Merry Christmas

Hoping everyone had a fantastic Christmas. We sure did. Here are 2 photos. The kids on Christmas morning and Gil in his new sweater!

A Kobe Christmas

In case some of you were wondering what its like in Japan at Christmas, I took my camera to Sannomiya for some last minute shopping and snapped a few photos. As you can see they have completely embraced the commercialism of Christmas (Charlie Brown would hate it!) Although I did see a Nativity scene once in Osaka its mostly about Santa. Following are photos of a candy display, a dept. store window, mannequin as Santa (note the loafers), display at a train station and finally some Christmas cakes (note the prices) .

Fall in Kyoto

The KWC took a trip to Kyoto in November to see the fall colors. Here are a few photos. It was very nice.

Cooking class

Took a Lebanese cooking class at CHIC and it was great! Here is a photo of the dishes. Some chicken & rice dish, bread salad, baba ganoush, humous and a cake made from semolina. It tasted fabulous and I have even made several dishes at home. The best thing about it was the humous! I love humous and am unable to buy it in Japan. Now I can make it better than any store bought humous, even if I could buy it in a store!

KWC took a trip to Kyoto to view the beautiful fall colors. First Tofukuji Temple. It was quite crowded with loads of other visitors but the scenery was beautiful. Afterwards, we went to a smaller and very quiet temple where we enjoyed tea and a japanese sweet. I cheated a little by only having hot water. The Japanese tea gives me such a headache. Too much caffeine!

Xi'an

Naturally the photos are in reverse order! We took the overnight train to Xi'an. What an experience! Here is a picture from inside our compartment. We saw the Terra Cotta Warriors and rode bikes around the Xi'an city wall. Great Fun!

Around Town

A few more images from around Beijing. There is a park where the retired people go everyday to exercise, dance, sing and play games. Here is a pic of the dancing. Also a picture from inside the summer palace, us in the Olympic area with the bird's nest and water cube behind us and just a cute street near the Lama Temple (of course they kicked out the Dalai Lama years ago).

Great Wall of China

Next we went to the Great Wall. It was a great day with clear skies. The fall colors were just starting and it was very pretty. The wall is not straight as I had imagined, but dips and curves with the mountain. You can see a particularly steep part in one of the photos. We took a ski lift up to the wall and then rode some sort of luge, down. It was quite thrilling.

Old Beijing and Drum Tower

After the Forbidden City we explored the old section of Beijing and took a rickshaw ride. We also visited the bell tower. The building in the photo below is the drum tower, taken from the bell tower.

A few pictures from inside the Forbidden City. A long hallway, a crown of the emperess, us at a circular doorway (circle doorways lead to heaven, outside the 2nd gate, and a garden. You can see how overcast the sky seems. That is pollution.

Tianimen Square

A few images from Tianimen Square, the first stop on our 4 day visit to Beijing. The sky looks weird because of all the pollution. Our tour guide and driver were fantastic. We had a great time. Check back for more photos from China.

Gil's better (sort of)

Gil has recovered from his breathing problems. He got better after about a week of his medicines. Then we went to China for a week and he stayed with a friend. They took great care of him and he seemed to enjoy it. However, it is our belief that the Paxil is what is causing his other health issues and we have been weening him off it. Well, he finally had so little of it in his system that he became Cujo! He got quite aggressive and mean. These spells would last for a short time and then he'd be back to normal. We tried to convince his 'doctor' that a different pill might work better. We told her we'd like to try Zoloft, since its available in Japan, but she resisted. Now she has him on 1/3 of a Paxil per day. Now I can't even cut a pill into thirds, so she had to crush them and divide it into packets for me. 6 days as a trial. No more scary episodes though, so maybe it'll work for him. I'll keep you posted. Also look for photos from the trip to China in the near future.

Sick Gil

Had to take Gil to the dr. early Friday morning. He had been having trouble breathing. Have been to the vet twice this weekend and still not exactly sure what is going on. Either his trachea or esophogas was inflammed or infected or both, which may or may not be caused by a tumor. They took an xray to determine this. They gave him 3 shots and 3 types of pills(antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and anti-cough) to take twice a day for 9 days. He seems to be getting better slowly. His energy is coming back and he isn't gasping for breath quite as often. As a side note, the young dr. thinks there is something (probably unrelated) wrong with his heart. It didn't sound right to her. We'll worry about that later (if its anything to worry about).

Typhoon has passed

The typhoon raged through the night with howling winds and rain, but it wasn't much more than a very bad storm. The electricity went out a couple of times, but came back on fairly quickly. When we got up there were limbs and small trees lying around and leaves covered every surface, but the sun came out about 1pm and the day was quite nice. It was pleasant working outside doing all the clean up. Too bad they gave the kids the day off! What were they thinking?

Typhoon on its way

Well, we've battened down the hatches and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first typhoon, since moving to Japan. It has been raining lightly for 2 days and the typhoon is predicted to hit our area sometime tonight. School and other activities have already been cancelled for tomorrow. Of course the kids are excited about that! Gil seems very nervous. I think he senses the storm coming and has not left my side all day. Check back tomorrow to find out if we survived!

Women's Club trip to Ishiyama Temple

It was a humid and overcast day as we set out for Ishiyama temple near Lake Biwa. We were lucky in that it didn't rain all day. We visited the temple and grounds, had a nice lunch & did some souvenir shopping.We even got back at a reasonable time. A nice day out.

Fushimi Inari

While the kids were at school and everyone else in Japan had a holiday, the hubby and I went to Kyoto to Fushimi Inari. Its a shrine dedicated to the fox who rules over business and prosperity. Its a trail into the mountainside with hundreds upon hundreds of tori gates, often creating a tunnel. And lots of little shrines along the way. The hike took us about 2 hrs. I've included a photo of a little snack stand we found along the way.