So I got of work and completely forgot that this weekend was the second of two back to back three day weekends that we have in September. And not back to back in the friday through sun followed by another friday to sunday. No. This is sat-sun-mon with a fri-sat-sun following, so basically we only had three days of work this week. It was fabulous.
This week, in light of the two-day-work week in the spring called "Golden Week," is called "Silver Week" since it's one day shy of the golden two day work week (though seriously, at that point why would you go in to work or school for one or two days?) These weeks are ridiculously popular for traveling and taking off during the few work days that people still have. At least, among foreigners. And despite the fact that it's kind of frowned upon to take off work while you still technically have class, especially since a lot of Japanese teachers hardly use their vacation days in the first place.
So needless to say, I did not take the week off, and I went in to work, and then forgot about this three day weekend when I got off work. I mean, I have plans over the weekend and stuff, but it didn't feel like a three day. Last weekend I went to Tokyo, so I'm kinda... broke now.
And next payday is not until the 15th. We have *another* three day weekend in October (the 8-10). I just realized this today. I think there's a good chance I'm going to be ridiculously broke. I mean, I set aside money for savings and I'm saving up for a trip to Okinawa and back home, but ouch. Ouch.
Oh, and it was also just brought to my attention that my payday is on a saturday, and that that weekend there's a pottery festival in Bizen where they sell amazing ceramic work for cheaper than usual. Oh, and also the weekend prior, the other three day, is the Sake festival in Hiroshima as well as the Momotaro festival in Okayama. Hooray! THIS MONTH IS TRYING TO BANKRUPT ME AND WIPE OUT MY SAVINGS. Seriously. No wonder I didn't save any money during this time last year. This, on top of having to outfit my place? Yikes. Although, that's probably where all the money I'm setting aside went.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Tokyo Game Show
This past weekend was a three day weekend for us, starting on Saturday and extending until today, Monday, September 29th. The holiday we were celebrating was "Respect for the Aged" day, which is, when you think about it, an interesting holiday to have. I doubt it would be possible to have such a day in the US, but since Japan's cultural values originally stemmed from the Chinese confucianism... I suppose I can't be too surprised.
Anyways.
This weekend was also Tokyo Game Show in Chiba, where the video game industry showcases and unveils new games in Chiba, Japan (the same place where Tokyo Disney is, which isn't technically in Tokyo proper). Basically, it's a giant video game convention and expo, with days for the general public as well as days for people who are in the industry only. Nintendo never goes, but several other big names, like Sony, Sega, SquareEnix, and Konami have exhibits and booths. Sometimes they announce new games and have them available to try out if you're willing to wait in a Disneyland-on-a-holiday-sized line. Or they'll show trailers or give out free stuff. It's kind of like comicon, but for Japan and video games.
And since we were a) in Japan and b) on a three day weekend, a couple of us decided to go up for TGS and to hang out in Tokyo. I mean seriously, when else am I going to have this opportunity?
We left on the night bus (which was not made for gaijin sized people, nor people who can't sleep anywhere/on buses/without moving) and made it up in time to hit up the show on Saturday. Holy wow the line was long. The line pretty much had us walking around the entire convention center, which is at least as big as the one in LA I think.
Once we were in, it was like... woah. Woah. So many video games. So little time. They had demos and trailers of Final Fantasy 13-2, as well as Street Fighter Cross Tekken (which looks absolutely AMAZING). There was a giant dragon (for Dragon Dogma) and, of course, a bunch of Monster Hunter stuff. SquareEnix had a store that sold expensive stuff for the 25th anniversary of Dragon Quest. There's also a store in Shinjuku (that we failed to get to on time by ten minutes) which had more... reasonably priced things and didn't involve waiting in a long line.
Japanese cosplayers at TGS put pretty much all the other cosplayers at any kind of convention, from the small Fanime ones to Anime Expo and Comicon to SHAME. SEriously. The costumes people had were nothing short of amazing. Except one. There was an... anime-ish version of Link someone did and the face was just.. creepy. Like those cabbage patch kid dolls. That kind of creepy.
I was very pleased to see The Behemoth (creators of Castle Crashers) had a booth there (and a giant flying chicken) with demos and merch. I was not pleased to find that they sold out of EVERYTHING (for sunday included) by the time I visited them. Because ohmigod. They had figurines and cell phone charms that were AMAZING. I'm still kinda sad I didn't get one.
They also had free schwag; I got this tote that freaking lights up. That's my favorite, probably. There were also a lot of folders, and even more fans (since it was ridiculously humid and hot that day, those were pretty popular). I got a Ragnarok CD and a couple more things.
The game show itself though, is split up between three buildings, with different areas for each exhibitor to set up shop. There was a store dedicated to music from SquareEnix games. That took willpower (though the fact that for one CD, the asking price was around 3,500 yen or ~$35, was a good deterrent too). The cosplayers usually hung out in between buildings, where occasionally, you could catch a breeze.
I didn't have the patience (or the interest, for those with a shorter wait) to wait for any of the games (also, I heard that for the new portable sony device, the PS Vita, had to start turning people away at 10:30. The show ended at 5.) I did play one game though; in Japan it's Dynasty Warriors 6, but in the US we're on DW 7 already. I kinda embarrassed myself at first because I forgot that on the Playstation, the buttons mean kind of the opposite things. So I was pressing circle or whatever button was on the bottom to confirm at the main screen, and it kept going back to the title screen, and then the lady came over and told me which button to press.
It's been seriously too long. I should get a PS3, heheheh...
