MMmmm, we're salty!

Tuesday the 23rd we caught a ride with Julius down to Kobe. J and I had the recontracting conference, and since the conference didn't start til 2:00 Wed, Aaron came down to kick around Kobe with us. A and I had arranged to crash at Joy's place, which is only a short ride from Kobe.

Ah, Joy! She fed us soup, chatted up a storm, and best of all, took us to a fancy onsen. Said fancy onsen boasted ... a salt sauna!! Only the coolest thing ev-ah, a salt sauna is a lot like a normal sauna, but with a huge pile of salt in the center. You grab a handful and rub it all over your body. If you're lucky enough to be with a friend, they can get your back [which is what friends are for, right?]. The salt not only exfoliates, it seems to make you sweat faster and keep you cooler. I soooo want a salt sauna here!

Seriously. Salt sauna = best thing ever.

Somen Noodley Goodness

Awhile back, Mike and Colleen started up a dinner party in their town. Kinda an international awareness by culinary means, which of course means tastiness!

Ichinomiya is famous for somen noodles -a type of thin noodle- so the weekend we were there, the dinner party was scheduled to be an all somen affair. So off to dinner we went. The host, Naruo, is actually a somen factory owner. So after downing loads of noodles and watching some sumo, it was off to his factory for a tour.

Naruo's house is directly across from his factory. Very convenient as his work days are typically 12 hours. Insane! And apparently he still manages to be a lively man-about-town. Tough guy.

Right; the factory was pretty neat. We were there after hours, so the only noodles we saw were hanging to dry. Mike and Colleen once got to see the noodle-making process in all its insanity. Still pretty cool. I really, really wanted to touch all the noodles, but somehow managed to restrain myself.

And to cap it all off, Naruo gave us loads of somen to take back. Two packages in, we're wondering why we've been so focused on udon and soba. Somen is the wave of the future!

Ichinomiya

May 20th saw us finally making it over to Mike and Colleen's hip locale, Ichinomiya. Ichinomiya is a bit smaller than Wadayama and lacks a train station, so Colleen was fantastic enough to come grab us and drive us down. Mike and Colleen have forged a lot of local ties, so Saturday was a busy day:

*a mini matsuri at a kindergarten, complete with lively and adorable kids. I cannot say enough how much I wish I had a day at an elementary school. These kids were really fun and friendly.

*a somen noodle dinner party. More on this later.

*real wood-fired pizza at a local bar. The bar owner traveled Italy for a year and now makes amazing pizzas here in Japan.

After a busy day of socializing, we unwound at the bar with pizza and booze. mmmmmm!! I so wish we had a place this cool here. Must explore more. Then it was back to their place, where Mike introduced us to the hilarious epic that is R. Kelly's "In the closet." Unbelievable.

The next day Colleen made a fantastic breakfast, then drove down to Himeji. Colleen was off for soccer practice nearby, so Aaron and I bummed around Himeji a bit before training home. Turns out there was a Kenka Matsuri [fighting shrine festival], so we browsed the food stalls, walked around, saw the men in the loinclothes, checked out the shrines, etc. Then we were off for home, exhausted but happy about our great weekend.

Tasty Tidbits

At the enkai I expanded the "strange foods I've eaten" list.

*deep fried chicken cartilage -very tasty

*raw chicken intestines- also tasty. Very spicy and, not surprisingly, chewy

Further items on the list:

*Camembert flavored ice cream

*shrimp burger

*Totoro-shaped sweet bun

I hope to add snails and raw horse to the list soon. We'll see...

Enkai Enjoyment

An enkai is a Japanese office party-- so in our case, any enkais mentioned indicate a dinner and loads of drinks with teachers. There's a fair amount of ceremony involved- usually a fair amount of speeches; pouring drinks for your coworkers [especially anyone who's helped you out in some way]. The enkai is a mxed bag because

1. It's really nice to see your coworkers outside of work. Everyone visibly relaxes and just enjoys chatting.

2. It's still a work function and the cost can be pretty high.

Friday the 19th Aaron and I joined Jenny and Nick for a JHS enkai. Sadly, they're heading back to Oregon in June. The replacement ALT won't arrive until Aug, but Jenny, being a stand-up girl and great friend, tapped Aaron to fill in June and July. So the enkai was primarily Jenny's Sayonara enkai with a welcome to Aaron.

It was by far the best enkai I've had so far. The JHS teachers were very friendly, the food was good, Jenny and Aaron ate and drank for free, while Nick and I only had to pay a small amount. Jenny gave a really sweet speech about her time in Japan, which really moved her teachers. Here's hoping future enkais will be as enjoyable.

Fashion?

