Pre-School Update:

Today was the 7th of 14 trial Saturday classes that we have completed to give the community an opportunity to see what our Pre-School is about and sign up for the April 2013 opening. (The Japanese school year runs from April to March, with various breaks and holidays through the year.) The classes have gone well and I believe that the students and parents have enjoyed the lessons. We have chairs set up in the back of the room for the parents to stay and observe. Of the 7 classes so far we have had at least 1 student attend except for 1 Saturday where we had cancellations and no students. On that Saturday we prayed for the students that the Lord would have attend this fall as well as those who will sign up for April 2013. It has been great to meet so many parents and students. It has also been wonderful to work with the various church members who have prayed for about 5 years and invested their own time, energy, and money to the opening of this school. 

I would like to ask for prayer for a a trip that I will be taking with the ladies from the Pre-School. We are going to Seoul, South Korea for four days in the second week of November. One of the ladies working with us married a Korean man and she worked with and has many contacts among a group of all English speaking schools that we are going to observe in. They are either Pre-School's or Kindergartens. I am looking forward to spending time with the ladies from our Pre-School outside of work as well as meeting other E.S.L. (English as a second language) teachers and observing in their classrooms. 


I have many more photos that I will do a post about in the future but the 2 photos below are of our class today:

Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers as we begin and work in this ministry in Shimonoseki. 

Stephanie

Driving Around Shimonoseki: Part 1

This post consists of many of the photos that we have taken while driving around the city of Shimonoseki and surrounding areas. 

Watch out for these on the sides of the roads :)

The red upside down triangle is a stop sign.

Don't forget to drive on the opposite side of the road as in the U.S.

A grocery store.

Young children walk and ride all of the time on main roads. This is one of the main roads traveled to get from one side of town to another. I haven't had my camera ready when we see them but the younger students where uniforms and matching yellow hats. They raise one arm when they cross the road to make them easier to see. 

A local restaurant, we have not been there yet. 

The 7-11's are not gas stations only convenient stores and we have yet to see one with a slushy machine :(

The place to get donuts here unless you want to drive 45 minutes to the newly opened Krispy Kreme!!!

Hotto Motto is a take out place.

We have no idea what this set of stores sells ??

The was the first restaurant we ate at when arriving in Shimonoseki with Tony Haug. 

We are thrilled to have a Costco about 1 hour drive away :) It is interesting that many products such as Oatmeal/Pantene shampoo/Aveeno lotions have sticker labels in Japanese placed over the English descriptions on the back of items. 

The Ikea is about 15 minute drive from Costco :)

Surprisingly almost all furniture is cheaper here than in most second hand stores in our city. 

Some things were in both English and Japanese.

Stay tuned for more photos of driving around Shimonoseki.....

Picture Post: Festival

We heard that there was a Festival going on one night in downtown Shimonoseki. We walked there from our apartment and enjoyed the people and experiencing everything.

The above is a view of the streets blocked off, you can see all of the people walking on the right side of the photo. They cleared the streets for dancing.

The next several photos below are of the dancing and different costumes (kimonos) that the different groups were wearing.

Everyone was doing the same dance.

There was a large/long area where they had different booths set up and people we selling things. Mostly food and drinks. There was hardly any sweet food it was almost all different sorts of meat/meat on a stick. 

There was a stage set up and individuals and various groups performed.

The above photo is the Shimonoseki Tower. It can be seen from almost anywhere we go in the city. We use it as a landmark when driving :)

There was a stage set up at one end of the street where everything was blocked off. They had a set of singers, drummers, and people playing other instruments. Below is a photo of the stage. The bottom 2 videos are of the singing/dancing.

The Cooking Chronicles: Part 1

We have been to a few different restaurants here with other people in Shimonoseki. One thing that we really enjoyed was a chicken with a light breading. When browsing in the grocery we came across several packages that looked like a similar breading. We purchased one of the packages and got cooking. 

As you can see the instructions are in Japanese so we had to improvise and did the chicken similar to how you make chicken parmesan but with breading we had purchased. 

After cutting up our chicken into nugget size pieces we put them into the batter and put them in the skillet with some olive oil. Chicken is one of the least expensive meats that we have found. Especially the big boneless skinless chicken breasts or the tenderloins. Most of the meat is beef or pork and it is cut into very thin slices or small thin pieces to eat with chopsticks. Also fish is very inexpensive. 

David always does a great job cooking. I am glad that he has more time to cook here.

The chicken was great, this has become a regular meal in our house now along with rice or potatoes and corn.

Below is a photo of the package of the yummy potatoe seasoning mix we found. For those of you who can read Japanese the photo is upside down and I don't know how to rotate it :)

David cooking the potatoes before the seasoning was added.

We purchased a large bottle of olive oil from Costco. We just refill our little bottle that we purchased before we made it to Costco when we first moved here. I just love cooking with   olive oil. This 5 liter bottle of olive oil was 1,528 yen was a little over $19.00. 

Japanese fruit is very good. It is very expensive too. One of David's students gave us a basket of plums. I don't know how much they were because they were a gift. 

There was one seed inside each plum. I wish I had a backyard to plant the seeds and try to grow plums!!

The fruit below is called a Japanese pear and it is so good. Sweeter than a regular pear and less grainy. It is also very juicy and watery. It looks like an apple. We have seen these for about 130 yen each (about $1.70). I bought 2 when they were on sale for 100 yen each (a little over $1). 

If any fruit is on sale either individualy or in a bunch for 100 yen or less I try to buy it because it is rare to find fruit for that inexpensive. I recently found a bag of 4 medium size oranges for 100 yen each bag and we bought 2 bags.  

Stay tuned for more Cooking Chronicles!!!