Village Hidden in the Leaves

The weekend of the 8th and 9th (a three day weekend for us here in Japan - I got Monday off too!) I went with a friend to explore the northeastern part of Okayama, a part of my prefecture that I had never ever been to before. It's not like I've had much reason to go up there. Tsuyama City is the largest city in that part of the prefecture, and getting there is not easy. You can drive there if you have a car, of course, and that makes things a billion times easier. It still takes about 70-90 minutes though, and that's with taking the ridiculously expensive expressway (like a toll road).

But for those of us without cars, we are left with a couple options. One is the bus; I'm sure there's a bus that goes up to Tsuyama from Okayama, and possibly even from Takahashi. Second is the train. There are two trains that will go to Tsuyama. One of them is from Niimi (which, in itself is 30-40 minutes away by train). That train leaves not very often, and takes a ridiculously long time to get there. I think from Takahashi it's at least three hours? That basically goes across the northern part of the prefecture, probably in a one man train. I bet it's gorgeous. The second train requires getting to Okayama, and then taking the Tsuyama line up there. From Okayama it's somewhere between 40-60 minutes depending on if you get the train that skips some of the stations or not, and about 1400 yen, one way. So like, to get there from Takahashi is a little under two hours, if you get your connections right.

However, our destination was not Tsuyama. Oh no. My friend, who's a huge Naruto (a Japanese comic about ninjas) fan, wanted to visit this town called Nagi, since the author of Naruto was born there, and based the Hidden Leaf Village off of his hometown. I was there mostly for support (plus I generally enjoy exploring the prefecture, and I had never been up this way). She wasn't sure if they had anything for the author there, or were trying to capitalize on his success with Naruto and turn it into a tourist destination. Either way, we figured that we would take the train there and, should it turn out that it was just another little rural inaka town that we would bring our Japanese study materials and study at a conbini or restaurant or something.


View Larger Map (B is where Nagi train station is. A is Nagi proper. If you zoom out once, you can also see where it is in relationship to Tsuyama. If you zoom out two more times, you can see where it is in Okayama prefecture. Also, for reference, I live in Takahashi City)

Our first sign that the town, at least near the station, had nothing to do with Naruto, was that we were the only two people to get off at the tiny station, which was basically a small platform surrounded by a vast amount of forest. You know in Narnia (the first movie) how the kids get off at a train station that's really empty and in the middle of nowhere? Yeah. That was Nagi Station. There was the one train track running towards it and away from it.

That being said, the place was absolutely gorgeous. They had pine trees and other trees that we don't have on the western side of the prefecture as much. The train ride was also really pretty. We saw a festival going on... but that looked like it was a good hour walk to get there from the station. We passed it at first and were like 'oh hey let's go to that festival!' and then we just kept going... and going... and then we passed this really pretty bridge and were like 'well I suppose we can walk there since the trains are going to be pretty sparce...' ...and then we kept going and finally, probably about a half hour walk away (so really, not too bad) we got to the station. We were the only ones who got off.

The station itself was in a place that was nowhere near any kind of buildings other than the board of education and a couple of houses dotting the small river it ran by. They all looked empty, and possibly like they weren't in use. Of course, it being the weekend, there was a fair chance they were in use, just simply closed. It being the inaka, there were spiders EVERYWHERE. Those huge yellow and black stripey spiders that get to be amazing sizes had managed to populate the area in the absence of people. It's kind of funny, since I don't actually mind those spiders, so long as they aren't in my house. Usually they just chill up in their webs and they don't really move. I haven't seen them jump or move like... ever. So I don't mind going up close to look at them or take pictures, especially since we have them everywhere in Takahashi as well. My friend though, being from Okayama city, was creeped out by them since they're kind of large, and I don't think they have many of them in the city.

Clearly though, from looking at the map, we missed Nagi proper by about... three hours. Three hours and twenty minutes, to be exact. That's how long it would have taken us to walk to the central part of the city, where presumably, there are things like the post office and maybe a restaurant or conbini, or at least vending machines. Oh well! Can't help that. The chances of us going back there are pretty slim, though, it was really really pretty. If we had a car or something, I'd be down for going back. But yeah. No car.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to do much exploring either. When we got off the train and walked down the steps from the platform, the first thing we did was check the time schedule for trains going back to Tsuyama. The next one was in half an hour, and the one after that was in not one, not two, not three, but FOUR HOURS. From what we saw, even if we walked to the festival, we would still end up with time to kill. And from our minimal exploring, there was no place we could actually sit down and study at, save the station. The station was actually a really nice building; probably the nicest in the area. It had a little bench area, as well as a book area (no Naruto though) and a sign telling you that the nearest thing from the station was about 1.5 km away. Hooray.

