Foodz

I got a package from my mother today. Inside this package were 100 Del Scorcho sauces. Yes. 100 sauces. :) Did I already mention about this in a blog post? My uncle gave me a HUGE box of Del Scorcho for Christmas. He had to drive to multiple Del Tacos to acquire that many sauces. It was probably the most touching gift I have ever received in my entire life. I feel bad for everyone else that will never be able to top it.

Anyways, I couldn't get them all back to Japan. I did get a big big bag through customs. But they were almost all gone (I tend to use 2~4 a day), so my mom sent more (with other stuff, lol...I got some new pants, face wash, toothpaste, books, etc).

Because I got all these Del Scorchos, I thought I'd just share some of my food experience with you all. What do I use the Del Scorcho on, you ask? Well, a typical after-school snack for me is a piece of bread, with a little cheese on it, toasted. Then after its toasted and the cheese is melted, on go 2 packs of Del Scorcho. I also use it on top of rice dishes. Tofu here is like 40 cents for a big block of it. I have a specialty~ Del Scorcho Tofu. The recipe is a secret. But it includes a lot of Del Scorcho. hehe. What else? Just anything. Anything that you might put ketchup or mustard on~Del Scorcho is better. Del Scorcho and lime on top of a whole fish.

Okay, I'll stop bugging you about Del Scorcho. On to other foods in my life. :)

Here is Hitomi, me, Noriko and Jennie. We are making takoyaki. You can read more about takoyaki in a previous post: here.

This is our 2nd or 3rd octopus balls party. About time for another one, I would say!

Above is another burrito day that I made at my school! My English club is only 8 girls, but through word of mouth, exactly 39 people showed up! And guess what????? I had exactly 39 tortillas!! Costco delivered me a pack of 40, but I couldn't help but eat a quesadilla the night before the party. Good thing I was only hungry for 1! So, I am 100% sure that this is the first time that these students have ever eaten: 1. a tortilla 2. refried beans 3. jalapenos 4. sour cream.

First time, and probably only time for many of them.

I love the aspect of my job that is introducing Japanese students to "strange things" like burritos and Taylor Swift. hehe.

BUT, I'm not the only one that goes above and beyond to introduce my students to new things (what I mean by above and beyond is that we spend our own money...). To the left is Christmas dinner that my friend and ALT held at his house for his English club. He ordered real turkey which is impossible to get in Japan, and ham too, which is also impossible to find in the holiday chunk. His mother sent him the velveeta and there was so much American goodness to go around. Cranberry sauce. Stuffing. Awesomeness. Too bad I'm vegetarian, and could barely eat any of it...

Oh, btw, when I say vegetarian, I mean "Japanese vegetarian" which means seafood is okay. :) So pescetarian I guess. It's pretty hard in Japan. I can't eat any kind of ramen or anything because most of the soup bases here are pork. But Udon is okay! And in terms of that day, lots of salad, velveeta and plain mashed potatoes :)

This was the church's Christmas dinner. Gotta love church events that involve lots of food. The fastest way to my heart is any mention of Costco.

Mmmmm, I just made myself hungry. I have lots of leftover Korean soup left. Gonna go boil some up. Ttfn.

Tokotoko Train

Time is moving by too quickly. I love Japan. I wish I could stay here foooooooooooooooorever. And this day, back in late autumn is one of the reasons for that feeling.

Me and my friend Kris climbed in a train, and headed to a place we had never been.

We got to a place up in the mountains called Nishiki-cho. I wanna say that means West-tree village...but I'd definitely be wrong. Hehe. Freaking same words-different kanji. Japanese is hard.

So, its a somewhat famous expedition that many people go on. They get to Nishiki-cho and stare into the mouth of the darkness (right).

A "train" (looks like a disneyland tram) comes and picks you up and takes you through this tunnel, to the next stop: Souzukyo Onsen.

I was a bit scared at first. I felt like I was in Isaac Asimov's "Tunnel of Terror". I am a bit afraid of the dark. Trying to get myself used to it still.

