Nom nom nomz Okonomiyaki

This blog post is going to be devoted to one of my favorite things ever, FOOD! And it wont be dedicated to just any food, it shall be dedicated to really nommy nommy food, Okonomiyaki!

So, lets start with the basics:

Q: What is Okonomiyaki?

A: The best way to describe it would be that Okonomiyaki is Japanese savory snack/food that is somewhat like a pancake containing a variety of ingredients. These ingredients being along the lines of cabbage, meat, egg, etc. So not a sweet pancake, a savory pancake. The name is derived from the word okonomi, meaning "what you like" or "what you want", and yaki meaning something along the lines of grilled or cooked.

Now, maybe you are wondering why I should now decide to post about Okonomiyaki?

And the answer would be because Okonomiyaki tends to be made in two different styles: Hiroshima okonomiyaki or Kansai okonomiyaki. And seeing as I just spent a fair amount of time in Hiroshima (nomming on Hiroshima Okonomiyaki) and Kansai area (nomming on more Okonomiyaki) I figured now was a decent time to go about writing up a blog about this delicious food.

So like I said, Okonomiyaki comes in two different distinct styles, and I personally feel that there is some unwritten law that you MUST prefer one over the other (Note: I have no proof that such a law exists, but I am sure it does). Before I tell you which I prefer best, I will tell you a bit about Hiroshima and Kansai okonomiyaki and also through in some photos for visuals.

So Kansai Okonomiyaki is prepared with a batter containing flour, water, some chopped up cabbage and a egg scrambled into the mix. Then other such ingredients as meat (pork or beef) octopus, green onion, squid, shrimp veggies and maybe some cheese and mochi are also thrown in and mixed into the batter. Of course, being "As you like" you can choose to opt out of any undesirable ingredients. After getting thoroughly mixed the entire gloopy mess is thrown down onto a hot flat surface and cooked up. Once cooked the top of the okonomiyaki is then covered in a delicious okonomiyaki sauce (i'm not sure what is made of, but it tasted pretty sweet but salty all at once...Amaaaaze-ing) and topped off with some seaweed flakes, bonito flakes, pickled ginger and a lite mayonaise. Delish.

Hiroshima Okonomiyaki on the other hand is made by layering the ingredients, versus mixing them all up. The layers generally go something like this: batter, cabbage, pork, and your other optional ingredients (such as shrimp, octopus, scallops, etc) followed by noodles (either soba or udon) and a fried egg (and of course, as you like it with the ingredients). Topping all of this is again the delicious amazing okonomiyaki sauce with seaweed flakes and pickled ginger. It is also important to note that this style of okonomiyaki tends to use at least double the amount of cabbage that is used in the Kansai style.

Check out some visuals:




Yum Yum Yum, can you tell which is which?

The top is Kansai Okomomiyaki and the bottom is Hiroshima Okonomiyaki.


Although both are really delicious, I can only like one, so can you guess which I like best?

And the answer is....drumroll please! (insert drumming sounds). By a landslide, (not that the other one isnt good, but that this one is just so GOOD!) my favorite style of Okonomiyaki is Kansai okonomiyaki!

Title Pending

This month has seemed to zoom by at light speed, It is 2 days until I am at Hiroshima Airport picking up my mom, and 5 days until Christmas! Time is flying a little too fast for my preference.

I haven`t got too much to post since I have been in the office all day yesterday and today...so I have decided for this post to be chock full of pictures and maybe have a few tid bits of commentary. Enjoying!


Okay, so I have noticed that I haven't posted many photos either on here or on my facebook about my time here, so this post will basically be a bit of a catch all photo purge. So: Here are some pics that sum up the past month and other events that haven't made into onto my blog yet.
WARNING: Tons and Tons of photos.

But before that watch this video


Disclaimer: "I am not Japanese" and "you are riding a fine line between homage and racism" (ru ru)

October Trip to Tokyo

So, I briefly made a post about my visit with my host family, but I hadn't included any info/photos about meeting up with old friends in Tokyo. So way back in the day I had gone to Tokyo and got to see my friend Kentaro (from college) and Junki and Yuumi (two of my friends I met while studying abroad, so here some pictures for you to feast upon.


So during the day Kentaro and I made the trek out to Odaiba, a pretty awesome strange area of Tokyo I had only been to once before. On the way I remembered why I hate Tokyo: the people there seriously move so slow. It is all misconceived lies about people in Tokyo being busy. In reality they only rush when they are running late (which is a result of them walking so slow earlier). In reality we actually left Japan and went to NYC to visit the statue of liberty.


Apparently this dog is pretty famous. Kentaro only told me afterwards that wearing a tie around your head is a symbol of drunkenness, thanks!


I like to make baby polar bears cry.


And in the evening I met up for dinner with Junki and Yuumi! Which was a great event of me attempting to remember Japanese and them being kind and speaking to me mostly in English!

Later in October: Sake Fest

How did this not make it into my blog originally? At first I didn't know, but after going through all my pictures from this day, I immediately recalled... Main reason being that an all you can drink sake festival only results in one thing; Drunk eyes.
Anyway, I will spare the gazillion details, primarily because I am much too lazy and uninspired to write much. And secondarily I dont think there is much needing explaining.



Hot mess


Drunk eyes for the win.


Clara and Steph post sake fest which I think sums up very nicely how the night ended.

And Now onto the Main and most Recent Events: DECEMBER (Dinner party)

So the first week of December, my fellow Oshima ALT and I were invited to one of my co-workers to have dinner. There was tons of food, tons of drinks, a lot of broken Japanese being spoken (from me), and an overall great night. It was also on this lovely evening that I happend to meet my true love, and have my dreams shattered to learn not only was he married, but that he had a son who was older than me. But after all, age is just a number.


Me and Matthew with my co-worker and her friend.


My true love. 1) I mean look at him. 2) He is the Japanese Mr. Rogers in all the right kind of ways. 3) He is from Chiba, instant bond!


One of the more interesting beverages of the evening. It was some kind of herbal liquor/alcohol/thing that had apparently been brewed up by our hosts mother the year I was born. The Japanese dinner guests told Matthew and I that these drink 1) is extremely healthy for you (drink one small cup a day and you wont get sick) 2) "It is the viagra" (i assumed this meant it is an aphrodisiac). 3) It was brewed up in a sink....

Later in Dec. (aka last week): Kurisumasu pa-ti-
So last week was our Yamaguchi ALT Christmas party which was at a Mexican restaurant in Iwakuni. Major win on multiple levels. I happen to love beans, guacamole, and cheese (see real cheese), which Mikes (said Mexican restaurant) had plenty of! Also, I hadn't seen my other ALT's (minus Ciaran, as he lives right across the way [see bridge]) since Sumo. Also all you can drink Margaritas is enough of a reason to make this night a win.






Oh, and on this night I discovered that Amanda was in my Chinese class at Wooster! Crazzzy, this world is too small!




