New Year's Eve

It's 2008. Already here. I spent the midnight hour in bed, snoring. Actually we all did, although Betty and Sandra went out to Yoyogi Park and the Meiji Shrine at about 9:00 to see what all the fuss was about. There was a performer getting ready in the amphitheatre, and lots of people at the shrine. They commented on the number of policemen and boy scouts. There were plenty of young folks in crazy furry hats, wild clothes and kimonos. Large video screens, paper lanterns, food vendors and bells ringing. A carnival atmosphere.



We were talking about watching THE BALL drop at 2:00 in the afternoon here today, (on CNN?) but I doubt we'll be at home. It wouldn't be the same, really.



Earlier in the evening, we had a very nice eclectic combination of foods for supper- some left-overs, some we bought before we came home; dumplings, rice in tofu bags, ma po tofu, bread and cheese, a big green salad, sliced roast beef. We finished off with Costco cheesecake for dessert. We had had some the night before, and it was OK, but it definitely needed something. So Sandra, Claire and I decided to make a chocolate sauce. I remembered that chocolate sauce had chocolate, cream, a drop of rum, (how hard could it be?) and so Claire started melting the chocolate. We were blogging, talking and weren't paying attention well, and as soon as we added the cream to the chocolate (those of you who know how to cook are already laughing) it turned into a stiff blob. Maybe some bourbon would thin it out? Well, actually...no. The harder we worked it, the lumpier it got, with the liquid separating out. Sandra, ever the comedian, decided to form little elongated blobs of it. Instantly realizing a photo opportunity, she took various pictures of her questionable creations. Robin wandered into the kitchen to see what all our cackling was about, and seeing the chocolate blobs, added a little hand-painted cat to the display. Big-time hilarity ensued.

I consulted my recently purchased Joy of Cooking, and we decided to try again, THIS TIME with a recipe. Success! We enjoyed Costco cheesecake with yummy, smooth chocolate drizzles after dinner.



The moral of the story: Often a mistake is an opportunity.

Chocolate sauce? What a great idea!


Uh Oh....Not even bourbon can save us now.



Eww!




Another kitchen disaster brought to you by Alice.




"Look what I made!"





No caption necessary.

Ummmm........

The final product! Whew!

The Giant Buddha at Kamakura

Today was Monday. We got out early- 9:45 which is astounding, since Nathan slept in to 11:30 yesterday morning. We headed off to Kamakura- on the wrong train-so then we had to get off the train and REALLY head off to Kamakura. (A typical "Wayman start!") This is a sea-side town that is famous for being one of many capitols of old Japan. It was the one before Kyoto. It is also famous for housing the second largest Buddha statue in Japan. Wow! Very impressive.

hayhayhay...It's everyone's favorite Matthew Robert Ploss, comin atcha outta Tokyo. My mother is busy butchering a chocolate sauce recipe, so I'm commandeering her blog. I'll sum up this entry with a succinctness of words she seems to lack. Big Buddha...Cold...Windy...Feet hurt. There...now onto the stuff that you're all dying to hear about...details on my life.

My break's been pretty good so far... Just the right mix of going out and staying in. It was nice seeing Chris again, though it went by all to quickly. My excitement has far from passed, however, as the news of the possiblility of another Chris-visit with a Sarah and Lap cherry on top this spring has peaked my anticipation to a nearly unprecedented high. The one precedent would of course be the now solidified plans of having my two best friends over in February. Needless to say, I really can't wait to see Trevor and Art. Oh dear, I'm rambling...I better cut to the chase. Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Merry Kwanza, and enjoy the pictures of me posted below.

Big Buddha Day

This was after our first "false start" on the way to Kamakura. It was bloody freezin' today.




Our first stop: A Zen Buddhist Temple and surrounding monastery. Gorgeous and serene. And cold.



This place will be amazing in the spring when the cherry blossoms come out.
And it will be warmer.

Haiku:
Nathan, patient, calm
cold wind, warm sun, blustering
dreams of tasty lunch

The sun was just right. Late in the day, clear blue sky. Breathtaking.



Sandra and the Buddha.

Nathan contemplated for a long while.

Bye Bye Chris!

