One of these women started a facebook group called "Saori's Kitchen." Not only does she post all kinds of useful info about shopping for ingredients here when you can't read the label, but she also hosts cooking classes in her house. I signed up for Shabu Shabu and got to to take that last week.
Shabu Shabu is basically "hot pot." You set up a communal pot of boiling broth in the middle of your table and everyone cooks their own veggies and meats in it. Then you have dipping sauces for when you dig all your stuff out of the pot. I have experienced Shabu Shabu before, but it was the Taiwanese version - basically just boiling water, rather than a broth to start; and shellfish were included. This Japanese version used only pork for the protein, and you have to make the broth ahead of time.
Veggies & Broth
After we had stuffed ourselves she brought out some homemade green tea mousse of some kind with a cherry blossom on top. Hello, pretty. And yum!
Next up: I decided to brave the BUS. OK, so the train system, while confusing at first, is not too hard to get the hang of. The trains are all very reliable, on-time, the signs usually have a Romanji section (Japanese words spelled out phonetically using western letters, rather than the Kanji or Kana, their written language), and announcements are occasionally in English. So if you have time to scrutinize the signs, and you have a good map, eventually you can probably figure out where you are going.
The bus, on the other hand, is something entirely different. First, there is nothing in English, which is to be expected. But there isn't even Romanji. There is only Kanji. Second, the signs are confusing, so even if you can figure out the Kanji you are looking for, you also have to figure out how they are telling you what time the bus will be arriving. (I finally learned that the weekday times are on the left and the weekend times are on the right. Unless there is a holiday listed. Then the weekend times are in the middle and the holidays are on the right. See? Confusing.)
Third, and probably most important, the bus is NOT on time. I didn't know this when I set out last Saturday in the rain to try to go to the boys' preschool for the "Art Festival." I figured the buses would be like everything else in Japan - precise, user-friendly, and on-time! Wrong.
Anyway, the school isn't far from where we live. It is about halfway between our house and the naval base on the same road going to the naval base. I have driven by it a million times. When the school sent home a note last week saying that there would be no parking at the school for the art festival, I thought, "OK, no prob. I am just going to take the bus I have seen go down that street before. I haven't taken the bus before, but surely I can figure it out."
Nonetheless, the night before the art festival I looked up all the info I could find about taking the bus:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2015.html
The fact that that web page exists should tell you something about how complicated the bus is!
I studied that carefully. I also used my google maps app and figured out which exact bus I should take - it even shows you the Kanji so you can double-check the signs - and what time it would depart the bus stop. The boys and I set out in our rain gear to the bus stop. They were very stalwart and didn't complain.
We got to the bus stop and waited around for awhile. About 1 minute after the appointed time the bus should have been there, a bus came to the stop. I was so excited, and, assuming it was like the trains, I didn't even really check the Kanji. I just hopped on. Mistake! Then, when the boys and I were seated, I realized the number on the bus didn't match what I had in my maps app on my phone. You know where this is going... after two stops and showing my phone to the person next to me, I realized we were on the wrong bus. OK, boys, let's get out of this one!
Long story short we ended up at another bus stop and found the correct bus, but it arrived about 10 minutes later than the sign said it should have gotten there, etc. Yadda yadda yadda, an hour and a half after we orignally left the house and we finally made it to the school (a 15 minute drive from the house, by the way.)
And I got to see these AMAZING art projects made by the tiny terrors:
You will be pleased to know that I got on the correct bus to go home and made it in 20 minutes. Take that, bus system of Japan!
This is the wrong bus:
Anthony, on the wrong bus, asking the universe why his mom is such a dumb ass:
Side note: since making this trek, I found these 2 other pages devoted to riding the bus in Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEO32tc323o
http://www.survivingnjapan.com/2010/09/how-to-find-bus-timesschedule-online.html
I am so sure.
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