At one point Ciaran and I were elected to go get more wine. After picking up the wine we ended up spending 20 minutes drinking the wine and playing in the park which resulted in us getting left behind. (but a simple phone call and we ended up with our friends as intended)


Miguel dancing away at the generally questionable, but okay bar/club we stumbled into which had ended up being a really great time minus the creepy folks who kept trying to join in on our fun.

Sumo-masen

Forgive me for my bad pun of a blog title. If you are not familiar with Japanese you may not get it, and if you are familiar with Japanese you still may not get it because it is a pretty far stretch of a pun. Anyway here is a brief explanation: The word I am trying to play off of is sumimasen, which translates into a kind of catch all word that roughly means excuse me, or thank you, or even kind of sorry. But I suppose this title could also be interpreted in another way because in Japanese masen is used to negate something. ex: arimasen - it isn`t there or tabemasen- didn`t eat.

Anyway, brief Japanese lesson aside I guess this post is going to be dedicated to things that could be related to a sumo wrestler. Namely: Thanksgiving Dinner (looks small when compared to a sumo`s daily diet) and naturally, a sumo match (after all, nothing gets more sumo than a sumo match).

*Note: this blog post will be photo heavy (heavy, you know, like a sumo....lolz)
Oh and as per usual, click to enlarge photos.
Ready, Set, Sumo!

So, as can be expected, Thanksgiving in Japan is non-existent. The day after Halloween the one hundred yen shops ($1 stores) swap out their Halloween decorations for Christmas decorations. Likewise, traditional Thanksgiving foods such as Turkeys, and pumpkin pies are things Japanese people would gawk at should they randomly/magically appear in their supermarket. So, in order for this American tradition to be carried out on the little island of Oshima, Matthew and I decided to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving get together with one of our other American ALT`s, Jessica.
Seeing as Matthew and I both have special diets, me being a pescatarian and Matthew a once vegan turned vegetarian (Japan will do it to you) opted out of the standard Turkey fair, and due to lack of access to other traditional Turkey day foods we improvised to make our own hybrid Japanese/American vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner.

On the menu we had a delicious tofu scramble (Matthew makes this really really well, so delicious), faux meat burritos with salsa, lettuce, and cheese, some homemade sweet potato chips, and a all veggie Japanese nabe stew. Oh and for dessert, my favorite, MOCHI!


check it out:


Our Thanksgiving Feast!


Really delicious sweet potato chips

And to round out the Thanksgiving experience we even had Turkey napkins, and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. (The previous evening we watched The Land Before Time 7, Thanks Mom.)


After stuffing our bellies fit to burst, the following Saturday we were all set to watch the National Sumo Finals in Fukuoka (Kyushu). Unfortunately, I left my sumo pamphlet in Fukuoka (staying out all night will do that to you) so I cant tell you all the awesome things that I had learned about sumo (drinking at the sumo event and after to celebrate a friends birthday will cause you to forget all the fascinating things you read about sumo). So you will have to rely mostly on the photos I managed to take and whatever brief commentary I can muster up to accompany them.



Ciaran (my Irish friend who lives across the bridge) and me enjoying some prime sumo. Thanks Brad for the kawaii bunny ears.




The Upper level sumo's doing their entrance ceremony before their matches begin. These guys are HUGE! Ciaran had the honor of bumping into one in the bathroom.


In between each match these guys came out marching some banners around the sumo ring. Do you know why?
They are advertisements. Pretty cool ne?


Two Sumo getting ready to take one another down. This match was actually pretty exciting because both of them fell out of the ring at what looked like the same time. And I was betting 100yen on the match.



And so, these guys had to come up into the ring and deliberate to decide who the winner was. Lets just say I was 100yen richer after their decision. #win

Anyway, the matches seemed to get more exciting as they went, but it might of had something to also do with me drinking more as the day went on. Also, I started to enjoy placing bets on each game, turns out I am pretty good at predicting the winner as I made about 800yen over 6 matches.

One of the best matches of the day also happened to be the shortest. After doing the leg lifts and belly pats that are typically portrayed in sumo matches the two guys crouched down. After a very brief stare down one of the sumo rushed to charge down the other, and what did that other sumo do? He simply stepped aside and the charging sumo went tumbling out of the ring. Simply ingenious. Easily everyones favorite match as well as the most memorable.

Other best part of the day. Seeing a real life Geisha at the sumo match. So poised, so elegant. Keri is so Jealous.

I am going to try to post more often. Hope you enjoyed the photos in this blog since the past few have been kind of lacking.

P.S.
check out the pineapple's blog too!
http://pineappledesu.blogspot.com/

Japanese Culture

About a month ago while at a dinner party hosted by an older Japanese man, some of my 2nd year ALT friends had been chatting about something called Kancho. Being the newbie, I had no idea what they were talking about and so naturally I asked them what this mystery topic was. Instead of giving me an answer themselves, they told me to ask Taisho (our host). So I turn to our host and ask in English, `What is kancho`? He smiles and chuckles a bit and pauses before giving me his answer in English, `Japanese culture desu`, laughs a bit more and leaves it at that. My friends explain that I will more than likely find out sooner than later (it being usually rather prominent in Elementary school age students) and gave me a bit of a run down on this odd bit of Japanese culture.


At Breakfast Taisho showing us some more traditional and appropriate Japanese culture.

Today, Novemver 8th (the day I began this post, not the day I will eventually post it) marks the day that I have officially visited all of my 17 schools (both elementary and JHS) at least once, some I have already visited multiple times. This last school was Migama, one of my 12 elementary schools. As mentioned before in an earlier post elementary schools are both the reason and bane of my existence here in Japan. And this day was no exception, my elementary school children were suuuuper super cute and as per usual, super genki and excited to see me. Which of course leads to a happy but exhausted Keri. At this point, having visited all of my schools at least once I was beginning to think that maybe Oshima was too out in the sticks for my kids to know and engage in the odd kancho-ing activity, since I hadn`t seen any such activity or attempts in my over 3 months of being here. It certainly seemed that way to begin with seeing as the most exciting thing that occurred while teaching both the first and second graders was to watch a Japanese girl with a cold poke her finger into her nose, pull out a dribbling jem, examine it, and of course conclude by sticking it into her mouth and nom away (gaaahhh! I had to turn away as to not show my ultimate revulsion). Booger eating: one of those things that transcends cultural boundaries...
I can see it now, two little kids one from America and one from Japan bonding over the mutual experience of loving to eat their snot. (bleh)

Anyway, that small diversion/revulsion aside my classes had been going extremely smoothly. Playing games and singing songs with the kids. But then it came time for the 3rd and 4th graders. And now dear reader, you will get to hear what exactly this odd kancho thing is. As usual, I needed to first introduce myself and then one by one my students would stand up and do their own small self-introduction. The first 3 students were giggly third grade girls and that went smoothly enough. My next student was a third grade boy, (whom I suspect the giggly girls had a crush on) anyway when he stood up to introduce himself the girls attempted to do an odd -kancho-inspired prank. So what they did was that once their boy crush stood up, the girl sitting closest to him put her cupped hand down onto the seat of the boys chair fingers sticking up. And next thing you know the boy is done giving his self-intro and sits back down and....well thankfully it was a rather slow movement and his bum felt those little pointed fingers before anything too invasive happened.
And there I stood completely appalled and surprised at this kind of kancho like behavior and, my JTE not concerned in the least while the boy stood up again protected his bum and watched to make sure that the girls did not try to re-attempt their trick as he sat back down. Spurred on by this small success and maybe by my queer reaction the girls continued to attempt to do this to each boy who had yet to do introduce himself to me. Thankfully the boys picked up on this and kept an attentive eye on their seats.