Anyways, the whole tunnel wasn't dark. The tunnel is famous for what you can see here (left).

It's full of glow-in-the-dark murals!!!

The floor was florescent sparkly gold. It was pretty awesome. The best part is the tram car that we had to share with a grandma, grandpa and the cutest kid in the world, Kento, who has an American mom. I love when American women marry Japanese guys. :) It's just so often the other way.

When we got to Souzukyo Onsen, we hiked around for a few hours, before finally heading back. But how can one want to leave this? And this is just fall....... Next month I'll be able to start posting blogs on SPRING.

Spring in Japan is the best thing that exists in the universe.

More hikes (well, scenic walks...) Kris!!!!!! :)

Purikura

So, Japan is full of cute things. Everything is cute. Over the top cute. A plain picture, with no hearts and stars and kisses? Muri muri!! (Impossible!!!)

プリクラ or purikura is a famous thing in Japan. My new hobby is to take Purikura. Purikura is a katakana word, meaning it's borrowed from a foreign language. In this case, it comes from English~ Print Club. How you can make "Print Club" sound like "Purikura" is beyond me...

I especially love taking purikura, because it is relatively cheap (each session is 400 yen, or like about $5, but you split that in between however many people are in the picture. You never take purikura by yourself! So it's cheap, and its wholesome. It's hard to find many things to do with your friends that don't involve eating and drinking, and I'm on a diet. So all my friends know me as "Purikura Girl!" now.

These machines keep you occupied for a good amount of time too, because after your photo session in the booth, you can spend a while decorating the photos. There are so many options as you can see. A plethora of different little icons to decorate you photo. By the way, all these photos are really simple compared to what real Japanese people do! You can barely see their faces through all the little teddy bears, turtles, and occasionally: steaming piles of poop (there are lots of funny icons too). By the way, the machine sends the photos to your e-mail, which is why they are good quality here. And they print out for you too, as little stickers.

One time Christina joked about how she would sell her soul to have a purikura machine follow her around. And I stole the joke from her and say it myself. ;) But it's true! Somehow, the lighting and technology make you look so cute! I think the machine takes at least 20 pounds off of me. It's just the special lights I guess! The room that you take purikura in totally white. Glaring white. Bright bright white lights glaring on you from all directions. I'm not sure how we keep our eyes open when the machine tells us to get ready and take the shot. :)

Anyways, not sure why I did a blog post on this, but we don't really have anything like this in America, and I will miss it when I return to California! Someone over there may say "we have that!" But no. No you don't. You don't understand. haha. There isn't just one machine to choose from here. There are rows and rows and rows of them. Some advertising to make your lips look fuller. Some that add makeup and eyelashes to you. Rows and rows of machines that literally scream at you to come inside. It's a little like one of those bad clown dreams.....

High School Entrance Pt. 2

Part one is only a few posts ago, but here is link in case of unbeknownst circumstances: Part 1.

So, back on February 9th, High Schools in Japan had Interview Examinations. If you can recall what this entails: Basically when I go to my base school tomorrow, I expect to locate a list of 64 students who are happy-campers. 64 Students who are in. The last 96 students that will get to attend the high school I teach at will be decided by a written test on March 9th.

According to the information I had at the time, the students that neither pass the interview portion nor the written portion are doomed to a private school. I now have more information, about 1.) another chance, which I was unaware of , and 2.) what this "private" school business is all about.

There is a 2nd set of written exams in late March!!! Prefectural (public) schools that do not fill their student quota have a second written test. Like I said before, the incoming 1st years at my school will number exactly 160. Other schools have their own exact number. If a certain school doesn't fill up, then they advertise another chance. The newspaper publishes a list of all schools that were not filled, and thus will offer a 2nd test. By the way, this test costs 2100 yen (about $25). This is the student's last chance to enter a prefectural school, before either going private, or dropping out.

