Things I Love About Japan

There are quite a number of things I love about Japan. I do, of course love connecting with my mom's family who are all so very kind and generous.

But there's a lot more things we love about Japan besides the food, the beautiful scenery and historical places. 

One thing I really love is the politeness and expectation of thinking about others. This is evident in the way that everyone lines up to the left in escalators. Everybody. This allows someone to pass by if they're in a rush. 

I was also amazed to see that you were required to remove your footwear before entering a dressing room to try on clothing. It's like entering someone's home. 

And OK... let's face it. 

I really like the toilets.

It's always so clean.

Some places have an antiseptic spray you can use on a piece of toilet paper to wipe the seat before you sit on it. There are also seat covers.

The bidets to clean your front and rear are great too.

And uuuummm... if you'd rather people not hear your business, you can play some white noise to hide what you need to do.

I found many bathrooms to have one at a lower level for children and perhaps wheelchair bound ladies. (OK, I don't know what the men's bathroom is like.)

I was also surprised to find one bathroom that was even equipped with a sink for ostomate patients. It's kind of funny that they have to warn you not to use it to wash your hair. 😆

The user feedback station was thoughtful too. The Japanese words give you a choice of: Clean, OK or Dirty.

My nephew is blind so I appreciated the fact that a lot of public places we went through had these tactile guides on the ground to help navigate you to your destination.

When my mother hurt her knee just two days before we left for Japan several years ago, we had to rush and get a wheelchair before boarding our flight to Tokyo. Everywhere we went, people came to help. If a train worker saw us, they would immediately run over to help and then call ahead to the next station to look for us. Totally amazing!

And I do like this posted sign that's just a reminder to be careful and considerate.

This would be wonderful for everyone to remember in every country. It's especially true right now in the U.S., I think.

What Grows and Lurks Beneath....

We're no longer allowing mom to go out into our small back garden because she isn't stable enough and has already fallen too many times.

Therefore it's now our job to keep the weeds in check. Well... we knew these little weeds kept growing out of the gravel near the back wall. We'd assumed they'd strayed over from weeds the neighbors had before they did their backyard renovations.

But no matter how many times we pulled them out, it kept growing back so Art got desperate and dug down deeper. What a shock to find these thick roots.

Art looked online and thought it was something call Broad-Leaved Pepper tree.  I'm not so sure. 

When I looked it up on Google, it suggested Siam Weed which is supposed to be one of the world's worst weeds. In Hawaii it's also known as Devil Weed. But no... I don't think it's that either. The Siam Weed leaves are supposed to have three prominent "pitchfork" shaped veins. This doesn't.

Art is saying we should allow one of those shoots to grow taller so we can see what it will look like when a bit more matured.

So how to get rid of this invasive creature. Hmmm.. And how far have those underground roots traveled and lurking to rear it's persistent leaves through the gravel?

Celebrating Mom's 95th Birthday

Mom recently arrived at her 95th birthday. She's often remarked how surprised she is that this was accomplished after the difficulty of her younger years. Mom is the oldest of three sisters in Hawaii. Her two younger sisters here passed away a while ago. Her youngest sister and brother live in Japan. 

Mom goes to a day care three times a week and all the families of participants bring little goodie bags on their parent's birthdays. It's sort of funny because this wasn't something that was done in Illinois classrooms when our kids were growing up. It was done at birthday parties though.

The other day care families are often so creative and generous that you kind of can't help feeling like you need to come up with something fun too.

Ah well...

Art and I went to Sam's Club and got a whole bunch of snacks. I bought the white snack bags on Amazon since Walmart didn't carry them anymore and my brother created the gorgeous labels. 

And then... we had her birthday party at our house. 

Everybody brought their favorite dishes. Tiffany (from Chicago) and Keola (from South Asia) also ordered some Korean meat jun for the party. 

I usually serve mom her food, but she got her own selection while I was busy doing other party prep. Uuummm... I was rather surprised at how much she decided she could eat. Uuuuummmm... I think I ate half as much as she did.

Friends also stopped by during the party and dropped off a fun mug cake for mom to have later. That's the first time I'd actually seen one and mom enjoyed it the following day.

And then we had the birthday cake! We bought a chocolate Dream Cake from Liliha Bakery. They must have the best Dream Cake (chocolate chiffon with whipped frosting) on the island. It's loaded with chocolate flakes which the kids (and definitely mom) LOVED!

We'd ordered a half sheet that provided everybody, including us with LOTS of left overs to bring home.