Anyway, like I have said, what I experienced was not the traditional kancho method, or whatever you would call it. Thank goodness my kids have not tried to pull a full on legitimate kancho in front of me (or worse, to me!) because I would probably be even more mortified than when I saw the little girl digesting her snotty booger (well maybe the snot is more disgusting). So, I will briefly explain what kancho is. Simply put it is a kind of game or prank that young Japanese kids play (usually aged from preschool to maybe 2nd/3rd grade). And basically all this entails is clasping your two hands together with your pointer fingers sticking out (as if you were pretending to wield a gun) and then take those fingers and do your best to ram them up your friend or teachers butt. A lot of the 2nd year + JETs have witnessed this in action, and some of them have even fallen victim to this `harmless` prank. Yes, this game/prank/thing is not only popular, but this behavior is also tolerated....geeze louise Japan, you are an odd country indeed. Thankfully, this behavior seems to last only up until about 2nd or 3rd grade.
The best way to prevent a Japanese kid ramming their digits up your bum: keep your back to the wall our your hands clasped behind your back. I`ve also heard that taking a kid hostage is also a suitable prevention method.



Oddity Commodity

Check this link to see some good ol` Santa Kancho
poor guy, didnt even know what he was in store for.
http://youtu.be/GDbA9E6Blbo

Check the wiki page for a little more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kancho

And anytime you ask about Kancho to a Japanese person. Their response, you guessed it, `Japanese culture (desu)`.

There was something else I think I had wanted to write about odd or interesting Japanese culture, but I have since forgotten about it, so for a later post maybe!

Today (the day I am concluding and posting this blog) 11/11 is a rather special day for two reasons. Reason 1) Today is Pocky day in Japan, kind of like 7/11 in America. So today you go into the 7-11, Lawsons, Family Mart, etc. convenience store and say `Today is Pocky day` and they will give you some free Pocky, awesome! Reason 2) Today is my good (new) friend Ciaran`s birthday and so to ring it in with honor a group of us will be going out for Mexican (as close as you can get to it in Japan anyway) and drinks!
Until Next Time!

Keri

Punctuality

Hey all!

I haven`t got really much to post because I haven`t been to a school all week... :(
But I have got a small but long something to post because I haven`t been to school all week, and so here it is:

On Tuesday (11/1) I was scheduled to go to Ukashima elementary school, one of my two off island schools. But due to a series of unfortunate events, I never made it. It all started in the morning after breakfast. On a regular day I wake up around 7:25 eat breakfast, mozzy around, get dressed, and roll out of the apartment at 8:25 and get to work at just about 8:30. Which is perfectly on time. And normally there is no reason why I should worry about leaving the apartment before 8:25 because I know that without fail I will get to work at the latest, 2 minutes late. Well, it seemed that on this particular morning Murphy was trying to give me a fair warning by giving me a small taste of his infamous law.
So, what happened?
At 8:20 I am all dressed with my lunch packed, my school supply bag packed and ready to walk out the door when I reach to grab my keys off of the key hook. And lo and behold. When I drew my hand back there were no keys dangling from my unfortunately empty palm. Shit.
On a regular day without fail I always remember to place my keys onto the key hook to avoid one of these exact situations. So I try to maintain my cool and think for a few seconds....`aha! yesterday was not a perfectly normal day. It was actually a really exciting day because my large box of winter goods and oatmeal had arrived from my dad, which I had unpacked right beneath my beloved key hook!` So, with that burst of inspiration I begin to grope around within and around my box hoping that in all of my excitement of unpacking I had knocked the keys off the hook. But blasted, things are rarely ever that simple. Keys were nowhere to be found. Commence low-medium level freak out. I rush over to my little dining table scan about lift up a neatly folded sweater that had been lying there. nope not under that. Lift up my Japanese language notebook. Nope not under that. What the hell, might as well check under my laptop. Nope, not there either. And now it is 8:25. Double Shit. I look on my desk, dont see it there. Hurry and check the pockets of all the clothes I wore the previous day. Not there either. At this point I am freaking out. No keys, I`m going to be late, and although I can easily walk to work, there is no way I could walk to the ferry to catch the boat to my school at 11:30. Major freak out session ensues. I quickly double check everywhere I had already looked. not on my bed, not in my pockets, not on my table, not in or near my box. It`s 8:30 and I am screwed. Well, I figure I may as well walk to school and hope that my supervisor will drive me to the ferry and pray no one will decide to see if the foreigner remembered to lock her door (because yes, my car keys and apartment key are on the same chain).

So I begin the short trek to work, call my supervisor and tell him in the best Japanese I can muster: Hello! I am coming. Excuse me, I am sorry for being late!
Once at work, I figure it is best to bite the bullet and get the unfortunate car situation aired at the start. So again I try to think of the best way to tell them about what happened with the limited Japanese I have. And this is generally how it went.
`Good Morning...` (not as chipper as my usual good morning greeting) shuffle over to my supervisor....`....uhhhh excuse me, sorry, uhhh excuse me, today my car is not here`. (pause) I see the fear begin to creep into my supervisors eyes and I realize a moment too late that this statement was probably not the best way to open my conversation with my supervisor since he is quite aware of my track record in regards to my car (car in a ditch ring any bells?)...and so I quickly jabber out that: `ohh ohh ohhh my car is fine. it is fine. it is at home but...` and here begins the charades act because my Japanese is not good enough to string this into a proper sentence. I tell him I am ready to leave my apartment, and I begin to act out grabbing my keys off the hook and my astonishment at coming up empty handed and begin to say `not there, notthere....hmmm where where where where?!?!?!?` And pantomime a rabid search that turns up with nothing. At which I say: where?!? I dont know. lost (it). But In my apartment. My supervisor asks/pantomimes if I checked if I left my keys in the car Which then begins a conversation about my apartment being unlocked because the keys are together.

And needless to say, everyone in my office was at that point watching the spectacle that is me making little to no sense. Thankfully, the main guy in our office tells me (in all Japanese) Keri, you do not have school until 11:30, how about you go home with Mrs. Yanagihara and the both of you look for your keys. And so that is what we do. We get to my apartment and look through the box, and around the box. Check my pockets, my laundry basket. And Mrs. Yanagihara is checking under my sofa when I lift up my sweater off the table and my keys come tumbling out from one of the folds. AHA! and embarrassment all at once. Here are my keys!!!! What the heck are they doing folded in my sweater???? Who knows. But hooray, success, thank goodness! And we drive back to the office I show everyone my keys and hold a small slightly subdued (due to embarrassment) celebration of finding my keys.

