Udon Shop

I forgot to mention. I went out with Megumi and Chie, the people my age in my Eikaiwa, for udon on Wednesday. Chie asked her friend to open up his shop for us that night. He usually only is open for lunch. It was good fun. It was just the three of us and him. His shop was in a part of the movie called "Udon" which was a big deal in Kagawa since it was centered around their food specialty. He also is a rakugo performer. Rakugo is the traditional form of Japanese stand-up comedy, except it's always performed sitting in the traditional Japanese seiza position, so maybe sit-down comedy. I think I mentioned rakugo before when I went to see a performance and when I went to see an explanation of it. One man sits on a raised zabuton (floor cushion for sitting) wearing kimono or yukata. He usually has a traditional fan as well. I think there might be another tool to use as well. I forget. But the comedy is in the form of a longer discourse with minor punchlines or comic situations supported by gestures and the use of the fan always culminating in a final punchline.

Anyway, he didn't do a performance or anything on Wednesday, but he is just a really funny guy which is probably why he is good at rakugo. He kept telling funny little stories or taking things we said and making stories out of them. We were there for probably 2 or 3 hours. He will be performing at Megumi's family's Buddhist temple/home on the 21st. I think I'll try to go.

Then we went to the new mall in the area and had some of Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors. MMMM. There's also a Mr. Donut. I'm glad that the mall isn't closer than the 20 minute bike ride otherwise I might start having a weight problem. At least I can count on the journey itself to counteract some of the effects of whatever sweets I buy there.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Well it's Turkey day back home. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I thought I would take a minute and say a quick hello to everyone. I miss you all so much. I can feel it especially around this season of holidays. I had my own Thanksgiving with friends last Saturday. We had a turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, and of course pumpkin pie. It was great. I made my grandpap's recipe for hariata again this year as well as a fruit salad. All the other things were claimed and I was really slammed last week leading up to the dinner day so cooking something was really out of the question. I had eikaiwa on Thursday like usual and the girls came over afterward. Friday I had a major workshop/demonstration lesson day at an elementary school. Over 100 teachers came, and I taught one lesson with one teacher and did a participation workshop with 2 other teachers. After that I jumped on a train to Takamatsu to celebrate a friends birthday only to make the hour trip back so I could have time to even make something as simple as fruit salad in the morning before taking the hour+ trip to my other friend's for Thanksgiving dinner.

This week has been a bit better but still isogashii! (busy!) I just keep having way more things I want to do than I have time to do. Today, I had about 50 different things I wanted to do. I've had to prioritize and cut out some things. It just stinks that so many of them have to be done at the same time and I couldn't use all the free time I had at school since it's testing time. (I can't really cook food at school.)

That brings me to what I'm doing now. It's eikaiwa night. So we are going to have a mini-Thanksgiving celebration and we'll talk about the holiday and our traditions. We'll also eat some foods. I encouraged the people to make traditional dishes, but many will probably bring their own style dishes. But I think that's appropriate since each family in America has it's own traditions apart from the basics of Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (in some form), cranberry sauce, green beans (in some form), and pumpkin pie. Those seem to be the absolute basics that most everyone has. My family always had spumoni for dessert in addition to the pies. We all LOVED my mom's spumoni even though it's fairly easy to make: fruit cocktail, crushed pineapple, cherry pie filling, cool whip and freeze. We never did figure out that we could make it anytime of the year. But isn't that the joy and purpose of traditions? Something to mark a season and the passage of time. Something to look forward to and be able to share with the people you care about. I guess that's why this season, so full of traditions, is more difficult to live through when living half a world away from many of the people I care about.

Know that I love and miss you all!

(Wish me luck--I'm making mashed potatoes which aren't too hard, but the dressing I'm trying to make from scratch is a new one for me. We usually use the stuff from the box back home. I hope it tastes right.)

Octopus Fishing!!

Well, I never thought I would do it. Well, to be honest, I don't think any of us Americans ever really have it cross our minds. But I went octopus fishing on Sunday! We took a boat from Tadotsu, a town not too far from me, out into the Setonaikai (inland sea) and dropped our hooks in the water and snagged up some of those eight-legged creatures.



Pretty fun day in all. We left around 10 30 in the morning and stayed out until 2 or so. I would have thought that you catch octopuses with traps at the bottom of the ocean. But nope. We all were given rod and reel to catch them. We didn't even need bait. Apparently, fall is the season for fishing for them. And they must be just crawling along the bottom in the thousands upon thousands. Seriously.

The hook is weighted and has several upward pointing hooks. (It actually looks like an octopus itself, but not so much to fool octopuses but probably because it's cute and actually effective.) And once it hits bottom, the octopuses will crawl on it and get snagged. Then you yank it up and reel it in. I think there's a certain feel to it. I caught 6 or 7, but some of the more experienced people caught at least 40 each. And seriously there were more than a hundred boats in our area each with 3 or more people fishing for octopuses. So tons of octopuses. Or tako, as they say in Japanese, pronounced like the mexican food.

And when we were done, all the octopuses were put together and divvied out. So I came home with 25 of the little buggers. We were given a quick demo of how to remove the ink sac by driving your thumb in and ripping it out. (By the way, the demo was done with a live octopus.) So, I had to do this 25 times. At least mine were dead by the time I got home. At least I think so. Some of them were still changing color, like they do. Then I boiled them up and invited my friend Matthew over to enjoy some tako tacos. Yes, I'm even corny with my food.

Here you can see just how easy it was to catch them. These three guys all snag them up in this minute long video. Crazy.



