451

That's how high up you can go in the Tokyo Sky Tree, out of 600something kilometers. That's about 280  up miles 1479 feet/.28 miles (451 km, I mean).
EDIT: I don't do units. ._. As my sister points out, at 280 miles up, you probably wouldn't have enough breathable air.

I suppose that's tall.

I went up expecting just another tower kind of view, since I've seen a couple and usually it just ends up being cityscape. And when I saw pictures other people took, it was like "well I guess that's okay."

Really though, it's something that needs to be experienced.

I went up there on my last full day in Japan, and spent the night with a spectacular view of the Sky Tree. Really, it was quite a perfect last day that I had, which makes up for the slightly-rushed-ahhhh-lunch-hour-stress I felt as I was going to the airport on the 25th haha.

We got up there - by we, I mean my Japanese-cousin-(maybe)-on-my-mom's-side-who-did-a-homestay-With-us-in-'94 Iori and her four year old (who, while adorable, made me realize that I do not want children any time soon) - it was about 6 pmish and not quite sunset. But wow. You could see buildings for miles and miles, just nonstop as far as the horizon extended. Tokyo tower, surrounded by tall (lols) buildings, seemed almost puny. I think Iori mentioned that Tokyo Tower is about half the size of sky tree (which is still pretty large). Of in the distance, amidst a crowd of people taking pictures, you could see Mt. Fuji as well, making for quite a nice view. they also had digital maps of the area which displayed time-lapse videos as well as maps (with names and train lines) and 360 panoramic views.

Looooook Mt. Fuji!

The opening theme for Game of Thrones (if you haven't seen it, you should, it's quite excellent) was playing in my head the whole time during the day. I suppose it was a little appropriate.

By the time we finished walking around the regular level - at a mere 350 m - the sun was well on its way to setting, and then we went to the upper deck (cost an extra 1,000 yen though). The upper deck kind of spirals up around the tower, so you're constantly going up. You can actually notice a difference though; I didn't think it would matter much but the buildings are noticeably smaller. All the city lights were just coming on as well, shining like small gems out in the distance. It was absolutely beautiful to walk around, watching as the sky got darker and the land got brighter.

Honestly though, the Tokyo night view beats the pants off the daytime cityscape, in my opinion (though as Iori pointed out, you can't see Fuji, so my solution is that twilight is the best because the lights are coming on, but you get this awesome silhouette of Mt. Fuji). But there are just so many lights, and the bridges are lit and colored, and we even saw fireworks way off in the distance.

It looked like a giant sea of stars, all bright and twinkly. Just... so many lights. You could see Tokyo Tower off in the distance near some other buildings, but from that far up they all looked like small toothpicks. Poor Tokyo Tower.

That small red thing is Tokyo Tower at dusk.

Oh, it's worth mentioning that while we actually went up to the Sky Tree Observation deck around 6ish, we actually had to come to the Sky Tree much earlier. They were handing out reservation slips for times that you could come buy a ticket - kind of like a fastpass (think Disney) but where you still have to buy a ticket. But you go for a time when you can buy said ticket, and you need one ticket per person who's going to go up; you can't just send one person to buy them all (though you *can* send one person to get your "fastpass" ticket reservation time cards, just make sure they get enough) since you'll be going straight up to the observation deck from the line. The line is just the start of your "standing in line" experience. Actually, once you get it, you go through a small security area, and then up some magnificent elevators (they're also all twinkly! Ours had a phoenix on it). That actually was maybe a 10-15 minute wait, so not too bad. Actually, once we were inside, standing in line wasn't all that bad because they had giant TV screens with "scenes" from around Tokyo (they were animated, in a kind of giant-Where's-Waldo?-world-sense). But they also explained certain cultural things about the Tokyo area, or general Japanese culture things (in English) so it was actually pretty interesting to wait in line! ...or maybe I'm just nerdy.

No, actually, I'm really nerdy. Tokyo Sky Tree got me the final two prefectures I needed to tag in the 3DS's streetpass game (they're this thing where you can wirelessly swap information via your "Mii" character, including, if you choose, what country and state/prefecture/province/area you're from). So exciting.

sunset

Anyways anyways. I think we got our reservation slips around 1 or 2 pm, and the time we could enter the line to buy our tickets was 5:30-6. Paired with the extra 100ish meters, it makes for the perfect time to go up, since you get the day view, the bonus sunset view, *and* the night view. And it's not like there's nothing to do around the sky tree. I think it's one of the HUGEST shopping/etc. areas I've visited! I'm pretty sure you could wander around the whole day and still not see everything there is to see there (excluding the Sky Tree).

penguiiiiins (in the nicest penguin exhibit I've seen)

First, it's called Sky Tree Town (I think? Or Sky Town. I forget) . Second, it has a planetarium (!) and AND AND AND AN AQUARIUM. Actually, the aquarium, on its own, is actually one of the coolest aquariums I've been to, despite definitely not being the largest, nor having the most amount of exhibits. But the presentation of the different wildlife - including the penguins, which normally, I'm not really that excited to look at because EVERY aquarium in Japan has penguins, no joke - were aesthetically pleasing and informative. The tanks were absolutely gorgeous.