Also of interest within the immediate vicinity of the station was a signboard with a map of all the historical sights of the area. More interestingly, there was also a list of the village areas with a household and population count. They weren't very high. I think most ranged from 6 households (16 people) to somewhere around a hundred or two.

Most interesting though, was the fact that not only were these things written in Japanese, but they were also written in English. Clearly, this meant that, at some point in time, there was (and perhaps is?) an English speaker out in that area. I'm not sure why they had a sign in English about historical landmarks near the station, but to me, it hints that people - tourists - come to this area for one reason or another (though I hope for their sakes they come in cars, despite the sign being almost right next to the station). The bigger question is, what happened?

Well, we both agreed that we did not want to wait for the train in four hours, so, despite having just got there, we would leave on the next train in half an hour. Kinda lame but... oh well? It was about 12:30 when we got there, and we were expecting to be able to find like... something where we could at least get food. I don't think I even saw a bathroom around the area. We hadn't eaten lunch, nor had we brought anything with, which was kind of stupid of us. The next train left around 1 o'clock and the train after left around 4:30. It was going to take an hour to get back to Tsuyama (and thus, food). So we could either eat around 2 o'clock... or around 5:30, unless we happened to get really lucky and somehow stumble upon food (chances were looking pretty slim though). Taking this into account, it wasn't that hard to decide on the earlier of the two trains, since we were both pretty hungry. We had left Okayama sometime around like... 9:40, which meant that I had left Takahashi that morning sometime around 9 o'clock (though, that morning I had been really really dumb and missed the 8:10 train and had to wait for the 9:05 express train to get there on time). Needless to say, we had eaten sometime around then and were reaaaallly hungry. That part, we hadn't really thought about until then. Oops. Had I the chance to do it again, I would have made a point to bring something for lunch, even if it was just stuff from the convenience store.

With that time frame though, we pretty much had only time to wander around close to the station before we had to wander back again. Missing that 1 o'clock train was not an option. I wanted to walk to the bridge, but alas, no time.

That's basically the story of our really really short trip to Nagi Town. The outskirts of Nagi town, anyways. We eventually made it back to Tsuyama, where our priority was getting food. One of my teachers is from Tsuyama, and we had talked about how Tsuyama had lots of 'B-Rank' restaurants.

B-Rank restaurants have nothing to do with the American restaurant hygenic rating system (though, I'm willing to bet that the majority of B-Ranks here would get like... a B or C from that). Instead, B-Rank restaurants are like... one step below fast food restaurants. They're not fast food places like McDonald's, since you can't always take things to go. Usually, you eat at the restaurant. But the food is ridiculously fast, sometimes faster than the fast food service I've received!) And what's more, it's really good, and generously portioned. These are places like the ramen restaurants, or rice bowl (donburi) places like Yoshinoya or Sukiya, or like the okonomiyaki restaurants that Hiroshima and Osaka are famous for. You get your food really fast, and generally, you don't take that long to eat it. That's what a B-Rank restaurant is. Chipotle would probably be a B-Rank restaurant, though I'd wager that most Chipotles are larger than even normal restaurants here. For some reason, places are just really really tiny (even in the larger cities).

Anyways, Tsuyama is supposed to be famous for those kind of restaurants. The city, next to the station, is kind of grungy, and well... my teacher said that the city really comes to life at night when people are out drinking (and going to these B-Rank places after/while drinking beer) and during the cherry blossoms bloom. So we started to look for these places.

ホルモン焼きうどん、Grilled Horumon Udon

We found a couple places all advertising that they sold the B-Rank food Tsuyama was famous for: Hormone Udon ホルモンうどん。 Hormone is... well... Hormone are a mixture of organ meats that are supposed to give you more stamina. Typical ingredients include things like the heart, the liver, tripe, kidney, and stomach. Mmm. I've tried a couple things, like heart and tripe and stomach, but generally, I found out what they were after. Some of them aren't too bad either. So like... I'd advise trying it before you ask what it is. Seriously, it's how I get through Japanese meals sometimes. Generally if you try it and don't like what you eat, people will let you alone without giving you too much of a hassle. I promised my teacher that if he took me to a hormone udon place, I would at least give it a try (especially if there was beer to wash it down with).

