柔道のパーティー

On Friday night I went to a party that the Judo families had.They joked that it was my welcome party, but it seems that they hardly need an excuse to throw parties together! I arrived with one of my Judo instructors and his kids to the house hosting the party where the lady of the house was making her preparations. Like most houses I have visited here, it was quite a large house. The party room was the front sitting room situated right next to the kitchen. We set up by laying down blankets on the floor of the front room and then bringing in long low tables to sit around. The man of the house arrived with fresh squid, one of which he had caught himself. He showed me how to prepare it for sashimi by removing the organs and ink sack and then slicing it into thin pieces. 

Other families quickly began arriving with various dishes of food. That night we ate the squid sashimi; akayame sashimi, which is young tuna; sauteed squid; sandwiches (egg salad, tuna, ham and tomato, and katsu); gyoza (she made 150!!!!); stew of eggs, pork and daikon; rice topped with various colorful things; chicken tenders; potato gratin; all completely homemade and delicious! My Judo partner even made tacos especially for me, since I have mentioned in the past that I miss Mexican food. They were so good and it was nice to have such a familiar food! However the people I was with had trouble eating them, trying to take a bite and the crunchy taco shell falling apart. They joked that they needed to learn from me the way to eat tacos. My friend also had made salsa to go in the tacos, and one person spooned salsa onto the outside of the taco instead of inside, and my friend adamantly said no it goes inside! It was so funny to watch. 

We drank wine, beer and shochu. A few people brought bottles of fine red wine, since they had asked me a month ago if I prefer beer or wine. Also someone brought a special bottle of shochu. Shochu is a Japanese alcohol made from potatoes. But this one was actually made from sweet potatoes, and it had a nice flavor I thought. I was told it is an unusual drink to have the opportunity to try. 

The party had a very solid family atmosphere. The adults sat in the the main room drinking and talking, and the kids played in the next room and ran in and out whenever they were hungry to grab some food. The Judo families seem to be very close; they are all friends and everyone treats everyone's kids like their own. 

We talked about Noto-ben, which is the accent/dialect here where I live. It is pretty rough, and even they described it as sounding like two people arguing. Even though people have amicable relations when they are talking it might sound harsh because it is just a coarse variety of Japanese. I imagine this is because I live in the country surrounded by farmers and fishermen, so fancy overly polite Japanese is just not traditionally the norm here. Of course everyone can speak polite Japanese when they want to, but several older people do generally speak in Noto-ben. I had such a great time hanging out with these people. It was just another event that made me so glad to have joined Judo. Not only am I very excited about the sport, but I love the community that I am now a part of. I cannot wait until the next party (they are already planning to have one in December!).

I stayed the night at my friends house with her family. So at 2 in the morning we walked from the party house to where they live. When we were almost there it started to rain, so she handed me the bags, scooped up here three year old daughter, and we and her two elementary school sons ran the last 150 feet home, laughing the whole way! 

Yes, that is cucumber in the taco!

Some of my recent cooking experiments have included vegetable tenpura and oyako don. I made tenpura which is the Japanese method of frying food. The batter is pretty thin and creates a light crispy shell. I made sweet potatoes, tofu, peppers, akebi, onions, and persimmons. Yes, persimmons seem like a strange thing to fry, but actually they turned out to be the most delicious item! 

Yesterday I made oyako don for dinner, which is a very traditional rice bowl dish. Oyako means parent and child, it gets this name because of its two principal ingredients- chicken and eggs. They are cooked with onions and seasoning and then spooned over a steaming bowl of rice. Delicious!

I had a very busy weekend! On Saturday I went to the Senmaida light up in Wajima. Senmaida is a field of rice paddies that is situated right on the coast. The name "Senmaida" is translated as field of a thousand rice paddies. It is not quite a thousand, but it is very beautiful especially during the light up. Once a year hundreds of volunteers organize to place candles along the pathways and create a beautiful scene. I drove out there with my friend from Judo and her kids and we walked through the fields and enjoyed the beautiful sight that it was. It was also her first time to go see the light up.

 

After we headed back home I drove to Nanao to meet several other ALTs to go do karaoke. We arrived at the karaoke place at 10:30 and sang until 2:00 am! And we only left because they were closing, otherwise we would have been happy to sing longer. It was a great karaoke night, everyone sang every song and we danced around in our karaoke box and had a blast.

