Adventures in cooking

I love to cook. so much so that when asked by a colleague what I wanted to do to get into the community more I said join a cooking class, with out even a thought.

Of course, I had no idea how to go about FINDING a cooking class, much less signing up for one.

To my great joy and surprise, while wandering aimlessly through the underground shopping center at the train station, we walked straight into a cooking school, which just happened to be offering sample lessons!

In my best Japanese, I awkwardly asked for information about the class. S-Sensei ran back to the desk and brought me a floor guide to the shopping area.

"Yes, I know I'm in Passeo."

Let's try this again...

"I like to cook. I learn to cook?" (Yes, this is direct translation of my awkwardness, S-sensei deserves a raise for dealing with me!)

I was able to sign up for a class a few weeks later.

The class itself was really fun. After I got over my initial terror of having to learn something new in Japanese, I had a blast. S-Sensei was eager to practice her English with me, so between the two of us trying, we understood each other pretty well.

Here's the cake we made in the sample class.

Hands down, the funniest part of the class was making the whipped cream. As I learned from my mom, when whipped heavy cream first turns into whipped cream, and then into butter/buttermilk. So, when I was using the hand mixer on the whipped cream and saw it reach the proper consistency I asked S-Sensei, if it was okay. She said, "A little more." and walked away.

I watched the whipped cream start to develop chunks and gradually separate into butter and butter milk. But I kept the mixer going, because the teacher said, "a little more." Maybe she wanted me to make butter for the cake filling.

When she came back and saw the butter, she was quite surprised. Apparently she had never seen that happen before! (If you haven't seen it either, I recommend trying it out. Quite a fun cooking science experiment!)

Me, S-Sensei, and my beautiful cake (with second-try whipped cream filling)

I had a great time, and am excited to go again to another sample class that S-Sensei invited me to.

Sandi's Visit (With Pictures)

We were honored to have Stephen's mom, Sandi, come visit us for 9 days at the end of June/beginning of July. We decided not to take vacation time, but rather to bring Sandi with us to teach English and use our time between classes and meetings to show her a bit of our new home in Hokkaido.

After traveling for 2 days( darn that international date line), She arrived in Hokkaido, Japan!

We had been talking about her visit in our English classes for a few weeks now. I think our students were as excited to have her here as we were! 2 women from our Thursday class in Chitose even dressed up in kimono for her to see!

Stephen was very excited to take his mom to his favorite ramen shop, Kiwami.

On Saturday, we took Sandi down town to see the big city! It's not Tokyo, but Sapporo still has lots to do and see.

Here's one view from the top of the famous TV Tower. If you could zoom in enough, you could see our house towards the hills in the back.

No trip to Sapporo would be complete without a picture in front of the Clock Tower.

Sunday, we brought her to our church to meet our friends.

then, Monday, we trecked out to Otaru to see the ocean.

little did we know, the ocean is not as accessable as we thought. After wandering for a few hours we found it!

We came home that evening to find that an English student left a gift for Sandi on our front door.

Before she left, the associate pastor, Akita Sensei, gave her a cake to thank her for visiting and taking part in English classes with us.

We are so glad we were able to share what we do with Stephen's mom in person!

A Year Without Slurpees

It's been a while since I've posted, but it hasn't been from lack of blog fodder, that's for sure! I have a few post waiting in the wings, but before I get to them I wanted to remind all of you to celebrate free Slurpee day (if you are State-side). As always 7-11 celebrates our Anniversary by giving out free Slurpees to customers everywhere.

Wait, that's not right.

Oh, I mean we celebrate our anniversary by taking advantage of 7-11's name being the same as our anniversary date and their marketing campaign. Only, even though 7-11 is big here in Japan, there are no Sluprees to be found.

This year, after a wonderful anniversary lunch downtown, we treated ourselves to 7-11 brand...

iced teas.

When in Japan...

Here's to 3 wonderful years with married to my best friend!