Needless to say though, with just me and my friend there (and I tend to be one of the more adventurous eaters in my friend group here), we decided to forgo trying Tsuyama's famous B-Rank foods. Instead, we walked to the Tenmaya store (whose sign we saw from the street) across a bridge (with these HUGE fish! You could see them quite clearly from where we were standing on the bridge, a couple stories above the river), and into the building, hoping for food within the department store. I think we failed at finding stuff, because we could only find one family restaurant and the things they sold in the grocery section of the store. Oh, and a bakery. Eventually, we ended up eating at the bakery, since they not only had sandwiches (ham and blue cheese~! SO DIVINE) but also savory breads and things like (smallish) Japanese pizza slices that weren't that bad. I also ordered minestrone soup (which came from a bag), and I kid you not, it tasted like I was eating spaghetti-O's, minus the pasta. Really really weird. They also had a gelato place we hit up after that. Japanese gelato places are super fun, especially since they have things like matcha (which, as gelato kind of tastes like sweet grass) and seasonal foods like sweet potato and chestnut.

Yeah though, we didn't see too much else there so we decided to go back in to Okayama instead, where there were things to do (and eat).

We also went to the gardens that weekend, but I think I'll save that for a post when I can add my pictures in too!

Mad World

First, on a random note. They're making croquettes on TV on Cardcaptor Sakura (super oldschool!) and it's making me hungryyyy and I kind of want to fry something in oil now like how they're doing it on tv. *_* Mmm... like maybe riceballs. Oh man. Like the ones we had at South Campus's culture festival! It was AMAZING!

It's also kind of interesting, some of the characters on tv are ridiculously pale. I didn't notice that before I came to Japan and saw how some of the women here try to keep themselves really pale by employing long sleeved shirts and leggings in the middle of freaking summer. Crazy people, I tell you.

Anyways, on a more serious note and Japanese stereotypes (well, really high school stereotypes), this week at one of my schools, there was this girl who the teachers told me couldn't talk. I assumed that she had lost her voice or something, so I asked if she was sick. She, of course, didn't say anything; neither did the teacher. As she reached out to grab something, I noticed that her arm was bandaged, from mid-arm to her palm like a wrist protector thing. Naively, I thought it was because she was ill and had to get shots or something there, so I told her "I hope you feel better soon!"

As she walked away, I asked the teacher if she had a cold or something or had lost her voice or something, and what the bandages on her arm were for. She replied that this student was indeed a little sick... mentally. According to the teacher, they were there because she had tried to cut her wrists.

I couldn't believe my ears. My first instinct was to try to hug the girl, since she was one of the girls whose face I recognized and whose English was pretty decent. She was nice, did her work, and did it well, so I was really surprised that she felt driven to do that. I don't know anything about the student's lives at home, and I don't visit this school very often, but in class she never seemed like anything was that wrong. It also seemed like she had friends in class, but then again, what do I know outside of oral communication?

It was kind of scary that one of my students had almost killed herself. I can remember being in high school; not one of the most pleasant times in my life, and while I might have had musing and thoughts, I never actually got *that* close to doing the deed. But I've got an idea what it's like to drop that low. I wanted to tell this student that she wasn't alone, that no matter what's going on right now in her life it will get better later on. That I can almost promise. That she was an amazing person (and her english was really good!) and beautiful. That I'm glad for the chance to have been able to teach her.

They told us at one of the orientations, half jokingly half really really not, that it does happen and that we should be careful about using the game "hangman" cause once someone did that and one of their students had actually recently hung himself. It still makes me really sad to think about though, and makes me wonder about my other students. Other than that I don't really know what to think or how to react, apart from just going on (since seriously, I won't be back at that school for maybe a month, or at least two more weeks). I really do hope though - if I were religious, I would pray - that she find happiness in unexpected places and that whatever was bringing her down gets better.

On a more upbeat note, I finally shot arrows at the range today! A whole three arrows! Just in time because I'm not going to shoot for a while since they have exams, which means no club activities for two weeks. Sigh. But two of my favorite kyuudo students helped and kind of coached me with where I should aim. I ran into them on the train coming back one day with some other ALTs, and they told me that it looked like they had to really work up the courage to come talk to me. I was super touched haha. We talked for like... a while until I had to get off the train (and I found myself wanting to ride all the way to the next station so I could keep talking). When they wear their hakama, or kyuudo uniform, I swear one of them looks like a Japanese character straight out of an anime.

I still missed, despite the help aiming. The second arrow I shot nearly hit the roof, it was so high. But HOORAY I FINALLY ACTUALLY SHOT MORE THAN ONE ARROW AT PRACTICE.

They told me too, that one of the words on their quiz that day had been "aim." One kid told me that he definitely had not put that as his answer hahaha, and asked me to teach him more words lol. If only I were at that school more often. I love the second years there, especially since there's a bunch of them in kyuudo. They're a bunch of goofballs, but they're also kind. This year's students are interesting too, but I just feel like last year was more... responsive. And understood English better. This bunch is lively, but I spoke to them today and got the blank stare wall. That was... fun. But they enjoyed the game we played at least! Shame I can't just keep playing games the whole time. Oh well!