The graphics for the characters were kinda sexy, which made sense since it was a PS3 game. I waited for 70 minutes to play that game, and then when it came down to it, ran around killing things before getting locked out of the gate. Then I wandered around and had no idea what to do... But the move sets were awesome~ I didn't even get to do the musou powered up moves (I had forgotten how). But ohhhhhhh man. Oh man. So much fun. I definitely can't get that game in Japanese though... too much information is conveyed rather... quickly, or only by ear. My Japanese isn't that good yet (maybe someday though). KT, the people who made the game and who were running the booth had this promotion going on where if you played three games, you got free schwag. But the other games that looked cool all had long waits, and the ones that didn't were still at least twenty minutes. One of them was this "fab game" (like literally, that was in the title) on the DS, and another was a horse racing game for the kinect. You had to pretend like you were riding a race horse for that game.
My dignity was worth more than the free stuff I could have gotten, I think.
I didn't get into the squareenix store, nor the music store (and besides, the CDs are ridiculously expensive). I did linger around the Street Fighter x Tekken booth. That one looks pretty freaking awesome. Shame I'm not better at fighter games.
One of my favorite things at TGS was this booth area where they had people draw things on post card sized transparent sticker sheets, as support for Japan kinda (or a message about TGS). They were doing a charity for the Tohoku Earthquake; I think the general gist of it was Play video games and be genki, or happy. I forget the precise message. But we drew things and added them to the other hundred on the wall. Some people (re: lots of Japanese people) are ridiculously talented at drawing. It makes me a little jealous sometimes, haha. But then I remember that I'm not actually awful at drawing, and then I have to shut my mouth.
Either way though, Tokyo Game Show was pretty freaking awesome. We only went for the saturday, but one of my friends went for both days. Instead, we went to Kamakura, but I'll post about that some other time. I kinda fell asleep in my contacts; waking up being able to see, while nice, is really really not a good thing.
Oh and it's raining now. I guess fall has finally decided to grace us with its presence. Last night when the taxi dropped me off, the nice driver drove all the way up to practically the door... of the apartment building next to where I live. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was the wrong building, so I just got out there and waited at the door until he was out of sight before going to my own house.
Anyways.
This weekend was also Tokyo Game Show in Chiba, where the video game industry showcases and unveils new games in Chiba, Japan (the same place where Tokyo Disney is, which isn't technically in Tokyo proper). Basically, it's a giant video game convention and expo, with days for the general public as well as days for people who are in the industry only. Nintendo never goes, but several other big names, like Sony, Sega, SquareEnix, and Konami have exhibits and booths. Sometimes they announce new games and have them available to try out if you're willing to wait in a Disneyland-on-a-holiday-sized line. Or they'll show trailers or give out free stuff. It's kind of like comicon, but for Japan and video games.
And since we were a) in Japan and b) on a three day weekend, a couple of us decided to go up for TGS and to hang out in Tokyo. I mean seriously, when else am I going to have this opportunity?
We left on the night bus (which was not made for gaijin sized people, nor people who can't sleep anywhere/on buses/without moving) and made it up in time to hit up the show on Saturday. Holy wow the line was long. The line pretty much had us walking around the entire convention center, which is at least as big as the one in LA I think.
Once we were in, it was like... woah. Woah. So many video games. So little time. They had demos and trailers of Final Fantasy 13-2, as well as Street Fighter Cross Tekken (which looks absolutely AMAZING). There was a giant dragon (for Dragon Dogma) and, of course, a bunch of Monster Hunter stuff. SquareEnix had a store that sold expensive stuff for the 25th anniversary of Dragon Quest. There's also a store in Shinjuku (that we failed to get to on time by ten minutes) which had more... reasonably priced things and didn't involve waiting in a long line.
Japanese cosplayers at TGS put pretty much all the other cosplayers at any kind of convention, from the small Fanime ones to Anime Expo and Comicon to SHAME. SEriously. The costumes people had were nothing short of amazing. Except one. There was an... anime-ish version of Link someone did and the face was just.. creepy. Like those cabbage patch kid dolls. That kind of creepy.
I was very pleased to see The Behemoth (creators of Castle Crashers) had a booth there (and a giant flying chicken) with demos and merch. I was not pleased to find that they sold out of EVERYTHING (for sunday included) by the time I visited them. Because ohmigod. They had figurines and cell phone charms that were AMAZING. I'm still kinda sad I didn't get one.
They also had free schwag; I got this tote that freaking lights up. That's my favorite, probably. There were also a lot of folders, and even more fans (since it was ridiculously humid and hot that day, those were pretty popular). I got a Ragnarok CD and a couple more things.
The game show itself though, is split up between three buildings, with different areas for each exhibitor to set up shop. There was a store dedicated to music from SquareEnix games. That took willpower (though the fact that for one CD, the asking price was around 3,500 yen or ~$35, was a good deterrent too). The cosplayers usually hung out in between buildings, where occasionally, you could catch a breeze.
I didn't have the patience (or the interest, for those with a shorter wait) to wait for any of the games (also, I heard that for the new portable sony device, the PS Vita, had to start turning people away at 10:30. The show ended at 5.) I did play one game though; in Japan it's Dynasty Warriors 6, but in the US we're on DW 7 already. I kinda embarrassed myself at first because I forgot that on the Playstation, the buttons mean kind of the opposite things. So I was pressing circle or whatever button was on the bottom to confirm at the main screen, and it kept going back to the title screen, and then the lady came over and told me which button to press.
It's been seriously too long. I should get a PS3, heheheh...
The graphics for the characters were kinda sexy, which made sense since it was a PS3 game. I waited for 70 minutes to play that game, and then when it came down to it, ran around killing things before getting locked out of the gate. Then I wandered around and had no idea what to do... But the move sets were awesome~ I didn't even get to do the musou powered up moves (I had forgotten how). But ohhhhhhh man. Oh man. So much fun. I definitely can't get that game in Japanese though... too much information is conveyed rather... quickly, or only by ear. My Japanese isn't that good yet (maybe someday though). KT, the people who made the game and who were running the booth had this promotion going on where if you played three games, you got free schwag. But the other games that looked cool all had long waits, and the ones that didn't were still at least twenty minutes. One of them was this "fab game" (like literally, that was in the title) on the DS, and another was a horse racing game for the kinect. You had to pretend like you were riding a race horse for that game.