All in all, it was a happy celebration for mom. And best of all is the love she can see when she looks at all the photos.

POSTSCRIPT:

And to all brave and dedicated veterans everywhere, we thank you for your service so very much.

(Trying to) Find the Goodness and Light

I'm writing this on Wednesday, the Day of Insanity.

I woke up this morning at 5:00 and was afraid to check the news to see who would be our next president. 

However, I didn't have to. I saw there were already many many text messages from friends in Illinois and Hawaii giving me the awful news.

My blogger friend, Linda Reeder in Seattle who is also a retired teacher wrote on her blog:

...A friend shared an email she got from her relative in Sweden saying, "Sad day for humanity. I'm sorry for the American people and for the whole world."

Me too...

I've told the story many times about our 2016 trip to South Korea when we got off the plane and discovered that the Chicago Cubs had won the World Series after 108 years. We were jubilant! Ecstatic! (Especially since I'm not usually a sports fan.) 

We didn't think anything could get Art or me down. But several days later people with cell connection and our Korean tour guide got the news that Trump had won. We were all shocked and just couldn't believe it. We talked to our tour guide and she said whoever is in control in the U.S. affects them as well. Her tour office was all worried about Trump. This made it especially clear to us that whoever is in the oval office can affect the whole world.

And so here we are again. 

Art just told me I should mention what I wrote to friends about my grandfather who was a zen Buddhist priest. He always seemed at peace. He was on Molokai for 7 years to support Buddhists with Hansen's Disease (leprosy) while Brother Dutton helped the Christians. He'd ministered to people in prisons. And then he was taken to a Soviet Prisoner of War camp in Siberia and came home near death. But when I met and stayed with my grandparents for 3 weeks while in college, he was totally at peace. He didn't hate anyone. He was still trying to help people find good in the world.

And I guess that's what we need to concentrate on... I suppose. 

Put aside the disillusionment. Put aside looking down at people who voted for Trump. Try to find goodness and light in the days ahead. Be glad that Kamala showed dignity and grace because you know who....

Never mind.

We can do it.

POSTSCRIPT: It's Thursday night now. We saw friends at tai chi this morning and we were all still feeling horrible. But it was comforting to see friends smiling just because we were happy to be together and commiserating about our disappointment and angst. And soooo.... as the days go by, I hope things will get better.

I hope.

How are you all coping?

Fixing a Van With a $10 Part

Most people (especially my family) are aware that I know NOTHING about cars. Nothing. I don't even drive anymore. But it was Art who said I could make this into a blog post.

Well... the other day, Art called me to help figure out what was wrong with the brake lights on the back of our 25 year old van. Yes, it's old. We bought our Honda Odyssey in 1999 in preparation for our nephews coming to visit us the following summer. We had an old Plymouth Voyager van but our son was taking it to college. So we got the Honda Odyssey after my friend, Mavis told me how much they loved their new van. And yes, we had a wonderful time with our nephews visiting the East Coast. Here we are in Williamsburg, Virginia. 

So now the brake lights would not turn off no matter what he did.

And yup. So now the van was broken. I figured we needed to take it to the auto dealer to get it fixed.

However, Art looked online and learned that Hondas and Nissans have this weird plastic thingy that can crumble and fall off which would prevent the light from turning off. The YouTube videos said you just have to look on the floor and check out whether there are tiny broken plastic pieces. Yup. There they were. This YouTube video shows you how to do this fix.

Art went to the auto parts store close by but they didn't have the part he needed. They told him he could go to the Napa Auto parts store and sure enough they had it in stock. The fellow who sold him this $10 teeny tiny part said the same thing had happened to him.

Art had me depress the brake while he inserted the teensy weensy part into that hole. It wasn't super easy but he got it in.

And I'm happy to say the van light is now off.

Phew! I hope it lasts another 25 years.

Pruning the Orchids

I wrote earlier that mom's orchid plants were getting crowded and overgrown. I figured I'd tell my brother to separate and transplant them. 

However, we 've been so busy that we just didn't have time to get to it. Eventually the plants started to tip over because they were top heavy.

I noticed that once an orchid bloomed, nothing else came from the same stalk. I was wondering if we could just chop off those heavy extra stalks.

I looked online and found advice that you should cut it off on the second node of the stem.  Okeedokee. We did it. It was kind of spooky.

A few days later, we noticed that there were more stalks we didn't see that were ready to sprout out some blooms.

Woo hoo!

I hope we did the right thing and didn't kill the plants.