Finally though, IT'S A THREE DAY WEEKEND WOOOOO~

Time to be... broke haha.

Autumn Flavors & Oden

Fall = Grape Season

While it's definitely not as cold as winter proper during December, it feels like fall has already come and gone. My house is a nice 20 degrees Celsius right now, but outside these nights have been dropping to 12 or 13 degrees (around 53-55 F). ...so I guess that's not too different than actual fall weather. I don't know why I'm feeling so cold then! Today hit a high of around 16C/60F... which is still warmer than San Francisco is in the summer! Perhaps it's on account of me just sitting here and the fact that when I ride my bike it gets ridiculously cold from the windchill (and the fact that everything is downhill so I don't work nearly as hard as I do on the ride back home).

But fall seems like it's rather short this year, and that it's getting colder faster. Maybe last year was just really warm for a long time. Probably. I don't know why I'm complaining though; I like this cooler weather - as long as I can wear a jacket!

With the full arrival of fall, the fall flavors and dishes are out in force in restaurants and grocery stores. This means chestnuts (kuri) and the seasonal fish (aji...maybe?) (of course though. I feel like there's always a seasonal fish). OH. And mushrooms. Mushrooms are really really popular, though they tend to come more towards the end and middle of fall. The inclusion of any of these in a dish automatically gives it a kind of autumn feeling, according to my Japanese co-workers. I went to a restaurant for a welcome to Japan party for this group of Aussies who are doing an exchange program with my base school, and they had this amazing rice that had chestnuts and mushrooms in it. The irony of it all is that when I came to Japan, I really really really didn't like chestnuts or mushrooms (or sweet potatoes, but that's a winter food). But now I don't mind them, and I even kind of like chestnuts. What's happened to me?!

Chikuwa, or tube fish cakes

Konnyaku

The cold has also brought back oden, a kind of.... Japanese stew. But it's more like slow cooked soup than stew in that it's mostly liquid. I'm not sure what the soup base is, but I'm like, 80% certain it has dashi (fish stock) and soy sauce in it. It has a ton of different ingredients (namely, what ever you want) but popular things to throw in it are those tube fish cake things called chikuwa, large daikon (Japanese radish) coins, fish balls, konnyaku (Japanese jellied devil's tongue - it's kind of... solid and chewy. It's very... interesting, but kind of lacks its own flavor, even moreso than tofu does), mini frankfurters, boiled egg, and fried tofu. There's a bunch more but I'm not the biggest oden fan so I don't know the full extent of it. Basically though, you throw the ingredients in the oden pot and you just kind of... leave it there and let it stew. For a while. You can keep it like that the whole time. Like seriously, you can just keep letting it stew and chill in the pot. The flavor won't change. Oden is basically a "boiled to hell in dashi and soy sauce" soup that's ridiculously popular and is available as long as it's cold. They sell it at convenience stores, but people also make it at home. The nice thing about oden is that you can often pick which ingredients you actually want to eat. Oden also doubles as a cheap hand warmer.

Actually, I think oden is more popular and more commonly eaten than sushi is. Sushi has become this kind of... global beast, though I suppose at its roots it will always be Japanese (though, I've shown my Japanese co-workers and students the pictures of the different rolls from the states like the catepillar roll and gotten quite amusing responses). Like seriously, you'll find a person who doesn't like to eat shrimp before you find someone who doesn't like oden. It's that widespread. Plus it also uses a bunch of ingredients which I think are really really Japanese; konnyaku, chikuwa, boiled egg (though maybe that's just Asian since I know Chinese dishes have that in it too... I think), daikon. Like seriously. It's just missing mushrooms. This might be why with foreigners it's kind of hit or miss on liking oden. It also has a very distinct... smell. Not the same as natto but... it's definitely... one of those Japanese foods.

Oh, also grapes, like pione and muscats, are finally in season! HOORAY!

Hand for size perspective

Grapes in Japan are special. They're not normal sized like the ones we have in the states; they're MONSTERS. See picture to the right. Technically that's from last year, but seriously, LOOK AT HOW BIG THOSE GRAPES ARE. They are literally bigger than my eyes. No joke. I think they might be as big as if not bigger than my actual eyeballs too.

They also come with a monster price tag usually, especially if you don't live in a grape growing region! At the super market, one bunch of grapes (roughly large enough to sit in someone's smallish hands) sells for somewhere around 600 yen, though if you can get it directly from the people who grow it, they go for as cheap as 200 yen!