What a fantastic time we all had with Chris here for a week! It was great to see him, as you can imagine. It was like finding the last (missing) piece of a jigsaw puzzle, and finally putting the picture together. We managed to hit some of the high spots of Tokyo while he was here: Ueno, Shimokitazawa, Asakusa, Meiji Shrine, Shibuya, Roppongi, and several coffee shops all around the city. My boy is definately caffeinated. We shared some fabulous meals, some movies, hang time and fun. It is refreashing to see the amazement of Tokyo on a newbie's face. I realize what was once new and wondrous to me is becoming familiar. So to see Chris' jaw gape at the architecture, the style, the staggering humanity of Tokyo reminded me that, "Yeah! This IS pretty amazing!" But now our last puzzle piece has gone missing again, as Chris boarded NWA today to head home. He's airborn even as I write this. He returns to frigid Montreal to celebrate the New Year with some old and new friends. For a farewell dinner, last night we ate at Gonpachi. Shoes off, sake, Japanese "tapas," and some of the best food we had ever tasted.

I am delighted that my sister-in-law and my two nieces are here to see the sights and travel a bit around Tokyo and beyond. Tomorrow we will go to a sea-side town called Kamakura, where we will see the second largest Buddha in Japan, and hopefully do some hiking in the nearby hills.
Words cannot express how GREAT it is to have some gals to pal around with. Today, the 4 of us (ALL FEMALES) walked to Yoyogi Park, Harajuku, found a noodle shop for a yummy lunch, got caught in a storm, bought cool cheap umbrellas, visited the Meiji Shrine and then wandered our way back home, stopping for a warming pick-me-up at a coffee shop along the way.

Right now the Meiji Shrine is being prepared to receive hundreds of thousands of visitors in the next 48 hours or so. You can tell there will be a huge party/carnival/festival there tomorrow night. The rest of the city is shutting down, in preparation for December 31-January 3. This is the biggest Japanese holiday of the year. Everyone is preparing for the new year by meticulously cleaning their houses and businesses inside and out. Then they are decorating their front doors with pine branches- one on either side. Many doors have sacred straw festoons on their doors. These are all ways to welcome good luck into their homes and lives for the fresh start of the new year. Betty and I got a couple of the straw decorations at the park today. Mine is on the front door. Had to take the Christmas wreath down.

Practically everything will be closed except the convenience stores. Everyone travels to be home with family. This city was already feeling like a heavily populated ghost town today, if that makes any sense. The usual Harajuku Sunday crowd was no where to be seen, and there was only one rock band playing on the sidewalk. It was surprisingly quiet. HOWEVER, I did catch the dancing Elvises for the first time ever. They have been dancing at Yoyogi Park every single Sunday for years now. I guess nothing says "Happy New Year!" like dancing Elvi. (Elvi: noun, the plural of Elvis) Matt coined that word.
I've got to get to bed.

Check out the video of Elvi below!

Chopsticks, Cousins and Presley Posers

Sitting around the table are (L to R) Matt, Chris, Betty, Robin, Nathan, Claire and Sandra. I was behind the camera, as usual. Happy, tired, a wee bit jet lagged. It's such a joy to be all together.





Chris and Sandra- the "Dynamic Duo" since......well, forever!
And both excellent musicians.
(And their side-kick, Mattums)






The cousins- all grown up in front of a great blue whale at the National Science Museum. Too bad it was closed!

Dancing Elvi. Not much to say about this.
This is a crazy, crazy place!

Chris Ploss in Tokyo

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Here's my present to you. Click on the link and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

Christmas Letters

I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas letters. Every year we get them. I've been getting them since I first got married, about 25 years ago. I don't mean the lovely hand written newsy notes from friends. I mean the typed and copied year's end round up of the fabulous things the kids are doing, the fabulous trips around the world, including camel rides, and meeting Heads of State. An old elementary school chum who works in the diplomatic corps sent a note one year telling about spending the day with Laura Bush. I love hearing about friends and their lives. It's just that in the past, these types of letters always made me feel so...inadequate...unaccomplished...and well, mundane. My kids were reading at or above grade level, were NOT doing sports, and well...they made me laugh a lot. Great fun at home, but not necessarily Christmas letter fodder. (I exaggerate- they all had their bright shining moments!)

This year I have received a couple letters here in Tokyo. My favorite parts of these letters are the kooky personal fun stuff, like knock-knock jokes and a third graders' rendition of jingle bells...(He has two sisters, can you tell?)