The thing is, that any "good school" is pretty much going to be filled up, and will not offer a 2nd test. My two O-sensei's that were asking around the teacher's room could only think of 2 or 3 high schools in the area that would probably offer a 2nd chance written test. That's not many, because as a general rule, high schools here are much smaller than American High Schools. So if a student doesn't want to go to one of these bottom of the barrel 2 or 3 schools?

There is the private school option. There are 3 private schools in my area, but they can take as many students as they want. Again, I want to emphasize that this is typical for rural areas only. Private schools in other areas of Japan will be very different.

The test to enter a private high school here is 12,000yen. Remember it was 2,100 for the prefectural schools. So, 12,000 yen and you are basically in. Then, what is the cost of the private school? Public schools are free... (although they only because free within the past 2 years!)

Nakamura (private) High School is 34,000 yen per month. Takagawa (private) High School advertises being 22,000 yen per month. But there is a 6,000 yen materials fee per month, and a 3,500 air conditioning fee. Well. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'd pay 3,500 yen a month to have some heating and air conditioning up in the prefectural schools I work at. hehe. (hey, there's something you might not have known, if you're not in Japan. Learning and teaching can be VERY COLD or VERY HOT depending on time of year). Anyways, Takagawa's monthly grand total is 31,500 yen. So two of the only private high schools in the area cost $407, and $377 a month, respectively.

Private schools in the area can be much better than those last choice prefectural schools though, so parents will try to fork out the money if they can, when those poor students who didn't get into the high school of their choice see April (the beginning of the school year) approaching.

I want to thank S-sensei (base school), O-sensei/O-sensei#2 (special needs school), and Y-sensei (technical school) for all their time and effort in answering my questions. And again, feel free to ask more: but make them pointed questions that I can get simple/concrete answers to. I'm not going to write any more long posts on this matter :)

Oshima Race

Last weekend I ran my first race ever! I did a 5k. I went with a caravan of friends doing 2k, 5k, 10k and a half marathon (21k I think). It was such a great experience for me.

Here are some of us with Choruru (my prefecture's mascot). Choruru is especially famous this year because the National Athletic Meet will be held in our prefecture this year (it rotates between the 47 prefectures every year!!).

We caravaned over to Suo-Oshima on Saturday afternoon, with the races beginning around 9am the next morning. My race was at 12:30, but I still left from our cabin to the race early with everyone, to do some major cheering on! I think every single person that ran did better than they expected.

I ran the 5K in 31 minutes and 20 seconds. Pretty slow by any "runner" standards, but I didn't even start training until mid-January (3 weeks training) and this was my first race ever! Since the marathon, I have still been running most days, and I can already see extra improvement. I'm hoping to run my next race (6k) in April in about the same amount of time. Maybe like 33 minutes, but an extra kilometer! :)

Btw, the best part of the day (February 6th!!!) was that whenever each race started, they played the Star Wars theme music. All the runners above are pouring all their energy out to the famous and dramatic John Williams score.

High School Entrance

Today, I knew something was going on, immediately upon arriving at school. I usually have the bike parking structure all to myself. But today, I had no where to park my bike. And knowing a bit about Japanese culture, I knew exactly who stole my spot! Junior High Kids!!!

It's obvious that they are junior high kids, because of the types of helmets that were left in each bike basket. Thin white helmets that probably couldn't even protect a student's scalp from an angry bee. Elementary kids don't ride bikes (there are intricate buddy walking systems, to and from school). Junior high kids wear the white helmets. And once in high school, no helmet is necessary. Actually, no helmet is worn. Ever. From 15 and up, no one wears a helmet.

I wore a helmet for a good 6 months, and I was looked at as one of the strangest people on the planet.

Anyways, I got sidetracked complaining about helmets (I think everyone should always wear a helmet while on a bike!)

So.. today there were many junior high kids at my school for an "interview test". These kids would be equivalent to American freshman (since Japanese high school is 3 years).

My school is going to admit exactly 160 students (4 homeroom classes of 40 students). Each grade level is 160, unless along the way one or two students drop out (High School Education is not compulsory, but in a high level school like mine, dropouts are rare).