Deteriorating Black Soles in Hawaii

I know. I know. I've written about this problem before. Can't remember when, but I'm sure I've complained about this in another post.

When mom stubbed her toe which caused 95% of her nail to lift up, I needed to protect her toe from losing that 5% of nail tissue that was left to keep it on. The doctor thought it could reattach itself. 

I therefore had this idea to let her use one of my bigger shoes when walking outside instead of her usual slippers. She's only 4 feet 9 inches tall so I figured my slip-on shoes which is about a half size larger than hers would be good.

When she started walking though, I noticed that slide-scraping sound as she shuffled off.

Doggone it!

It has black soles and they had completely hardened making it slippery to walk in. Good grief! I looked at my other pair and they were black soled and slippery too. 

On the other hand, the white or gray soled shoes were still flexible and supple. I don't know the words to describe it. It just wasn't slippery like the black soled shoes and worked out to be much better for mom's toe that I kept bandaged for what felt like months.

Whatever the case, I just want to show you that eventually, after all my worry over her toenail, it just fell off a couple of weeks... (maybe more) later.

And there was another toenail under it.

And speaking of black rubber in Hawaii. We got this free T-Mobile umbrella a while ago and when we picked it up to use, the black rubber handle was gooey. Yuck!

Sooo... I had this bright idea to paint it with polyurethane. And guess what! It worked! No kidding. The stickiness is contained.

Too bad there wasn't a way to fix the black rubber soles on my shoes. 

Jack-o-Melons?

Our son and his family live in South Asia right now, but our grandsons attend a private school and appear to celebrate a lot of the American holidays. I think Halloween is celebrated in other countries even though it originally began in England and the U.S.

From Wikipedia:

Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day.

I was still surprised that our grandsons do have fun with Halloween at their school. 

I'm thinking Halloween pumpkins might be harder to find where they are so they've resorted to creating Jack-o-Melons.

I'm glad they were able to find a watermelon. 

Art says he remembers carving a jack-o-lantern out of green papayas when he was growing up on the Big Island. I wonder what his parents thought about that. 

And here's their finished products.

Hmmm... I see they're still able to get Coca Cola there. I did have to send them a bottle of Chick-fil-A sauce though. 😂

And here's their scarily lighted Jack-o-Melons all ready for Halloween.

I've told them not to forget to send me a photo of themselves in their trick or treating costumes. Then again... I wonder if kids go trick or treating there. Hmmm...

A Son's Gift to His Mom

I wrote a post about three years ago called Transplanting Orchids with Help From a Son. Mom kept telling me that her orchid plants needed to be repotted. Well... I wasn't sure how to do that so I told my brother that his mother wanted his help.

So of course, he came right over and began working on it.

He had to split apart the overgrown plants and repot them with hapuu (Hawaiian tree fern).

He did an excellent job and eventually they began flowering a little at a time.

And then the other morning, four of the plants started sending out shoots and flowering at the same time.

There was a little morning shower the other day and the orchids were startlingly beautiful. It makes us smile whenever we look at them and they bloom for such a long time.

Uuummm... I am noticing though that those orchid plants are now overgrown for their small pots and need to be repotted again. 😁

Just in case my brother is reading this...

Oh Dennis.... Mom needs you again.

POSTSCRIPT:

By the way, thank you for caring about me and my health worry these past few weeks. I've been to my doctor who said the liver ultrasound turned out normal and I don't have to worry about it anymore. The blood tests also showed improvement so I'm getting better. However... the stomach upset. Sigh... He says I'll have to get poop tested. He wasn't sure how it would be done. I'm not liking the sound of that.

The Russians Want Trump to Win!

It was in the Hawaii news the other night that the Russians had stolen the identity of a Hawaii resident and was smearing Vice President Tim Walz with it. Matthew Metro lives in Hilo on the Big Island. This was on Hawaii News Now.

"Matthew Metro was a student at West Mankato High School 27 years ago when Tim Walz taught and coached there, but he said Walz wasn’t his teacher and certainly never sexually assaulted him and is trying to get the fake story under control."

 And this was on CBS News:

Russian disinformation groups likely orchestrated baseless claims targeting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, falsely accusing the vice presidential candidate of sexually assaulting his students while he was a high school teacher, according to assessments by the U.S. intelligence community, independent researchers and a CBS News analysis. 

At least four separate claims have spread since early October, racking up millions of views on social media platforms including X, owned by Elon Musk. Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, said at least two of the claims seem to be directly linked to Storm-1516, a Kremlin-aligned troll farm. 

