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Bear Necessities of Life

Musings of Teddy Bear Necessity's Household
to Whom It May Concern
スポンサーサイト

一定期間更新がないため広告を表示しています

Posted by スポンサードリンク
- / / - / -
Snow in London
We had been told that the winter in London does not become that cold. Not like in NY at least and certainly not much snow should be expected if ever.

Well ... then what is this?



Lucky us, we came to the coldest winter UK is experiencing in some decades and even woke up one morning to find over 6" of snow!




Even the cats are interested in this weather anomaly.




Tobey the tiger braving through the deep snow. Cats aren't supposed to like the cold weather. What's gotten into him?

On the other hand, snow and dogs go naturally together, so we ventured out to Kensington Gardens.



The white-out world. How pretty.


You can see how deep the snow was by watching the Kerries struggling to move forward ↓.




The only problem with snow is that the Kerries get balled up like this and these snow balls only get bigger and bigger, making them increasingly uncomfortable to walk. The only way to get rid of them is by melting them with a warm shower. It took good 20 minutes to thaw the dogs out completely.



Since the streets do not get plowed due to the city's inadequecy to handle snow, the walk took over 2 hours and totally exhausted us. Many schools, businesses and even some transportation systems ended up shutting down for 2 days.

It was a good thing I had purchased these Hunter boots in anticipation of snow in forecast. Even though it's not likely that we'll get more snow, I must be prepared for the bad weather condition, which unfortunately is in no short supply in England.

When they've gotta go, I've gotta go, you see.
Posted by teddydale
4-Legged Musings / 23:36 / comments(0) / trackbacks(0)
We've moved!
We have moved to London.



Poor Russell had been alone since last July, but the pack has finally joined him.

Since my parents came to help me with the move, I also had them help me host yet another party to wrap up my Tokyo life





with a few dozen friends that I was lucky to meet in Tokyo. I hope I'll be this lucky in London, too.




On the day of the move, the animals were shlepped out of the apartment at 6 a.m. so that they could get prepped to go on the same flight with me at 1 p.m..



This is them arriving at Heathrow ↑. You see the crates coming out of the plane's belly?

Since the animals had to be kept in the cargo hold, I asked flight attendant upon boarding to inform me of their delivery. At first, they tried to reassure me that I needed not worry explaining their protocol that alerts the captain of the live animals' presence, but I amiably insisted that they humor me, and bless them, they did. I was even told that one of the ground crews thought my black and white cat was very cute. :-)

Because the animals had to endure additional 6 hours of processing time after arrival at Heathrow, their international travel experience was a 25-hour-long ordeal.


They came out of the terrible experience like champions and showed none the worse for wear, however. At least on the surface, that is. As soon as they arrived at their new abode, they ran around with vivre and inspected every inch of their new turf.





(Sakura and Zoey)


(Louie and Tobey)

Although ... I did say that on the surface they seemed okay, there were actually signs that the boys took the long trip harder than the girls. The girls showed absolutely and amazingly no sign of being affected whatsoever, but the boys for the first few days at least acted a little differently.

For example, Tobey the tiger meowed loudly a lot as if he had something to say and he also took to sleeping with the rest of the gang on our bed at night as if he wanted to "belong" to his pack more than usual. Louie acted shy and skittish to some strangers, which was so VERY unlike his usual Mr. Casanova self.

Both of them are back to normal now, thank goodness, so there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage to worry about. It just seems to be the case of boys being more sensitive and needy than girls, just like in people. ;-)
Posted by teddydale
2-legged Musings / 22:49 / comments(0) / trackbacks(0)
Last New Year's Feasts
Because this year's New Year's holiday was the last one in Tokyo, my family gathered at our place to celebrate it together.


There was no shortage of chéfs in the kitchen, so we held dinner parties for 4 consecutive days.


Day 1: New Year's Eve

French osechi, blowfish sashimi, roast beef and etc. etc. .




After the dinner we watched .. or more like mocked and ridiculed Red and White Singing Contest, annual year-end national television sponsored men versus women singing contest, which is a great New Year's Eve tradition in many Japanese households.



After midnight, we paid our respect to gods for the first time in the new year at a local shrine, which is another great Japanese tradition.


Day 2: New Year's Day

A package of fresh seafood that my aunt (pictured) had ordered arrived from Maizuru, a seaside town in Kyoto.







Look at these fresh kawahagi fish for sashimi and gigantic oysters!






There was also a nice fillet of fresh yellow tail, which we used for yellow tail shabu shabu.


After the feasts, we tried to burn calories by playing Wii Sport. A futile attempt? Perhaps, but better than nothing, we reckon.


Day 3: sukiyaki dinner

Sukiyaki is a hot pot dish that cooks thinly sliced beef and all sort of vegetables in slightly sweet and tangy broth. The cooked ingredients are then eaten in the dip of beaten fresh raw eggs.



I actually do not like eating sukiyaki anywhere but at home because people usually make the broth too sweet, and it just destroys the flavor of good beef.

One can use a lesser quality beef, of course, but using this kind of beautifully marbled Japanese beef makes the dish melting-on-your-tongue fine,


which brings out healthy appetite and vigor in everyone. Simply put, good food makes people happy.


Last Supper: kamo nabe, duck hot pot

Another nabe dish, but this time with sliced duck fillets. The duck meat is fatty and makes very flavorful broth to cook vegetables in.



Of course there were more dishes to feast on, too.



Even dogs wouldn't believe how much we could eat. LoL.


"We believe it. We witnessed the whole thing."

The Kerries got dressed up with clothes Russell's mom sent them (thank you!) . We noticed that they became more photogenic with clothes on. We can now see who's who! They had a wonderful holiday with their dog guest, my parents' miniature Schnauzer Hotaru.
Posted by teddydale
2-legged Musings / 20:39 / comments(0) / trackbacks(0)