My dignity was worth more than the free stuff I could have gotten, I think.
I didn't get into the squareenix store, nor the music store (and besides, the CDs are ridiculously expensive). I did linger around the Street Fighter x Tekken booth. That one looks pretty freaking awesome. Shame I'm not better at fighter games.
One of my favorite things at TGS was this booth area where they had people draw things on post card sized transparent sticker sheets, as support for Japan kinda (or a message about TGS). They were doing a charity for the Tohoku Earthquake; I think the general gist of it was Play video games and be genki, or happy. I forget the precise message. But we drew things and added them to the other hundred on the wall. Some people (re: lots of Japanese people) are ridiculously talented at drawing. It makes me a little jealous sometimes, haha. But then I remember that I'm not actually awful at drawing, and then I have to shut my mouth.
Either way though, Tokyo Game Show was pretty freaking awesome. We only went for the saturday, but one of my friends went for both days. Instead, we went to Kamakura, but I'll post about that some other time. I kinda fell asleep in my contacts; waking up being able to see, while nice, is really really not a good thing.
Oh and it's raining now. I guess fall has finally decided to grace us with its presence. Last night when the taxi dropped me off, the nice driver drove all the way up to practically the door... of the apartment building next to where I live. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was the wrong building, so I just got out there and waited at the door until he was out of sight before going to my own house.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Hornets
One of the other (new) JETs whose blog I follow had a run in with the suzumebachi, or Japanese giant hornet, whose territory is pretty much Asia and rural Japan. His blog pretty much brings up all the major points about the hornets; they're really really really not good news.
Suffice it to say, they're the deadliest living non-human thing in Japan, totaling more kills than wild bears and all the other creatures (including the mukade, or Poisonous Centipede) combined. COMBINED.
There are a couple of other things I want to point out from the wiki though.
Suffice it to say, they're the deadliest living non-human thing in Japan, totaling more kills than wild bears and all the other creatures (including the mukade, or Poisonous Centipede) combined. COMBINED.
There are a couple of other things I want to point out from the wiki though.
- Outside of Japan, it's called "the yak killer hornet." My guess is that there's a reason behind that name.
- It's the biggest hornet. IN THE WORLD.
and
- Native Japanese honey bees are even more badass than these hornets.
Why? Well. The hornets like to eat honey bees (they must be sweet), and can decimate a 30,000 strong hive of honey bees because their stings are too weak. The hornets will go through, and with pretty much one bite, chop off the bee's head, leaving a trail of bee heads and limbs. Holy crap.
Most of the time, the bees attempt to fight these predators that are five times their size by going at them solo. I guess even bees have heros and stuff. But this is a pretty ineffectual way to go about killing the giant hornet, cause it just doesn't work.
The native honey bees though, will form a mob and set a trap for the hornet. When the hornet gets close enough, they literally mob the hornet and kill it by frying and suffocating it. How? According to wiki, they vibrate their bodies together en mass until the giant ball of bees reaches 115 F. 115 degrees fahrenheit. They also do something to raise the amount of CO2 as well. Since honey bees can tolerate up to 120 F at that level of CO2 but the hornet can't... it's a win for the honey bees.
It's not, however, without casualties. Several bees die, but for the good of the whole colony.
Seriously, honey bees are awesome. They make honey *and* they can kill the giant hornets? Badass indeed.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The best lessons
Blogger changed their layout; I got kind of distracted by this and thus forgot what I was going to post. I'm remembering in bits and pieces, but maaan I wish I just posted first off to begin with. There was a title that went with it and everything. Oh well. 仕方がない, or shikataga nai~ as they say. Can't really do anything about it. So forward I go.
Today was ridiculously warm; it's been like that for the last few days, actually. Last week seemed like something of a dream. Fall was teasing us, badly. I had the pleasure of biking to the station and actually feeling cold monday morning - like, "hm should I have brought my jacket?" kind of cold. It was wonderful.
Now it's hotter than sin, and I can't sit without sweating. It's kind of disgusting. Temperature wise, my school's temperature monitor clocked the temperature around 32.something-high degrees Celsius, which in Fahrenheit, translates to roughly 90 degrees. That's hot, even without the humidity. And then you add the humidity, and the never-ending moisture that exists on your arms and it's just like grooooooss. The last class I taught was absolutely dead, and I don't blame them. They had PE right before English (never a good idea), and I was ridiculously tired myself (knocking out early last night with my contacts still in and waking up at four to take them out and go back to sleep had nothing to do with that, probably). I can only imagine how they felt.
When the end of Monday came, I got a message that Tsukimi, or the moon viewing event, was happening in Korakuen, one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. It was around 4:30, so I could get off work, but I had to bike home to get my korakuen pass (25 minutes), then take a train to Okayama (an hour) and then another 20 minutes to get to the gardens themselves (ish), so like, easily over three hours commute round trip. At that point in the day, when it was blazing hot, not attractive. Plus I was tired. I think I had started to whine to my teachers about how hot it was. Bless their souls for putting up with me.
Instead, I decided to head to Polka, the local... super...market department store? It's like a really small department store. It's only two floors, with a smallish supermarket, a couple of restaurants, and a bunch of other small stores (including a softbank and daiso/100 yen store). I mean, I wasn't hungry at that point, but I figured that if I wanted to, I could buy food to either cook or take back with me, and maybe find kakigori (shaved ice). At the very least, I could kill time and wait for the sun to set so that the bike home wouldn't be as awful hot. So, as a tentative "maybe-but-probably-not" I biked the short distance to Polka.
