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.