The planetarium was also pretty spectacular. I think it was a little misleading; by planetarium, they mostly meant 40 - 60 minute IMAX shows about space and stars, two of which looked like they were made specifically for the enjoyment of small children (though with Japan and its cute characters, who knows). There was one more that looked interesting, and it only showed at night (maybe that was the actual planetarium part). The one we went to see the morning I left Japan was about how the sky looked during the Edo period, which was kinda interesting, but was unfortunately all in Japanese so maybe I fell asleep during part of it.

Other than those two, Sky Tree has a staggering 7 or 8 (I forget if the top floor had things; I don't think it did?) floors of stuff, plus there were shops on B3 and B1 (I don't know about B2?). Granted, floors 6 and 7 were food, but still. Loads of stuff. There was a plastic food shop I have huge regrets about not having enough time to look into, but I was getting a little worried about canceling my cell phone and making my bus to the airport. I thought I would be able to get lunch quickly. Ha! LUNCH CROWDS, YOU HAVE WON THAT ROUND.

My willpower crumbled like a delicious pie crust

That being said, lunch did go somewhat quickly because I went to an "Edo style" standing sushi bar. It probably didn't help that I went and bought the only purse I bought in Japan. I COULDN'T HELP IT. It had tessellations of Winnie the Pooh. How could I not buy something like this? LOOKIT HOW CUTE THE TESSELLATIONS ARE.

Jump back to the night before though - my last night in Tokyo and in Japan (for now anyways). Thanks to Iori, we were able to snag a room at the Tobu Levant Tokyo Hotel (which markets itself as the closest large hotel to Narita) so I didn't have to worry about going all the way back to Chigasaki and then back out to Narita, which was nice. I was able to catch a bus instead (though it probably took just as long). Ta-Q-bin services, which let you send your luggage on ahead to the airport, is a godsend (I had two large checked pieces).

The hotel though. Oh my goodness.

I'm not really used to staying in hotels, let alone nice ones. I think the majority of people my age will concur; hotels are kind of expensive. Recently, I've sprung for business hotels, which are nice, but still rather austere, or for budget ryokan - the Japanese style inns, which are still pretty darn nice (but beds are nicer, after having slept on a futon for two years). The Tobu Levant? Oh. My. God.

This was a *nice* hotel.

And on top of that, our room was the "Sorakara-chan" (Sky Tree's mascot) room. I was just told before that "there might be something with Sorakara-chan in it.

Yeah. This was the door to our room.

This was the first sign something was up.

Then when we opened the door, we were greeted to this:

The ceiling area.

Oh. My. God.

EVEN THE BEDS.

EVERYTHING had Sorakara-chan on it. And that wasn't even the end of it. It was that classic, "but wait, there's more!" Literally. The room had a small room annexed to it.

You walk past the beds and turn to the left and BAM. Holy cow.

This was our view from the window. FROM THE WINDOW.

I think the dogs and the penguin thing were also other mascots. Probably. As my cousin pointed out, the weird penguin with the star on it is a girl, because she has high heels on.

Oh, I should mention the name of the mascot. Sorakara-chan, for those of you who don't speak Japanese, means something like "from the sky"-chan (chan is a kind of cute prefix for small kids or girls). Considering that she's the mascot for the Sky Tree, it's actually pretty appropriate (and cute. Can't forget cute).

But I mean holy smokes. Cra-zy. Crazy crazy crazy. There were so many... character themed things. Even in the bathroom, there were character things. The towels had little pictures on them and stuff. We had the most amazing view of the Sky tree from our bedroom windows, which were also gigantic. So you could go to sleep and see the Sky tree.

This is why my last night in Tokyo, despite my new 4 year old friend being kinda tired and cranky (yet still having enough energy to power an iPhone for a day and a half), was really freaking awesome. I couldn't have asked for a better "last" experience.

