Udon

At my special needs school, I got the chance to make Udon from scratch! Scratch scratch! It was one of the most awesome days ever. A absolutely adore that school for a lot of reasons, but a big part of it is the teachers that I work with there. They are always telling me interesting things about Japanese culture, and introducing new things to me. Soon I will go chopstick making, for instance. And soon I will tell you guys about what Japanese people do when their children lose their teeth! All care of F-san and O-san Sensei! :)

I got to take home six servings of the Udon we made. Only have one left now. You can freeze Udon, and then when I unfreeze it, boil it, add the right sauce, and viola!

F-Sensei is somewhat of an Udon master. I like to call him Jack-of-all-trades though. He sails! He speaks perfect English! He is Taiko drummer! He does Sumo! He is awesome.

I think he was a little frustrated guiding me through the Udon making, because I am barely able to sift flour, apparently. :)

One day does not pass without O-sensei teaching me something new. I think she appreciates it the most when I share my culture! When I brought real chips and salsa to school one day, she was so excited. her first tortilla chip ever!

Here's me cooking the raw Udon! Do you like my little tiny kitchen stove setup!? There is no such thing as an oven in Japan. :/ The Udon must be boiled for 18 minutes, and then quickly rinsed and tossed in cold water, then prepare as usual.

Video of O-Sensei in action!

P.S. On a more recent note--Yesterday I took a trip to Fukuoka with my ward Branch President and his family! It was a really awesome day. Got to see the Fukuoka temple, go the Fukuoka zoo, go shopping in Canal City, and yes........GO TO COSTCO! Although this time I bought more stuff for other people than I did for myself. Next time, I go in secret, so every inch of car space will be mine. ;) Love you T and G.

Birthday

My birthday and birthday weekend were very fun. :) Thank you Christina for making me these cookies. I enjoyed eating that lovely ん and と first. :)

Mike and Christina took me out to Korean food, and then we swung by our hang out location--Laughable. I ended up on Laughable's blog because of my birthday night there!

The day after my actual birthday, I had a joint B-day get together in Yamaguchi city with my friend Brent, and all of our peeps. It was fun to sit and snack and chat with friends.

After this cafe, we went to a pool and darts bar...although I pretty much stuck to the ping pong tables.

The next day, a group of us went to Tokiwa Park, in Ube city to play. It was suppose to be a Hanami party, but we only got around to that for about 20 minutes. :) There is an amusement park there, so we went on the roller-coaster and ferris wheel, and just had a lovely day. And there you have it...my relaxing birthday weekend.

Soccer Day

One really great thing about coming to Japan as a JET is that we get an automatic social network. That is great for people that are really lazy about making friends. :) There are 50 of us, and of course we are not all automatic friends, but there are Prefectural Reps and natural leaders that put together large events.

(Thanks Shak for planning this soccer day!)

Here is a great pic of me totally making this shot! (I didn't make it, lol). BUT I did make the last shot of the last game. There were 4 or 5 teams, divided geographically. Our team was the "dirty South" since I'm in the South. yes.

So we did it tournament style, and I made the last shot of the last game. AND our team won the championship.

Here's our team: Ryan, Eric, Me, Steve, Chris Mack, and Kholo. Yeah, splitting us geographically will not happen on our next sports day, because (rightly so) everyone was complaining that 5/6 people of our team are crazy strong handsome sporty maniacs!

****Please let our next sports day be Volleyball!!!

P.S. If you get special permission to use a school-grounds in Japan on a weekend, please don't "moon" the other team out of spite. Hopefully we'll be allowed to use that field again! ;)

Hiroshima Trip

March 29th, 2010.

We start our journey early in the morning. Christina, Gretchen and I depart from Hofu station, and we are headed to Tokuyama to pick up Al! He can't just hop on the train with us, because I have the ticket that we are all using!

I bought this special ticket for 11500 Yen. I gives you unlimited local train travel for the day, 5 times. One person can use it five different times, or 5 people can use it all at once, sort of thing. Getting this special ticket essentially made traveling to Hiroshima 1/2 price.

