Kamemushi War!!!! カメムシ戦争

The cooler days are bringing an end to the spider and bee reign of terror on my life, but an unfortunate side effect of the shift in temperature is the rise of that foe unbeatable by conventional warfare, the kamemushi.

While bees and spiders are easily killed without remorse and with little hassle (unless you like to keep the soles of your shoes clean, freak), death is the ultimate weapon of the kamemushi. While living he is menacing, like a suicide bomber but instead of dynamite that produces an explosion, he has glands in his thorax between the first and second pair of legs which produce foul smelling liquid.* He taunts you, daring you to smush him with a rolled up newspaper, slowly crawling around, or falling on the ground legs up and writhing pitifully. Daring you to make your move. Daring you to be your own undoing.

The kamemushi protests he only attacks when he himself is threatened, but there is nothing passive about the full-on assault the kamemushi is waging upon this fair hillside country school. In one classroom yesterday, intrepid students counted 200 of the kamemushi which had invaded.

That's what this is. An invasion.

Kamemushi King, if there is such a thing, I beg of you. Please leave. Take your army and go elsewhere. While you are easy to kill, doing so only harms ourselves in turn... NO, please give us peace. We want peace. Give us your demands.

*Thanks wikipedia!


I found this on google images. Work of a kamemushi sympathizer.

Picspam

I've set up a flickr, and am dumping copious photos there for your perusal and enjoyment.

I can't be bothered to actually write entries...PSH.

Maybe tomorrow.

Here's the link: go for it!

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。

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。

Weather forecast for the next 3 months of my life

Me: blahblah something Tokyo. Maybe I'll go to Tokyo for New Years.
Home-ec teacher: blahblah something Tokyo! I love going to the museums there!
Me: Me too! blahblah National Museum.
Home-ec teacher: Going to Tokyo in wintertime is so strange. It's not like here. They have cold weather, and snow, but they also have sunshine! Here it stays so cloudy.
Me: ...ah..haha...so Tokyo has clear skies in the winter, but here it's always cloudy.
Home-ec teacher: That's right!
Me: That's Tottori for ya, huh?
Home-ec teacher: (with a big SMILE) yup!

Fighting through the cold

Winter is starting to get here. I mean, it's still warmer than NY was, and it always will be, but in NY it was a trip in a parka from overheated room to overheated room, and here it's more like sitting in a 15 degree offices rubbing my hands together in a shirt and sweater. Then walking through 5 degree corridors to 10 degree classrooms to teach 50 minute lessons and am I losing you with the celsius yet?

(5 degree - 41 degree, 10 - 50, 15 - 59)

Solution is obviously to buy more sweaters. and turtlenecks. and start wearing a parka at ALL TIMES EVERYWHERE.

I fear for my electric bill...but I did up the efficiency of my apartment by plasticking my windows with bubble wrap.

Honestly I wouldn't mind so much if there weren't these ominous dark clouds. I can't see Daisen out my office window today...sigh.

Taiyou WHALES and such

I spent basically the last hour speaking to the school's industrial arts teacher about how many seasons each part of the US has, followed by why I went to collegei n New York instead of Louisiana, followed by Japanese and American differences in school systems and testing for college, followed by testing to become a US foreign service officer, followed by kanji for different kinds of fish, and I'm sure a number of things in between.

Also, he spend much of it waving a knife around.

Earthquake Survivor

I JUST SURVIVED AN EARTHQUAKE.

In all actuality it was so mild I didn't know what it was until my coworkers clued me in.

But still...it's my first earthquake! (that I've noticed)

Irony

I bought this bag of about 15 mikan (little oranges, like clementines) yesterday and consumed the whole bag in one evening.

Today in school lunch we had a mikan.

Honestly though, it's ok. I really like mikan. I might go buy another bag full of mikan today.

Sports Festival

Just about every school in Japan runs a few festivals. The big ones are the Sports Festival and the Culture Festival. The Culture Festival revolves around arts and speeches and things, plays, exhibits, etc.