Matthew Metro was on TV saying how angry he was that Russian disinformation groups had gotten hold of the West Mankato High School Yearbook, stolen his identity and past, found an actor to play him and spread lies that were read by millions of people. 

It's really scary and his followers believe it, of course.

As for Mr. Metro? He says he's voting for Tim Walz, oh... and Kamala Harris, of course. 

The Last Fruitcake

Art has always loved fruitcake. Always. And so has his sister. They grew up on the Big Island. I could never understand it since my brother and I (growing up on Oahu) only ever had the store bought type that friends at the newspaper company where mom worked gave to her every holiday season.

When we were on overseas trips Art would look for fruitcake to bring home to taste and also to send one to his sister. It NEVER measured up to his memories.

And then... Jalna of Photos By Jalna posted a recipe in 2016 which I have used ever since. It's the taste that Art had been looking for. I even brought some for his sister in California and yes, she liked it too.

I now make this recipe about 5 times every season. I did change the recipe a little. For instance, instead of buying a lot of candied fruit, I soak dried fruit in canned juice + a teeny bit of sugar and use that. I give quite a lot away to friends, neighbors and relatives (not my brother though 😂 and I still don't eat it).

And then I freeze a LOT for Art. You can see two sections deep of fruitcake that Art has throughout the year. I carefully wrap the fruitcake in wax paper, Saran Wrap and then stick it in plastic Ziploc bags that I reuse later since they're quite clean. 

Art always has a thin slice for breakfast so the loaves will last longer.

But here we are in October and he's on his last loaf. 

I guess it will soon be time to bake again...

Vacuum Sealing Food to Freeze Without a Vacuum Sealer

I've always been amazed at how my daughter and son-in-law vacuum seal a lot of the meats and whatever they get from Costco or elsewhere for their freezer. It's such a convenient thing for a very busy family.

Well, when we were in Chicago, they bought me a vacuum sealer for my birthday... buuut... I had them return it because I really didn't feel we had enough counter space for another appliance. 

On top of that, I'd bought a bunch of reusable plastic freezer containers so I wouldn't have to use plastic freezer bags which I'd have to discard. 

I'm trying hard to reduce our use of plastic. Granted, my freezer containers are plastic. Buuuut... they are reusable. 😁

The containers in the back hold boiled peanuts which is Art's favorite Hawaii snack. I've heard it's popular in the southern states also.

I'm also saving some of those boiled peanuts for my brother which I did store in a plastic bag for him.

I think it was Tiffany who first introduced me to this Poor-man's vacuum sealing. I just stick a thin straw in the corner of the bag and suck out the air.

It actually works well enough for my purposes.

I guess you do need to have enough lung power to suck in that air though. 😁 

Catch a Falling Star (or Comet!)

I wrote a blog post on Monday about how we were able to view the illusive Comet A3 with help from strangers who became more than strangers that evening.

The comet is starting to fade away now as it gets closer to the sun, BUT Art (who loves looking at the night sky) was determined to see it again from our window.

He kept looking outside but Comet A3 was really far too faded to actually be visible with my naked eye. And I'm farsighted. Art is nearsighted and he said he could barely see it with his glasses on. 

However, he heeded the advice of the people we met on Monday and took a photo with his iPhone. There it was! What the heck! The iPhone was able to see what I couldn't!

That's when Art mentioned a setting on the iPhone that I didn't know about and he'd forgotten about. Granted he took the above photo while forgetting about this function anyway.

There's a Night Mode you can use on your iPhone and I'm sure Android phones have something similar too.

Actually, the iPhone automatically switched to Night Mode when I did it last night.

And then my MUCH younger cousin once removed sent this photo. And yes, they said I could use their daughter's photo without blurring out her face.

Is this not the cutest photo of the comet... ever? I just love seeing this adorable child about to catch that "falling star." (This is the link to Perry Como singing "Catch a Falling Star".)

By the way, I asked my daughter if she knew about that Night Mode and she said, "Yes, I use it." 🙄 Well... I guess I'm an old dog still learning new tricks. 😆

POSTSCRIPT:

Our friend, Dave just sent us his photo (taken with his iPhone) on Sunday when Art first called to alert him of the sky phenomenon. 

Several other friends also texted their photos last night once they saw my blog post... but I will stop posting any more comet photos here. 😄The comet is moving closer to the sun now and fading away. 

It's been fun... especially when I remember how we drove away from the Chicago light pollution and stood in an Illinois cornfield in April, 1986 with our good friend, Jim ages ago trying to catch a glimpse of Haley's comet which I don't think we actually saw, but told everyone we probably did. 