But the unfortunate events sadly do not end here. Due to my fiasco of the morning you would think I would`ve gotten Murphy`s message (Primarily being that today was the day he was out to wreck havoc on my life) i get ready to leave for the ferry to go to school at 11:10. I figure it is more than enough time to do the 10 minute drive park and get on the ferry. FALSE, well partially.
I did get to the ferry in plenty of time. I was there at 11:20. but naturally (anything that can go wrong....) the parking lot was full. Shit. I recall that my supervisor told me it was ok to park at the elementary school nearby. So I drive over there. And ahaha, the usually 2 empty parking lots are chock full of cars (....will go wrong). Double Shit. I call my supervisor explain in the best Japanese I can muster which roughly translates to this. `Now I am at Shimanaka elementary school, but there are lots of cars. ` Thankfully he takes this to mean that there is no parking and he tells me that he will call the school and see if a teacher can help me out. Ok, well that is nice, except by the time the teacher rolls out it is 11:26. She tells me (in Japanese naturally, thank goodness I understood) That I could park at the closed down middle school, she points me into the direction. I drive over, park, shout my thanks, and break out into a run to catch the ferry because it is now 11:28 and this is Japan, if the ferry is supposed to leave at 11:30, it leaves exactly at 11:30.
And so I tear around the final corner of the ferry port, I am so close that I can see the ferry and the captain. I take a quick peek at my watch. Shit. it is 11:30. So I throw my hands up in mad desperation and begin waving away like a woman gone mad and shouting in Japanese (wait! Please Wait!) and in English (I`m coming! Dont Leave, please!) And what does that good ol ferry captain do? Give me the finger, rev that engine and tear out of the port like the rude fella that he is laughing hysterically. Well almost. Maybe there was no finger. And there might have been laughing, but it could`ve been a normal laugh at something the toll collector had said (maybe/probably about the psycho foreigner [me]). And needless to say I was left standing at the gangplank watching the ferry recede at a snail pass (having half the mind to jump into the water and go swimming after it it was moving so slow.) and hoping just maybe the captain was going to pull a U-turn because yes, I was still waving my arms in the air like a crazy woman. After a few moments I realize, no they are not going to turn around. I am screwed and I better call my supervisor.
After about 7 minutes of a mixture of Japanese and English I manage to tell my supervisor that I am fine. but I am not going to Ukashima elementary because...begin english...the ship left me. confusion ensues because he thinks i am saying that I am fine, I am on the way to ukashima on the ship. Anyway, after getting all of it sorted I was told, dont worry keri, come back to the office.
And so in a pissy defeated mood I hop into the car and drive at a snail pass back to work.

And that was my Tuesday.
I was rescheduled to go to Ukashima today since I missed Tuesday, and what does my supervisor say after our ritual morning greeting. Keri-san, please ferry Ukashima...Japanese Japanese.
hang my head and say: today I will leave at 11:00.
Now not only will I always be reminded of being a safety driver, but it looks like I will also always be reminded of my need to leave extra early to make the ferry.

Japan.

Hopefully not missing the boat (Modest Mouse reference?!)
Keri

http://youtu.be/YSfTdzoO4ic

Chaos

Hey there readers
I am trying my best to keep this blog fairly updated, but some days I feel so unmotivated to write that it is hard. And other days, such as today I have so many trivial things I want to write about that it seems pretty hard to determine where to begin. So if this blog comes out a bit non-sensical, scattered, etc that would be because it is essentially reflecting exactly how my life currently is right now. So, be prepared for odd disjointed thoughts that may disappear only to reappear 3 paragraphs later.

So here I am. Stuck at the BOE today. doing...well a ton of mixtures of nothing. clearly I am now typing this blog, earlier I sent out an email to one of my best friends, and I guess for the rest of the day my goal is to finish reading Dexter as slowly as possible to try to make the last 35 pages last me 3 hours (wishful thinking).

I think I can officially say that I have reached the Stage 2 party that was so often brought up at Tokyo orientation as well as Yamaguchi Orientation. And Stage 2 parties are a hoot, let me tell you that. Here are some warning signs of a stage 2 party: 1)A small break out of pimples sends you into a fit of rage and anger at Japan for destroying your usually flawless skin,2) frustration at one of your JTE`s (Japanese Teacher of English who you team teach with) for asking you a gazillion questions that you are too tired to bother answering (not to mention she also rifled around through some of your belongings without asking permission), 3) feeling lonely as heck, 4)Irritated at really horrible Japanese drivers,5) Feeling that you want to get out of the country in a hot second, 6) Feeling like your Japanese language class is a waste of time because really, when the heck are you going to use some of these phrases , and sensei can you try to make the lesson a little more structured than my blogs! oh yeah and how could I forget 7) Have your car in a ditch. Any or all of these signs?, `Welcome to the Stage 2 party` population: Keri
Did I forget to mention the best (see worst) part about the stage two party. You are usually the only one in attendance. Yippie!

Right now you are probably wondering one of two questions.
1) Why was your car in a ditch
or
2) How did your car end up in a ditch

Answer:
Ask me later, I am too into this stage 2 party right now to bother answering.



You know you live in the country (or Oshima) when they call a forklift to get your car out of a ditch.

All of this negativity aside, I think i am doing pretty okay.
But I am facing a lot of tough decisions that need to be decided kind of soon, or at least soon enough.
Tough Decision 1) I really like being in Japan (stage 2 parties aside) and I would really like to be here a second year (I think) but Oshima (aka isolated old people central) might not be the ideal location. So do I try to transfer locations within Yamaguchi prefecture with JET? Or do I tough it out and stay put?....I dont know. Transfers are pretty difficult, so even if I do put in the request, more than likely it will be declined. Which leads me to tough decision number
2) Do I quit JET and join a private English teaching company in Japan. Well maybe, but the benefits aren`t nearly as awesome (aka pay, healthcare, housing, and my return tickets wont be paid for) but the nice thing, you usually aren`t way out in the sticks (such as Oshima) but then there is also tough decision
3) Do I stay in Japan at all? I am going through some really rough transitions in my life right now emotionally, and I am feeling extremely vulnerable here due to the extreme isolation throughout the work week. I think maybe it is best for me to go home where I have an amazing support network of friends and family but then I will be a member of the 99% who is out raging against corporate america for not letting me have a sliver of the pie that I have worked my ass off for. (but lets not go into that now).
At the soonest I need to make these Decisions by Nov. 4th (if I want to stay but transfer with JET) at the soon enough-ist I have to decide by Feb (if I want to stay with JET in Japan). Ughhh if you know me, then you know that choices are the bane of my existence.