On Sunday morning I went sweet potato picking with my Judo group. Several of the school clubs (Judo, baseball, volleyball, etc) sent groups of people to do the sweet potato harvest. Apparently the event is held for social exchange/relations. About 12-15 people from Judo were there, but total I think 100-125 people showed up to help with the harvest. We were supervised by 6 farmers who gave the opening and closing comments for the day and gave us our instructions for picking the potatoes. It only took about an hour to retrieve all the potatoes from the dirt, and then we put them all in a huge pile. We were told to fill bags take as many as we could possibly want, and then some to give to friends. So everyone dug in to select their potatoes of choice. I wondered what would happen to the rest of the potatoes that people did not take, and was told that they were going to be sent to disaster relief areas, or used as pig feed. I was surprised, since it was such a huge crop of good potatoes they could easily sell them to a grocery store. But I believe it is a community garden or co-op so maybe they just raise the potatoes for the benefit of the community.

Last weekend I stayed close to home, but still had so much fun! On Saturday I joined a family from Judo to spend the day at local festivals. In the morning we went to our town's annual sports festival. It was held at the local highschool sports field. In the center of the field all the events and races were held, while the outside was lined in a circle of tents for each village. Each village organized a team to compete in the event, the only restriction being you play for the village you live in. About 10-12 villages were represented, with players ranging in age from toddlers to grandparents. The whole family and whole community participate in the sports festival! While walking around I saw so many people I knew, I was constantly saying hello to students, teachers, and members of the board of education while we were there.

They had events such as relay races, dance performances, and other fun and silly games. I was drafted to compete in the Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament. The teams were comprised of about 10 adults who marched onto the field and stood behind a line in front of our opponent. During play we took turns running up to the opponent and playing rock paper scissors with him or her. If you won you get to run behind him and cheer for your teammates. But if you lost you had to run back to the start and get in line again. We played until all the teammates won and made it behind the finish line. I lost twice, so I had to run up there three times before I won. But my team was certainly not last place! (I actually am not sure what we placed)

At lunchtime the dance performances began. A group of older ladies performed a song and dance in tribute to our town, the Noto song. Then a group of highschool or junior high girls did a performance. Also they had games and songs for the little children to participate in all together.

My friends also invited me to join them to go see the aviation festival, which of course I did. We drove out to the airport where they had games for the kids, airplanes on display, and lots of delicious food! They had several retired airplanes set up in a field for people to climb inside, as well as a commercial jet, and military humvees. We ate our fill of takoyaki, okonomiyaki, onigiri, ramen, and rice-filled squid for lunch, and it was delicious!

Grandmothers performing the Noto song

On Monday I went to Nanao, a neighboring city to hang out with a couple of my friends that are ALTs there. Their village was having its fall festival, so we joined that for a couple hours. It was a very small festival, only about 40 or so people attended, but it was still very fun. The men and the shrine priest carried a mikoshi around to 15 different houses to give a blessing to those that had donated money that year. A mikoshi is a portable shrine, that is used to carry the god around during festivals. The men led the procession, dressed in their colorful matching happi coats, chanting while they carried the mikoshi. Following them, was a row boat on wheels with paper lanterns hanging from the top that carried all the children. At each house we were offered delicious food and drinks, such as takoyaki, gyudon, sandwhiches, and other little finger foods. At one house the spread was laid out on the back of a kei truck! It was a hilarious sight- kei trucks are little bitty yellow plate single cab trucks with a little flatbed on back. The food was great, and the people of that village were very welcoming and interested in talking to me since I am from out of town. Halfway through the night they even produced happi coats for my friend and I to wear so we could really look the part and join in the festivities. 

Kei truck feast

Row boat full of children, pushed up and down the streets

Yesterday, while at one of my elementary schools I joined the English Club to do Halloween activities. Our theme was Jack O' Lanterns, so we made origami jack o' lanterns, I made a poster with information about the history of them, and we even carved a pumpkin! While showing my students how to carve a jack o' lantern, I sliced my thumb open. Blood poured out! The students were all gasping and my vice principal rushed me back to the teacher's room and called the nurse to bandage me up. The cut was small but deep, so although it bled quite a bit it is fine now. But I guess I gave the kids a real scary Halloween! 

