ひさしぶりね It's been a while

I haven't felt like blogging much lately. However, I have a free period at work (rarer these days) and some half-hearted motivation at the moment so here we go.

May 2nd through 6th I was off work in what is known in Japan as Golden Week. Golden Week is a series of national holidays in April (29 - Showa Day, the birthday of the emperor sometimes known as Hirohito) and May (3 - Constitution Day, 4 - Greenery Day, 5 - Children's Day). Since this year's Constitution Day fell on a Sunday, a 'make-up' holiday was given on Wednesday.

I celebrated with some light travel. Many people expect me to travel a lot, but really I don't. I came to live in Japan I guess, and I am not currently itching to go to Taiwan or Hong Kong or Australia or anything. I mean it would be nice to go to those places, but at the same time it's a lot cheaper for me to go places within Japan and I still have tons of fun.

Back to vacay. Vacation was great. I spend Saturday shopping at an outlet mall in Osaka, then Sunday visiting an ancient temple complex built into Mt. Hiei in Kyoto with my good friend from college Adrianne. Following that, me an 5 other friends booked it to Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture for 3 days, 2 nights of...whatever we would find there.

The weather was not so wonderful, rained on and off, but we really made the most of it. Monday we got to Shirahama and after scoring some ramen, hung out on the beach for a while. For dinner, we ate some surprisingly tastey Japanese cuisine prepared in a hole in the wall by a lone Japanese man with a collection of tacky animal figurines on his shelves. Four of us then settled in for the night at our inn, and two of us...slept outside. In the rain.

The next morning, we had some Lawson's (a popular convenience store) for breakfast and then hung out at the beach some more. The weather was pretty awful, raining hardcore all morning, so we decided to check out some 温泉(onsen), hot springs, since that is the other thing Shirahama is famous for. We went to the nicest Onsen I have ever been to. There were multiple baths, and a few outdoor options. I think we spent nearly 4 hours there, with our schedule something like bathe, walk to a different tub and bathe some more, eat lunch, chill, bathe, rinse off, go home. It was great!! Of course, Japanese baths require you to be totally naked, so the girl portion of our crew (Raz and I) went one way, and the boys (Satoshi, Joe, Karl, and Dan) went the other.

After the onsen, Karl and Dan (the outdoor sleepers) decided that with all the rain we'd been having, they would head back early to Osaka. That left 4 of us on the beach, relaxing and enjoying the few moments of rainless cloudcover. Satoshi and I sampled the local microbrew (He got the Pale Ale, said it tasted like Sam Adams from the states. I tried the American Wheat, thought it resembled Shiner. We were both pretty happy since it tasted different from the many somewhat indistiguishable Japanese lagers.)

There was some fear of the rain starting up again, so we grabbed more convenience store food and went to eat dinner at the hotel. The next morning we got up fairly leisurely, made our travel plans back, and with 2 hours to spare decided to jump into the ocean despite the weather. I will say it was cold. But, I was also the only person who didn't shiver in the water. Joe ascribed it to me having extra padding. Oh Joe. Don't you understand women at all? I kid, I kid.

Back to work now. Tomorrow I get a cat!

Hanami Barbecue! 桜より焼肉

Hanami - combination of two Chinese characters, 花 ('hana') meaning flowers, and 見 ('mi') meaning look, see, watch. Sometimes translated as 'flower/cherry blossom viewing,' my preferred translation here would be 'Going to see the cherry blossoms with eating and drinking in large groups.' But I do admit the shorter version has its merits.

We planned to have a nice Hanami picnic last Saturday, until the rain came and washed the barbecue plans out the window with it. So that plan was scrapped, changed to dinner at Pentola Mamma Italian restaurant, and we changed the date to Sunday.

Sunday, I trucked out one of the barbecue grills left to me by my predecessor to Minatoyama Park. Satoshi prepared some veggies for barbecuing (onions, bell pepper, kabocha squash, and shiitake mushrooms), and I iced the pants off a Japan-sized cake. (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, so hopefully someone else got one)

Once at the park, we set up our tarp, table and chairs, grill, and started to get going (around 6 PM). Took us a while to get the grill going, had to get one of the Japanese girlfriends to go ask for some firestarter. Also I didn't bring the top to the grill so we mac-guyver'ed a solution by using a smaller one and propping it up with chopsticks.

