Staying fit

Many people around the world make resolutions at the beginning of the year. It isn’t a popular custom in Japan, but some people do it, as it is a time to restart and focus on improvements.

Getting in shape or improving one’s physical fitness is probably the second most popular New Years resolution, after dieting of course.

I’ve noticed time and time again while visiting parks with my son that there is often one to three pieces of adult exercise equipment at many parks. They include pull up bars, abdominal twisting machines, and so many other simple exercise equipment.

While I have seen similar equipment at a couple parks in the US, I’ve never seen them used by adults there. But in Japan, I see them used by adults a lot. It’s nice to know the money spent putting in the equipment wasn’t wasted. Maybe at some point someone will catch me using these machines. Maybe. We’ll see. 

One recipe at a time

With my new attitude of embracing my life in Japan, I have decided to be less defeated.  If I struggle getting my hands on something, I will make the best of the situation.  For example, I love Greek yogurt.  It is something I've always enjoyed.  It can be found here, but it is expensive and usually contains a lot of sugar.  Sour cream on the other hand, cannot be found.  I've searched and searched to no avail.

In the past, I have whined about this.  But now, I am doing something about it.  My best friend told me about a recipe on This Old Gal's blog.

I grabbed 4 quarts of organic milk at the grocery store and a small container of plain yogurt that only contained milk and enzymes.  The milk was spendy at ¥529 per quart, making the total ¥2,116 or $19.50.  It was expensive for a gallon of yogurt, but when it is worth it, it is worth it!  I took them home and roped my son into helping make yogurt.  This basically means he got to pour the milk in the Instant Pot and hit the yogurt button twice.  Then we waited.

The milk came up to 180°F, then we cooled it to 90°F.  At that point we added a 1/4 cup of yogurt.  It was then time to hit the yogurt button on the Instant Pot again and let it be for 10 hours.  We timed it right to let it cook overnight.

In the morning, we put in outside in the cold for 6 hours.  Next my son scooped out the yogurt into a strainer lined with a kitchen towel.  His favorite part was listening to the whey drip down into the bowl the strainer was resting on.  After two hours of sitting and dripping, the yogurt was done.

I left about 2 cups still straining for another couple hours to make yogurt with a sour cream consistency.

We quickly dived in and ate the most delicious yogurt I've had in a very long time.  My husband preferred to drizzle honey on his.  My son chose to dip strawberries in his bowl of yogurt.  After a couple of bites of the plain goodness, I tossed a big spoonful of my persimmon butter in it.

Everyone agreed that it was super delicious.  And I couldn't be happier to know that not only can I get amazing Greek yogurt and sour cream, I can make it myself and know exactly what is in it.

Tiny treats

The next time someone asks for a tiny dessert, you now have something to offer them.  In the land of tiny everything (including tiny fake food), I thought I had seen it all.  But then I saw an entire section of tiny frozen desserts in the grocery store the other day.  

While it isn't frozen treat season, in my opinion, my son told me that it is always frozen treat season.

My husband got a kick out of seeing treats from his childhood, like Panapp, an ice cream with a jam-like sauce mixed into it.  He was also very excited about the small taiyaki ice with chocolate ice cream inside.

While each was cute, we didn't buy any.  We are full of treats from all the recent holidays.  So, much to my son's chagrin, we will wait for warmer weather before trying these.

Eating a mouse

As Japan continues to celebrate the new year, there is still signs of it all over the place.   Since a person does not decorate for New Years or even tell people to have a great new year until after the stroke of midnight on January 1st, it makes sense that the celebration would go on for a while after the actual holiday.

For the first two weeks of the year, restaurants and bakeries often offer fun homages to the new year in the form of fun treats shaped like the animal of the year.  While I enjoyed the fun foods decorated like boars (or pigs) last year, I'm a little less enthusiastic about the rat shaped foods (with one exception - Mickey Mouse shaped foods!).

It doesn't matter whether or not I think these are cute, my son ate them all.  He reports that they all tasted great.

Sweet dreams

There are certain transitions in a child's life that are pretty emotional for parents.  For example, when my son started kindergarten, I was reduced to tears.  I couldn't believe my baby was big enough to be leaving me each day to go to school.

Today was not as big of a milestone as going to school, yet it still left me coping with growing pains.  Weeks ago, my son mentioned that his feet sometimes fell off the end of his bed.  Since moving into his own bed, he's slept on the same toddler mattress.  He was ready for a new, longer bed.

After discussing what we wanted to do, we took him to the store to look at a variety of bed styles.  Since he will be starting elementary school in April, we thought buying him a loft bed with a desk underneath was a good idea.  Our son agreed and was super eager to check out his options.

It didn't take him long at all to pick out his new bed.  He's very decisive most of the time, which is really helpful in situations like these.

We had to wait just over a week to have the bed delivered.  From the moment he woke up this morning, he was driving me crazy asking again and again when they would arrive with his bed.  I found myself distracting him with making and throwing paper airplanes outside, testing variables like adding a paperclip to the tip and bending wingtips in different directions.  In all honesty, it probably helped distract me too.

The delivery men finally arrived shortly after noon.  They quickly got to work, laying down drop cloths up the stairs and into my son's room.  Then then hauled all the boxes upstairs, removing their shoes each time the entered the house.

I had to distract my son once again to give them room to build the new bed, desk, and shelves.

As soon as they were done, we raced up to the room to check everything out.  The loft bed is huge in his room.  It will take some getting used to.

He was overjoyed and climbed right up.  We worked together to make his bed for the very first time.  I was really impressed with the comforter cover that had little straps with snaps in each corner to hold the comforter in place.

Later in the afternoon we had friends over for a playdate.  The mom and I were discussing how loft beds were still such a new concept in Japan, as many families still sleep on futons which are laid directly on the floor.  Her two boys didn't know what to make of the bed.  They thought it was a play structure and not a place to sleep.

Our futons when we stayed in Atami.

It seems like such a simple thing to buy a new bed.  But for me, it is another milestone in my son's life that is both exciting and a touch sad.  But he is all starry eyed for his new bedroom set.  It brings nothing but joy to him.