Despite the five minute or less ride, I was exhausted when I got in. I went to browse the super market area for pre-made foods I could take home with me, or sales on meat or other food products. The meat section was having this "three things for 1050 yen" special. Pretty rad. I like the days when they do this, because I'll stock up on stuff and put it in my freezer for later. They have decent things, like 250 g of cut beef stuff, which works well for things like gyuudon (beef bowl) or curry. They have (thinnish) pork cutlets for tonkatsu. They had chicken filets. But it was still early, so I decided, after walking through the place, that I wanted to get shaved ice before I biked back because I still felt disgusting. A quick survey found no shave ice on the first floor (or maybe I wasn't looking too hard), but one of the few restaurants did have soft serve ice cream, and it was one of the restaurants where a couple of the girls I made friends with work at. Plus the old people who run the restaurant are super nice. It was right next to the grocery place. So I decided to go there.
Neither of the girls (both Chinese) that I knew were in; they were probably at the university or like, not out in the sweltering heat, hopefully. But both the old people were. So I ordered soft cream and chatted a little with the old man who was running it.
The soft cream in Japan is kinda interesting, in that the machines are really different. In the states, soft serve ice cream - not that I've seen the behind the scenes machinery, but I'm pretty sure this is the case - has one big thing and comes in large batches that I'm guessing either make their own soft serve after you add in the right things, or they have a giant source that they pull the soft serve from. I dunno, I've never run one. But either way, when you want a soft serve, you pull the lever on the machine, and it comes out the nozzle and you have to attempt to get it all in the cup; some people can make this look prettier than others. Either way, you can add as much or as little as you want (or, in the case of restaurants, as much as the person serving feels like).
In Japan though, especially at smaller places, once you select your flavor, the staff pulls out this cylindrical block of ice cream in a cup thing. It looks kind of like the cup you use to freeze the cylinders of ice in. They look kind of like hockey pucks, but roughly with the diameter of your palm. They put this into the machine, and *then* they crank out your soft serve ice cream. You get as much as was in the hockey puck container.
Anyways, I got it and paid for my soft serve, with 20 yen off from the 240 yen price ($2.40ish for soft serve! T-T *weeps*), aka, "service". The first time I heard "service" being used, my mind went to uh, not so savory and polite places. I was like, seriously, service?! It sounds so... dirty. I suppose only as dirty as you make it though. But I've gotten used to it, using "service" as a way to signify when you get stuff for free or a discount or whatever.
...Actually, I can't think of what we'd say in English. Maybe "discount"? Oh wait, just kidding. We say "on the house." Major English fail.
So after I got my ice cream, I sat down and started to read/study Japanese. I happened to notice though, that the old man had finished the flower arrangement display he had been working on in the back, and was placing it on the main table.
It was absolutely gorgeous. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. The main body of the arrangement was composed of these dark, chocolate colored branches that twisted this way and that; there were three of them. The secondary flowers were some kind of fall-like flowers. Red maybe? And white? I don't remember all the way. But the small flowers opened up in a kind of spray towards the center of the display, with the whole thing shouting "FALL IS GORGEOUS" but in a much quieter, more subtle way. And once again, I started talking to the old man.
He commented on how these flowers, this arrangement was specifically for Fall (which led me to ask when fall was, since, as far as I and the weather are concerned, it's still summer). This in turn led to us talking about why they do ikebana displays in the first place, and what you're supposed to feel when you look at them. He told me that your heart is supposed to become quiet, that you're supposed to feel a kind of inner calm. 落ち着く、or "ochitsuku" translates into, "to harmonize" or "to calm down" or "to restore presence of mind" The seasonal displays, along with the specific seasonal foods, and the flower displays and everything, are done with the goal of just that - to quiet the heart and the mind, and to restore the soul. It's why Buddhists meditate, he told me.
That's why I think Japanese culture is absolutely beautiful. Cause you know what? Looking at the display, taking in its beauty and its simplicity, my heart did exactly that. Where I was feeling grumpy and irritable and restless before (mostly due to the heat), the flower arrangement filled me with a serene sense of calm and peace, as corny as it sounds. That, and I was able to understand about 70-80% of what the old couple was saying (meaning counts for a lot, right?) probably helped too.
After finishing my ice cream, it was late enough to where it wouldn't be ridiculously hot on the ride back, so I packed up my things and said goodbye. I had the pleasure of discovering that my grocery store was now stocking frozen spinach again (it hadn't for a good two months or so), which also cheered me immensely. That, and I swear half of my third year home economics course was shopping in Polka. I saw so many of them! And they either said hello, or stopped to chat for a bit in the curry and canned goods aisle. One girl asked why they had seen me walking to work that morning, since usually, I ride my bike. For some reason, this made me feel pleased.
When I left, it was with a feeling like I could take on the world and all its heat, and that perhaps the bike ride back home wouldn't be so bad after all.
Today was ridiculously warm; it's been like that for the last few days, actually. Last week seemed like something of a dream. Fall was teasing us, badly. I had the pleasure of biking to the station and actually feeling cold monday morning - like, "hm should I have brought my jacket?" kind of cold. It was wonderful.
Now it's hotter than sin, and I can't sit without sweating. It's kind of disgusting. Temperature wise, my school's temperature monitor clocked the temperature around 32.something-high degrees Celsius, which in Fahrenheit, translates to roughly 90 degrees. That's hot, even without the humidity. And then you add the humidity, and the never-ending moisture that exists on your arms and it's just like grooooooss. The last class I taught was absolutely dead, and I don't blame them. They had PE right before English (never a good idea), and I was ridiculously tired myself (knocking out early last night with my contacts still in and waking up at four to take them out and go back to sleep had nothing to do with that, probably). I can only imagine how they felt.
When the end of Monday came, I got a message that Tsukimi, or the moon viewing event, was happening in Korakuen, one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. It was around 4:30, so I could get off work, but I had to bike home to get my korakuen pass (25 minutes), then take a train to Okayama (an hour) and then another 20 minutes to get to the gardens themselves (ish), so like, easily over three hours commute round trip. At that point in the day, when it was blazing hot, not attractive. Plus I was tired. I think I had started to whine to my teachers about how hot it was. Bless their souls for putting up with me.