So, my question to my supervisor was...."How do you get it to be exactly 160 students? Surely if you admit 160, some of them will end up choosing a different high school, and you will be short." My supervisor was very confused about the question.

She started telling me about how at our school, 40% of the students will be admitted based on today's interviews alone. That is 64 lucky kids do not have to worry about the high school admissions test on March 8th. Based on today, 64 kids will find out next week that they have been admitted to my school. 96 other kids will have a chance to test into my school on March 8th.

...Okay. That is interesting. But how many kids do you put on the alternate list, since perhaps 20, 30, 40 kids will decide to go to another school? How many kids do you expect to choose Hofu Koko, or Nanyo Kogyo instead?

She realized what I was asking and answered: "In Japan, the kids can only apply to one high school."

My jaw dropped.

Me: "So those kids standing outside right now...they have all their eggs in this one basket?"

Well, of course that brought about a blank stare ;) (I love teaching idioms, and learning Japanese idioms!) But after choosing my words more carefully, I came to find out that the students can only apply to one school, and if they do not get into that school, they have to go to a private school. I presume that private schools take applications on a rolling basis, whereas public schools do not. In my rural prefecture, private schools are not elite or sought after. A private school is not somewhere you want to be, unless you live in Tokyo, Kyoto, or another big city, where the institution of schooling is a bit different.

This is simply a startling notion to me. Japanese kids getting into a high school is much like American kids getting into a college. Some colleges are very very tough, and others just need to make sure that you aren't a total idiot. But in America, I applied to 10 schools. A couple of which were very very tough, and a couple backups. How can a person have any kind of piece of mind without having a backup? I mean, I guess the private schools are like the backups.....

But here's the thing. I got into Berkeley, but not UCLA. Sometimes, you just need to put feelers out in a lot of places, and if one good place misses out on you, another good place will see the light. But if you only have one option.... Oh the stress!!! Imagine not making a good impression on one of the interviewers, and having to rely on the admissions test alone.

Then imagine that ALL the people taking that particular test are also smart smart smart. It's not like an "anyone who gets a 90% gets in". There are a limited number of seats. 96 in our case.

The way the system here works, I believe discourages students from reaching for the stars, if you will. In America, why would I even try to apply to UCLA if it were the only school I could apply to? I ended up attending U.C.I. But if I only had one shot, I wouldn't have even applied there. I would have applied to a school I was sure I could get into, regardless of how that would have affected my future. Failure is too scary.

It's not as if 500 students are going to try for those 96 spots, which was something that took me a while to discern. I couldn't get a straight answer about how many students exactly were vying for the 160 spots. But I get the sense that it's because it's a complicated answer. All I got out of that part of the conversation is that last week, there was a test run, where all the students interested in my school came to take a practice test. That way students and their parents could try to gauge the competition, and switch to a different school if they didn't feel adequate. And based on last week's go, my school has a "1.2 competition rate". This is all alien speak to me, but it was explained to me that this means that about 20% of the students that try, will not get in. I was still trying to ask if that is about 20% of 100, 200, 300 students?

And alas, all my questions could not be answered because my supervisor was off to conduct the interview tests. Off to hold the life of a student in her hands! ;)

Oh, and btw, the interview test is held in this fashion:

4 teachers to one student. Then the student leaves that room, and enters another room with 4 different teachers. It's all 4 on 1 interviews. One student to one panel of judges.

I wish I knew more than that, about the interviews too. Does the decision have to be unanimous? Do both rooms of teachers have to agree?

So much I don't know. Such is life: the more I learn, the more questions I have.

But seriously, please feel free to ask any questions at all (leave a comment), and I will ask a few teachers to get you an answer. I would just do a whole other post to fill in the missing gaps here, but I don't want to trouble my teachers if no one cares. :) But if you have any questions, please ask!!!!

Setsubun year 2

Here's my post on Setsubun from last year: here.

I was really excited about 節分 this year, because I have faith that it means an end to the cold!!! Wishful thinking? Today was really nice. I was only cold once, rather than severely cold 102% of the time.

