Travel: Chicago during the holidays

The clock at Macy's (Marshall Fields) on State Street.

In the days between Christmas and New Year's, we took a short trip up to Chicago. The purpose of our trip was mostly to visit family and friends, which we did for the first three days. After all the visiting and merriment, we took some time to head downtown and enjoy the city on our own. We started at Macy's on State Street (which I will forever call Marshall Fields), where we had lunch at the Walnut Room. This was something that my family did yearly when I was growing up, and a holiday tradition that I want our little guy to cherish as well.

On the eighth floor, the Walnut Room and the Great Tree in the background.

Wishes being granted.

Desserts- Frango Ice Cream Pie, Toffee Pie, and the traditional Ice Cream Snowman for the kiddo.

Our next stop was the Art Institute, where we spent the afternoon cruising the galleries. As per usual, little dude was a huge fan of Minimalism. Since he was about a year and a half, this has been his favorite. Even before he could verbally describe his love, he would clap his hands upon entering the Minimalist galleries at the Nelson Atkins. For me it was nice to see the Impressionist works that I loved as a child, and to view the Asian galleries.  

Seurat. Nostalgia for me, mediocre for little dude.

Penetrable de Chicago was a huge hit for all of us, and little dude befriended a guard.

Ellsworth Kelly- so exciting that he jumped out of the stroller.

And Miro, which he remembered seeing in Tokyo (!), and requested a photo of. 

Our final stop in the museum was the Thorne Miniature Rooms. This gallery is so magical, and captured all of our imaginations.

A great afternoon was had by all.

Another highlight of the day was riding the El, even though it was just a short trip around the Loop.

We finished our evening by relaxing at our hotel, which had a great view of Streeterville, the Chicago River, and the Hancock Building, walking down Michigan Avenue (with a stop at Dylan's Candy Bar), and having a great dinner at Volare.

Hotel view.

The next day started (for me) with a 16 degree jog along the river, lakefront, and through Millennium Park.

Funny, where are the other joggers?

Jogging selfie half way through a 3 mile run. The wind was tough at this point (near Buckingham Fountain), thus the face.

Post-run coffee back at the hotel. Joe went to the indoor fitness center, as he isn't as crazy as I am.

We finished out our trip with a late morning brunch at Yolk and a cold-weather walk through Millennium Park to see Cloud Gate (the Bean). It was such a great trip, and such fun to see our hometown in sparkling holiday splendor.

 

Cloud Gate.

2015

 

Here we go guys, another trip around the sun.

New Year's is generally a quiet affair around here, especially as we just returned from a holiday trip to Chicago and needed some downtime after all the insanity that is the month of December. Other than a few memorable New Year's (Waikiki Beach and Tokyo come to mind) I generally find NYE parties to be disappointing and forced. It's never the glamorous evening I imagine, but in my experience it tends to play out like amateurs night- somebody drinks too much, somebody won't stop complaining about their bad year/breakup/job/etc, somebody talks the big talk about their resolutions, the weather is always cold (I'm remembering sub-zero fireworks in Chicago one year), and everybody has to wait it out until 12 before the treacherous drive home. We tend to sit it out.

We do have a tradition of making Veggie Hoppin' John and Collard Greens on New Year's Day as a way to auspiciously bring in the new year. This year there was a run on collards at our local grocery- literally three people were asking for it at the same time as I was- so we substituted kale instead. Our collards are made with vegetarian bacon for texture, and steak sauce and a tad of liquid smoke for flavor. 

I'm not really one for resolutions, but I do enjoy the chance to reflect on all that happened in the past twelve months and to think about goals for the coming year. May 2015 bring you joy and peace,the chance for personal growth, and the opportunity to experience the world in new and eye opening ways. Happy New Year!

 

November

 

My neighbors put up their Christmas tree this past weekend. I went into Target this week and was hit with reindeer decorations. I dropped into a Starbucks on Wednesday afternoon and my eyes were assaulted with glittery green and red and huge ads for holiday drinks. It's November. Stop it.

A week ago I read a great Jezebel article, "Christmas Must Be Stopped. Let's Declare War on Christmas." I couldn't agree more. November is a time for enjoying the end of autumn, for watching the last leaves fall from the trees, for celebrating Thanksgiving. I'm not a big fan of Christmas (it's my least favorite holiday), but I can tolerate, and maybe even enjoy some of it when it is kept to it's December place. When it starts intruding on Thanksgiving, and even Halloween (!), I flip out. The only place for this consumerist glut is *after* Thanksgiving. Not the evening of, not at 4 a.m. the next morning, but *after*. I think it is completely disgusting that corporations are pushing Black Friday back onto Thanksgiving day, and I have little patience for people that participate in such capitalist bloat. Don't do it, people. Don't force low-wage employees to work on the only American holiday that actually celebrates family and thanks. Don't be that ugly person running to a big fluorescent box store to buy some plastic crap that you don't need anyway. Keep your integrity. Have some respect for yourself. Shop later at retailers that stay closed on Thanksgiving (here is a list of 20 such retailers), or shop local.