*

I've kind of been in this daze ever since I returned home, and as in daze, I mean like, I haven't really done much (did visit one friend) in the almost week I've been back home. I didn't adjust my clocks until yesterday, so I spent most of yesterday (thursday) thinking it was today (friday). Oh, I reactivated my phone and joined a gym. The gym has pretty much been my number one accomplishment the past few days. I did see the Expendables 2 (that was fun). That, and I've logged a probably ridiculous amount of video game hours in, since upon my return home, there have been three games I've been trying to juggle: Epic Mickey, which is indeed epic; Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance aka Kingdom Hearts 3D which I've been waiting for since I pre-ordered in while in Japan; and The World Ends With You, which I've been trying to freaking finish but I lost the game when my DS was probably stolen. Note, two of these games involve Disney, while two involve SquareEnix. Kingdom Hearts, has *both* Disney AND The World Ends With You characters (so it's kind of like getting my fix for all three but not really?)

I've also kind of been thinking about what to do with this blog, now that I've returned home. I think I'm going to keep writing in it? Hopefully I'll be not-lazy and finish writing about my extended monthish of traveling in Japan and bumming at people's houses. That's my goal. I uploaded over 2,000 pictures last night so I think I kind of... have a lot ahead of me hahaha. But yeah.

Just because I'm back in the US doesn't mean that the adventure has stopped. :) Rather, it has simply changed locations. It's cliche, yes, but life is an adventure, no?

Watch out world (and Mexican food) cause here I come!

Sakuragi-cho, Yokohama

...stupid blog service, not backing up my last draft. It was all written and everything, and I was having problems publishing. I thought that it had auto-backed up... but apparently I was wrong. Sigh. All last night's hard work gone. I thought I had saved it to my c&p clipboard, but I had accidently overwritten it with my united milage plus number. -_-;

Oh well, what can you do.

Yesterday I spent the day in Sakuragi-cho, Yokohama, because my friend had won an auction for two pre-showing tickets of Rurouni Kenshin, a live action movie based off a manga/anime series. It's pretty old (ie, mostly my generation or older know about it) but it's a fun series about a former assassin turned wandering samurai who does good to atone for all the people he killed. The main character is this dude named Himura Kenshin, and he's played by Takeru Sato (who also was in one of my favorite dramas, Mei-chan no Shitsuji aka, Mei-chan's Butler).

I was super excited to see the movie before I left, since it meant that I wouldn't have to rush around trying to worry about seeing the movie before I leave in two days (omg). There was a mention of maybe a cast member appearing, but we weren't really pegging our hopes on that.

But then, at 3:10, they announced that we were having a guest visitor. We were still pessimistic, that it would be like one of the side characters.

But no. Freaking Takeru Sato and the producer walked out on the stage, and part of my inside exploded into fangirly goodness. He's so. Freaking. Cute. Takeru, not the producer.

Sadly, we weren't able to actually get his autograph or anything, since he was up on stage the whole time and they started the movie right after, nor were we able to take pictures of him since I'm pretty sure we would have gotten kicked out. But oh. My. God. WE GOT TO SEE THE REAL TAKERU SATO LIVE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~ ^_________________^

Kay, enough fangirling for now. :)

Sakuragi-cho also is home to the instant noodle ramen museum. So I mean, that was an obvious, must go to place before I left. It's pretty cool, with part of it being a museum complete with all the instant ramen Nissin ever made since its inception (complete with a huge amount of flavors from your basic chicken to cheese curry to BBQ flavored ramen, PLUS instant spaghetti which actually looked pretty good) along with an interesting animated movie (with English audio options!) about the history of instant ramen and how Momofuku Ando, its creator, came up with the idea for both than and for cup noodles (apparently, it's because Americans suck {or used to suck} at using chopsticks and eating from bowls, so they switched it to a cup with a fork). Really, it's a super interesting place.

On the third floor though, they have a place where you can make your own cup ramen by adding in flavors and so on, as well as an actual "ramen factory" where you can make the noodles themselves. Oh. My. God. Sadly, you need to sign up for a specific time slot for those, and all the time slots we could attend were full (and the factory was completely sold out). Oh well. Next time.

I also caved into buying a book about the history of ramen. It's all in Japanese. So help me god, I will learn enough Japanese to be able to read that book by the end of this academic year. But I mean, it's about the research Momofuku Ando did on the history of ramen. HOW ON EARTH COULD I RESIST BUYING SOMETHING LIKE THIS? The answer was, I couldn't, and yeah, now I'm paying to ship it back home lol.

That area is really pretty though, and I wish I had spent more time there. At night too, they light up a bunch of things and it's really really pretty. Stupidly, I forgot to bring my camera with me though. Need to get better about that...

We found this amazing American place called Bobby's or Bubby's or something like that that had American foods (Mashed Potatoes? YES PLEASE) along with sweet sweet pies. Oh my god. Pies.