Stage 2 party, Choices, and Ditches aside, I think life is trucking along well enough.
This past weekend I did some small scale retail therapy to hopefully help pull me out of my stage 2 slump. So I went with one of my friends Kris to a shopping mall in Hiroshima prefecture to buy sensible things (such as heat tech clothing, some work outfits) and less sensible things (leopard shorts, funky earmuffs[to be work together]) and random things (a vegetable steamer). I think the say out doing mindless shopping was exactly what I needed to get my mind off of all the small stress factors in my life. That evening we were also going to meet up with a few other friends to have a dinner pie and movie night (rocky horror to celebrate the spirit of Halloween). Since Kris and I were in Hiroshima (where there happens to be a pretty decent, but small foreign foods shop) we also decided to pick up wine (on Steph`s suggestion and Kris` agreement) and cheese (my suggestion because really nothing makes a better coupling than cheese and wine). And I think that turned out to top off a great weekend off of Oshima. The pie was extremely delicious it was a veggie girl wonderland filled with potato, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, eggplant, you name it (wish there had been some artichoke that would`ve been grand). Dessert was an equally delicious apple crumble followed with amazing wine and cheeses. I suggested that we make wine and cheese night a monthly ritual, because lord knows I need cheese in my life.


Hurray for Wine and Cheese (extra hurray)



And now for a topic that is coming straight out of left field (or my completely scattered brain, take your pick)
Dodgeball!

Some of you may recall that in college i was on one of the most winningest dodgeball teams ever! (at least we had a complete losing streak, that`s hard to do, right?)
Well Japanese Dodgeball is the oddest thing ever. I am glad I waited until now to post about it because at I have only finally begun to understand fully exactly how it works. (assuming you know the fundamentals of dodgeball so you would be able to pick up the differences)
So my first experience with dodgeball in Japan:
I was placed on the white cap team (its cute Japanese elementary school uniforms have this little cap that are reversible and the inside is white and outside is red, which is perfect for differentiating different team members for dodgeball, soccer, etc) anyway, like I said I was placed onto the white cap team (which happened to be 3&4th graders) vs. the red caps (5&6th graders) I think the idea was that I was supposed to help even the playing field with my age advantage (laugh). It started out familiar enough, we drew out the court and the half way median. But instead of having a plethora of balls there was only one. hmmmm, intersting,but I can deal with that. And we begin with a basketball like duel for the ball at the center line. And as expected my miniture team mates were not able to get the ball from their older peers. As the game progresses and the first kid is hit and told that he is out, this is where the oddity begins to really appear. So instead of just sitting on the side line waiting for a team mate to catch a ball so he can be summoned back into the game he is running around the edges of the court on the opposing teams side. Confusion is certainly surfacing. One of my teammates then throws the ball outside of the playing arena to our outed team mate who then catches it and attempts to hit one of the red hats. Confusion is completely kicked in.
As it turns out in Japanese dodgeball being out does not mean you stop playing. It means you play on the outside, and once you hit an opposing member with the ball from the outside you get to go back into the game. Very very confusing. Also if you catch a ball that someone on the other team threw they are not out and it does not bring one of your outed team members back in. It just means you got lucky and are not out. Very odd. But by far the oddest thing is that you have to worry about the people on the opposite end of the court from you as well as the people circling the outfield of your end of the court. So this means you can get hit from all sides. TERRIFYING! nowhere is safe!

And the other day I discovered first hand why they generally tend to play with only one ball, because that day I got the pleasure of playing dodgeball with 2 balls. And oh geeze, I was terrified before, no, this was a new level of fear. The opposing team is now able to be in possession of two balls at once, which also means that one can be behind/to the side of you while the other is facing you down from the opposite court. FML. Thankfully I told my kids do NOT hit Keri sensei on the head! And please for the love of hello kitty do not pummel me with the ball. I have not yet witnessed a more terrifying game than Japanese dodgeball with 2 balls. Thank goodness the most we have played with are 2, I cannot imagine what kind of hell would break loose with 7 balls flying around.


This should kind of give you an idea of how a Japanese dodgeball game is set up.

And to end this random blog post on a high note here are some things that make me happy:
I have a block of real cheese sitting in my fridge at home, This weekend we will have our Halloween party, My mom is visiting me in Dec, and I hopefully will be taking a small trip to Korea in Jan. to visit some of my friends from college.

Now back to reading Dexter.

Long Overdue

Warning, this shall be a bit of a long post. I have about a whole month or so of catching up on. So lets begin!
On September 5th I woke up at 7:30 am,had a breakfast of my favorite bread topped with peanut cream, and brushed my teeth in the morning before dashing out the door to make it to school on time. I was late. (No I am kidding, I am not going to give you a blow by blow of every single day, but hopefully a general summation of my life for the past month or so) [Oh, and no I wasn`t late (mom) I wasn`t even teaching at schools yet).
So seriously, let`s begin!

Okay, so I have neglected this blog a little bit. Sorry, but I guess I have been busy, or unmotivated. Or maybe a mixture of both.
Anyway, so on August 27th (way forever ago now) I had participated in the 21st annual world shrimp catching festival in Aio, in Yamaguchi prefecture. It was pretty interesting and apparently it is really popular, because it attracts people from all over Japan to participate, and even the occasional internationals. Aside from us foreign JET's there were also some people participating from China, Korea, and South America. prettty awesome.
The basic idea behind this shrimp festival is pretty odd, to say the least. They section off a part of the ocean with a large net barricade/fence and then begin to throw thousands of live shrimp into the shallow (maybe knee high water). After giving the shrimp about 10 minutes to get nice and burrowed into the sand then they give out a count down and there is the mad dash to the water!h
So the goal is to catch/dig up as many shrimp as you can. If you catch the most shrimp you win some fabulous prize, I have no clue what it is, because I didn`t catch the most shrimp.

Anyway, those suckers are surprisingly more difficult to catch than you might expect. The best way to go about finding them is to lightly run your hands and feet along the sand and if you feel any lumps more than likely there is a shrimp beneath you. The worst thing that happens though is when you are running your hand/feet along the sand, if the shrimp is not burrowed very well, you get poked by the sharp ...for a lack of the proper word, `pointers` that they have strategically placed on their foreheads and tails. Not nice, this happened a few times and it hurt!!!!


Usually once you find the shrimp it is not too difficult to catch them so long as you act quickly. Simply scoop the creature out of the sand and plop it into the bag/container/laundry net that you have designated as your shrimp storage space. If you dont go very quickly they will swim away from you or flop/jump/air swim out of your hands. This happened twice to me, and it was pretty infuriating having spent all that time searching for a shrimp only for it to hop/flop/plop away. >_< . In total I ended up catching only four shrimp...womp womp. If I decide to stay here another year, I hope that next time I will catch at least 8!



Oh, I forgot to mention the best part, after catching the shrimp we had a delicious lunch of freshly caught grilled shrimp. Some of the braver ALT`s ate them raw.For me, No thank you.







