LOUIS, Sorry for your loss!
Running Bear's January 2023 Coffee Shop
- Thread starter bnsf971
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PRR Modeler
Well-Known Member
Louis- My condolences to your entire family and prayers for everyone.
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
Many condolences to your family. She is joining Mom. Personally I always hated going to funerals of people younger than me.
chadbag
Well-Known Member
that’s the one I use too. Game changer for me.
kbkchooch
"retired" conductor
Looks quite impressive! Ever since I was a youth, I've been soldering with a little 15 dollar Radio Shack iron or with a butane powered iron(no cord!). They have served me well with everything from car wiring and brass caboose construction, all the way down to 22 gauge wire on circuit boards.
chadbag
Well-Known Member
Well, its Monday morning Jan 2, here in Japan. 41F at 9:50am here in Kobe. We made it through a nice and laid back New Years and are getting ready to depart home this Wednesday. The first flight leaves at 7:30am. We have rooms booked at the in-airport hotel (local brand) as we need to check in around 6am and there is no way to take the transit to the airport that early as the first subway doesn't leave until 5:30am and it is over an hour of transit to get there... (Normally we take train transit to the airports and normally we have an afternoon or evening departure).
I last posted showing the Soba we ate on New Years Eve afternoon and the meaning it has (in a link). New Years evening we had crab, and sashimi for dinner. No special meaning but a nice, special dinner to end the year. Also had a bottle of melon cream soda. The regular melon soda is a bit better but the cream version is fine for me. My daughter doesn't like it but wants the "real" melon soda.
Our hosts, my wife sister and her husband, went to bed around 10pm after watching a "countdown" musical variety show, which is a Japanese tradition to show on TV. Every current and past musical "star" ever seems to be involved. I stayed up and we watched it (peripherally) a bit longer until the wife turned it off and went to bed. The daughter and I stayed up to past midnight and went to bed.
Up early for church services as we have about 70-90 minutes of travel to get there by subway and 2 trains (and the same back). As I think I mentioned earlier, we go to the congregation my wife was at when she lived in the area, and it is not in Kobe or immediate vicinity but is a city or so over so it takes longer than going what would be the local congregation for where my Sis-IL lives. Services started at 10 and we were a few minutes late getting there as we were a little late for the subway we wanted and had to take the next one. Luckily they had just started when we got there so did not miss much. Interestingly, on 01/01, someone had managed to use these three hymns for the services:
On the way back we treated ourselves to (small) ice cream cones or treats from a vending machine on the platform and also saw the Hankyu "Miffy" train up close, even though we didn't ride it.
When we got back home, the traditional New Years dinner was waiting. Most of the foods in the traditional New Years meal have meaning. For example, the curved shrimp represents long life (until our bodies curve like the shrimp). All sorts of things like that. I don't remember what most of the special meanings are. This is the second time we've done the traditional foods for New Years. Not everyone does the traditional stuff and we haven't always done it when here in Japan (we tend to come over Christmas and New Years to match the school time off).
I am proud to say i ate everything that was put on my plate and had some more of some of it. There was one thing that looked like a spleen (to me) cooked -- it is a fish egg sac full of eggs -- and it actually wasn't that bad -- but my daughter wouldn't eat it. My son and I ate it and tried to get the daughter to eat it but she wouldn't. It wasn't bad at all. But she was eating this raw egg thing from another fish. I ate it but didn't care for it -- more fishy tasting. But she liked it. No accounting for taste.
Needless to say, there are lots of things in the traditional New Years meal that are not things we are used to (or the variation we had -- there are certain traditional foods but lots of variations in individual meals/presentations). I try and eat some of everything so I can learn about it and expand my horizons, but also out of respect to our host, who is providing it. (Now, they realize these are not traditional foods and don't feel slighted if we don't like or try certain ones and we all have a good laugh about it but I still want to be respectful and eat it all).
--
Last night we also packed most of our suitcases with our shopping haul etc. We bought a bunch of those vacuum pack bags for clothes etc in order to make our various clothes purchases, stuffed animals, etc much smaller to fit in our suitcases. Its amazing what you can do to a stuffed animal sucking the air out of it. We got most of of it packed and have one case left, mostly for clothes that we still need etc.
My son wants to go to Osaka to buy himself a roller carry on case (smaller international size). He has some figures for friends (anime figures) and stuff that didn't get packed (as they have not been delivered yet by Amazon). I don't plan on getting anything down there but may end up with a few more containers or something as he wants to get the Hello Kitty Shinkansen Pla-rail train, and we'll need to get over the tax-free limit on the toy floor (each floor is purchased separately and the cases are a different floor). He has been collecting the Tomy Pla-rail trains since he was born and I bought him his first one. Even though he is almost 20 now and doesn't run them he still collects them. His kids will use them. We rode the Hello Kitty Shinkansen when we were here last time.
Pla-Rail is the older Blue Track kids train that in the US was mostly Thomas the Tank Engine before Tomy lost the license in the US (now sold by Mattel with a different track -- Tomy still has Thomas with blue track in Japan). Tomy also sold Amtrak and other US style Pla-Rail in the US at one time but you only ever saw it at real toy stores and stuff. I've only seen it a couple times when my son was young at a specialty toy store.
www.hlj.com
The last couple days here are always shopping and relaxing. Not much going to see things. You kind of get "vacationed-out" after 3 or 3 1/2 weeks.