My friend thought I wasn't serious about getting pies after dinner. To be fair, I'm not overly fond of sweet things, nor do I have an especially large sweet tooth. I can usually resist things like ice cream easier than I can, say, a super delicious steak. Mm, steak.

But pie? Especially banana cream, strawberry, or a good fruit pie? I CRUMBLE LIKE A PIE CRUST. This place also had a banana mocha pie (omfg?!) which they were sold out of (nooooooo) and then they sold out of the banana pie (extra NOOOOOOOOOOOO), but their apple pie and the crust were really tasty. Still kind of sad about the banana pie though. Still really want the banana mocha. They said the chocolate pudding was their most famous but yeah... I love fruit pies more.

Soon though. Soon the tasty pies shall be MINE. Japan has really nice cakes and sweets and parfaits, but I've missed the wonderfulness that are things like peach crumbles and banana cream pies.

Two and a half more days.

Holy cow.

Nara

Now that I'm homeless, I've been using my newfound free time to A) sleep a little B) travel a little and C) see some people and stuff. For a while, I was living at my friend's place (who was gracious enough to put a bunch of us up, though, we were put on the no-air conditioner-sweaty-diet {though really, it wasn't as bad as I complain since there was usually a nice breeze, just ohman humid} and I think at one point there were seven people). I feel like I've been doing a bunch of day trips, since finding a hotel or hostel or anything within a reasonable price range (ie, under $100ish a night) is pretty impossible even a week beforehand.

Today, I did a day trip to Nara, the first permanent capitol of Japan, and the capitol prior to Kyoto. Actually, yesterday I went roaming around Kyoto for a bit since that's where I'm staying, currently.

Before that, I did a day trip to Yamaguchi to see Akiyoshi-do, the longest cave system in Japan (and one of the biggest too, I'd bet). Like seriously, it's HUGE compared to the caves in Niimi. Quite magnificent too. They had explanations in English, which was an extra nice touch.

Limestone caves in Japan. Who would have thought.

Nara though, is where, really, I got a sense of enormity and the scale to which Japanese palaces used to be built. I made the mistake of walking to the palace grounds, so when I got there the primary thing on my mind was distance, but oh man! I went in through the Southern Gate - the Suzaku (tee hee, Fushigi Yugi) Gate, and the main palace was nothing but a small house in the distance. And the main palace, is quite quite large. I mean, there's a *train line* that goes through the palace grounds beyond the Suzaku gate.

My face looked a little bit like this: ；▽； ("Oh god, that's so far away. I should have taken the bus here. At least I'm getting all these steps in my pedometer...")

Seriously though, this place was huge. I'm probably exaggerating a little bit, but it felt like I was walking for a good ten to fifteen minutes at least! Then I got to the main imperial palace (reconstruction) gates. There was still another massive courtyard inside! I was like HOLY FRIGGIN COW THERE'S MORE?!

Yes, there was.

I had just been walking straight too. There were actually grounds to the east and the west that had things like gardens and museums, but I decided to forgo those due to time and holycrap they were far away.

It really made me marvel though, at just how big the palaces were back then. Seriously, that was a lot of space. You could fit a small village in there (and they probably did).

Needless to say, I took the bus back to near Nara Park. And then I had *more* walking to do, since there were a lot of world heritage sites in the park area. I don't think I even hit them all.

I'll get the names of them later, but I think I managed to go to three of the WHS, including, of course, the famous Giant Wooden Buddha. That was pretty awesome. Again, the scale to which both that and the building that housed it was amazing. I mean, these were built ages ago! How did they manage to build things that high? Blows my mind to look at things that tall.

There was also a gorgeous candle light kind of lantern festival that loads of people in yukata came out for. It was really pretty. I wasn't planning on staying until the evening in Nara, but it kind of ended up that way when I saw them put all the lanterns out. I killed time at this awesome little restaurant that had pretty tasty curry, an unlimited drink bar, and a fantastic (working) model train set. I felt like a twelve year old boy. It was pretty freaking sweet. I took so many pictures. :)

Today, I say bye to Kyoto though and make my way to Tokyo! I'm super excited. I'm supposed to meet up with two sets of relatives. :D Yaaay fun! I was also supposed to meet with two friends, but one turns out to be busy instead so hopefully we'll meet again in California.

Here we gooooooooo.

Goodbyes

I've been trying to write something for at least a week, in between giving goodbye speeches, saying farewells, and attempting to procrastinate on packing and cleaning. But I don't know - for some reason it's been hard to write. I haven't quite been able to find the right words. Are there really ever "right words" though?

