A family summer barbecue in the cool forest of Katashina, Gunma Prefecture

Getting away from the city and into the cool mountains of Gunma Prefecture, once again we rented a barbecue at the trout farm in Katashina. I think this is our fourth time doing so. When you rent a BBQ there, they provide you with the coal logs and some burning coals to get you started.

I’d posted earlier about how Ulan is a master at catching dragonflies. So as always, she caught more.

The best time to visit the trout farm is in summertime, when it’s pleasantly a couple of degrees cooler. This time, it was raining in the morning but when we arrived there after noon, the skies were clear and the air felt cool. But even if it rains, the picnic tables and barbecues are under tents.

As always, we brought a lot of food with us and slowly barbecued it over the span of a few hours. Chicken, pork ribs, lamb chops, steak, shiitake and king oyster mushrooms, red/yellow/green peppers, zucchini, corn, eggplant and more. We slowly cooked the eggplant over a long time to make it soft and juicy. We had to wrap it up before 4pm though, as that is when the trout farm starts to close.

When you catch trout at the trout farm, they’ll clean the fish for you and you could have them roast the fish for you right there if you’d like. A couple of years ago, they used to have a playground but this area is what they transformed into the rental barbecue area. Since we live in an apartment, we can’t just barbecue food on our balcony lest we get in trouble.

We brought home plenty of cooked food and slowly ate it over the next several days. It was a beautiful day.

Hey, stop it now

Ulan asked me what picture I wanted her to draw, so I asked her to draw a picture of Yoda fleeing from seagulls. This is what she drew.

“One day I was walking and I found this big log. Then I rolled the log over and underneath was a tiny little stick. And I was like, ‘That log had a child!'”

Pac-Man pocket game by Tomy

I’ve had this since I was a child in the early ’80s. The steel balls inside once shown with luster, but have dulled over 40 years. The plastic has gotten scratched up considerably. This is a pocket pachinko-type game. Roll the dial and it drops the balls onto the pegs. Move Pac-Man across the bottom to catch them as they fall and bring them to the center hole for points. My daughter Ulan used to play with this in the car when she was a tiny girl. Now she’s grown up and has a smartphone. She’s growing so quickly…

Ulan found a Slime hat

We were at a store called Chambre and we found a sort of beret that looks like a Slime from Dragon Quest. Ulan tried it on. Not something she’d wear regularly though.

Ulan enjoyed drawing pictures

I was recently asked to prepare an activity for junior high-level English classes to have students use gerund phrases as modifiers for verbs. I took an idea from my coworker to have the students use whiteboards draw pictures which describe sentences that they put together by drawing cards at random. I made a stack of noun cards with pictures (Darth Vader, Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, a pencil, etc), a verb (enjoyed, started, or finished), plus a gerund phrase (baking cookies, talking to plants, reading a Harry Potter book, etc). The picture would depend on the verb, whether its something that just began, just finished, or is in progress. I played this game with my daughter Ulan. She used her digital blackboard to draw pictures. We played several rounds.

Bananas started swimming in yogurt.

Elmo enjoyed playing the drums.

My neighbor’s stupid dog started riding a dinosaur.

Gunma-chan (Gunma Prefecture’s mascot) finished wrestling an octopus.

Anya finished hunting a Totoro.

Sponge Bob started stalking AKB48.

My cat finished building a time machine.

A muffin started stealing cars.

My grandmother enjoyed punching Luffy.

Ulan likes drawing goofy pictures, so this was a perfect way to play with English on a Sunday afternoon.

More Sega love from Shimamura, plus other game-related stuff for home

These are plush tissue covers I bought on discount at Shimamura, the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. There was also an SG-1000 tissue cover, but I passed on that because I have no emotional attachment to that old console.

One more Mega Drive bath towel!

This is a blanket of a pixelated Neo Kobe skyline from Konami’s game Snatcher I bought on Ali Express. My wife is holding it up for me to take this picture. It is so soft that Ulan got jealous. So, I got her a Dragon Quest Slime blanket from Ali Express for her as a Christmas present. Snuggly girl is snuggly.

Ulan is the friend to all dragonflies

We went to the trout farm in Katashina two weeks ago, and enjoyed the cool 28°C. As always, the air was filled with dragonflies flying about.

There is a trick to catching dragonflies. As you know, they like to land on the reeds standing out above the water, right? If you point your finger up, the dragonflies might land on your finger. Ulan is a master at it!

My daughter is insane

This dialogue actually happened yesterday morning after breakfast:

Ulan: “Bring me a plastic bag. Now.”
Me: “What’s the magic word?”
Ulan: “…SHIT.”
Me: “No, the other magic word.”

She’s crazy. But you know, I admire that.

She’s also LITERALLY HITLER.

Ulan’s new glasses

This week, Ulan got her first pair of glasses and she is happy. On the drive home from the glasses store, she was amazed at how clearly she could see the world. She’s wanted glasses for a long time. I took her to the optometrist about 4 years ago and the eye doctor said that she did not need glasses. She was disappointed.

She’s beautiful. Apparently this rounded-style has become rather popular in Taiwan and now in South Korea, and is now gaining popularity in Japan.

Ever since she was about 2 years old, she wanted glasses like her papa. When we went to the optometrist, she was trying on glasses and had a lot of fun.

This is when she was 2 years old. Adorable!