japanese smores
Last weekend I went back to my homestay for another weekend of drinking and food, anyone surprised? What can I say? I am a sucker for being feed and watered for free. The main reason I went back to my homestay, besides them being like my family in Japan, is that they had another student from St. John's staying with them. His name is Paul Telthorst and we actually had sculpture together last year. Real genuine guy that doesn't speak a lick of Japanese, well he can ask where the bathroom is. Anyway, they wanted me to help them with Paul because they were afraid of his inability to speak Japanese. To be honest I think they would have been fine because their daughter speaks way better English than I speak Japanese. Oh well, i wasn't going to tell them now.
When I first got there the usual array of food was waiting for me but this time Paul and Asuka's friend, Manami, where there waiting. The family slowly started filing in and we got to enjoy some drinking with the Dad again. This time Yuko and Takuya weren't there with their children running around like crazy. It was kind of strange because that was the first weekend, since I started going to my homestay, that I didn't see them at some point during my stay. Oh well, it is not like I will never be visiting my homestay again. In fact, they were already wondering when both Paul and I would be returning for our next visits. From what I gathered when talking to him, Paul definitely had a good time as well so maybe I will see him there next time I make the trek to Shiozawa.
Anyway, back to the weekend, the next day we headed up to Echigo-Yuzawa park and for those that don't know that is actually one of the places we visited on my first with my homestay. We took the gondola up to the top of the mountain and just kind of wandered through the park. It was a bit different this time because instead of me, Asuka and the parents there were just the twenty year olds walking around. Go-Karting, getting ice cream, bobsledding, and meandering through the gardens were just some of the things that we did in our short time there. Afterwards we went to the train station to visit a sake shop. It was really cool because there was a wall of over 100 different kinds of sake and you paid around 800 yen ($8) for five shot tokens to try whatever sake you wanted. Let's just say that Paul and I were feeling it after no food and 5 shots of sake. After picking up a bottle of sake, we headed back to Shiozawa for dinner.
The last big event was the Japanese barbeque, something I hadn't done yet so that obviously made me excited for it. We had it at this temple near there house, I actually visited it last time, where we set up camp. Once the coals got hot, after a good twenty minutes of fanning, we started to grill away. In true homestay fashion, we had over two grocery bags full of meat, vegetable, fruit, and marshmallows. At a Japanese barbeque you grill the food and then use a dipping sauce on your plate. It was delicious especially with the cold beer that went along with it. Then the highlight of the evening was the roasting of the marshmallows and instead of looking for a stick we just used chopsticks, it was quite amusing. After eating way too much food we got all packed up and headed back to the house.
Once we got there we got a fun visit from Hina-chan, their seven year old neighbor. Now keep in mind this is a shy girl with way too much energy on her hands. Naturally we had to do fire works that night, which were surprisly a lot of fun for being a bunch of sparklers. Sadly that was my last night there because the next day I headed back to pick up Melissa, Kate, and Kayvohn from the shinkansen station since they had just gotten back from Thailand. Needless to say, I am excited to visit again.
recruitment
So once you have a Zima contract the obvious next step is recruiting people that you feel are qualified into the inner circle. Emily was one of those people we just couldn't deny. Even on Melissa's birthday, which was officially Wednesday but the party was Friday, she was promoting Zima. The izakaiya (a restaurant bar) we went to had amazing food that just kept coming. To top it all off we actually bought the place out of Zima, sad but true. Even Will, our other Zima partner, didn't get one because our end of the table had some many. Despite all the hoopla about Zima the night was actually about Melissa and her becoming an old woman, the big two three. Happy Birthday Melissa! After the nomihodai and tabehodai we went to karaoke to party it up some more. We met up with some Japanese folk who were pretty excited to sing with us. I ended up being really tired and almost passing out so I headed back a little eaier than the rest of the crew at 3 in the morning.
The following day was filled with extreme laziness for the most part. Despite feeling extremely dirty from the previous day we all managed to go get some ramen for a late lunch. Then after a quick nap we headed to the Maki beach to lay around and play in the garbage. Yes, you read that right, even though the Japanese are extremely clean their beaches are extremely dirty. We waded in the water from time to time but for the most part only managed to be lazy. After dropping everyone off, Melissa and I headed to the nearby onsen (hot spring) to get clean, finally! This place was amazing and it took us an hour to get out of there. Then, we got some dinner at the local family restaurant. On the way in we thought we say the yakuza (Japanese gangs) congregating next door and rushed in so they didn't have a chance to check out the foreingers.