It started getting kinda colder but around the grill it was warm enough. People trickled in and by then end there were about 12-14 people there. We ate kilo after kilo of pork and beef. Yummay. The sake got pulled out and passed around, but I was the safety driver! and didn't have any paint thinner this time.

I left the park around 10:30 PM smelling of smoke and beef. YUM.

昨日花見のバーベーキューをした。めちゃ楽しかった！私と智志はケーキと焼く野菜を持っていった。友達たくさん居た。たくさん焼肉を食べちゃったぁ。湊山公園は本当にいい場所やな。パーティーのあとに焼肉のせいで臭かったけど、次のバーベーキューを楽しみぃ。

YES WE CAN.

Sales man(everything translated from the Japanese except YES WE CAN): Why don't you come in? YES WE CAN! I designed these t-shirts. Yes we CAN! Aren't they nice? There's a pink and white one. Maybe the lady needs a cute new bag? Over here! Yes we can! Dickies brand, it's popular in the US right? Yes we can!"

I'd only just begun to know them...

Today we had our graduation ceremony at Nambu Junior High. The ceremony itself started at 10 and lasted an hour and a half. I understood what was being said about 40% of the time. I nodded off a little during the speech...but there was another guy who did too sitting almost directly across from me!

I got a wee bit choked up during the ceremony at times, but for the most part, it was a very somber and traditional affair that didn't stir much emotion in me.

But oh man. Then we had the send off in the parking lot. I LOST it and cried a bit. The worst was when the group of boys who always chatted the most with me rode off on their bikes. Hiroshi, Yuta, Kazuki...man I will miss those guys. One of the sweetest girls in the world gave me a hug and said 'Jessie-sensei don't cry.'　(ジェシ先生泣かないで) I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to many of the students I loved...truthfully, I loved them all. I knew all their names and my life won't be the same without them.

I hope I see them again.

今日の卒業の後で、駐車場のさよならで、私は泣いた…生徒をこれから会えなくてとても悲しい。

I can cook! うまっ！

Tonight I finally got the chance to go cook dinner with Hara-san, a member of my "old ladies eikaiwa" group.

"Most young women in Japan probably don't know how to cut up the squid. I must teach my daughter how to do it before she gets married."


We're trying to make thin egg sheets in the egg-pan...there was a bit of failure on that part but it still tasted like EGG so, win-win!　ちょっと大失敗なんだのに、結局に同じ味があったから、大勝利だったね！


"When you are preparing the tempura batter, don't mix it too well." This is one of my favorite tempura articles - Japanese "pumpkin" called "Kabocha". イカを揚げたときに、怖いほど油が飛んだ。イカは水っぽいだからぜ。


THE FINISHED MEAL! (From upper left, in a clockwise manner: Miso soup with Tofu and Wakame seaweed, Shaved Daikon "oroshi" and soy sauce for dipping the tempura, Chirashi-zushi (sushi rice with simmered carrot and Shiitake mushroom mixed in, topped with shredded egg, shrimp, and some random greenery.), spinach and crushed sesame seed salad, "nagaimo" and seaweed salad (slimy yet satisfying), and finally, tempura.

It was WAY TOO MUCH food and yet if I had to eat it all again, I would. I would eat it all.

I can make all these things now!

原ママは私に教えた料理を作れるようになってきた！これから、お客さんとかあったら、もっとおいしい日本料理を作れるから良かったね。

Studying geography makes my dorky soul happy.

I picked up some Japanese study materials for young Japanese kids and I am loving the geography one. Today I spend about an hour learning the names of various places in Japanese. I learned the word for 'People's Republic'. I learned that Yonaguni is the westernmost island of Japan. I learned that Japan considers the disputed South Kuril islands as theirs enough to put them in their children's books sans 'disputed territory' comment.

I find the name of North Korea in chinese characters kind of strange. 朝鮮民主主義人民共和国 If you can't see it don't worry, but it repeats a character twice in a row.

North Korea in Japanese is 'Chosen Minshu Shugi Jinmin Kyouwa Koku' ...the official name. The more typical name would be 'Kita Chosen', while South Korea is called 'Kankoku' Official name for South Korea is 'Daikan Minkoku'

Scuse me, I finally have some classes to go to so I can't keep geeking about geography.

My weekend