We went to see Akihiro's grandma over the New Year's holiday and she showed us her certificate that the government gave her congratulating her for being over 80 years old and having 20 or more of her own teeth! So, my dental hygiene cousin, what do you think of that as an incentive for flossing?!! Here she is showing off--both her teeth and her certificate! She is a dear person who reminds me somewhat of Vi Koch--when you ask her how she is doing, she says she is "getting smaller!" She likes me because I give her a hug even though she hugs my waist she is so short! She is a spunky little thing that often has something to teach me--last week she taught me how to use the Japanese grinding bowl for nuts or seeds--works great!
I learned something else about rice last week! Akihiro's dad had gotten a bag of brown rice from a farmer in the country area and wanted to change it to white rice, so he took it to this thing that looked kinda like an ATM machine! Here we dumped the bag of brown rice in, put a few yen in the slot and the machine took the hull off the rice and white rice came out into a bin! Apparently brown rice keeps longer than white rice, so farmers in the countryside keep it as brown rice until they are ready to use it!