Instead, I decided to head to Polka, the local... super...market department store? It's like a really small department store. It's only two floors, with a smallish supermarket, a couple of restaurants, and a bunch of other small stores (including a softbank and daiso/100 yen store). I mean, I wasn't hungry at that point, but I figured that if I wanted to, I could buy food to either cook or take back with me, and maybe find kakigori (shaved ice). At the very least, I could kill time and wait for the sun to set so that the bike home wouldn't be as awful hot. So, as a tentative "maybe-but-probably-not" I biked the short distance to Polka.
Despite the five minute or less ride, I was exhausted when I got in. I went to browse the super market area for pre-made foods I could take home with me, or sales on meat or other food products. The meat section was having this "three things for 1050 yen" special. Pretty rad. I like the days when they do this, because I'll stock up on stuff and put it in my freezer for later. They have decent things, like 250 g of cut beef stuff, which works well for things like gyuudon (beef bowl) or curry. They have (thinnish) pork cutlets for tonkatsu. They had chicken filets. But it was still early, so I decided, after walking through the place, that I wanted to get shaved ice before I biked back because I still felt disgusting. A quick survey found no shave ice on the first floor (or maybe I wasn't looking too hard), but one of the few restaurants did have soft serve ice cream, and it was one of the restaurants where a couple of the girls I made friends with work at. Plus the old people who run the restaurant are super nice. It was right next to the grocery place. So I decided to go there.
Neither of the girls (both Chinese) that I knew were in; they were probably at the university or like, not out in the sweltering heat, hopefully. But both the old people were. So I ordered soft cream and chatted a little with the old man who was running it.
The soft cream in Japan is kinda interesting, in that the machines are really different. In the states, soft serve ice cream - not that I've seen the behind the scenes machinery, but I'm pretty sure this is the case - has one big thing and comes in large batches that I'm guessing either make their own soft serve after you add in the right things, or they have a giant source that they pull the soft serve from. I dunno, I've never run one. But either way, when you want a soft serve, you pull the lever on the machine, and it comes out the nozzle and you have to attempt to get it all in the cup; some people can make this look prettier than others. Either way, you can add as much or as little as you want (or, in the case of restaurants, as much as the person serving feels like).
In Japan though, especially at smaller places, once you select your flavor, the staff pulls out this cylindrical block of ice cream in a cup thing. It looks kind of like the cup you use to freeze the cylinders of ice in. They look kind of like hockey pucks, but roughly with the diameter of your palm. They put this into the machine, and *then* they crank out your soft serve ice cream. You get as much as was in the hockey puck container.
Anyways, I got it and paid for my soft serve, with 20 yen off from the 240 yen price ($2.40ish for soft serve! T-T *weeps*), aka, "service". The first time I heard "service" being used, my mind went to uh, not so savory and polite places. I was like, seriously, service?! It sounds so... dirty. I suppose only as dirty as you make it though. But I've gotten used to it, using "service" as a way to signify when you get stuff for free or a discount or whatever.
...Actually, I can't think of what we'd say in English. Maybe "discount"? Oh wait, just kidding. We say "on the house." Major English fail.
So after I got my ice cream, I sat down and started to read/study Japanese. I happened to notice though, that the old man had finished the flower arrangement display he had been working on in the back, and was placing it on the main table.
It was absolutely gorgeous. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. The main body of the arrangement was composed of these dark, chocolate colored branches that twisted this way and that; there were three of them. The secondary flowers were some kind of fall-like flowers. Red maybe? And white? I don't remember all the way. But the small flowers opened up in a kind of spray towards the center of the display, with the whole thing shouting "FALL IS GORGEOUS" but in a much quieter, more subtle way. And once again, I started talking to the old man.
He commented on how these flowers, this arrangement was specifically for Fall (which led me to ask when fall was, since, as far as I and the weather are concerned, it's still summer). This in turn led to us talking about why they do ikebana displays in the first place, and what you're supposed to feel when you look at them. He told me that your heart is supposed to become quiet, that you're supposed to feel a kind of inner calm. 落ち着く、or "ochitsuku" translates into, "to harmonize" or "to calm down" or "to restore presence of mind" The seasonal displays, along with the specific seasonal foods, and the flower displays and everything, are done with the goal of just that - to quiet the heart and the mind, and to restore the soul. It's why Buddhists meditate, he told me.
That's why I think Japanese culture is absolutely beautiful. Cause you know what? Looking at the display, taking in its beauty and its simplicity, my heart did exactly that. Where I was feeling grumpy and irritable and restless before (mostly due to the heat), the flower arrangement filled me with a serene sense of calm and peace, as corny as it sounds. That, and I was able to understand about 70-80% of what the old couple was saying (meaning counts for a lot, right?) probably helped too.
After finishing my ice cream, it was late enough to where it wouldn't be ridiculously hot on the ride back, so I packed up my things and said goodbye. I had the pleasure of discovering that my grocery store was now stocking frozen spinach again (it hadn't for a good two months or so), which also cheered me immensely. That, and I swear half of my third year home economics course was shopping in Polka. I saw so many of them! And they either said hello, or stopped to chat for a bit in the curry and canned goods aisle. One girl asked why they had seen me walking to work that morning, since usually, I ride my bike. For some reason, this made me feel pleased.
When I left, it was with a feeling like I could take on the world and all its heat, and that perhaps the bike ride back home wouldn't be so bad after all.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Culture and Sports Festivals
Two of the big, all school events at most Japanese high schools (that I've seen anyways) are Sports Day and the Culture Festival. By "Culture Festival" really, it means the school's culture. When I first got here i thought it meant learning about foreign cultures and stuff, but I was kind of wrong on that account.