Our Halloween display

Ikebana and Exploration

This morning I had my second Ikebana class, see the arrangement pictured below! After taking the flowers home and eating lunch I set out to explore more around my town. While driving down some roads I came upon a gorgeous temple nestled within a bamboo forest. It was actually really large, with a garden in back complete with a coy fish pond, and also a pretty big graveyard. 

After leaving the shrine, I drove into the next and largest village in my town, to check out main street. I walked up and down the street and went into the various shops there. I found a store that sells Japanese sweets, which are usually like jellies with natural flavors like fruit or sweet bean. I also found a store that sells random teas, juices, and vegetables but also has a little juice bar and cafe in the back. When I went in I talked to the little old lady working there and asked her what she serves in her cafe. She mentioned goya juice, so immediately I wondered how that tasted since the goya fruit is very bitter. So she made me a glass of it and it was actually slightly sweet and quite tasty! She also served me some dried, sugared butterbur and plum juice- both that she made herself from scratch! It was actually very good and I am sure very healthy. Also she hardly charged my anything for the refreshments, she borrowed 200 yen from me to give change to another customer, and then wouldn't let my pay any more than that! (200 yen is like two dollars). But I will certainly go back and visit her again and have some more healthy snacks!

Haircut

On Friday I went to a salon to get my haircut. And it was the most luxurious haircut I have ever experienced. I went to a small salon in a neighboring town, that was equipped with only three client chairs and only had four employees working when I went. I arrived and filled out a member form, and they put my bag away in the closet. Then I was shown to my chair, and the main stylist came over to ask how I wanted to have my hair done. After explaining what I wanted to him, the shampoo girl wheeled up a sink and a tray of shampooing essentials behind my chair and shampooed my hair right there from my chair! You don't have to go to another room, they do it all from the same client chair. The shampoo process lasted a minimum of 25 minutes, because it is not just a shampoo, it is a head massage! She even placed a tissue over my face, probably to avoid water drops from landing on my face, or to protect my eyes from the overhead lights. She shampooed my hair twice I believe, but used two different products, conditioned it, and also began combing it out. All the while massaging and rubbing my head, even massaging my temples. 

After she finished shampooing/massaging, another lady came and combed out my hair and prepped it for cutting. Finally the main stylist came and he cut my hair. He is very friendly and we chatted the whole time, mostly about the differences between America and Japan. He also gave me some tips- for example he recommend a good sushi restaurant in my village, as well as told me that the grocery store lowers their prices after seven, so its good to wait and go in and do your shopping then! He cut my hair exactly the way I requested, and it turned out great. I had four inches cut off from the bottom, then the layers re-done. 

Getting my hair done in Japan was a fantastic experience and I can't wait to go again. Now I understand why sometimes people take a half day of vacation here when they want to go to the salon. America has a lot to learn about haircuts! 

料理！

This week I took a cooking class, and it was great! The food was awesome and I learned about different Japanese cutting techniques and common ways to flavor Japanese food. The class was held at the community center and we were taught by two local Japanese women. The students were myself and two other ALT's, as well as a Canadian women (a missionary), and a Japanese lady here that I am acquainted with. 

Our main dish was 肉豆腐, which is a stew with beef, tofu, carrots, konyaku, onions, and green onions in it. Konyaku is a type of noodle made from a special variety of potato, and results in a noodle with next to no calories; so I am always hearing how healthy it is. We were taught how to cut the vegetables the correct way for their position in the dishes. For example, the sweet potatoes are diamond cut, and the vegetables in the stew are cut into very small pieces that can be eaten easily with chopsticks. But the carrots are julienned, while the green onions are cut on a narrow slant. Japanese cooking is so precise that they even have names for the different ways to cut food!

Our side dishes were daigaku imo (fried and glazed sweet potatoes), shiitake mushrooms, miso soup, and rice cooked with chestnuts. The rice was actually brand new rice that was just harvested from one of the teacher's fields! It is the first time I have eaten new rice, and in Japanese there is even a special name for it- ginkome. For dessert we had lemon pie that the Canadian lady had made that morning. It was a great meal and I cannot wait for the next class!

 A branch from a chestnut tree, fresh chestnuts for the rice!

Our huge pot of chestnut rice!

Our delicious meal!

Lemon pie for dessert