Let's see...did I do everything I needed to do today? I ate beans. I ate makizushi. I threw beans out of my house, and then backwards into my house while chanting in Japanese "Devil's get out (of my house), luck get in (my house)!" Ah, I ate the makizushi while facing South by Southeast.

By the way, here is a picture of me posing inside of the makizushi:

Makizushi is a long sushi roll thing, that is pretty phallic. One of Christina's teachers was telling her today that he heard on TV that the practice of eating makizushi started in Osaka at a hostess bar, where the bartender was joking about some very adult-contented stuff. I don't know how true that is.

This website says that the bean throwing is an ancient tradition, but doesn't mention about the makizushi. So maybe it does have a sexual beginning! ...And upon reading that article, I jut realized that I ate the beans without much thought. I didn't count them out, according to my age. Crap!! I must have eaten like 100. It's okay, sometimes I feel like an old lady. :)

Last year I just ate an onigiri (rice ball), so I'm a step up on eating the right kind of sushi, but a step down for not counting out my beans.

鬼は～外！ ・゜゜・。＼(・o・ ) 福は〜内.

(above you can see the little guy throwing the beans, casting out the demons!)

"Oni wa soto .... .... ... huku wa uchi!"

Snowboarding

On Friday, after work, I went to Iwakuni to spend the night. I did this because, Iwakuni is 2 hours closer to Hiroshima than my house, and me and some friends needed to be in Hiroshima before 7a.m. So we needed to take a 5:30 train from Iwakuni, is how it worked out. I had Mike's again (only Mexican food around), which I do whenever I go to Iwakuni. I then slept early, to get up for the long day ahead of me!

We got to Hiroshima around 6:30 and immediately headed for Starbucks, which was CLOSED! What kind of Starbucks doesn't open until 10a.m??? Japan is ridiculous sometimes. :) We got on the bus at Hiroshima station, to be driven another prefecture north, to Shimane prefecture. Here I would have my first snowboarding experience ever!!!

Today, I am putting this post up with pain all-over. But not as much pain as I anticipated. It's kind of a good pain. I can feel every muscle in my body pain. The only pain which is actually a very very bad pain is in my right arm, right up near the top, the top 5 or 6 centimeters of my arm, where it attaches. If I try to raise my hand, well, lets just say it's not pretty.

Here is video of my first trip up the ski-lift.

Here is video of some of the beginning practice, still at the bottom of the resort (not up the chair lift yet). I got better than this, I promise!

My friend Kris set this all up for us. I'd love to do it every weekend, but boy, would that be expensive! It is at least 25 dollars to get to Hiroshima. And would be 25 to get back....except when you are so exhausted that you are willing to pay double for the Shinkansen (bullet train). And when I say you, I mean of course, me. :) The food up the mountain is super expensive. Oh, and the meat of the trip: the actual snowboarding (hehe) was about 120 bucks (including 5 hour busride [roundtrip] and all the gear rental, except gloves which I had to buy).

Jenga

Jenga almost seems more popular in Japan, than in the U.S. Most bars have Jenga, for instance (with druken patrons knocking over towers every few minutes). And it's always brought to any get together, like this one above! :) But hey, where is Jenga NOT popular? That's a crazy place, there.

Pic of the Day 1

Here is a lovely picture of my Grammy holding a picture of herself from when she was 18 years old! Makes me think about a lot of things...the past, the future. You know. Introspective stuff. ;)

Yellow yellow...

Yes. I have NOT the most attractive hands or fingers in the world. Anyways, here is my new mood ring. :) I like it.

So "sumimasen" (sorry) to whoever I am about to talk about. Three different people said the same thing to me, that kind of annoys me, so to you three people, and others:

I understand that mood rings don't work.

----

There. I've been mentioning to people about my new ring, and my corresponding mood. Mostly because it's usually shining yellow/yellowish. According to the box I bought it from on Saturday, that means I'm feeling anxious. And I think it's a cool coincidence that my mood ring is right.

