Japanese Meals & Halloween

We brought back some dinnerware from our Japan trip, so I cooked a Japanese meal the other day to use our new dishes and bowls. Joe had tonkatsu, breaded pork cutlet, several times in Japan, but he didn't complain about having another one.
And last night we had authentic Fukuoka style ramen. Our friend Tak gave us a package to bring back. Not quite like the ramen we experienced at an outdoor noodle stand there, but it was still very good. We wish we had a good ramen place nearby....

Joe is getting ready for deer season now. He just put his "home away from home" aka deer blind in the woods.

Lastly, we wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

Our Japan Trip

We had a wonderful trip to Japan... it is hard to believe that it hasn't been a full week since we came back. First, we spent our 2nd day with my childhood friend and her family visiting Gujo. All that walking uphill gave us no time for jetlag.
We took a small family trip to the bay areas of Toba, enjoying fresh seafood, cooked and raw. Joe had his first experience of a ryokan, a small inn which usually serves bath, dinner, and breakfast.

We took a train day trip to Nara to see the great Buddha. The photos didn't do a justice to show how grand it stood. And it was just mind blowing how ancient those artifacts we saw were... like 2000 years old!

Then we took a shinkansen trip to Fukuoka to see our friend Tak. We made sure to taste much of what the town offers, including famous ramen noodle.

On the Sunday before our departure we went along with my parents on a walk. Took morning trains to get to the little hot spring town of Gero and followed arrow signs to complete our 5 mile walk among many others. We definitely saw a lot of my parents' backs in distance that day.

Luckily we had good weather every day in Japan. For the time we had there, we visited new places, tasted many different foods, and spent quality time with my family and important friends.   

End of Trout Season

 

This Friday was the last day of trout season, and we both took a day off for fishing. We really didn't have good luck catching any fish on Apple Creek. We could see a few salmon swimming under water. Nothing was hitting on either spinners or crawlers. The weather was gorgeous. Our pasty lunch was very enjoyable. Later we moved to another spot and had a little more action. We kept on going upstream, hoping to catch that last big one, and explored the stretch of river Joe hadn't fished for a long time. There I actually caught a few nice rainbow and brown trout. It was a good way for me to finish the season, remembering how it felt to catch a fish. Exciting! Fall color was also starting to emerge. Thank you, Fish God, for watching over us during this season.

Joe expressed his love for me by spending an hour cleaning salmon roe after catching a female salmon last week. It is a tedious job.

I marinated the roe in sweet soy seasonings, then served it with avocado slices over rice. Yummy. Once Joe passed its funny texture, he enjoyed his meal, I think.

 Lastly, we are getting our roof worked on right now. It needed new shingles put on for a few years. The part that's done (upper and above bay windows in the picture) looks very nice, doesn't it? It feels good to have this one big job done before winter for sure. We'll see if our guy can finish it all before we take off for Japan this Friday.