For now, I'm enjoying pumpkin cookies and leaf gazing, hot spiced apple cider and squash pastas, kale dishes and things spiced with the last herbs from our garden. Be here now. Live in the season you're in. Christmas will have it's time, but let's all agree to wait until that time is right.

Children's Day こどもの日

 

Parading to the park with our newly acquired koinobori.

Tomorrow, May 5, is Children's Day. The holiday is one of the string of holidays in Japan that make up Golden Week, which this year gave us Tuesday off, and our current four day weekend. Children's Day is just as it sounds, a day to celebrate children, although it historically has a stronger connection with boys. Typically, families hang out koinobori, or large carp banners, and we purchased one today to celebrate the kiddo in our house. We also have a small cloth decoration and a small koinobori for the interior of our apartment. At little man's school they have gigantic banners out in the yard that they have hung up on every clear day for about three weeks. I remember seeing these huge koinobori the first year we lived in Japan, and thinking that they were such fun, and also a great way to remember to celebrate the small people among us. At little man's school the students made their own koinobori, and also had a small kids festival on Friday, complete with taiko drums and kashiwamochi, some of which was sent home.

 

 

Koinobori, kashiwamochi, and Kintaro, symbols of Children's Day.

  

  

Banners outside little man's school.

 

 

Mini banners. 

Easter

 

Mmmmm.... eggs......

Well, Easter is just about over here in Tokyo. We had an eventful weekend filled with celebrations of spring, and I tried to do as many "normal" Easter activities as possible. Easter is not a thing at all here in Japan, most people are not really even aware of what it is, so finding traces of the holiday proved to be quite difficult. The only conspicuous sign of the holiday is the marketing for Tokyo Disneyland's Easter Celebration, which goes through June. I should also make note that we are not a religious family, so our celebration of Easter is one of celebrating the coming of spring, more in line with the original pagan holiday than the Christian one. 

One activity we did was to dye eggs. As I love hard boiled eggs, this is a fun and productive activity for me. Without access to any type of dye kits, and in keeping with a natural lifestyle, we made our own natural dyes. This was a step trickier than it would be in the U.S., as certain commonly used natural dyestuffs, such as red cabbage, are not easily found here. I went with three colors that we could simply create from our local market- blue/purple from vegetable juice, gold from turmeric, and light green from spinach.

 

 

Boiling spinach and turmeric.

 

 

So much excitement!

 

 

Waiting, waiting.

 

 

The finished product.

Our eggs turned out pretty well- the turmeric and juice dyes worked the best, and I might try red wine next year, as well as red cabbage and perhaps beets. 

Little man also received presents from the Easter bunny on Easter morning. This was the true challenge of the day, finding Easter candy. On Friday I went to Tokyo Station on my way home from the archives to hunt for Easter foodstuffs. I thought this would be a simple task- Tokyo Station has two giant floors devoted to food and confections- but it turned out to be a bit harder than I anticipated. In almost an hour of shopping I found four things amongst the tens of thousands of square feet of food- bunny cookies (500 Yen, bought), Easter decorated hard candy (500 Yen, skipped), a chocolatier offering 800 Yen bunnies and 1200 Yen chocolate eggs with additional candies inside (bought), and another chocolatier offering 2000 Yen bunnies and 6000 Yen chocolate eggs (this is $20 and $60 respectively, perhaps obviously, skipped). I also picked up a box of pastel pink and blue Skytree chocolates, and was fortunate to receive some imported chocolate chicks from a friend. I splurged a bit more and bought some train candies, a train t-shirt, and a new toy train, which of course were the favorites this morning. No plastic eggs and grass, and no baskets this year, but we were still able to make a go of it. It was also great fun to have Joe on Skype as little dude searched our apartment for his bounty.

The rest of our day was pretty normal, though I did take us out to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe in Ueno to have the most Western style food possible, and we watched It's the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown, which was the perfect way to end the day.

No matter your beliefs, I hope that you have a lovely holiday, and are able to celebrate the coming of spring in some form. Happy Easter!

Red Beans and Rice

 

It's Mardi Gras! This isn't a thing at all here in Japan, but in honor of the holiday I made Louisiana-style Red Beans and Rice for dinner tonight. Kidney beans, onions, garlic, green peppers, spices, and simmered for three hours. It was complete perfection mixed in with rice and topped with spring onions. I wanted to make a tri-color slaw, but couldn't find the right veggies at my neighborhood market (the big supermarket is a bit further afield), so I improvised with tri-color pickles to represent the purple, green, and yellow of New Orleans. While the pickles made it a bit of a cultural mash-up, their crispy vinegar flavors made a nice contrast with the texture of the beans.