All of my schools, and pretty much all of the other ALTs I talk to, have these two events. Sports day tends to be held in September, while the school culture festival can range anywhere from September around when classes start back (rendering any attempt at actual teaching relatively useless) to Octoberish. One of my other schools doesn't have theirs until later.
Culture festival is broken up into two parts at my schools. The first day, usually a week day, usually a friday, is dedicated to student performances as a whole class or block. Most of the time it's by class. Classes will put on skits, plays, sing songs, make videos... just about anything for this part. Unfortunately, I missed most of this because I was at other schools on every single day one of my schools was doing this first day.
The second part, usually a second day, is dedicated to a bazaar bit where students will sell food that they make and decorate their classrooms and have exhibits and stuff. The clubs, at least, the academic clubs, will often decorate a classroom and have something as well.
This year I helped out with the English classroom and I (kind of) did an ikebana display. By kind of, I mean that I made the poster for it and watched the teacher put in all the flowers. She gave me the last bunch, a handful of purple flowers, to place around the main flowers she had set in. So I did. And she made approving sounds so I hurried out afterwards to watch the students do their performances. That was not my happiest time. I still don't quite understand why I couldn't have done it after watching the students; it's not like the teacher wasn't there after. But whatever. It's the past.
Either way though, I got back to the classroom afterwards and the sensei was there carefully rearranging all the flowers I had put into the bowl. So I really really just don't understand ikebana. Oh well.
Anyways, the second day is all I'e been able to go to, but it's pretty fun to see what the students come up with. Today, I visited Niimi South Campus's culture festival ("Lightning"). They had a bunch of interesting things, including a ghost house (which I did not partake in) and a Tonari no Totoro maze room made for small people (that I partook in anyways). Thankfully, I went through with one of my students who already knew the way, so I didn't get lost. Almost got stuck, but at least I didn't get lost haha. It was really hot so I kept sticking to the plastic things they were using to decorate the inside of the maze. Really cute idea though, since Mei-chan goes through the mazes and stuff in Totoro too. The food was pretty awesome too. I think it's a rule that if you're selling some kind of consumable thing in the summer, shaved ice, or kakigori, must be one of them. They also had these really tasty (and probably unhealthy) rice balls that were flavored with either curry or tomato sauce/spaghetti sauce, then rolled in panko and deep fried. Sooo tasty. It was a lot of fun, and I saw a bunch of students whom I haven't seen in a while.
One of the students I saw, I'm proud to say I knew the name of haha. Mostly it's because last year for Halloween, I gave them candy, so after that he was always asking me for candy. Eventually, instead of saying "Please give me candy" he switched instead to shouting "I LOVE JESHIKA" whenever he saw me. Now, (I think/hope) it's become something of a joke between the two of us. We chat, usually in Japanese with English thrown in here and there, and he helped me learn his name by asking me every time I saw him if I remembered his name. Eventually, I did. When I saw him today, I guess he must have seen me earlier or something because he was selling tickets and was like "OHHHHHHH JESSHIKAAAA" and then showed me his shirt (one of the special ones they were wearing for festival). "I love ジェシカ" was written across part of it.
I think I just kind of laughed and asked him what he was selling. Fried potatoes, it turned out. Those were pretty tasty.
One of the more interesting foods they had there was 流しそうめん "nagashi somen" which is like "flowing somen" when they told me. Instead of just eating it straight from the bowl, they give you a cup filled with somen sauce and you stand by this big bamboo trough. At one end is a bucket with a thing to caulander kind of thing. The other end is elevated and starts in the kitchen. From that end, they put the noodles in the bamboo trough and then pour water down the trough. The water pushes the noodles down, and you have to pick it up with chopsticks and dump it into your cup. As it flows down. You can't miss, otherwise it'll keep flowing down into the bucket. The whole time I was doing that, I was like "aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" in my head because I was super worried about missing it completely. ._.
Last weekend was Takahashi's culture festival, and it was a little different. For one, I (shamefully) woke up late and didn't make it to school until 10 o'clock. No idea what happened either. They were selling kakigori, ice cream, curry, tapioca... and for some reason they had TWO haunted houses this year. I feel kinda bad, cause I didn't go into either of them. Our school has a tea ceremony club too, since there's a tea house in our school, so I had some tea, Japanese ceremony style. Last year it was ridiculously bitter, but this year... was actually tasty.
The cooking club also made gyuudon (beef bowl) again this year and it was suuuuper tasty.
One of my favorites though, was the "science is mystery" room. A couple of my favorite students were in charge of that room, including one student whom I'm doing interview practice with. It was really cute haha, he was like "JESSICA YOU MUST COME IN HERE" and showed me all the things they were doing. It's a bunch of stuff that like, I did as a kid that you can do with cool sceincey things. For example, the cornstarch thing, and another thing with dry ice. They put it in some film cases (though damn, film cases!) and left it covered, and after a while it exploded. They also had soapy water they dropped dry ice in. This made the soap bubble like... a lot. But the cool thing was, when you burst the bubbles, smoke came out~ It was super fun. :D
Little punks also shocked me through a chain though, lol.
Oh, another really cool thing they did was a demo of large scale calligraphy, by the calligraphy club. It was pretty sweet.
Sorry for the lack of pictures, especially on this. A lot of the pictures I took have my students in it (to the point of where you can really see their faces) so it felt a little weird putting those up. :) So you'll just have to take my word that it was a really awesome show. :3
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Typhoons
My base school's culture festival was this last weekend. It happened to nicely coincide with the typhoon that blew through western Japan and Shikoku - like, literally, it went straight through Shikoku, then up to Okayama and Tottori areas. In the whole of Okayama, apparently, Takahashi was hit the hardest and got the most rain. Yippee. The river rose something like, 10 feet; it was almost right underneath the bridge here. A couple of bridges, not in Takahashi, got swept away.
