rain, rain, more rain

It has rained for days and nights....I wish I could send some home. No wonder everything is very green here! The culprit is a typhoon off the coast, the second in a fairly short space of time. We have not had the winds but loads and loads of rain..then when it doesnt rain a lot of grey heavy clouds. It looks like me and every other carer in Tokyo busts outside during the non-rainy periods to let their kids blow off steam...in the meantime I am finding a lot of indoors things to do, great and often free play halls, lots of arts and craftings and some cooking for dinners....

This would have to be the most basic Japanese dish that anyone can cook, the equivalent of boiling an egg. I would not recommend this fish as it has thousands of tiny bones. The actual dish is called saba miso, saba is mackerel (not this fish above) and it is cooked in a mix of miso, sake, water, sugar and ginger. With a bowl of rice and some vege it is easier than and toasted sandy!

Oh, we also had some big (well big for us) earthquakes last week (before the one in China - I wonder if they are related?). It was early in the morning and rocked the whole house, so much so it woke us up. There are earthquakes you can feel everynight and during the day if you are in a quiet place. These guys were quite big but offshore 100km and quite deep underground so no tsunami and not much damage in the closest area, we are lucky. There was a lot of aftershocks. I guess its part of living in this part of the world....I have devised our emergency plan and supplies and discussed it with my darling so he knows to get the dog. I hope we dont ever need to use it.