Anyways.

Where has time gone?

It seems like just last year, I came to Japan, and just yesterday I got to know all the amazing students, teachers, and people in my sweet town.

The last few weeks have been my last week of classes and a bunch of goodbye speeches to people; it was something of a bittersweet moment, though I suppose, mostly just sad, since it meant no longer having classes and that seeing and talking to students was going to get way way way more difficult (or highly improbable in some cases), as well as some of the last times I went to some schools.

I will say this though, about my stint in Japan. Realistically, I don't think I could do this line of work (being an ALT) for my whole life, let alone a couple more years. It's fun and interesting to work with so many teachers - and some are amazing to work with - but I would really enjoy having more control over the class schedule and everything, I think, without having to worry about also going to four other schools. That being said, if I had to choose whether or not to do this again, I'd choose yes in a heartbeat.

The people that I've met here are, quite simply, amazing. Out of everything in Japan, I will miss them the most.

I've had a whole week of goodbye speeches, and I have had them all the way from July 17th until last monday, the 23rd. I managed to make it through all the speeches without crying (something I'm kind of proud of) and have only cried in public once, when a student also started crying. It gets me every time, when I see other people crying, especially students I really liked. Even the students I wasn't especially fond of, it was quite touching to see them get sad. I don't know what it says about me, but to be honest, it's kind of a relief to see them sad that I'm going, and so many of them. I mean, it's really nice to know that I did part of my job (the exchange part) well enough to where people are sad to see me go. It feels kind of mean saying that though, saying that I'm kind of glad they were sad.

The funny thing is, I think I stopped being really sad about this whole thing. I mean, I am sad. But I don't really *feel* anything about it. Mostly, just a kind of... panic, since my plans have been, uh, "evolving" for quite some time and I don't really know where I'm going after August 1st until August 7th. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Originally, I meant to go Thailand. Then Thailand was stupidly expensive. Same with Okinawa. Part of that was my own fault for waiting for so long. Then I thought about going to Tottori to dive, or Shikoku. But they don't have English places there, AND no dives on the days I'm actually free. What a pain.

So I'm not really sure. My big back up plan is, I guess to stay in Okayama? I don't know. I'm kind of worried about not being able to find a place to stay if I travel somewhere.

Also, a couple of the people I've wanted to see one more time for dinner, or for drinks or something... scheduling has been kind of hard. I originally wasn't planning on being back in Okayama, but now apparently I might be around for the Momotaro Matsuri? One of the days someone is free is on the 6th and I was like "...I wasn't really planning on being here... but sure." I dunno. For me, meeting up with people, seeing people and stuff.... soemtimes is a little bit more important than traveling around on my own. I wish I had been more organized with planning my stuff though. Mostly because it's such a giant pain to try to find hostels last minute here, especially in the summer. I mean, good grief! You basically *have to* have your stuff all planned out if you're doing anything that might possibly require a reservation.

Kind of a giant pain, if you ask me.

The whole "not going to be living in Takahashi anymore" thing is all kind of... surreal though. I was packing and I closed my suitcase and stuff so that I could vacuum (I was finding tiny ants D: ...those are better than big ants though, right?) and my room just looked rather empty. I haven't really ventured much outside the room since it's been ridiculously hot and humid outside my air conditioned sanctuary; I walked from my room to the bathroom and started to sweat.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I passed a sign today on my short but incredibly fun and food-filled trip (like all we did was eat and look at cows and take pictures of stuff) that said the temperature was 37C. Which is really hot, but then you add in humidity and it's kind of like "omg kill me now" kind of feeling. That's 98.6F. Nearly 99F, which is practically 100 F. Stupidly hot. I will be quite glad to get back to dry california heat.

Oh Japan. Oh Takahashi. I will miss you though, despite your stupid bugs and stupid heat and humidity (also stupid). I will miss seeing students in the conbinis. Conbinis themselves. Randomly running into students and having them say hello. The mountains. The scenery near the river. The seasons. The special things that come out with the seasons, like special flavors and foods. The colors in autumn. The snow in the winter. Your silly delayed trains in extreme weather. Kakigori/shaved ice. Soft cream. Tonkatsu. Doria and gratin, you ridiculously unhealthy things you. Festivals/matsuris. Stall food. Yakisoba. Milk tea. Collectable crap on the top of plastic bottles. Your pardoxically clean streets despite the ridiculous lack of garbage cans. Chuhai and delicious fruity cocktails and the lack of social stigma when you drink those over beer. Nomihoudai-all-you-can-drink places! Karaoke. Shaved ice again. All-night karaoke. The amazing JETs I met here. The other amazing foreigners I met here. The amazing Japanese people I met here. My JTEs. Super nice students. Geeking out about video games and having a completely legit venue to do it in. The fresh veggies from people. The nice teachers at my school. Onsen. Oh man, onsen. Kakigori (shaved ice) again (I really love that stuff). Gyoza! Beef bowls for super cheap! Crazy McDonald's things. The sheer amount of things you can collect. The "specialty food" for each area. Deep tubs. The sense that the unknown is out there, just waiting to be explored. I mean, I suppose that's there too, since I won't know much about the city I'm moving to. It'll just be a more urban sense.