Pretty freaky when you think about it. Typhoons are pretty much hurricanes in the pacific basin - to be specific, it's "a tropical cyclone in the pacific north west between 180 and 100 degrees E." Here's an interesting fact for you: Japan doesn't name its typhoons like how we name our Hurricanes. This typhoon, for example, was simply "台風１２号" (those are the kanji for typhoon, or "taifuu" in Japanese). However, news reports from the internet and stuff were calling it "Typhoon Tyson". I guess Japan is just like "meh, get these all the time. What's this, the 12th one? Alright dudes. Let's bunker down. You know the drill."
One of my JTEs also observed that a lot of the really destructive typhoons have female names. I wonder what he was trying to say. -_-
This typhoon went straight over my prefecture though, coming from the south to Shikoku, then up through Okayama and to Tottori. A bunch of prefectures around the area had lots of flooding due to the storm - so much that they closed roads, there were landslides, and they stopped the trains for an entire day. A lot of us were worried that businesses weren't going to be open, but it turns out I was wrong in that aspect (thankfully). One of my friends in Takahashi came and rescued me from my house and we went to eat lunch at the 24 hour place. The entire area outside my door was flooded! It even flooded where the bikes were, so my back door step looked like a small lake.
It was freaky to see the river that high though. It made me really thankful that I live up a hill for once. I figured too, if the canal outside my place overflowed, I could just go up to the school and pray there wouldn't be a landslide.
Hm. So I'm going to go on a random tangent about food. For thinking-aloud's sake, I'm going to type everything out here. This is for buying a meal at the conbini (pasta) versus making it myself at home. Since I'm curious to see which actually costs more - making my own food, or buying conbini food.
Now first, let's talk about portion size. Obviously, making your own will yield much more than the conbini will; I actually, sometimes, will buy the pasta plus another thing (like a sandwich or riceball) since the pastas are just so... tiny. I mean, they're probably the size of one portion (not like our american portion sizes) but then, you'd probably augment your pasta with soup, or salad, or both. So for the sake of comparison, I'm going to use two of these pasta things. Each costs about 300 yen, so altogether, it's like 600 yen for two. Not too bad.
Second, let's talk about what's actually in the pasta itself. It uses rigatoni noodles - which you can't find in the supermarkets out here, not in Takahashi anyways (and not at Polka... dunno about youme town, but that's a good bike ride away). So I'd have to go in to Okayama to the import store. But let's not take transportation too much into account, since I go in to Okayama at least twice a month (or, usually, more). Plus, I could probably use other noodles and it'll be just fine.
The pasta has broccoli, bacon, cheese, and uses your basic tomato spaghetti sauce. I think that was it? If I was back in the states, there would be no question that a home cooked one would be cheaper, plus probably wouldn't take too long to make. Here in Japan though... liking import foods can get a little pricey.
Broccoli here is expensive. For a single head of broccoli, it's around... 200 yen for a single head of broccoli? 198. This is for a small to medium sized head of broccoli. I would probably use two of them to make a casserole (if I was back in the US) but in the pasta, it's kind of like a garnish... so one head should be plenty.
Bacon (the sad, limp kind) is meat, so that makes it more expensive... I haven't bought bacon here for ages because it just makes me sad. Plus I'm not overly fond of it. Let's say it cost between 200 and 300 yen for a package of 4-5 strips of bacon. And then the cheese. Now, there's not so much cheese that it'll use up a whole (or really, not even most) of the bag. But A bag of cheese cost about 400 yen for a smallish bag of shredded mixed cheese.
The spaghetti sauce, if I'm being lazy, I can get from the import store in the Ragu or Bertollie or however it's spelt brand. Those cost between 300-500 yen (I don't remember). You do get a giant can though, which is nice considering the price you bought it at. Of course, you can make your own spaghetti sauce since it's not too hard to do - canned tomatoes run about 100 yen for the cheap brand, and I already have basil. I haven't been able to find a general kind of 'italian herb' mix, but basil and garlic usually works fine for me. So making it cost about the same as buying it from the store, after you take into account the prices and everything. Making it is probably slightly cheaper, but not tooo much to the point where it's more efficient to make than to buy. I suppose you could also just be lazy and buy those bags of sauce they sell at the grocery store too; those are cheap, running from 150-200 yen.
Right, so the pasta costs around... 1300/1400 yen plus the cost of the noodles, which, for those, are at least 250 yen, so like, 1500/1600 yen. This yields way more than a single serving though; I'd say at least three - maybe four if the portion sizes were smaller. THen you could take them and stick them in the fridge and eat pasta for another two days.
So it's roughly 200-300 yen cheaper to make the pasta myself, if the prices for the ingredients are accurate. So it is a little cheaper. However, you don't take into account the money you spend for gas to cook the food, and water to cook and to clean up after. I don't think I need to mention it takes longer and requires more forethought and planning, whereas the conbini meal just depends on if you're there before it's sold out or not.
That being said, I'm willing to pay for laziness so that I don't have to ride my bike outside the house to buy fresh food sometimes haha. I'm so lazy~
I did though, bike out to youme town yesterday. It's the further larger department/grocery store place, and they have a vegetable stand outside of it that closes around 6 and sells vegetables for really cheap! I think I could actually make food cheaply with those vegetables - I would just have to use those veggies. They're way cheaper than the regular vegetables (and fruit) I've found in the supermarkets. Like this giant eggplant? Only 60 yen. Two red bellpeppers? 120 yen. YESSSSS. That's cheaper than ONE red bellpepper! One is like, 200 yen at my grocery store. Yeah though.
The weather has been so nice because of the typhoon. Yesterday was so nice, I took a spontaneous bike ride. I actually rode past youme town at first - all the way out to Nariwa. It's absolutely gorgeous out there. Like, wow.
Sometimes I really do love living out here in the rural countryside. It's seriously gorgeous, even if there are a bajillion bugs constantly waging a war to get into my house and into my mouth when I walk.
