This week I had the opportunity to try many interesting foods and see some new places. I spent two nights in Kanazawa which is the "big city" of our prefecture where we had a prefectural job orientation. Each night we went out in groups of JETs to try different restaurants and bars in the city. The second night I went with an awesome group of people who started at a bar called Jigger St. Louis. This is a very classy "host" bar that specialized in cocktails and attractive waiters to attract the female clientele. Also, if someone is having a birthday they put on a special bar show. Since my birthday was recent our leader decided we would tell the bar staff we were celebrating my birthday. So two of the bartenders put on a great show for us. They turned up the music and turned down the lights and had the strobe lights going while a bartender danced and juggled bottles while making a drink for the birthday person. Afterward when we were leaving many people wanted to congratulate me or give me a high five on my way out. It was a lot of fun.

Next our group went to a traditional Japanese ezakaya where we ordered a bunch of different dishes for everyone to share such as grilled octopus, whole grilled shishamo smelt fishes, grilled mackerel, horse sashimi, yakisoba, chicken skewers, and more. It was all delicious!

Horse Sashimi (Raw)

Grilled Octopus

Grilled Mackerel

Our last stop for the night was a karaoke place, where we sang for four hours! Everyone joined in for almost every song anyone chose; we were all singing and playing the tambourines and having an obnoxiously great time.

On Sunday, I met up with some other northerner JETs and we hung out at a beach up here. Swimming in the Sea of Japan was wonderful- the water was so warm! We spent a lot of time out in the waves and even found a random eggplant on the beach which we then used as a toy to play keep away. After spending several hours on the beach getting sunburns, we showered and readied ourselves to find dinner. We walked around town in search of a restaurant and the first three restaurants we tried were full for the night- probably due to the O-bon holidays which people may have been finishing up their celebrations for. We kept walking, determined to find dinner, and stumbled upon a little place that could have been a snack bar or restaurant. After another and myself peering in the window for a minute we decided it probably was a restaurant since they seemed to have a menu, so we decided to try it. Our party of six filed in and filled the front bar of the tiny restaurant and we were promptly served our drinks and snails. After eating those we started ordering different dishes for dinner. The owner would prepare and serve us one dish at a time so we could keep ordering different things until we were satisfied. The food was delicious! That little restaurant was a gem of a find. We ate sashimi, katsu skewers and chicken wings, stir fried vegetables, and baked potatoes. All of the food was fantastic. When we were finished and started paying our bill, each person threw in money to pay for it and somehow we came up with 600 extra yen. Everyone insisted that we had paid our exact amount and we could not figure out where the extra money came from, so we decided to go to the store and buy ice cream for dessert. So off we walked to the supermarket where we bought two boxes of ice cream and then took it and ate it while sitting down by the river. By that time it was getting late and we all headed home to sleep before work in the morning. 

Snails.

Eating a snail.

Delicious sashimi