This video is after about 15 or 20 minutes of trying to take the ink sacs out. It was really hard and you can hear me getting frustrated. I would have posted all the videos but it takes so long to get them uploaded. I just chose a few to give you the idea of the whole process. WARNING: Gross video! If you don't like dead things or are squeamish, you might not want to watch this!



Here you can see me finally done de-inking them and boiling them. WARNING: Again dead things. General ickiness. Beware.


And here is the result of boiling them for 20 minutes. They look pretty cute. Like little dancing octopuses.









And voila! The tako tacos! Well not really tacos, but best I could manage in Japan. Even though they look like Pringles, they are corn chips and have the right taste. See if you can spot some tentacles!!

It was quite delicious. I did cheat and mix in some beef, but I didn't think just octopus meat would be enough or have quite the right flavor.

Haircut

Well, until yesterday it had been about two months since my last haircut. So needless today, it was getting a bit shaggy around the ears and there was a forest growing on the back of my neck. Last week, I used a phrase book to work out mostly what I would want to say in the barbershop, but said I would wait to go until I practiced saying the sentences. Then, Tuesday (after not practicing) I drove around Takase looking for a barbershop. I knew I had seen the telltale barber's pole somewhere. I eventually found one. I circled around and looked inside. Then, I thought, maybe I'd just rather get clippers and cut it myself. And I saw the guy smoking inside and thought it would smell really bad and talked myself in heading to Ks Denki to look for electric clippers. I found some, but then talked myself out of that because they were so expensive. Yesterday, I finally decided I don't care if I don't really know how to say what I want, and I don't really care if it's all smoky, it will be a good experience to try to get a haircut.

Well, last night was my first Japanese haircut and also my first completely non-electric haircut (that I remember). Well, I went in and it smelled bad from the smoke, but it was ok. Then I said that I don't speak Japanese and read off the sentence "I would like a haircut, please." And they ushered me to the chair. Then, came the asking of what I wanted done. I pulled out my sheet to read and she ended up just reading everything that I pointed to before I could read it. So, eventually they figured it out. And I just trusted that I had chosen the correct phrases and put them together correctly. The woman sprayed my hair with a lemony smelling liquid and got a hot towel and rubbed my head. Then the guy came over and cut my hair. He tapered in up like I usually get it done but using only scissors and combs. It was pretty amazing how he could get it so close and so even with just scissors. But I thought to myself, "well, my main concern is the vast forest that is creeping down my neck that makes me look the most slovenly." I needn't have worried. When the man was all done, he and the woman asked if I wanted a shave and I said that I didn't. And the woman began removing the towels from around my neck. Then she pointed to my neck and asked something making a motion of evening off the back and so I shook my head yes. Still no electric clippers. She grabbed another hot towel and the straight razor. Yes, folks, she shaved my neck and around my ears. That was a first. It didn't hurt at all. It actually was quite nice, the hot shaving cream and the razor must have been quite sharp.

So, I felt quite triumphant when I left. So much so that I didn't read my watch well and thought I had plenty of time to stop at a store before going home and catching a train to have dinner with people in another city. Alas, I missed the train. But it felt good to finally have a haircut. And it all worked out as everyone was waiting on another person who didn't show up, so when I arrived they were still all waiting.

OH and the food was pretty good. I forget what it was called exactly (Onigomiyakisomethingorrather). Which apparently means 'as you like it'. It's Japanese "pizza." You order a bowl of ingredients that have a raw egg and cheese in it that help combine the ingredients. You mix them together and dump them on a griddle in the table and cook it with sauces and spices. And then you eat it. Pretty straight forward. But it was delicious. I will probably be back.

Mexican Potluck

Last night was pretty fun. After work, I went over to Nio. It’s a small town that’s tucked between a small mountain and the ocean. Jeremy, a returning JET, lives there. He invited a bunch of people over for a Mexican potluck. Mexican food, by the way, is difficult to find here. I ended up just getting some chips that had a taco on the front of the bag and which ended up being pretty good and some ground beef because I figured tacos would be involved. We had a good ole time with a nice mix of Japanese and non-Japanese people. Later in the evening, we went down to the seaside and walked around and found a group of Japanese girls who had cooked out and were playing with sparklers. Jeremy had his guitar and the one song they all knew that he could play was “Yellow Submarine” and that was pretty fun. One girl knew Radiohead and he played a song or two. Lots of pictures. We cabbed it back to Takuma and Matt (the other Takase JET) and I hopped the train for home a little after midnight.

I’m not used to all this going out and all. Especially on a school night. Somehow, I managed to make it in and I was only a few minutes late. I’m not sure how things work here, but I’m not sweating me being late, because other teachers mosey in around 9 and the vice-principal came in around 10. I may not be able to resist a nap today, especially if the cloud cover dissipates and the sun steams things up. Yesterday it was 36 degrees here. But I heard back in Georgia it was 40 degrees or so. Yes, this is Celsius. I’m trying to get used to it. I don’t even know the conversion really. I just know that if my AC is on 29, it’s bearable, 30 is too hot, and 26 or 27 lets me sit very comfortably.

I finally got an internet signal on my computer near my apartment sitting on a bench outside around 1am last night. So I was able to transfer some pictures I had emailed to myself from the school computer for my self-intro PowerPoint. It really is a pain. You can’t transfer data from the school internet computer to another computer via a network or dump drive. But it let’s you email attachments. It’s just my home internet isn’t consistent.

Well, I think I will do some Japanese studying.