So now all 4 of us together board the train, and proceed to our final destination. As for me, if feels like I felt when I was a kid and got to go to Disneyland! Getting out of my Prefecture is just what the doctor ordered!

It takes about 2 more hours from Tokuyama to arrive at Hiroshima. Christina and Al are leading because they seem to know Hiroshima better. I'm completely happy just wandering. I just want different air--no agenda here in Hiroshima!

Gretchen and I decide to eat lunch at Subway (yay!) where they have everything that a Subway in the States has! Well, in terms of sandwich. They don't have the fine collection of chips and cookies that I am accustomed to. :)

We walk around a lot. Its around Hanami season. We didn't quite hit the nail on the head--it is quite a cold day, but the flowers are still blooming and radiant. Its just a slight bit dreary as we criss-cross the city on streetcar and foot.

We visit the Hiroshima Peace Museum and see a new temporary exhibit. Of course it is heartbreaking. But important.

We basically wander around the city--our train to return home will arrive at 6:30 p.m. which will give us a total of 6 and a half hours to meander around a big city. We enjoy conversation in a coffee shop, we look around all the shopping areas.

I can't really buy anything, trying to save money.

Time to hop on the train! Well that wasn't that exciting for YOU was it? :) It was extremely exciting for me. Its hard to realize how exciting actual cities are, until you have to live in the countryside.

P.S. On the way home we stopped at Mike's TexMex in Iwakuni. Mmmmmm. Okay, that maybe has been a big highlight of today. Mexican food............................ *mouth waters

Hanami Party 4/4/10

Sakura season in my neck of the woods is just about over. It lasted a good 2 and a half weeks! Sakura is "cherry blossoms", and if you've heard about Japanese Cherry Blossom season before, its for good reason. This 2 and a half weeks was the most beautiful 2 and a half weeks of my life.

"Cherry blossom is an omen of good fortune and is also an emblem of love, affection and represents spring. Cherry blossoms are an enduring metaphor for the fleeting nature of life, and as such are frequently depicted in art." Wikipedia

It's true...it did seem fleeting, but it was powerful, motivating.

During Cherry Blossom season, it is customary to attend a "Hanami" Party, or flower viewing party. In fact "Hana" means flower, and "mi" means to look/to see. So Hanami parties, are exactly what they sound like. You sit around looking at the Cherry Blossoms.

I actually dated this post in the title, because I want to make it clear that this post is on one specific day: one specific Hanami Party. I reserve the right to do posts on many other Sakura-related topics.

I just can't get enough of these little suckers.

We had our party up behind Tenmangu Shrine, on the mountain I've written about a few times before.

We parked ourselves on a couple of big tarps under this tree!

We treated this Hanami party as a potluck. I brought Homemade Spicy KimChi Soup. Other people brought some amazing dishes too. And of course there were drinks a'plenty. No one throws a Hanami party without drinks! (There are no open-bottle laws in Japan).

The mountain (and probably every other mountain in a 100 mile radius) was dotted with Hanami parties. I would say every mountain in Japan, but Sakura season hits at different times in Japan. Sakura season winds up in an Northernly fashion. ;D Wish I could get off work and follow it!

Above is a Hanami party that was really close to ours. I was walking to the bathroom, when this group of people loudly beckoned me over, and recognized me as the girl that was on TV for the laughing competition! This fame got me a permanent spot at their table, entailing eating their $300 food (I could tell all their stuff was expertly expertly prepared) and helping little old ladies with their English. This group was actually a "Traveling Club"!!! I want to be in a cute traveling club when I'm older! And I want to have Hanami Parties with them too! !!! Harrumph!

I'm getting sidetracked here. hehe.

So of course most of my Hanami Party time was spent with my friends, not the random group that I met toward the end of the day.

Here we are, all full, ready to take a walk, and come back and ingest more!

I felt like I had already had loads of birthday fun-time, yet I was still receiving cakes and presents. :) Thanks everyone. <3

(I'm getting older! As many people lately have liked to remind me of.)