And what have I been up to since August 27th?
Well for the most part I have been busy teaching my students, who are ridiculously cute (ES students) and ridiculously ridiculous (JHS students). Currently I have a bit of a love/hate relationship going on with the elementary schools I work at.The reason being is that I absolutely love elementary school because as mentioned these students are too cute(!) [They are so small, and so silly], they are not as self-conscious about using their English as JHS students, and they are super uber genki (excited/energetic) all the time, and here in lies the hate part of the relationship. Excited energetic kids are awesome(!), way more awesome than kids who are falling asleep during their lessons and refuse to participate. BUT super genki kids thrive on me being equally as genki as they are, which I generally enjoy. However, as I mentioned in my post about summer English camp, being super genki every second is really surprisingly tiring. And after 3 straight lessons of genki comes lunch and of course recess (every kids favorite hour of school) which in Elementary school involves playing and running and usually me getting hit by a dodgeball or two (an upcoming post shall be dedicated to dodgeball, and I will try to post sooner than later). And so although I am always really excited for one of my elementary school days, by the time the days is through I am ready to roll into bed, rejoicing in the fact that for the next 3 days I get to enjoy the relative peace of JHS.

After devoting a paragraph to elementary schools, I suppose it is only fair that I also enlighten you a bit on the pleasures of being a foreign english teacher in a Japanese JHS. I suppose the reason I choose to identify my JHS students as ridiculously ridiculous is because of their mad obsession with this equally ridiculous American girl (me). I think it is rather fair to say that most of my JHS students that are males have a crush on me (and no I am not trying to be annoying by highlighting the fact that I am ridiculously gorgeous or incredibly intriguing), I`m just fairly certain that for one reason or another I have garnered the attention/affection of most if not all of my JHS boys. Everyday I am at a JHS one boy or another ventures to ask me outlandish questions usually along the lines of: `do you have a boyfriend, what type of boy do you like, do you want a boyfriend, where do you live, you said you are a little lonely here, I can keep you company` (creepy, but seriously one kids said this, in broken english though of course), etc.

But what is maybe even more ridiculously ridiculous than my boy students are my female students! The example I am about to give you is one of my more extreme cases, so thankfully not all of them are like this, or else combined with the boys I think I would die of ridiculous behavior overdose! So anyway, at one of my JHS`s 3 girls in particular seem to have a larger crush on me than any of the boys at my schools. Every word I say merits a loud chorus of KAWAIIIIIII (cute), everything I do, including the most mundane things like dropping pencils, tying my hair back, coughing for goodness sake (!!!!) is immediately followed by a resounding KAWAIIII! During lunch these girls will crowd around me and just stare at me and watch my every movement which usually results in me giving awkward smiles, tense laughs, and a mumblings of `oh my, oh my oh my oh my` under my breath, and of course, you guessed it, their response: Kawaii! (and also mimics of the mumblings I make).

My conclusion on being a foreigner in a JHS is that you become an instant celebrity, JHS student fantasy, etc, etc, etc, etc. For awhile it is a bit of an ego boost that these kids think you are the bees knees, but after awhile it does become a bit pesky having 15 year old boys vying for your affection and 16 year old girls stalking you and squealing in excitement every 5 minutes (or less, seriously!)

Outside of school I have been trying to keep myself pretty busy because, yes I am feeling a bit lonely out here in the middle of no where. It is especially hard living on my own for the first time. For the past 22 years I have always lived with someone, growing up it was my family, in college it was a roommate, and so now coming home to an empty apartment (and weatherby, but a turtle is not the most communicative companion) feels rather depressing. So most weekends I tend to go off the island to visit friends, or go shopping. And now every Tuesday I attend a Japanese language course that is about 1.5 hours away by combined transportation methods of car and train. On top of that I also teach an adult English conversation class twice a month, which is nice to be able to chat with Japanese people outside of work.



I suppose there is just one last thing I want to share before calling this post complete, and that is that I got to visit my host family this past weekend! From Oct1(morning)-Oct. 3rd (evening) I spent time in Tokyo and Chiba prefecture. It was so great to see my host family again, in many ways it felt like being home. I was really surprised when I was catching the train from Tokyo station to Myoden (the suburb my host family lives in) that everything felt so familiar. When I was walking my regular route from the station to their house I felt in many ways like nothing had changed at all,and that no time had passed. In my mind I was simply walking home from a day of school and that the next morning I would follow the same routine of almost two years ago. But in many ways, being back with my host family also showed me how much I have changed and grown up from the last time I saw them in March 2010. And something I think that I finally was able to realize that I hadn`t before is that I do think of my host family as almost a second family, and that I think of me more than just some girl who lived with them for 5 months.During this visit I was so surprised that my host mom remembered so many little things about my character and habits that I would have expected her to have forgotten in a year and 2 other host kids in between my stay. Both my host dad and host brother also remembered a number of my silly quirks. But I think the moment I really realized how much I have come to care about my host family was when my host mom saw me off . Instead of just dropping me off at Myoden station or simply guiding me to the terminal entrance of the bullet train, she instead insisted on buying a ticket onto the platform (different from the actual train ticket, so it only cost a couple hundred yen) and waited next to the train until the moment I departed, waving goodbye to me until I was out of sight. It was in that moment, with my eyes tearing up that I realized that I really have come to love my host mom.

Where the fuck am I?

Dear readers, Family member in particular. Sorry if I have offended you with the title of this post, but really there is no other title that could adequately summarize the following blog post.

Disclaimer: If you are easily offended, do not proceed. This blog post may or may not include some pictures that would fall under the category of NSFW. AKA. If you are one or any of my grandparents (or really any of my family members), I strongly suggest you skip this post and come back another day for my next post. And all you friends out there, I suggest you do not view this blog further if you are in a professional or academic setting, save it for later -trust me.

Grandparents, if you are still reading, it is fine for now, but really, I suggest you dont scroll down or read much further through this blog.
Anyway this weekend was a crazy wild adventure across Yamaguchi prefecture (much of which will be saved for my next blog) I am only going to discuss mildly inappropriate things and other oddities that make me question `where the fuck am I`.

So, Saturday I drove my car,caught a train, bus, train, and bus, a total of about 3 hours to get from little Oshima island to Nagato City (with a pit stop in Aio, will be mentioned next post) all to go and see the glory that is MaraKannon. What is MaraKannon and why does it fall under the category of either "Where the fuck am I" , oddity, or NSFW - well, you will find out soon enough, and trust me it falls under all of these categories.

Lately I have been experiencing a ton of `where the fuck am I` moments. I think what really set off the train of events was a bathroom experience in Hiroshima Station (a big station). So, if you read my last post you`ll know that I visited Hiroshima (a legitimate city) last week. What I left out of that post though was probably the one thing that will forever stand out the most to me about that trip to Hiroshima, and maybe Hiroshima in general. So anyway, as to what happened, I was at the station to catch the train back to Obatake (Oshima) and I decided I better go to the bathroom now because it is a 1.5 hour toiletless train ride to Obatake Station. So I go into the bathroom and take my tinkle when I realize, what.the. fuck. not only was I stuck using the squat toilet, but also no toilet paper!!! I look completely around the stall and there is no toilet paper in sight, I call to my friend Jessica `Do you have toilet paper?` (she lucked out and got the western toilet so I hoped that maybe, just maybe there was toilet paper in that stall). Her response: No.
The lesson to be learned here is always carry around tissue paper, just in case. (this predicament has occurred once more between that incident and this post, and naturally I was again unprepared, so do as I say not as I do.)
As it turned out, we could buy toilet paper for 100 yen at the entrance to the bathroom.