Point is, I'm going to miss this place. It's the longest I've ever lived in one spot, and I've grown rather fond of it and the people in Okayama Prefecture. My home away from home, kind of, with all its bugs and humidity. :)

I say this with a smile, because right now my AC is on and my room is deliciously cool. Mmm, cool.

Oldschool Rare Food Adventures

So, it seems that I have found another Foodie in Japan whom I've ended up becoming friends with. Oh man. She's *that person* who knows all the good restaurants and all the good places to go. She's been there before, and has recommendations on what to get. Plus she's pretty good company and really quite fun to talk to.
In our latest cultural culinary exchange, she took me to this small house on the river


that I've walked by every week on my way to my Tuesday school, and that I pass by on a bus every other week on my way to my Friday academic school. It sits on the edge of the street and the riverbank, with support structure on the wall below it. It looks really really old on the outside, like one of those houses that's well lived in, but not necessarily well maintained. Outside is a red lantern (the only indication that it's a restaurant and not only a private home) that the owner lights up at night.
The owner is this lovely old woman who runs the whole place by herself. She buys, preps, cooks, and serves everything herself in her ridiculously tiny kitchen. Like seriously, if you only count the stove area and the sink, my kitchen is about the same size. To be fair though, she has a nice amount of counter and prep space, making it a pretty decent kitchen for one person to move around in. There's a fridge in the middle, and next to it, a giant TV that sits atop a ledge, which is actually a doorway to the old lady's pantry and extra refrigerator/storage space. It's pretty awesome looking.


The place, she said, is about 42 or 43 years old; it shows on the inside. Everything is that almost yellowish, sepia kind of color on the walls. It has that kind of dirty old Chinese hole in the wall look to it (which, is another indication of how awesome it is). The seats too, at the bar, were these super oldschool red plushy bar stools. There were no menus; only slips of paper with the menu items pasted to the wall. My teacher told me that this was a really good representation of what old restaurants used to look like in Japan, which corroborates my earlier suspicions with the restaurants in Takahashi.


So apparently old restaurants were really small. There was the table we were sitting at, which seated 7 people around it. Maybe 5 seats at the counter. And then there was a private room. That was about it. The whole place was really short as well; some of my taller guy friends might have had to stoop. Also, there were cobwebs EVERYWHERE in this place! There were spiderwebs on the chopsticks at the table we sat down at, a couple barely visable lines running up to the lamp, where they joined a larger web with a spider in it. There were spiders in the windows.
But my teacher insisted that this place had this amazing shake, or salmon, though today she didn't have the sashimi, only the cooked one. I do enjoy eating salmon, though I feel like sometimes it can be pretty hit or miss on how good it tastes.


This salmon though, was a type of rare salmon. It's called 「ときしらず」(toki shirazu) and is translated kind of as "doesn't know the time" due to its irregular migration timing (or, the popular story is that they simply don't care and they just kind of wander around). My teacher said that normally, salmon return to their hatching grounds some time in the autumn. However, these salmon return sometime July through September. Perhaps it was supposed to taste delicious because it was younger (and younger animals do tend to be quite delicious).

Oh, the Internet says they're also called "spring chum" in English, and are of a different variety than the chum you can find on the northern part of the Northern American coast (from Alaska to Oregon).

Seriously though, it was one of the best things I've had during my stay in Japan. Freaking. Amazing. She salted the salmon before cooking it, and it had just the right amount of moistness and saltiness to it. She served it with daikon (which you were supposed to splash soy sauce on). I mean, I'm not even the biggest fan of salmon, or skin in general, but the skin of the salmon was excellent. I'd eat more of it if I could. It was actually soft, with no trace of the scales or anything, nothing to make you remember that it once came off a fish. I wouldn't say it beats out Kobe beef, but you know what, it's right up there with it. So freaking good, from such a tiny hole in the wall place. Definitely not the kind of food I expected from that place. I guess that just goes to show the old adage about assumptions.