"Dashing thru the snow

on a pair of broken skis

Jumping over girls

Crashing into trees

The snow is turning red

I think I lost my head

I landed in the hospital

And now I think I'm dead"

Refrain- (with Batman and Joker, of course)

My old friend Stu, who is now a pastor, writes beautiful poetry about Christmas each year, words that give me goose bumps. This kind of stuff takes the sting out of the regular fare of bragging about one's family. I remember early on, we received a letter that was full of almost every kid's high achievement, but then at the very last line, they added one sentence about their youngest who was in and out of jail. (!?) Then there are the clever ones: in memo form, outline form, financial presentation form. A year in short hand. Why bother? My all-time favorite one is a family newspaper in which all members of the family contribute articles, poetry, comic strips, photos and other light hearted features that really give you a sense of what they've been doing, and what they think about it. It is also sometimes (depending on the events of the year) a tad bit self-deprecating, a good humorous read.

My mother-in-law June, and I giggle (wickedly) each year about creating a Christmas letter parody, so shocking and full of bad news that it would only really be appropriate to publish in The Onion. We still may do that some day. (If you have good ideas, send them along!)

I will not send out a Christmas letter this year. Ironically, this is the first year that we have something truly exciting and interesting to tell. But you already know what we've been up to. Actually, I like to think that the years spent raising our boys, living and working in Trumansburg, going to church, becoming part of the community, and forging friendships were anything BUT mundane. How lucky we have been to enjoy good health, family and friends in an exceptional small-town filled with good people!

So anyway- we are all well. Chris arrives today, and we can't wait to see him! I'll post pictures of our adventures with the family throughout the weeks ahead.

Merry Merry!

Hallelujah Chorus

As many of you may know already, I come from and married into a musical family. As is the Ploss Family Holiday tradition, we gather together our friends and extended families and party on one Saturday night in December. We sing, and eat and drink and sing some more, until we can't. (Eat, drink or sing!) The great thing about the singing at our party is that it's usually in 4 parts and our accompanist is good!

This year's party, which is in it's waning hours even as I write this was the first one I've missed in 25 years. I was kinda bumming about it last night and this morning, so I decided to do something different to keep my mind off it. I decided to go to church for the first time since July 11. (As my friend Anne jokingly said, "Forgive me Father for I have sinned...")I realized I missed singing Christmas and Advent music. It's been a HUGE part of the yearly cycle of seasons for my entire life. I was raised in the Presbyterian tradition, and have been doing something Presbyterian for all my Trumansburg years. Church this morning was a welcome, pleasant and familiar diversion. On my way home, I stopped in a music store and picked up 2 books of seasonal piano jazz.

When I got home, I checked my email and found a REALLY URGENT message from Chris to send him my phone number. I quickly skyped the party at Bob and June's and heard the familiar strains of carols in the background. I got passed around for a few minutes, saying hello to friends, and then....they sang the Hallelujah Chorus one more time just for me! There were only just a few folks left at the party, Bialkes, Sutcliffes, and Plosses-a-plenty, but they put their hearts and souls into that performance. As I heard their enthusiastic voices coming through my wee computer speakers, I was overcome with thankfulness- that I have such amazing, loving (and talented!)friends and family, and longing-it made them seem farther away somehow. It was the best sounding Hallelujah I've ever heard, (who WAS that tenor?) and it reduced me to a puddle. I'm guessing it was a funny puddle, because Nate and Matt were pointing and laughing.

Just as the Hallelujah Chorus is a Christmas and Easter tradition in our culture, Beethoven's 9th Symphony (the Choral Symphony) apparently is the big thing here in Japan. My niece Sandra Wayman sent me this link to an article describing how this is so. I actually have a Japanese aquaintance who will be participating in the world's biggest 9th Symphony performance here in Februaury.

Check it out: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFDF1E3FF93AA15751C1A966958260


Wishing you Love, Laughter and Music this Christmas Season!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Last night, we finally went to EX, the German snack bar. This picture gives you an idea how tiny the place is, (we took the picture from one side of the bar, looking toward the other side- and that's the size of this small establishment) and if you look closely, you can see hundreds of little ornaments hanging down, over the customers. It was very festive! The entire place seats 14 people, all cozy and up close around a well worn wooden bar. EX is run by two men; the large friendly German named Horst, and his diminutive Japanese partner, Hiroshi. They serve up friendly delicious German comfort food- heavy on the meats, and wonderful roasted vegetables, along with excellent German beer. It was just what I needed to lift the spirits. There were people coming in and out the whole time we were there, looking disappointed when they saw a full house, and several groups waited for seats outside in the chilly night air. Horst chatted away with all the customers like they were old friends (and some were, you could tell) with his wonderful accent, white mustache and buzz cut.