At least Melissa and I had less hair to worry about through this whole experience. A little random but a great time to mention that on Wednesday we got haircuts together. I know, something I swore not to do because of the fact that I don't know enough barber shop Japanese but hey, it was free. Now before we got ourselves into this, up to the point when he started started cutting our hair, that the reason it was free is because he was still a stylist in training. We were the practice heads! At least in my case, it was a good thing one of the other barbers was around to fix my hair but Melissa got the Japanese girl mullet. We both freaked a little about her hair and she ended up getting it cut the next morning to the cuteness you saw from her birthday party.
chicken out of water
Sports day at my base school, Nichu, got postponed due to rain so instead we had it on Tuesday. Thank God because I really needed the sleep on Sunday. Friday was the welcome enkai and Sunday had two other sports days followed by an enkai, for more read my previous blog. In any case I spent all of Tuesday at Nichu being somewhat invovled in their sports day and by somewhat involved I really mean I was a glorified adult cheerleader. Nichu is so big that they had four separate teams and you are going to love the names:
Red Bull Rose
Yellow Super Poison Bee
Blue Wind Pirates
Green Cloud Guarded Dragon
Who comes up with these names? The crazy students of course. All the leaders wear special uniforms that are supposed to represent their team name. These costumes are of course made by all the other team members so the leaders don't have to do a thing. Granted the leaders have to come up with all the cheers, songs, and choreograph the dances. I am telling you this stuff is uber intense. I was on the Blue Wind Pirates and although I really didn't do much on their team I think they were excited to have the ALT on their side.
The tire pull. Two teams face off and the goal is to bring as many tires back to you side as possible. Luckily this event is reserved for the third year junior high students because it gets a little rowdy in there. Each tire is given a color and that color in turn has a certain point value. Obviously the bigger tires are worth more and the team with the most points wins. Some of the students would get dragged through the dirt just to make it more difficult for the other team to get the tire across the line. It was pretty hilarious to watch these hoards of students try to get one tire across the line while tugging and pulling away at the tire and each other.
Chicken without the water. Remember that game you used to play when you were little in the pool with one person on another's shoulders facing another team while trying to knock each other off? Same concept. Take away the water, make three girls as a base and give them head bands to rip off each others heads. This got real interesting, especially since it is only the girls. Good thing they had the no nails rule because let's face it I thought they were going to rip each others faces off. When it is all said and done of course they politely give back the head bands they managed to take and say I'm sorry. How nice of the girls.
Capture the flag with a pole. A modified version of capture the flag with the flag being on top of a pole in broad day light. There is again two teams that go head to head and this time it is only the males. A quick catch, they have to do this one shoeless and shirtless so no one gets intentionally hurt. This one is by far the most dangerous of all the events. Anyway the team has to create a base to try and hold the pole vertical and then the rest try to rush to the other teams pole to get the flag. They can do it by any means necessary, climbing on top of people and pole or knocking and pulling the pole over to bring the flag to the ground. Both are difficult but in the end there is only one winner.
When all was said and done for the day, the Yellow Super Poison Bees won sports day and took home the flag. The Blue Wind Pirates put up a great fight and at one point even had the lead but ended up in third. Overall I had a great time even though it was really difficult for me just to watch from the sidelines. I really wanted to participate but it was after all their day for fun. Hopefully it was enough for me just being there to cheer for them.
deja vu
No I am not talking about the strip club in downtown Minneapolis. I had the exact same night on Friday and Saturday. It was actually kind of creepy but I will give you the play by play. Both nights ended started out at the AQA Hotel which is odd that two parties would be held at the same place in a city of 100,000. In any case both nights also ended with at the same karaoke place as well. On Friday night I was with the ALT's in the Tsubame-Sanjo area which was nice because most of us new each other already from previous engagements. Usually the welcome events are in the first month we are here in order to help us get to know each other but for some reason ours go postponed.