The Most Hated Airport

I recently saw in the Star Advertiser newspaper that Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport had gone up in ranking. Now... glory be... our airport was apparently just the 4th worst in the nation.

Well, I have to say with all the airports we've been to, I can attest that it's true our Honolulu airport isn't great. But they did improve the bathrooms. 😆

However, there was that trip to Amsterdam we took with friends a couple of years ago where our 7:00 AM United plane to San Francisco had a malfunction and passengers were running around everywhere as they tried to change their ticketing to another airline. 

We stuck with United and they changed our flight to Newark instead, leaving Honolulu at 2:55 PM!  Arrghh!

At Newark Liberty International Airport, we now had a 12 hour layover!

United gave us $20 meal vouchers to use at Newark which we handed over to the server at the airport.

Would you believe when we returned to Hawaii after the trip, we discovered the Newark airport concession charged us anyway?!?

Arrrghhh!

OK.. So we don't love the Newark Airport either.

All these delays meant we missed a day of our cruise.

So that was our Honolulu airport and Newark's airport that we weren't thrilled with.

But like I said, the Honolulu Airport bathrooms are much improved. 😁

Granted the lines here and there can be really confusing.

But then I saw a while ago that the worst airport of all according to customer satisfaction was Chicago's O'Hare Airport in 2022.

Really? 

Well... it IS huge.

But I guess we're just used to it. And whenever we land there I know we're going to see our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter so it makes me happy.

Ah well...

P.S. I just saw this on the Business Traveler website. The website is listing the worst large airports in the U.S. according to the J.D. Power Analytics firm in 2024. (The list goes from bad to worst.)

Ranking	Airport
1	Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP)
2	Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)
3	Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)
4	John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
5	Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
6	Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)
7	San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
8	Orlando International Airport (MCO)
9	Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL)
10	Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
11	Miami International Airport (MIA)
12	Denver International Airport (DEN)
13	Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
14	George Bush International Airport (IAH)
15	Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
16	Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
17	Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
18	O’Hare International Airport (ORD)
19	Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ)
20	Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)

Do you see what's at the bottom? Yup. Newark Liberty International Airport is the worst! Hawaii isn't even on the list. And O'Hare isn't the worst. OK, so it's the 3rd worst, but it's not THE worst.

Do you have an airport you love to hate or just love?

Seeing Comet A3 With Help From Strangers

Art has always loved astronomy and even bought a telescope a long time ago. (It's in the closet somewhere.) He'd recently heard that there would be a comet sighting after sundown in the western sky close to the horizon.

I got this from CNN news:

Sundown was at 6:09 PM last night so we waited and looked out our western facing window on the 2nd floor. Uuummm...wouldn't you know there was a big tree blocking that view?

Our next effort was to take a walk and try to find an area that would afford us the best view of the western horizon. Would you believe we found a spot and waited and waited? But we couldn't see anything. The sky was also still somewhat lighted. I figured it was a lost cause and coaxed Art to go back home. 

As we walked down the street, we saw someone standing outside his house staring at the sky with a pair of binoculars. I asked him if he was looking for the comet too and he showed us a photo of the comet that his friend had taken. He told us we needed to wait until it was really dark and pointed to where the comet should be. 

And OMG! There it was!!!

We couldn't believe it!

We soon learned that the fellow we were talking to was from the Big Island just like Art and they graduated from the same high school!!! (Granted the fellow is somewhat younger than Art.)

We were all so excited that he called out to his neighbors and soon we were all looking out at the western sky (somewhat higher on the horizon than we originally thought) and taking photos.

One neighbor had been on an African safari just like Art. They all started sharing photos they'd gotten of the comet.

We could hardly believe it!

It was awesome that we could see this with our naked eye even though Art had brought binoculars with him. 

After about a half hour, the comet began to fade away and we all went back home excited and thoroughly happy that we were able to have seen this celestial event together.

After all... we won't be able to see this comet for 80,000 years and I guess we won't be here by then. 😁

Since Art did not get to see the northern lights in Chicago this summer, I'm glad he was able to get a view of this comet.

Uuuummm... uh oh... Is he going to want to look for it again tonight?

POSTSCRIPT:

OMG! Art wrote his high school classmate friend asking him if he knew this fellow we met last night.

His friend, Gary told him that YES! He knew this fellow because they worked together at Pearl Harbor. And if this is true, my cousin might know him too!

There is a joke in Hawaii that the first question you ask anyone you meet is a pidgin phrase, “What school you grad?”