It had a bunch of other random things too. Gyoza that was ridiculously delicious. (I'm such a sucker for gyoza). Plus this cut of beef that - I was told - only yields 2 g per cow or something tiny like that. Maybe not 2 grams. Maybe 200 grams. Probably that. I forget what it's called though... something. It was really tasty though.

Also among my favorites was the flower part/stalk bit of wasabi. Hawasabi, it's called. Pretty spicy, in that wasabi kind of sense, but it was also pretty tasty :D Oh, and my second favorite that night was definitely the somen. The somen was handmade; a little bit harder and a little less sweet than normal. It was made by this old dude the shop lady knew. The sauce that she used also used pretty expensive ingredients as well, so the dipping sauce was also really tasty. One of the best somen's I've had. :)

Still though, I think the salmon was the best!

This restaurant, despite its looks, had a bunch of things that were "rare" kind of in Japan/Niimi because the lady told us that she thought of these dishes herself. Like the somen? That was her creation. Kind of inspirational, to hear it from her about how she decided to make all these delicious things!

In exchange, I gave her a little tupperware full of chili. :D I made it in my rice cooker, and oh man, it's pretty freaking tasty. :) I added a dash of vinegar and A1 sauce, which made it a bit tangier, and ohhhh that was just the right thing it needed.

I almost didn't want to give it to her since it was so tasty hahaha. I had it today as chili cheese nachos. Nom.

What a way to celebrate the (extended) fourth of July! Nachooooos and no bean chili.

I swear I'll post about something that's not food or bug related sometime. Soon. Maybe.

The Adventure Continues

My goodness. It's July. And I'm a quarter century old now. Hodang. And I'm going home in less than two months. And my contract as an ALT finishes in less than a month!

CRAZINESS.

I think earlier, I posted about talking to my JTE about marriage in Japan, and as I was browsing around the Internet (procrastinating on writing a farewell speech) I happened upon this article and found it to be kind of interesting. It expands a little on what I was talking about before, with "gokon" parties (parties to help guys and gals find potential matches). I did find it interesting that the article said that they see it as a place to find friends over spouses, but I suppose (in the US anyways) you can find a spouse from your friend circle. :)
http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/best-outfits-get-guys-hopes-gokon-parties-395759

Also, to return to the topic of leaving. I think most people who know me know now that I'm going to return to California and enroll in graduate school at Stanford. Hooray! I'm studying East Asian Studies, with a special focus on Japan and Japanese. I'm really excited. Kind of intimidated.

I will definitely keep this going though. :D I just won't be in Japan any more, but I'm sure life will find a way to continue to be interesting. :) Life's just one big grand adventure anyways, right?

Not going to lie, not having to fight my way through swarms of bugs is kind of exciting. I will miss it here though. I'll do a proper goodbye Japan kind of post later.

Nachos & Wild Boar

I wonder if this is how it always works. Right when things start to get going, you end up leaving. I'm finally hanging out more with my teachers... right as I leave! Why couldn't this have happened sooner?! Also this year's first year JETs are pretty awesome (as are the friends I've made in my year); why am I leaving when they're just coming? Yar.

note: not drawn to scale (probably)

Monday night though, one of the teachers came over to my place for a little culinary cultural exchange. She brought me inoshishi, or wild boar, which is something of a local specialty? Or if not a local specialty, it's really common around this area because there are hoards (herds?) of wild boar that live in the mountains. I'm told by some of the other ALTs who drive in this area that seeing them (dead) on the road is a fairly common enough sight. I've yet to actually see one in real life (though it's probably for the better, since I've heard they're fairly dangerous - see picture hahaha). 

still probably not to scale, but who knows.

Really though, I've heard their tusks can do some pretty serious damage. That's actually one of the things they hunt up in the mountains, so whenever I hear gunshots, I generally assume that they're trying to shoot a wild boar (rather than a monkey or something.) I've also heard that they're kind of pests out in the countryside (which is where I am). They get into gardens and crops, rice fields, and other places humans don't want them (mostly everywhere - poor boars). If you need an example of how dangerous they can be, I suggest watching Princess Mononoke. Those boars can do some serious damage. Plus it's the boars who decide to retaliate, and the boars who are demon-posessed and yeaaaaah. Yeah. 

Lookit how freaking cute the baby ones are!
Oh. Em. Gee.

So they get hunted, and in Niimi, my Tuesday/Friday city, they're something of a local specialty (also apparently among the locals here too? For my teacher anyways.) I had wild boar ramen from an instant box package, but never like... fresh? When I told this to my teacher, she decided to take it upon herself to show me; we decided that she would come over and cook some wild boar for me, since apparently she has some from somewhere and it was pretty cheap, whereas going to a restaurant would probably be on the pricey side. It also meant that I got to try a more home cooked version of the wild boar, since apparently my teacher eats it frequently enough with her parents for her mother to not like the taste of it! 