Karaoke was at a place called manekineko, which is the Japanese good luck sign of a cat waving its paw. What a better way to be rocking out than in a place that has a lucky kitty waving at you. We obviously have way too much fun with all you can drink karaoke and no one cares if you carry a bad tune or can't sing at all, like me. I am excited to take Gavin out to karaoke because he can actually sing really well. People who can actually sing are superstars around here, probably because most of us are so bad. Take Natasha and Melissa are great singers so naturally everyone wants them to sing once the music starts. Me on the other hand... well I am just known for being crazy, at least that is what they say to my face.
Ding... round 2 of the enkai's except this time it is with my teachers from Ojima Junior High School. Which by the way is my favorite of the middle schools because the teachers are so laid back and the students are so friendly. Granted it is about a fourth the size of my other schools so I actually get to see all my students every time I visit. Plus they are always excited when I get involved with the students rather than speak at them. Anyway, the enkai was after sports day (which I will explain in a later blog) so we were all a bit tired but not too tired to have some much deserved food and drink. It is always fun to have the enkai's with the teachers because by the end the English gets busted out.
The only differentiation between the two nights was the pitstop at a local ramen shop. It was here that we further feasted beyond what we had already stuffed our faces with. However, I will tell you that ramen is not only great drunk food but awesome hangover food. If you are ever in Japan definitely find the ramen shops so that you have easy access when you might not be feeling all that with it upstairs. Obviously we continued on from here stopping at 7eleven so that we could pick up some drinks and head to manekineko karaoke. That ended my weekend of chaos because it luckily rained on Sunday so that my sports day at Nichu got postponed. I doubt I could have survived another day of sports and drinking.
I'll shabu shabu you
Last night I had people over for dinner. It was all organized for Grace but apparently I have the coolest apartment out of the three of us in my building so we had dinner here. Our Japanese friend, Makiko, came and helped with the feast. Shabu shabu (which is Korean I believe) is when you have boiling water and then you put vegetables and meat in to let it cook for a few minutes. Afterwards, you take the food out of the boiling water and dip it into sauce that you have in your bowl. It actually goes by really quickly once you get started. We all just stood around in a circle eating food and talking. It got kind of toasty in my apartment and the door had to be opened for a bit to let some cool air from the typhoon come in. Yes, you read it right, we had a typhoon again. What is that, natural disaster number four? Everyone made it back safe and sound meaning that the natural disasters really aren't too bad, at least so far.
Afterward shabu shabu we enjoyed some good ole socializing. Part of which involved digging into my stash of candy that I have managed to obtain. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I received my box from home last weekend and in it I had put four bags of candy. I guess it helps that I remembered some serious American candy withdrawals last time I was here. Now if only I would have remembered that there isn't any macaroni and cheese over here either. Anyways, there was also some drinking followed by an intense game of uno. What a great card game! Usually about twice a week we go to the movie theater but tonight board game and dinner replaced that. Hopefully in the future we will get on a decent rotation between movies and board games because the Fantastic Four is coming out in about a week. Who's way too excited? This guy!
poster children
In case you didn't know, there are many things that don't survive in the United States that become extremely popular in Japan. Zima, for example, I don't think I have ever had one back home but they are offered at almost every bar we have gone to here. After our first experience with the thirst quenching alcoholic beverage we couldn't contain ourselves so obviously Melissa, Will, and I are the next faces of Zima Japan. Did you know they even have a website? Check out the link and you will see how cool we are, at least in the eyes of the Japanese. Some of the Japanese folk we were with even commented on how cool the Americans looked with an ice cool Zima in their hands, oh how little they know of the good ole U S of A. Like we cared, it was clear to us that our destiny lyes with being the next poster children of Zima while handing out hats, frisbees, and beer cozy's.
A few other things that have managed to make the list of things that are way too popular over here despite dismal appearances in the States: 7eleven, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Olsen twins, fanny packs (Emily would be in heaven), overly baggy shirts with pictures of Snoopy and the 80's fashion sense. However, none of these compare to Zima which is obviously way cooler than any of the above stated but sadly almost disappeared from its homeland. Thank goodness for Japan adopting this coolness into its society and for telling all the Japanese that Americans go up in coolness for having one in their hands. Take one last look at us before we are on all the billboards in Tokyo sipping ice cold Zima's.