----

Steffanie: My new mood ring says I'm feeling anxiety.

People: You know those don't work.

Steffanie: Really. Really? How stupid do you think I am? Do you think that I think that I have a magical ring? Do you think that I believe that my month will be controlled by my zodiac sign too? You know what? I'm not sure if I believe you that they don't work. Let me call 1-900-psychic right now. Don't worry, it won't take long...it's on speed-dial. Oh, crap, my mood ring is changing to "I'm gonna kick you upside the ass" color now.

People: You know that there really is no color for "I'm gonna kick you upside the ass"....

-----

Anyways. I AM feeling a lot of anxiety. And sadness (purple!). I have to make my decision on whether or not to stay another year in Japan---by Feb. 4th---the absolute final deadline. I feel like I'm going to wait until the last possible minute. And then even then...I might as well just flip a coin. I'm already too torn, and if I think anymore, I will simply be ripped into two.

July 2011 or July 2012. Both are okay. And both are not.

hmmmmm

Now lets see...... it's probably a little too late to talk about my Halloween.

I'm so backed up. What can I do?

Ah! I know! Sai Seiichi! He is a wonderful violinist who I saw live in my city. I can pretend it was just yesterday! And that I shall do....

So 'yesterday', my friend Junko's son came to Hofu, and did a free live performance at a local mall. He is pretty famous, and people pay a lot of money to see him, but since he was visiting his small hometown, he must have just been feeling generous.

Many many girls are in love with him. He is quite beautiful. But I will leave him for you Christina... I prefer brass instrument type men. ;)

Below is a video of him playing. If anyone wants to buy his CD, I can help you out with that. :) He composes all his own music and such. Cheers!

Japanese Food

Christina and I were just talking about this. In my honest opinion, most Japanese food is better in California. And for Christina-New York. Maybe middle America doesn't get good Japanese food. But California does!!! And sushi in America is complex and tasty. Not just one piece of fish on top of some rice.

At the Japanese (American) restaurant above, Jamie and I ate row of "Sexy Rolls". I don't know what it comprised of exactly, but it was SOOO sexy compared to any of the simple things offered here. I miss sushi with tempura bits, and avocado, and spicy stuff.

But then again, to go to a nice sushi restaurant here in Hofu, it would cost me at least $100-$150 bucks, so I stick to the cheap restaurants. Still...I'm sure that there is nothing here in Yamaguchi Prefecture resembling the 'Sexy Rolls' Jamie and I ate (in Tustin at Honda-ya).

Shoes pt. 2

This is a part 2, in reference to a post I made well over a year ago: SHHHoes

I've now been here a year and a half. But 'Japanese people and their shoes' is a subject that never ceases to intrigue. Every grade level has a unique color of slippers. In the picture above, the student's slippers are the ones that have a white part on the top (the other ones are guest shoes). The white parts have the student's names written on them.

It is convenient for me to figure out what grade the students are in, based on their slippers.

Speaking of shoes....the shoes students wear outside of school are ridiculous. Japanese students all seem to wear CraZY BriGhT sneakers, with crazy un-matching shoelaces. I think it is in backlash to having to conform so much at school...? Or bright neon green shoes with one bright orange and one bright purple shoelace is just "in". :)

Home Fries

My vacation home this year was really really excellent. It makes my decision on whether or not to re-contract here in Japan, SUPER hard. Much harder than last year. Because now, I love Japan soooo much.

I got to hang out with my grandma and granddad. Here is a pic of my grandma at 18 years old!!

I watched a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Kyle. :) Spent New Year's Eve at my best friend Diana's house. Saw a lot of her baby....little Leena, whom I love like my own. :)

I had Tamale Day with my family... I always love my Saturday before Christmas at my Grandmas. Too bad I can't eat tamales. :(

And I saw lots of friends at a kickin' party that I threw at my house.

I also saw lots of friends for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, coffees, late-night snacks (really late!!!), etc. I could go on about how much I love each one of my friends...and perhaps I will, but later, later. I have some laundry to do.