everything MUST go! : ( 20% off. Then 30% off. Now I personally don't shop this store, I find it very expensive anyway. I have cheaper shops I shop at. But, when the ice cream went 50% off, I had to stop. Sorry but, an 80 yen ice-cream 50% off, that's 40 yen! That's a great deal, too good a deal to pass up. So, last week, I went and stocked up on ice cream. Cookies and cream, choco chip mint, waffle sandwich, lemon shave ice, vanilla (Noboru's fave), the waffle was also Noboru's. Anyway hopefully the new store opens soon for the seniors who don't drive sake. : (

And even went back for these for the boys. And many were doing the same. I mean the people working there will be working for the new place, I bet. And nobody from the actual town went out of business because the store prior.... was also chain owned too, it just went out of business the chain. : )  Anyway, I am grateful for good freezer space. : ) Between all the meat and frozen veggies and ice-cream. : )  Anyway...

Last week, cleaned the tub super good and even used that water heater cleaner thing in it. And bought a new can of shea butter bath powder, this is my fave. : ) 

The typhoon, the last one was supposed to hit, Friday October 25th or Saturday the 26th. So, since it was supposed to hit. I decided to make a nice hot beef stew. Same with the typhoon the week before with the nabe and apple crisp. : ) And btw, by now we knew that because of the 2nd typhoon it sorta knocked the other typhoon off it's course. Last week Oct 25-26th, it was 2 typhoons at once. Otherwise it would of hit our town. So 3 cheers for the 2 typhoons! 1 knocked the other one right off course! Phew! It was nothing more then a light mist of rain last Friday and Saturday. But that's all really. No matter, the weekend was here. And a nice piping hot stew was boiling all day. The beef was fall apart tender. 

The beef boiled most of the day and the veggies boiled the last 25 minutes and the frozen green beans the last 5 minutes. : )

Japanese beef stew is my favorite, even more then American beef stew. Sorry for saying that. : ) But it's so hearty and delicious. Yum. : )  I always buy the beef stew box with the green bean in the picture and probably why I use green beans too. : )

I did get another fresh loaf of bread from the bakery for last Friday nights supper. 

Sliced and buttered.

And a very very small amount of rice at the base of the bowl. 

A nice hearty beef stew with potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, green beans. Beef was so tender. Bread for dunking. It was just a good dinner this last Friday night. Branden had seconds. And that makes me happy because I've got 2 growing boys who need a filling meal each and every night, like I always say. : )

Sand bags, this was what our town looked like all last week. Everyone on regular road level/rice field level, used sandbags and hoped the typhoon would skip us, which yes it did. Phew! 

This particular house, put up gray slabs of concrete and sandbags in front of the concrete slabs. I think because of the typhoon the week before everyone was a little scared. Anyway, just glad the last typhoon was a no-show except for some light rains. : ) 

Ahh, before I forget last Friday as soon as the boys got home from school, we went to the doctors office in our housing community to get our flu shots! Noboru and I each got a flu shot. And both Branden and Noah each got their first half of their flu shots. In Japan, kids get their flu shot twice. Meaning, they have to go back 1 month later and get the 2nd dose. So, the kids are 50% done with their flu shots now. : ) And Noboru and I are 100% done with our flu shots. And Delta pays/reimburses Noboru 100% for the cost of the flu shots so for us, getting them is free. : ) 2,500 yen a person last Friday. And then the boys will go back next month. and that will be another 2,500 yen for Branden and Noah next month as well, but he'll get the money back that he spent, so it's okay and plus Noboru is really big on everyone in our family getting their flu shots so, don't ask me why but that's the one thing he really is a stickler about....: ) Anyway we went home and I warmed up the beef stew and we all just enjoyed dinner. Everyone took showers. And we just enjoyed the night. : )