(took me an hour to post this so 10:50am and 44F by the time it was posted)
I last posted showing the Soba we ate on New Years Eve afternoon and the meaning it has (in a link). New Years evening we had crab, and sashimi for dinner. No special meaning but a nice, special dinner to end the year. Also had a bottle of melon cream soda. The regular melon soda is a bit better but the cream version is fine for me. My daughter doesn't like it but wants the "real" melon soda.
Our hosts, my wife sister and her husband, went to bed around 10pm after watching a "countdown" musical variety show, which is a Japanese tradition to show on TV. Every current and past musical "star" ever seems to be involved. I stayed up and we watched it (peripherally) a bit longer until the wife turned it off and went to bed. The daughter and I stayed up to past midnight and went to bed.
Up early for church services as we have about 70-90 minutes of travel to get there by subway and 2 trains (and the same back). As I think I mentioned earlier, we go to the congregation my wife was at when she lived in the area, and it is not in Kobe or immediate vicinity but is a city or so over so it takes longer than going what would be the local congregation for where my Sis-IL lives. Services started at 10 and we were a few minutes late getting there as we were a little late for the subway we wanted and had to take the next one. Luckily they had just started when we got there so did not miss much. Interestingly, on 01/01, someone had managed to use these three hymns for the services:
On the way back we treated ourselves to (small) ice cream cones or treats from a vending machine on the platform and also saw the Hankyu "Miffy" train up close, even though we didn't ride it.
When we got back home, the traditional New Years dinner was waiting. Most of the foods in the traditional New Years meal have meaning. For example, the curved shrimp represents long life (until our bodies curve like the shrimp). All sorts of things like that. I don't remember what most of the special meanings are. This is the second time we've done the traditional foods for New Years. Not everyone does the traditional stuff and we haven't always done it when here in Japan (we tend to come over Christmas and New Years to match the school time off).
I am proud to say i ate everything that was put on my plate and had some more of some of it. There was one thing that looked like a spleen (to me) cooked -- it is a fish egg sac full of eggs -- and it actually wasn't that bad -- but my daughter wouldn't eat it. My son and I ate it and tried to get the daughter to eat it but she wouldn't. It wasn't bad at all. But she was eating this raw egg thing from another fish. I ate it but didn't care for it -- more fishy tasting. But she liked it. No accounting for taste.
Needless to say, there are lots of things in the traditional New Years meal that are not things we are used to (or the variation we had -- there are certain traditional foods but lots of variations in individual meals/presentations). I try and eat some of everything so I can learn about it and expand my horizons, but also out of respect to our host, who is providing it. (Now, they realize these are not traditional foods and don't feel slighted if we don't like or try certain ones and we all have a good laugh about it but I still want to be respectful and eat it all).
--
Last night we also packed most of our suitcases with our shopping haul etc. We bought a bunch of those vacuum pack bags for clothes etc in order to make our various clothes purchases, stuffed animals, etc much smaller to fit in our suitcases. Its amazing what you can do to a stuffed animal sucking the air out of it. We got most of of it packed and have one case left, mostly for clothes that we still need etc.
My son wants to go to Osaka to buy himself a roller carry on case (smaller international size). He has some figures for friends (anime figures) and stuff that didn't get packed (as they have not been delivered yet by Amazon). I don't plan on getting anything down there but may end up with a few more containers or something as he wants to get the Hello Kitty Shinkansen Pla-rail train, and we'll need to get over the tax-free limit on the toy floor (each floor is purchased separately and the cases are a different floor). He has been collecting the Tomy Pla-rail trains since he was born and I bought him his first one. Even though he is almost 20 now and doesn't run them he still collects them. His kids will use them. We rode the Hello Kitty Shinkansen when we were here last time.
Pla-Rail is the older Blue Track kids train that in the US was mostly Thomas the Tank Engine before Tomy lost the license in the US (now sold by Mattel with a different track -- Tomy still has Thomas with blue track in Japan). Tomy also sold Amtrak and other US style Pla-Rail in the US at one time but you only ever saw it at real toy stores and stuff. I've only seen it a couple times when my son was young at a specialty toy store.
Plarail: SC-07 Hello Kitty Shinkansen | HLJ.com
The Hello Kitty Shinkansen operated starting on June 30, 2018, and it's finally joined the PlaRail family from Takara Tomy! Features three cars, which you can also play with by hand after setting the power switch to Off. Requires one AA-size battery, not included.
The last couple days here are always shopping and relaxing. Not much going to see things. You kind of get "vacationed-out" after 3 or 3 1/2 weeks.
(took me an hour to post this so 10:50am and 44F by the time it was posted)
CambriaArea51
Well-Known Member
Louis sorry to hear about the loss of your sister.
Thanks !
mara plutoni
Well-Known Member
Love to see the results.
mara plutoni
Well-Known Member
When you replace the handrails it will look a old young goodie. And when it's not you can send it over to me...
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