The Sports Festival...well it revolves around sports all right, but not in the "baseball and volleyball and soccer" way you might imagine. Here`s a rundown of the events that occured in our junior high sports festival here:

-Opening Ceremony in which all students and teachers must stand for ungodly amounts of time doing basically nothing and listening to nonsense Japanese. (ok, so only nonsense to me)
-Rajio Taisou, calisthenics performed en masse to catchy piano music. I participated with the rest of the students and teachers in looking like a total dork.
-100 meter race
-"Mountains and Valleys" a game where students must balance a ping-pong ball on a fan and walk over to a pylon, circle the pylon twice, and return.
-"Olympics" a strange collection of events that do not resemble the olympics at all, i.e. spinning with you head on a baseball bat, and then participating in a 4 legged race (3-legged race with an extra person)
-Tug-of-war
-"Friend park" a unique er...game where two person teams compete. First one person drags the other on a dolly to station A. At station A they both put on helmets and mount a bicycle (one person sits on the cargo seat and balances two large but lightweight boxes), then they travel to station B while balancing the boxes. At station B one person gets in a wheelbarrow and the other pushes her to the finish line. Yes.
-Relay race, one for each grade level (all students) and then one with all the grade levels (some students chosen from within the class)
-長谷川Japan vs 太田Japan, girls from each 3rd year class compete for who can grab the most tires and bring them back across the line.
-Tama-ire (Balls-in) the 1st years throw balls into baskets lofted in the sky. Whoever gets the most in wins.
-"Boy Fight" Two teams of boys each have a pole. Half the boys hold up the pole, the other half go try to knock the other team`s pole down. Winner is first to make the other team`s pole hit the ground.
-Mukade Race (centipede race) groups of 5 students have their legs connected together and must hobble around the track. This was done relay style. The last place team was um...4 minutes behind everyone else. Quite sad.
-"Folk" dance in which all the students dance halfheartedly to some weirdo dance the 3rd years created to a catchy Japanese pop song. Well the 3rd years were at least pretty excited..
-Closing Ceremony, which is the same as the opening ceremony except after it`s over I have to help clean everything up and take down tents.

Note about the relay race: the teachers had to join in with the 1st year students. We ended up getting 3rd place. I was the first teacher to run and I was in 3rd place after the baton pass. But I felt ok about this because a lot of people were slower than I, and at the end of the day all the teachers kept saying "Jessie-sensei hayai! hayai!" (fast! fast!) but man...I`m not fast. Those little 12 year olds are fast. I will try to do better next year...gotta get in shape.

Note about the Japanese school system: Elementary is 1st to 6th grade, Junior High is 7th to 9th grade, and Senior High is 10th to 12th grade. I`m having a lot of trouble explaining and getting the people I work with to understand the fact that they have 7th, 8th, and 9th graders at their school in English instead of 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade(which of course makes them sound like 7 year olds). So I have more or less compromised and I`m trying to make them say "1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year" Do you think this is for the best?

I`m not always sure what to write about, so if you ever have any questions about my life in Japan or anything about Japan, let me know.

Freakish mutant insects.

Ahhhh Japan. Beautiful mountains, gorgeous coastline, rich verdant valleys, and giant man eating bugs of doom.

If you thought Mothra was just something someone made up, let me tell you. Mothra is real. He`s real and he flew in my face this morning. Well, if I`m exagerating, it`s only slightly. Mothra wasn`t the size of a small mountain, only twice the size of my fist, but I think we can all agree that that qualifies as freakishly big on the moth size scale.

I have trouble convincing my Japanese colleagues and friends ("But everything in America is bigger!" is the frequent refrain) but the truth is that the insects of Japan are in a class all their own. Beetles the size of your fist. Moths the size of your face. Dragonflies with a wingspan larger than 6 inches. Hornets that make the American ones look like babies.

This isn`t to imply I`m running around like a little girl crying over them, and in fact I find the insects here fascinating most of the time. I just wanted to let you know that Mothra was probably inspired directly by the gigantic moths that actually live here, and same with that one Japanese cartoon "Blue Gender" I saw where giant bugs take over earth and kill all the humans.

Lastly, I`m currently in a protracted war with no end in sight with the spiders that live on my balcony. Every time I destroy their webs of evil, they return stronger than before, bewebbing my garden and balcony the second I turn my back. I may have to surrender to them eventually.