My next where am I moment (not as intense to deserve a fuck)occured during my long journey to Nagato. Here we go, when I got off of my first bus in Hagi I checked the train timetables and realized that I had to wait 2 hours(!!!) for the train that would take me to Nagato Station. I thought what the heck, even little dinky Obatake station has trains run through more regularly than this...and after the two hour wait the answer became starkly apparent. The train that rolled up into Higashi-Hagi station was about the size of my Honda Civic, okay slight exaggeration, but the train was smaller than a stretch hummer. All I could do was turn to my travel companion, Jessica, and say verbatum: `where am i?` and in my head include: and where the heck am I going? Never! Never! have I seen/been on such a ridiculously small train and I have traveled to some pretty remote areas in Japan. All I could think was that I was bound for a tiny one shack village that somehow thought it deserved the word city. The only nice perk, there was a toilet on the train (not that I needed to use it [it probably didnt have toilet paper]).
(Oh, and Nagato turned out to be much bigger than just a one shack village)



Okay, so I think this blog has gotten lengthy enough for me to be able to write about the glory that is MaraKannon without having to fear upsetting any conservative family members (so conservative/easily offended family members, if you are still reading at this point, all I can say is I warned you).

Before I say what Mara Kannon is and the story behind it let me just post these following photos and you can make of it what you will.

*****************************************************************************






















I mean really, where the fuck am i?
This cannot be reality or a real place.

So, what is Mara Kannon, other than Samantha Jones` paradise (SATC anyone)? Well one thing that is apparent from the photos is that it is a place that loves the male anatomy, a very specific part of the male anatomy. Well, simply put it is pretty much what it looks like, a penis shrine.



As the story goes, during the Japanese feudal period there had been a landowner whose 3 warrior sons where escaping from some neighboring warriors and had ran up into the mountains of Nagato. The two older sons had been found and killed rather quickly, but the third son had decided to disguise himself as a woman and hide out/live in one of the small mountain villages. Eventually, the enemy warriors found him and cut off his penis to prove that a) he was a man and b) they could bring it back to their own area and show that they had killed the brother (twisted right?). And the villagers who had hid the third son felt pity on him and since that day had left wooden penis figures on the spot where he had died. As a result, it is believed that this location is especially blessed with granting men a larger penis, and fixing ED. Well, maybe not, I don`t know. It actually really might, supposedly anyway. But what I do know is that the shrine is said to grant the visitor descendants, and fertility.
The Japanese people take this shrine really seriously, it is very common for people throughout the prefecture to make the pilgrimage to this tiny, odd shrine if they are having difficulty having a child.

Obviously the group of us had more fun enjoying the oddity of the shrine dedicated to the penis, rather than trying to pray for a child or fertility or to fix any disorder, etc. We did happen to see one Japanese couple that we can only guess had come to pray for a child because they had lit two incense, rang the bell, and prayed within the little temple.

Mara Kannon is one of a few fertility temples in Japan, if you happen to be in/visiting the country I would certainly recommend seeing if there is one near you. It is rather interesting to say the least.

And a final where the heck am I (again not as intense),

So the band AKB48 is extremely popular in Japan, especially for teenagers. Check out the video and maybe you will get an idea why I am what the hecking. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/lkHlnWFnA0c

what kind of country am I living in?


Oh and my toilet seat can give my butt a massage. What can yours do?

Japan, you are indeed something else.

Mickey and the Carps: The Best Teams Ever

Today is one of those days.One of those days where I slam my fist upon my alarm clock set for 7:00 and roll over and go back to sleep thinking to myself thank god it is the weekend. Only to shoot up out of bed at 7:45 and realize, `OH SHIT! Today is not Saturday, today is Friday and I have work at 8:30. And then I rush rush rush to make and eat my breakfast, rush rush rush to gather all of my `burnables` that are to be collected today, (there are about a billion categories of trash here and they are collected on very specific days of the week. Tuesday and Friday are burnables)rush rush rush to pack my obento, rush rush rush to brush my teeth, get dressed, and get out the door, and finally, rush rush rush to drop off my burnables and drive to work. And naturally, once at work all I want to do is konk-off and go to sleep, but of course that is not allowed. While tiredness is pretty standard, I am feeling particularly worn down because the past 7 days have been crazy busy, and all of the energy I exerted has at last taken its toll on my mind and body. I guess it is true when they say that party cannot go on forever.

So to briefly summarize, some of the hectics that have taken over my generally domestic life are as follows:
Partying pre-Kencho in Yamaguchi (8/18)
7 Long Hours of Intense Japanese Learning (Kencho 8/19)
Post-Kencho partying and Karaoke in Yamaguchi(8/19)
Hikari Beach Party, and all you can eat/drink beer garden in the evening (8/20)
Karaoke in Tokuyama until 3am (8/20)
Shopping and eating in Tokuyama and Yanai (8/21)
Finally an evening at home (8/21)
Super genki everyday for English Camp (8/22~8/24)
Hiroshima Baseball game (8/24)
To sum it up I have been away from home and pretty busy for the past week or so. While all of these events were extremely fun and worthy of elaborating on (excluding Kencho) I will dedicate this blog exclusively to English Camp and a little bit about Hiroshima.

English Camp
The English Camp I volunteered at was on Oshima island, I was one out of 9 JET ALT's to volunteer to spend 3 days assisting 33 students, from 5 different schools (JH and HS) on the island, speak and learn English. Before activities really began we had lunch with the kids and so I kind of got to establish a general idea of how well these kids could speak/understand English. During Lunch I was seated with Matthew and three JH Japanese girls Yuina, Kana and Chisato. All of theme were pretty shy and wouldn't really initiate conversation, but once I started asking them questions I quickly realized that Chisato and Kana could not quite understand what I was saying, or if they could understand they either did not know how to respond, or were nervous to make English mistakes and tried responding to me in Japanese. Yuina on the other hand, although a little reluctant to converse could understand every single word that I was saying and was able to easily formulate proper responses without much effort. After chatting with Yuina, I learned that there were two primary reasons why her English was so good 1) She had lived in Osaka up until a year ago and attended an international school, and, 2) She had spent 3 weeks in Australia learning English and living with a host family. I was completely blown away by her English capabilities, especially once I found out the average capabilities of the other students at camp. Anyway, needless to say, if you cant already tell I in a way had fallen in love with Yuina, she was so adorable and shy but friendly, I began to think of her as a little sister. But anyway, back to talking about camp.

At camp, we were randomly broken up into Family's or groups and we chose family names, for example, my family was Team Mickey! And, to my surprise and delight, Yuina was placed in my group, along with Kana T., Kana F., Naoki, Seiya, And Mizuki. At the start, I was a little weary with my group because both Kana's, Naoki, and Seiya were extremely reluctant to use English, let alone speak in general!!! And although Yuina had amazing English, she too was pretty reluctant to speak. Mizuki on the other hand was such a relief, she was very eager to speak in both Japanese and the English that she did know,which was great. Anyway, throughout camp we played various different games where teams could win points and prizes. And during break times kids would run up to us and ask us about a gazillion questions, usually in Japanese, and we would have to remind them that we were at English camp so they had to ask it in English.