All in all, 4/4/10 was one of my favorite days ever. Can't wait for next year's Hanami Parties! Yes, I used the plural just right there. You are bound to hear more bout Hanami in the days to come. :)

Gravicells

Some of my friends and I decided to make a pit-stop at the Yamaguchi-City library after our last Kencho (Prefectural Mtg.) We aren't in the area very often, and the library often has some kind of event going on. It was quite a beautiful library! This picture was taken from a bridge gracing over the main library.

There was a special art installation at this time! Below, you can see a strange flooring, that was touch sensitive. One person walking over it was different from when two were. It got really crazy when all four of us where walking over it! The cool part was the effect it had on the screen all around our heads. The interference noise was pretty interesting.

I look like a ghost. :/ Or like I'm about

to be sucked through a black hole!

It was called Gravicells and you can read about it right here. :)

Miss You!

Its been a month since Anna left Japan! I miss her! Here is Anna's Goodbye Karaoke night.

I don't think I've been Karaoke'ing since! Which is strange, because Karaoke is a big part of social life over here! After payday...I'll have to do another Karaoke night with lots of my new friends. :)

Graduation Day

High School Graduation is certainly very different in Japan, as compared to my experience with American graduations. As you can see, there are only about 3 or 4 short rows of parents there (right half of the picture). I think at my High School Graduation, we were given 5 seat tickets for family and friends, and even then everyone complained that five wasn't enough. Granted, I could be mixing up my High School and College graduation experience. I'm old. But in general, there weren't that many people there, and it was very.... drab. Sumimasen (sorry/excuse me), Japan. I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before, yet I struggled profusely with maintaining (at least) slightly open eyes.

Each student does not receive a diploma. Instead, the class leader receives the only official document. At my school specifically, there are 4 classes, each with 40 students. Meaning 160 students graduated, but only 4 students took center-stage to receive a diploma-like document.

The Principal and Vice Principal gave speeches, and so did 2 student representatives. The school song was sung. There was a lot of standing up, sitting down, bowing. Whenever a student had to walk to the front, they walked like snails. Dignified snails. And silence. I attended the "graduation practice" the Friday before...and that was basically all the students (and teachers) practicing standing up and sitting down exactly in sync.

I love Japan. And there are many pluses to how they do things. But this graduation thing needs to be spiced up. Yet, next year, at exactly 10a.m. on March 1st, I will again be bowing and sitting, standing, bowing and sitting.

Me and my supervisor!

Its cold! Later on in the day, I burned the skirt you see me wearing, when I was getting too close to that heater you see me warming up over. Ha! :(

Nothing like starting a fire with your skirt to impress your Japanese co-workers!

Graduation Enkai

So Enkai's here are important! They are big, formal parties. We had our graduation enkai on March 1st, the night of graduation. I just so happen to be writing about the party, before the graduation.

Our Enkai was held at the Hofu Grand Hotel. Hofu has a Grand Hotel!? It's HOFU~! Oh. The carpets reminded me of the ones at Days Inn. I get it. Its just called Grand Hotel. :)

Our food was pretty delicious. I would hope so, since the enkai was about $80.00. There were many different little dishes to try. A couple of them looked really strange, but turned out to be quite amazing, indeed.

Enkai's are also all-you-can-drink, which is another reason it is so expensive. Still. Its the type of formal nonsense that I really only want to deal with once a year. Hence, me politely declining the New School Year Enkai on April 2nd.

This was my FIRST time eating Fugu, or blowfish. You can read about that in one of my previous posts here.

Its 100% crucial that you don't take a sip of your drink until the formal "Kanpai!" is issued. After that, there are interesting social rules regarding the drinking. It is seen as rude at these formal parties to fill your own glass. So every time you see someone with a glass that is less than half-full, you must rush over and pour more beer for them.

My co-workers took it to an extreme, in my viewpoint. But its very very common....even if there was less than an inch of the glass drunk, another co-worker would come by and fill the glass to the brim. It seemed like some kind of weird contest: Who can pour the most times???

Hence, by the time the after party comes around, the karaoke bars are full of happy Japanese people (that are too shy to say hi to you during the day) dancing the robot... and singing like they've never sung before.

Christina and I went to one of these after-parties, and sung our hearts out to Journey. Hurrah!