It was a very memorable meal.

You can go to EX too! Check out the (mostly live) web cam: http://www.ex-tokyo.com/webcam.htm

Lights of Roppongi

I thought you might enjoy the twinkly lights of Roppongi. Little by little we are uncovering the mystery of Christmas in Japan. Now we know that Christmas is a ROMANTIC holiday, meant for couples. (chaperoned by a jolly fat man in a red suit, adds Robin) So many of the red ornaments hanging in the greens are heart shaped, and you see couples strolling through the parks at night enjoying the sparkling lights. So now we know how to celebrate: pick up a bucket of KFC, buy a cake and have a romantic dinner: Christmas in Japan!

Many Christmas, everyone!

There's a lovely path through this well lit park. It surrounds a pond. Very Romantic!

This is the giant spider at Roppongi Hills. It's a pretty famous landmark.

Lots of people taking pictures of this scene with their cell phones...

College life in The Great White North

Here's the latest image from Montreal, Canada. Chris took this picture of the turbo punch bug under "15 inches, and still coming down!" After he shoveled out the car, he had to get someone to help jump it to get it started. Then he filled it up, and stocked up on groceries. When he returned home he discovered that someone had taken his lovely shoveled parking spot. He drove around the block, found "a snow bank" that he then shoveled to make a new parking spot, and schlepped his groceries home through the snow. Reminds me of a few experiences with a car that I enjoyed as an undergrad at Fredonia way back in the day...

Happy Winter!

Hanging out in Tokyo

Here I am, just hangin' out on the couch in the living room. We've been relaxing at home more lately, as either the excitement of living in Tokyo has worn off a little, or else the approaching holiday, early darkness and colder temps are causing us to "nest."

We attended the Winter Fest at ASIJ on Saturday. It was a balmy 60 degrees and the sun was shining. I couldn't help but think how "Octoberfestish" it felt. I had my first Taiko performance on an actual stage, in an actual theatre. It went pretty well, although there was one moment when I was totally confused. I missed the last class before the performance, so I'm guessing I missed a crucial rehearsal point...In the middle of the piece, we turn our big round fat Taiko drums onto their sides on their stands, so they are tipped toward us, and we sit on the floor, holding the stands with our feet. Then we lean back, using our abdominals to hold us up, wailing away for all we're worth. Well- everytime we had practiced that movement to the sitting position in class, we had always been facing our teacher, Moko. On Saturday, we were supposed to walk around to the side facing the audience, tip our drums and then sit with our BACKS TO THE AUDIENCE, because apparently, it's rude to have our feet facing them. This caught me completely by surprise. Consequently, I was trying to tip my drum the wrong way, (oh no! why is my stand backwards!?)and was struggling with it, when I noticed that everyone around me was already down, facing backward...and there I was completely confused, standing in a sea of seated drummers...I tried to recover quickly, but I'm sure I looked a bit like a deer in the headlights until I figured it out. Eventually I got down, and finished with a flourish. Sheesh. So much for being inconspicuous.

The leaves are still on the trees, although some are red and gold. The tree outside my kitchen window has just decided this week to drop it's leaves. Matt said that just when it gets pretty with all the leaves on the ground all the local folks come out and sweep the leaves away. That's probably true. I commented that at least they aren't using leaf blowers. I can't stand those things.

I just heard from Matt that there is a snow day happening in the 'Burg today! I share your joy. I'm just a big giant kid when it comes to snow days. We won't see snow until we head for the mountains of Nagano when Chris comes to visit. So go build a snowman, and go sliding for me, would you? Have a great time!

More hang time with the family...

Nathan donning his Ithaca is GORGEOUS T shirt, engrossed in something. Matt is a dork, but I love him! He's the comedian in the family. He's wearing my Taiko headband.
A view of our little dining room from our living room.
This picture was painted especially for me by my favorite Aunt, Jane Zogg. I received it over the weekend in the mail. It was painted to remind me of my "homeland," and to make me feel better. Jane lives in McGraw, right near Cortland and has been painting, teaching and sharing art her whole life. She is a remarkable woman who hasn't had an easy life. She was thrown from a car in a terrible accident in the late 60's and since then has endured countless surgeries, and has had to overcome many health difficulties. Through the years, I have admired her indomitable spirit, strong faith, her sense of humor and easy laugh. She's one of those people who has a chuckle ready to fly at any moment. This was a very touching gift. It was like getting a huge hug.
Huge hugs to you all!
Cheers.