During camp, i think I got some glimpses of what it will feel like to be a proud mama. Everytime my students won sticker points for speaking in English I felt really happy and impressed. I was certainly most impressed with one of my students, Naoki. He was extremely extremely reluctant to speak English to me at first, instead he would just nod or smile. But after spending sometime with him practicing how to pronounce words and properly formulate simple sentences I was so happy whenever I would hear him speaking English to me or any of the other ALT's! What made me the happiest was when my group was totaling up their sticker points (they got these when they won games or spoke to ALT's in English) and naturally I knew that Mizuki would have lots of stickers, and Yuina too (because the other ALT's were equally as impressed as I was), but I was so elated to see that shy quite little Naoki had almost as many stickers as them!!! I think it was in that moment that I realized that all of the overly perkiness (more tiring than you think) and long hours were completely worth it. Oh, BTW, my team won a prize for earning the most sticker points, so so proud of them!


Yuina and I (seriously she is so adorable can she please be my little sister forever?!)

Hiroshima
Okay, so directly after English camp finished on Wed. Jessica (ALT from Yamaguchi city) and I hopped into my car drove to the train station and caught the train up to Hiroshima to wander around and watch the Carps game (baseball). So, baseball games are such a crazy experience for me here in Japan because, although it is a traditionally American sport the Japanese definitely have fun making the experience uniquely their own. Throughout the game fans sing these cute little cheers and bang together weird noise makers, which I know can tend to be common in America, but here they are so enthusiastic about it that it seems completely different! And the funniest of all is that during the 7th inning everyone blows up these things (that oddly enough resemble condoms) and shoot them up into the air, why..., I'm not too sure but it is pretty fun and funny to see. Although I am usually not a baseball fan it was sooo much fun to watch all the crazy cheering and attempt to join in. Jessica, Emily, Anneli, and I all attempted to teach the Japanese fans near us some English cheers, as well as the wave, which was pretty fun. And, the Hiroshima Carps beat the Yokohama Bay Stars 8-1! YAY! I really enjoyed Hiroshima, I'm planning on going up again next weekend with some friends to do a little bit of shopping!


Interesting balloons that are released during the 7th inning.


Super Exhausted,
Keri

P.S. All of my posts have still contained something about fish. Sheesh Hiroshima Carps.

Friendly Fish

Hello Readers!
This past weekend was Yanai City`s annual 金魚ちょちん(goldfish lantern) festival. And of course, this goldfish addicted girl just had to go! So I was a little ambitious in my goldfish festivity planning because I had decided to wake up and drive over to the train station at 9:00 so that I could be in Yanai enjoying all the goldfishy fest by 10am. At this point I had not been aware that the festivities wouldnt really begin until around 4:30, leaving me with about 6 hours to fill until goldfishing began.
So anyway, in an attempt to alleviate our 6 hour wait, Matthew and I (my fellow islander ALT) decided to wander around Yanai and take some more of the goldfish lanterns since it was such a beautiful day. While wandering around the main goldfish decorated street we found a little...I guess craft place...where we could pay 900 yen to build our own little goldfish lanters. And obviously I couldn`t refuse!!!! The elderly Japanese woman who was teaching us how to make the goldfish lanterns had a pretty decent handle over the English language, well compared to most of the people that I have met so far. She was really excited to learn that Matthew and I were both living in Oshima (a pretty close distance) and even more excited to learn that I would be teaching an えいかいわ (adult conversation class) twice a month starting in September, so we ended up exchanging information and she told me to please let her know once my classes started because she would like to attend.

After our arts and crafting Matthew and I ended up wandering for about an hour in the sweltering hot sun trying to find this delicious pizza/pasta restaurant that my predeccesor had recommend I visit. Everytime we asked someone if they knew where the restaurant was they said (in Japanese), `ahhh, I know (have heard) of that restaurant, but I dont know where it is`....and so we continued to wander in a mostly aimless direction in hopes that a) we would randomly run into it b) that we would run into someone who knew what and where the restaurant was.
Luckily, we did finally find someone who could give us some directions, and as it turned out, by that point we were only about a block and a half away.
The food ended up being super delicious, I got a basil pesto pasta with some garlicy garlic bread (yum). But the really awesome part of this was that while we were eating this young Japanese guy and some of his friends came over and started chatting with us in English. Turns out he had been living in Canada for awhile, so his english was pretty darn good, and he was hoping that we wouldn`t mind exchanging contact info so that we could hangout sometimes and he could practice his English. The reason why this qualifies as being `really awesome` is because as you may recall, my island is filled mostly with the 50+ crowd, so meeting a group of Japanese people in their mid-20`s who would want to hangout is kind of a big deal. I really really want to make friends outside of the JET group, not that the JET`s aren`t nice, but I think it will make my time here much more fun and interesting if I can befriend some Japanese people (preferably close to my age, but really any age is fine as well).

Ok I am going to skip how we spent the rest of our 4 hour wait, because it really isnt interesting (mostly hiding out in any place that had air conditioning) and skip straight to the festival.


By 4:30 there were huge crowds of people, and vendors lining the main festival streets. There were a couple of game booths that ranged from traditional Japanese Kyudo (archery) to fishing games. And the vendors sold everything from food, pokemon cards, to live goldfish. And by this time the actual streets were filled with a number of goldfish floats (see above). Matthew and I joined the groups of people thronging the streets so that we would have a decent view once the parade commenced, but then Matthew ovserved, `where the heck are these fish going? They are completely blockaded in up ahead`. And sure enough, there was no way there fish were moving more than maybe 1 meter because there was a huge crowd of people barracading them in. As it turned out, these fish got marched to right in front of the huge blockade and the taiko drums would begin playing and the crowd would begin chanting ( i couldnt make out the words) and all of a sudden the float bearers (for lack of a better word) would begin swirling the little fish around in circles for about 30 seconds and then stop and change direction. Every single fish did this once, then the blockade was broken up and they slowly proceded further down the street with continued chanting and drumming. It seems like it was a competition, but I have no idea how a winner would be determined.


(This was my favorite goldfish)



(A goldfish getting spun around)

I am beginning to feel more confident with driving. However there is one street that I HATE HATE HATE driving on. And the unfortunate thing is that this is the street that leads to the other ALT`s apartment and to two of the schools I will be teaching at. Here are the reasons why this road sucks: It is a super narrow road, it is the main road running through Agenosho (and thus is heavily trafficked), there are not many parking lots so people park on the side of the street, making it an even tighter squeeze, aside from the car traffic there are all these little obachans that are walking along the side of the road and also kids on bikes or scooters. Also, the crazy Japanese drivers come careening around corners without the slightest concern for anyone being on the other side. Huuumpph. Ughhh I hate driving here.
Luckily while driving there is this button that will pull in my car`s `ears` (side mirrors) which gives me a slight bit more space.


The worst road ever, it is much much worse in person.

Why are all my posts about fish?