The goverment's latest brainstorm to halt the falling birthrate.

Ok, actually this was all the designer's idea. See how sad the grannies are when there aren't enough kids to support them? Doesn't that make you feel like making more babies? Y'know, to help the grannies?

Golden Week

Golden Week is a lump of 4 National holidays all lumped within a week of each other. Prices go up, places get crowded, school gets a holiday.

Our Golden Week can essentially be said to be Julius. Let's see, there was our trip up to Takeno to crash at his place. The next night he followed us back to Wadayama. And Sunday he came back down to partake in some cheap bowling with Aaron on Monday. That would be the night he was visited by the mukade.... such a poor way to repay a good pal.

This lovely lady is one of the many Samba dancers who helped celebrate the opening of Takeno's beachs. Julius gave a nice little speech, the dancers did a nice little dance, and lotsa folks went fishing. Good times.

Ray of Sunshine

Have to make up for those last few posts being so negative. Can't catch the bad Karma, y'know.
So, in a much happier news, our little garden is finished. 10 already-flowering-strawberry plants and 4 basil plants makes our apartment much greener and fresher looking. In further plant news, I trimmed back our aloe plants and smooshed them up into homemade aloe vera gel.

Our lives have also been vastly improved by our new yogurt maker. Yep, we got a yogurt maker. Fresh yogurt in 24 hours, yogurt cheese [flavored by our basil plants] in a few more hours [more drainage involved]. Life is tasty and fresh.

We're domestic, but all-natural, so it's ok.

And the warm weather has officially hit. The heaters are stored away, Uniqlo's brought back the cheap, coolly-designed T shirts. More ice cream devouring to follow.

Who Needs to Know?

A month into the new school year and I just find out 2 of my classes have textbooks.

Tuesday my lazy teacher was chiding me because some of our better students are bored in class.

"They had to buy a textbook and they want to know why you aren't using it."

"Um, what textbook?"

"Oh, don't you have this textbook?"

"Nope. You.. ahem, no, I wasn't told about any text for this class. We didn't use texts last year, so I thought you would tell me if that changed."

"Well, here's a spare copy for you."

Then when I asked him for advice today on using the text for support, he asked me how I used the text last year. I gently reminded him I never used a textbook last year, despite asking many times for any text so I could see what the students should have covered. He didn't seem to believe me. Assistant Language Teacher could use a little assistence from the guy she's s'posed to be assisting . . .

Rough coupla days at the high school.

Those animals are carved out of wieners. Pretty appropriate to how I feel about now. No, I don't know what that means. Maybe... floppy and over-processed, but still tasty?

A Need to Know

Before I came to Japan, the JET programme required me to attend a few orientations. These orientations were filled with such nuggets of wisdom about life in Japan, like:

*Japanese people bow instead of shaking hands

*Japanese people remove their shoes before stepping into a house

*Japanese people use chopsticks

Wow! How helpful! Seriously, I know the lectures were made for people who couldn't be bothered to study up before they came over, but seriously... Japanese habits/lifestyle/culture has been shown to death in Hollywood for years. Not to mention cable TV. I think we all know that they bow.

What I really wanna know is why the programme couldn't share some of the more surprising stuff:

*There are giant poisonous centipedes

*Touching among the same sex is so laidback that some women will feel you up [How thankful I am to be average Japanese size here! No booby grabbing for me!]

*Gaijin traps. Seriously, these freaked me out for the first month I was here

C'mon! Useful info on the freaky stuff!

Critters Return!

This weekend the window lizards returned. So fun to watch them scamper after bugs.



And we were paid a visit by this sucker. This lovely guy is a mukade [moo-kah-day]. Yep, he's a big black centipede with nasty red feet. Oh yeah, he's poisonous and likes to bite people in the middle of the night. Poor Julius, down for Chinese food and Die Hard action [With a Vengeance!!], got chewed on. Vengefully, we sticky-rolled the nasty, 8 cm bug, then cut it into multiple pieces. And oh yea, the pieces kept moving for a good 5 minutes. Icky icky icky.

School Song

Here's the Wadayama HS song as gloriously and poetically translated by me [with plenty of help from Matsuda sensei]:

A common mountain in the dawn light
The tree buds comepetitively send out a rising fragrance
We birds unfold our wings
As day breaks, we fly off into the distance
We flock together in our hometown
With a strong spirit of learning, we will look to the future

With the season's passing, the mountain is green
We hear the sounds of the river, the voice of the wind
With open arms, we young trees reach our branches
Now, we willingly send out a sweet smell
We support each other in this village
With a strong spirit of learning, we will polish our knowledge.


And you should see the less poetic version!