Karin syrup, bloomers and a completed room!
October 2022
I stare at the golden jars with such an impatience. I can't believe I have to wait three months! THREE MONTHS! I'm so tempted to do things my way, to keep a jar out of the fridge and see what happens.... Would it spoil? Would it ferment sooner and be ready to use in a day? A week? A few weeks? Already I can see the honey pulling the juice from the karin (quince), the golden liquid ever so slowly moving, the juice and honey still separate, the two liquids making patterns. It's fascinating to watch.
I have made a honey and karin (quince) syrup. I’m excited about it, it’s my first Japanese fermenting. In Australia I used to make onion and honey syrup using the same method. Sometimes I’d add garlic, lemon and/or ginger. It was amazing for coughs.
We had been out picnicking a few days before at a lake. The air was fresh but the sun was bright. And the autumn colors, just glorious!
After enjoying our picnic we set out for a stroll around the lake but didn’t get too far when we came across a karin tree. It took hardly any persuasion for Bob to start climbing it, and Shujin was soon up there as well. The tree wasn’t that big, and from a distance all you could see were moving branches and rustling leaves and fruit falling to the ground!! We came away with armfuls of it!
Aunty Umeko told me about the honey and karin syrup and how to make it.
So at home a few days later, Okasan and I set to cutting the fruit and layering it in the jar with honey like Aunty Umeko instructed. I proudly and excitedly showed Shujin my jar of golden goodness. My joy and excitement was about to be shattered…
“Where’s the seeds?” he enquired.
“I threw them out,” I stated.
“Oh. It’s the seeds that are nutritious, you should have kept them.”
WHAAAAATTTTT??!!!! How did I miss that instruction from Aunty Umeko??!! I’m devastated. Suddenly my jar of golden goodness has completely lost it’s glory.
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Missy really needs some underwear. I’d held off getting it in Australia and said we'll just buy it in Japan when we get there. (As though underwear takes up so much space in a suitcase… haha!) What a mistake! We went shopping here and found out that the underwear for girls looks more like bloomers that you put over the top of nappies! She was far from impressed!
I'm hoping we might find a different style in another shop but I'm not certain we will since we’ve looked in a few already...
So we haven’t had much luck on the clothes front, and sadly, not much luck with carpet either. Shujin rang some flooring companies and found out that you can’t just buy carpet “off the floor”. They mustn’t keep it in stock or something because once we order it, it will take several weeks to arrive. Any and all carpet.
We have done a thorough clean of the lounge room - soon to be kids’ room - and have decided to just leave the existing carpet. So today is the fun day of constructing the kid’s bunk bed and setting up the room. It’s a massive effort and takes a good chunk of the day. But in the end we have one bunk bed, two happy kids, two relieved parents, and one (happy??) marriage, haha!!!
The bunk bed has a trundle underneath it but we didn’t put a mattress on it. Instead we lined it and put a divider down the middle of the frame and unpacked their suitcases into it, Bob’s clothes on one side and Missy’s on the other. They loved making the space their own.
We brought in the small dressing table that Shujin saved from from being thrown out and put it in the corner for Missy. And the sofa will stay in their room. The lounge room is now officially the kid’s bedroom, and the cleanest in the house. At least for today. Haha!
Shujin has now finally been able to start the enrollment process for putting the kids in school. In Japan you enroll at the local city council office, not at the school! Seems so odd! He has also been talking to the school though. They haven’t ever had a student that doesn’t speak Japanese… So they need some time to prepare and figure out how they’re going to cope. I feel somewhat happy about easing into school and not having them start the day after enrollment! Gives us time to prepare, and boy do we have a list of things to purchase for school! It seems like the school doesn’t supply anything! Looks like Christmas will be coming early for our kids!
Oh, and one last thing, I thought it would be amusing to share that Masato didn't sleep in our room the next night after the moaning incident, but bunked in with his mum. HAHAHA!!!!