I have no idea where my teacher ever got it though! I've never seen this in the grocery store (maybe I'm not looking hard enough). Or the butcher's. Maybe from a farmer who had to kill one? I'm not really sure. But she came with some pre-seasoned (and with onions) so we cooked some of that up so I could have *fresh* inoshishi. 

It actually wasn't bad. I can't describe the flavor beyond "well, it doesn't taste like beef or pork... but it tastes like... meat." It was kinda chewy though. She said that some people think it's smelly? I could get used to eating that though. It really wasn't bad, and worked pretty well over rice.

In exchange, I made "American"-ish food for her. I made nachos! They're kinda Mexican-American, yeah? Or Tex Mex. Personally, they were kinda crappy nachos since I had to use the cheesy kind of Doritos (I'm a tortilla chip purist hahaha) and the meh kind of Japanese cheese that goes from deliciously gooey cheese to solid plastic cheese in about one minute away from a heat source, microwaved it instead of baking it in the oven (oven gives it that amazing color, but I only have a tiny toaster oven and I never make "only a little bit" of nachos) and Japanese sour cream (which I suppose is better than NO sour cream) that's also kind of... solid. I did make guacamole for her (she said I was the first person she knew whom actually bought avocados at the grocery store) and added some left over jalapenos and hot sauce I needed to get rid of. The guacamole, honestly, on its own is pretty good, and apparently enough to convince people that I'm good at cooking (ahahaha. Though to be fair to myself, a Mexican-American chick gave it the green light, which, somehow validates it as being pretty damn tasty).

Score another win for (home made) nachos in Japan. 

We also talked about the state of marriage currently in Japan, and about how single ladies will often try to emphasize the fact that Oh Man, Do They Love Cooking when trying to net a man. She actually told me that while she does enjoy cooking, she generally avoids mentioning it so that it doesn't look like she's trying to find a man! I found this fascinating. Also, apparently, guys here look for that in a girl; how well she can cook, and whether or not she likes to. The uh, gossip around one of my schools is that one of the teachers does precisely that to try and appeal to men. She also said that they often look at the kind of bentos single ladies bring to school or company or whatever, since a homemade bento (versus a storebought one) indicates one's skill in the culinary domain. Cute bentos = likes cooking. Oh Japan. Personally, I think cute bentos = loads of time on your hands. 

My teacher explained though, that this was part of konkatsu, which means Stuff You Do When You're Looking For a Man/Marriage Partner. So you do things like make your lunchbox every day - yourself - to show the world that Yes You Do Love Cooking because Wow Doesn't That Make Me Look Like Perfect Wife Material. My teacher also claims that she can tell when a girl makes a bento, and when her mother makes the bento. Japanese women also will go to dating events/speed dating setups, or will go to parties in hopes that they will meet Mr. Stable Job And Marriage Prospect. They try to act cuter around guys (since apparently, guys dig that kind of thing here or something). There are dating websites.

Interestingly as well, they also have dating services that will help match people up, a lot like those websites, except with a lot more help. She said you submit your profile and they help match you with someone else. Then, they help you arrange for the first date, and chaperone the two of you for about half an hour before leaving you on your own. Apparently some people she knows met like that? 

Given the context of what women do in Japanese society (don't ask, I'm not sure) and the kinds of roles they fill and the opportunities they have to meet people, I guess this kind of service makes some sense. 

Something else she told me that was pretty interesting, is that here in the countryside at least, men who work at schools are way more attractive (though I'm not sure how much of that was projecting...) because they have stable jobs and can take a little more vacation than your average salary men. On the flip side though... women who are teachers are considered to be too clever and smart, leaving many female teachers as single ladies.

On a different, more food related note, I also managed to make chili in my rice cooker, since I lack a proper slow cooker. Who would have thought! I mean, I've made stuff like meat before in my rice cooker, and I made a stew with it before, but oh man, the chili actually turned out pretty good, and didn't require too many extra things that I didn't have. Actually, I had a bunch of chili powder I had brought with me back from the US, along with some uhhhh I forget the name, something- arbol de molido that basically was like holycow spicy. Really freakin' tasty though. So tasty that I can't believe I didn't make it sooner. Once you get the prepwork out of the way as well, it's a pretty easy recipe.

The only downside is that you can't use your rice cooker while you're cooking the chili, making things like prepping rice for chili and rice, something of a problem. I almost considered buying two, hahaha. #asianworldproblems