This is where it's really awesome to be at schools who grow grapes and stuff.

One thing that foreigners notice when Japanese people eat grapes though (other than the monster size and the price) are the manner in which Japanese people eat grapes. Because they don't just down them like candy like we do in the states, popping one after another into their mouths. Rather, they take the time to peel every single grape one by one. As in, peel the grape, pop into mouth, discard skin. Peel grape, pop in mouth, discard skin.

When I first got here, this completely baffled me. Why on earth would you throw away the skin? It tastes pretty good, and it's probably where all the nutrition is. And like, seriously, why would you create more garbage for yourself when there are less trash cans to begin with in Japan? I guess it makes it last longer, but it took me ages to (grudgingly) accept that peeling grapes was probably for the better.

While not all Japanese grapes are the same, the kind that are popular to eat (and the ones pictured) have a really really tough skin. It's thicker than normal grapes (kind of like how Japanese hot dogs/sausages have a thicker casing). So they're actually pretty easy to peel without completely squishing the grape. The skin comes off pretty easy. But, what really sold me is the fact that this skin is usually really really bitter! Like, do not want kind of bitter. The grape actually tastes way better when you peel it because you're not eating the bitter, hard to chew (and probably digest) skin; all you get is sweet juicy grape flesh. Mm. Grape flesh. Grape meat? I'm not sure what you call it.

So yes, if you come to Japan, if the grape seems like it has a thick skin, please try peeling it because it will ultimately improve your grape eating experience.

It's been a while! :) Or well, I suppose it's been over a week since I've last posted, and technically it's already the first of october (since it's after midnight and all) but it still feels like the 30th of September, so that's got to count for something... right?

I can't believe that September has come and gone already. Holy crap. Where did it go? I don't understand. This month has absolutely flown by; I've been pretty busy with lesson planning and attempting to cook when I get back home in the evenings. Half the time I end up passing out sometime during the night before I finish everything I want to (*ahem* grad school applications). It's finally gotten cold again as well. I'm looking forward to the cold... but I'm also afraid of it destroying my productivity (again) like last year.

Today I went to this Chinese restaurant in my city with two Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs) and two other fellow JETs who work at the school as one of the JTEs. It was.... interesting. The prawns we ordered were - literally, in Japanese - "prawns and ketchup." It tasted a lot like sweet and sour pork though. A lot of it... was different than the food that I'm used to. But we finally ate Chinese style, sharing a bunch of dishes and splitting it at the end. It even had a lazy susan! Hooray! That made me especially happy. But when I went to order tea at the beginning they were like "really?" and I was like, "yes" and they asked me if cold was alright and I told them... I suppose. Mostly because this seemed the easiest. Seriously though, like, what, no tea with Chinese food? It seemed like a travesty. Not hot tea to wash the grease down? Hmmm...

I'm not sure which region this style was (other than "Japan" haha) but they had fried chicken Chinese style and shrimp tempura. It was.... interesting. I didn't expect to find that in a Chinese restaurant but well, I'm not really in America anymore than I'm in China. What else did we have... mabo tofu. But we didn't have any rice either; that was weird. And we had this Chinese-esque soup stuff. And gyoza. the gyoza was delicious. I'm seriously considering going back there and just ordering gyoza to eat for lunch or whatevs. The rest of it was alright. It was more expensive than I though though. Wasn't really sure if that Chinese food was worth THAT much.

Oh speaking of America, I finally have a plane ticket back home. Hooray! Two of my friends are getting married. It's the weirdest thing. One is my friend from high school. The other is my friend from college; I lived in the dorms and later an apartment with her. Super happy for them both. :) I'm even more excited because I have a good gift idea in mind. And yay, I'm going to be back for Christmas and the day after! Woo woo! After that though, I'm heading off to some place... warm. Like thailand or singapore or something. Or Okinawa. Probably Thailand or Okinawa, where I plan to spend all my money on dive trips. :D Money well spent, in my opinion~

Haha, there's an advertisement for shamwows on TV and the guy is acting like a total tool. I'm kinda impressed because he's actually speaking Japanese though (and he's probably not japanese unless he was one of those white kids who grew up here in Japan). Yeah though...

Ahhhh I need to get my pictures up still. Eventually that will happen. Also eventually, I swear, I will get that stupid newsletter written and sent out. ...along with my grad school apps. I think I just need to sit my self down and just.... work. No distractions.

Oh! I figured out what I want my Halloween costume to be! It involves... making things. So it may or may not turn out well. That is entirely up in the air right now. But if it turns out well (or even moderately alright) I will be incredibly happy.