Summer Drinks

I got busy in the kitchen today with one of my favorite summer rituals.  Though we won't be enjoying this year's batch for a little while, the next batch of Ume Shu (plum wine??) is underway.  I always think I should make a batch of ume-boshi (pickled Japanese plums) but end up stopping after making Ume Shu.  A chilled glass of it with soda water is a real treat to top off a muggy summer day.

 Our version is roughly 1 kg of ume, 1.8 liters of brandy for fruit wine, and roughly 500 g of crystal sugar.  This year, after reading the package on the brandy box, I decided to try a batch of Lemon Shu (3 lemons, 1.8 liters of the brandy, and about 200 g of crystal sugar).  Hoping that turns into a tart but sweet tasting drink! It needs to sit a few weeks, so will let you know later how it turned out!

These are "ume" or Japanese plums.  Whether they are actually plums or apricots is actually a small matter of debate, however, rinse these, dry them off, remove any stem bits that are left and poke a few holes in them for maximum flavor.  Then, pop them into the jar.

The other two ingredients are crystal sugar (like rocks of sugar) and brandy.  This type of brandy is for the fruit liquors/wines, and there are recipes for fruit including apples, strawberries and biwa (kumquats?).  An alternative to brandy is "White liquor" but we didn't like the flavor of that as well.

Here are the "finished" products; lemon on the left and ume on the right.  I usually let my ume-shu "sit" for about half a year (enjoying last year's now!) and then remove the shriveled up ume, and enjoy a few sips from then, too! I did double the recipe this year.... The lemon-shu recipe calls for leaving the lemon and lemon peel for at least two weeks...we'll give it a taste test then! 

Kampai!

Tai-iku-sai AKA Jr. High Sports Festival

Better late than never!  Son's junior high had their sports festival at the end of May.  His school is the largest in our prefecture, and the approximately 900 kids had a busy, fun day of it.  The requisite speeches were made in the opening ceremony.  The two students who made speeches did a very nice job! 

Following the speeches, it was time for warm-up exercises.  No radio-taiso (gymnastics) like in elementary school, but stretching to a popular song.

Then, the competition began.  Separated by gender and grade, the different classes competed against each other, with the "main" event being the relay.  Son's class didn't do so well overall, but I was happy to see one event he was in before I had to run off to work. 

The guys rolled out two tires, put them on a stick, ran to and around a cone at the end of the field, then back to their starting area.  Sounds easy enough, but is actually more difficult than one would expect!

Their next school-wide event will be culture festival in September.  Fun!

Tis the season...rainy season!

No official announcement yet, but looking at the weather forecast, it looks like we're in for drizzles and downpours for the next few weeks.  So, this drizzly Sunday, we paid a visit to the prefectural library.  The location is lovely...but the book search was a little disappointing. 

Supermarkets provide special "umbrella bags" on days like today (long plastic bags that will hold one dripping umbrella), but public buildings usually have umbrella stands.  When I first arrived in Japan, I was told to be careful or my bicycle or umbrella might be snatched...while lost wallets were often returned with ALL contents--including cash!--intact.  Having lost first bicycle on my first trip to the grocery store (it had a broken bicycle lock), at least part of the advice seemed quite likely to be true.  So, umbrella stands with locks are quite common.  Nifty, huh!

Though many people do just stick their umbrellas in, and trust they will still be there later.

Having stashed the umbrellas, we strolled into the library.  I went through the English books on the shelves (took maybe 20 minutes...)  I picked up one interesting collection by a local writer and friend that I haven't read yet (The Broken Bridge/Suzanne Kamata) and have wanted to,  and a couple of others, but not much in my favorite genre (paranormal).  Then I searched the database for more English books in my favorite genres.  On my list of 15 authors to still find, I found three...A. Christie (book I want @ the Osaka Pref. Library), R. Heinlein (@ Tokyo Library) and The Time Traveler's Wife (Hokkaido Library)...the staff will put in my requests and we'll see if I can get ahold of them for a bit.  Next weekend, I'll head to the local international association's library and hopefully have more luck getting some others that I want to read.  I haven't been to the library in awhile to search for books for me (Children's library is a visit a month...but just related to picture books for lessons) and it's still disappointing, but no surprise.  Amazon won't be losing me as a regular customer anytime soon!

 Well, after a rather frustrating search at the library (and sore eyes from their PC monitors), son and I decided to call it a day.  Feeling a bit thirsty, we stopped at one of the rows of vending machines on the way to the parking lot.  We opted for mineral water (me) and an orange soda (son) though he was tempted by the ice cream...a little chilly for it today though.  The v.m.'s are everywhere, and quite convenient, but also a bit of an eyesore dotting the landscape.

 Lined up are half of a coca-cola vending machine, an ice-cream v.m., a Poccari Sweat v.m. (sports drink), and two more that carried mostly tea and coffee.  Way at the end, you can see an orange postal box...just after the row of garbage cans for the v.m. bottles and cans.

MIA? Nawww

What a whirlwind of activity the past couple of weeks have been!  Teaching is busy as always, and now I've got a lovely stack of mid-terms to grade!  There has been a school sports festival (more later!), baseball play-offs (our team went to the third round) and all the regular everyday stuff.  We've also acquired two fish, and are moving into the rainy season (and it seems the outside miniature wild life is increasing at an exponential rate!) 

All of these are signs that it's June.  Agenda for the week is to stock up on mold-killer, as well as repellents for those outside pesks that won't stay outside (a full aisle is devoted to items to get rid of slugs, flies, ants, mosquitoes, mukade (centipedes), cockroaches and more, so just have to choose which ones!!)  On a more pleasant note, this is also the time to make ume-shu (plum "wine") and enjoy the gorgeously blossoming hydrangeas!  More on those later!!