Hina Matsuri 雛祭り

Hina dolls on the stage.

This week marks Hina Matsuri here in Japan, also known as Girls Day, or the Doll Festival. The festival celebrates young girls, and is often marked with doll sets that include the Emperor and Empress at the top, together with members of the court in Heian period (794-1185) dress.

Like all good holidays, it is celebrated with song and food.  Little man had a pageant at his school- his first! The chaos was amazing, as was to be expected with a school full of kiddos under age six all performing for the masses of excited parents and grandparents. All of the classes did great; his class performed twice, once with songs and a second time with a musical drama about the sea, earth, and sun, complete with costumes. The teachers really worked hard to set everything up, and to have the kids practice for so many weeks leading up to the big day.

 I'm not sure what is more amusing in this photo- the cuties on stage or the multiple video cameras rolling in the audience.

 CUTENESS.

After the pageant, the kids all took home bento boxes with special food, as well as sweets related to the holiday. The bento was quite delicious, and included chirashizushi, sushi rolls, and an adorable egg-rice roll complete with imprinted hina dolls. They were also provided with sakura mochi, a traditional Hina Matsuri sweet made of red bean paste, mochi, or glutenous rice cake, and the leaf of a cherry tree. They also received a sucker and a bag of hina arare, an airy, fuffy popped rice snack coated (and I mean *coated*) in sugar. The arare, like the sakura mochi, consisted of three colors- pink for the blossoms of the peach tree (not seasonal now, but it was when the festival was on the lunar calendar), white for the still remaining snow, and green for the new growth, and also symbolizing the growth of the girl children that the holiday celebrates.

 Hina Matsuri foods.

 Hina arare.

Although Boy's Day will arrive in May, we took the occasion of the Hina Matsuri pageant to celebrate the boy in our house, and purchased little cupcakes with the boy and girl that top the hina doll set- representative of the Emperor and Empress, and something that seems more treat-like to our little dude's American palette than traditional Japanese mochi sweets.

Hina Matsuri cupcakes!

Setsubun 節分

 

Today is Setsubun, the bean throwing festival which marks the coming of spring. Traditionally, people toss beans outside and say, "Out with demons! In with luck!" (鬼は外！福は内！Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!) Little man celebrated at school by making an oni (demon) mask, and eating soy nuts. The students chased around teachers wearing masks and tossed beans at them as well.

 

 

In the evening we tossed beans out the door, and ate uncut sushi rolls that I purchased at the local market. It was pretty hectic after work to buy the rolls (above). They also sold roll cakes with oni on them (below).

 

 

 

 

The oni marketing outside the supermarket.

  

 

All the sushi rolls.

 

 

Our dinner haul- two types of sushi rolls and one roll cake. Yum.

We also participated in the tradition of eating a soy bean for each year of life, plus one for good luck. The beans taste a bit like unsalted peanuts. Not a bad snack, but better when chased with beer.

 

 

Setsubun beans.

  

 

My life in beans. Lots of beans. 

Oji Fox Parade 王子狐の行列

Hiroshige's version of the Oji foxes from the early 19th century. The area looks a bit different today, as do the foxes.

At midnight on New Year's, all the foxes of the Kanto region gather at the Inari shrine in Oji. Lucky for us, we live a 15 minute walk away. Joe and I stayed up watching the annual battle of male and female pop stars on t.v., and plopped little man in his stroller surrounded by blankets at around 11:30 on New Year's Eve to walk over and see the parade of foxes. I've been looking forward to it since I saw a small version of the parade back in September. It was amazing.

The parade began with elaborately costumed foxes and elders of the community.

After a group of kiddos being carried in a palanquin, there were huge versions of the paper mache masks that were worn by most of the paraders.

A lit sign with the fox, symbol of Inari shrines. This was on the major street going through the area, so the parade was kept to one side of the road to allow traffic to pass.

A friendly fox who played with little man, and bent down with her lantern to allow him to see the candle inside.

 Foxy.

 The lanterns announcing the parade along the route.

Most of the foxes were costumed simply.

The parade went through a few narrow streets, as above. It got a little crazy.

As we approached the shrine the crowds really thickened, so we hung back from the parade itself. We grabbed a snack at a conbini and then arrived at the shrine once the parade had dispersed. Despite being about 1:15 a.m., the shrine was bustling with people wanting to say the first prayer of the year. The line was out of the shrine grounds and around the block. We didn't feel the need to wait, but we did walk around for a few minutes.

The big bonfires were a welcome way to warm up on a cold winter's night.

We walked back home and visited Hakusan Shrine back in our immediate neighborhood before getting in at around 2 a.m. Above is little man wrapped in his Donald Duck blanket learning how to say a prayer at a Shinto shrine, and making a wish for the new year.

May 2014 bring you happiness, comfort, and joy!