Pretty freaky when you think about it. Typhoons are pretty much hurricanes in the pacific basin - to be specific, it's "a tropical cyclone in the pacific north west between 180 and 100 degrees E." Here's an interesting fact for you: Japan doesn't name its typhoons like how we name our Hurricanes. This typhoon, for example, was simply "台風１２号" (those are the kanji for typhoon, or "taifuu" in Japanese). However, news reports from the internet and stuff were calling it "Typhoon Tyson". I guess Japan is just like "meh, get these all the time. What's this, the 12th one? Alright dudes. Let's bunker down. You know the drill."
One of my JTEs also observed that a lot of the really destructive typhoons have female names. I wonder what he was trying to say. -_-
This typhoon went straight over my prefecture though, coming from the south to Shikoku, then up through Okayama and to Tottori. A bunch of prefectures around the area had lots of flooding due to the storm - so much that they closed roads, there were landslides, and they stopped the trains for an entire day. A lot of us were worried that businesses weren't going to be open, but it turns out I was wrong in that aspect (thankfully). One of my friends in Takahashi came and rescued me from my house and we went to eat lunch at the 24 hour place. The entire area outside my door was flooded! It even flooded where the bikes were, so my back door step looked like a small lake.
It was freaky to see the river that high though. It made me really thankful that I live up a hill for once. I figured too, if the canal outside my place overflowed, I could just go up to the school and pray there wouldn't be a landslide.
Hm. So I'm going to go on a random tangent about food. For thinking-aloud's sake, I'm going to type everything out here. This is for buying a meal at the conbini (pasta) versus making it myself at home. Since I'm curious to see which actually costs more - making my own food, or buying conbini food.
Now first, let's talk about portion size. Obviously, making your own will yield much more than the conbini will; I actually, sometimes, will buy the pasta plus another thing (like a sandwich or riceball) since the pastas are just so... tiny. I mean, they're probably the size of one portion (not like our american portion sizes) but then, you'd probably augment your pasta with soup, or salad, or both. So for the sake of comparison, I'm going to use two of these pasta things. Each costs about 300 yen, so altogether, it's like 600 yen for two. Not too bad.
Second, let's talk about what's actually in the pasta itself. It uses rigatoni noodles - which you can't find in the supermarkets out here, not in Takahashi anyways (and not at Polka... dunno about youme town, but that's a good bike ride away). So I'd have to go in to Okayama to the import store. But let's not take transportation too much into account, since I go in to Okayama at least twice a month (or, usually, more). Plus, I could probably use other noodles and it'll be just fine.
The pasta has broccoli, bacon, cheese, and uses your basic tomato spaghetti sauce. I think that was it? If I was back in the states, there would be no question that a home cooked one would be cheaper, plus probably wouldn't take too long to make. Here in Japan though... liking import foods can get a little pricey.
Broccoli here is expensive. For a single head of broccoli, it's around... 200 yen for a single head of broccoli? 198. This is for a small to medium sized head of broccoli. I would probably use two of them to make a casserole (if I was back in the US) but in the pasta, it's kind of like a garnish... so one head should be plenty.
Bacon (the sad, limp kind) is meat, so that makes it more expensive... I haven't bought bacon here for ages because it just makes me sad. Plus I'm not overly fond of it. Let's say it cost between 200 and 300 yen for a package of 4-5 strips of bacon. And then the cheese. Now, there's not so much cheese that it'll use up a whole (or really, not even most) of the bag. But A bag of cheese cost about 400 yen for a smallish bag of shredded mixed cheese.
The spaghetti sauce, if I'm being lazy, I can get from the import store in the Ragu or Bertollie or however it's spelt brand. Those cost between 300-500 yen (I don't remember). You do get a giant can though, which is nice considering the price you bought it at. Of course, you can make your own spaghetti sauce since it's not too hard to do - canned tomatoes run about 100 yen for the cheap brand, and I already have basil. I haven't been able to find a general kind of 'italian herb' mix, but basil and garlic usually works fine for me. So making it cost about the same as buying it from the store, after you take into account the prices and everything. Making it is probably slightly cheaper, but not tooo much to the point where it's more efficient to make than to buy. I suppose you could also just be lazy and buy those bags of sauce they sell at the grocery store too; those are cheap, running from 150-200 yen.
Right, so the pasta costs around... 1300/1400 yen plus the cost of the noodles, which, for those, are at least 250 yen, so like, 1500/1600 yen. This yields way more than a single serving though; I'd say at least three - maybe four if the portion sizes were smaller. THen you could take them and stick them in the fridge and eat pasta for another two days.
So it's roughly 200-300 yen cheaper to make the pasta myself, if the prices for the ingredients are accurate. So it is a little cheaper. However, you don't take into account the money you spend for gas to cook the food, and water to cook and to clean up after. I don't think I need to mention it takes longer and requires more forethought and planning, whereas the conbini meal just depends on if you're there before it's sold out or not.
That being said, I'm willing to pay for laziness so that I don't have to ride my bike outside the house to buy fresh food sometimes haha. I'm so lazy~
I did though, bike out to youme town yesterday. It's the further larger department/grocery store place, and they have a vegetable stand outside of it that closes around 6 and sells vegetables for really cheap! I think I could actually make food cheaply with those vegetables - I would just have to use those veggies. They're way cheaper than the regular vegetables (and fruit) I've found in the supermarkets. Like this giant eggplant? Only 60 yen. Two red bellpeppers? 120 yen. YESSSSS. That's cheaper than ONE red bellpepper! One is like, 200 yen at my grocery store. Yeah though.
The weather has been so nice because of the typhoon. Yesterday was so nice, I took a spontaneous bike ride. I actually rode past youme town at first - all the way out to Nariwa. It's absolutely gorgeous out there. Like, wow.
Sometimes I really do love living out here in the rural countryside. It's seriously gorgeous, even if there are a bajillion bugs constantly waging a war to get into my house and into my mouth when I walk.
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