Because I enjoy reminding people how dorky I am...

The Fine Art of Japanese Cuisine



Enjoy. I hope this makes you a better chef.

The Tokyo Thing

Hey, surprise! I went to Tokyo! I guess I was too busy to mention it on here, but... yeah. I went. This came out of it.



WHERE'D WE GO?? (Places (briefly) featured in the video)
Day 1:
-Imperial Palace Tour
-Shinjuku
-Tokyo Municipal Building (45th Floor)
-Kabuki-cho
-Shibuya

Day 2:
-Camp Zama Army Base

Day 3:
-Punkspring '09 (Maseharu Messe, Chiba-ken)

Day 4:
-Tsukiji Fish Market, random sushi restaurant
-Sensoji (in Asakusa)
-Akihabara

Day 5:
-Subway
-Kumamoto

That's all for now! I have a bunch of pictures covering the many things I couldn't fit into the video. Look for them on Facebook soon! (Or photobucket... if I ever get around to it. The link is in the upper left of this page)

Peek-a-boo...

Look, I know it's been a while. I should have called. I should have written. I could have at least sent you a text message. But I'm sorry. It's inconsiderate of me to have left you for so long without even a warning or a word of goodbye. But I just needed some time to be myself. Some time to think, you know? How many times in this world-gone-mad do we find ourselves wishing that we'd just had that time to-... ok, you get the point. :D

December hit. With a vengeance. Oh MAN did things get busy. Along with the usual week-to-week happenings, piles of Christmas parties and concerts got thrown into the mix all of a sudden. I'll do my best to keep this short and give a day-by-day recount of what has been happening for almost a week and a half.

Friday, Dec. 5th - JET Christmas Party
The JETs have what's called Mid-Year Seminar where they all get together and touch base and have meetings for a couple days in the city. The week culminates with a big Christmas party (which, since I got the hook up, I got invited to). Friday ended, and I ran to the train to make it downtown in time. The venue was a nice, swanky lounge-area with a 7 course meal, christmas music, suits, year-thus-far slideshows... pretty fun night. The nijikai was karaoke, so always a fun time. (And yes... I wailed Grace Kelly... (poorly))

Saturday - Aaaahhh.
What? Can't do something everyday. Just got to relax a bit. woo.

Sunday - Christmas cards and Frisbee!
This day, I was asked to help some students make Christmas cards... was pretty fun. Immediatly after that, I was invited by a student in my eikaiwa class to watch her family perform at this concert (in the same building as the christmas cards... Awesome, since I'm lazy. :D). I was blown away. They were pretty dang good, and then her son played a couple solo pieces on his guitar. Oh MANwas he good! I bought his CD, so now I've got awesome original classical-ish guitar music to listen to. :D

After this, I biked as fast as I could over to the train station to head down to Yatsushiro. Ben, from Kyoto, was down in Kumamoto-ken to play in an Ultimate Frisbee competition with his old team, so I went to meet up with some friends to watch. After an hour and a half train ride (I still never get bored of these things. :D), I found myself at the field just in time for the final game. Really cool too watch... I've never seen this level of ultimate frisbee before (Yeah, you heard me, Martens!). Once it was over, we drove a few hours north to Kurume, where Ben's bus was leaving from that evening, and got some dinner at this awesome ramen place. More purikura, and then we said goodbye to Ben. Then, back another couple hours to Kumamoto, a train to Ozu, and a bike ride home.

Monday - Kikuchi-gun Christmas Party
Once school got out, I ran home and helped Tim make some gratin to bring to the pot-luck Christmas party we were having out at some little shop/cafe thing called Darius. We made it fashionably late (because we're oh-so-fashionable). The place was pretty cool. Small, perfect for our party of 10 people, and all dressed up for Christmas. After dinner, we sang Christmas music (actually, we all sat and listened to Holly rock the crap out of some christmas standards... :D) and called it a night. On the way out, Kana managed to get her car stuck up on a curb, so all of us Men-folk did what we do best around car trouble: we stood around staring at it and going, "Yeah... mm hmm...." until finally someone thought of a good idea to help her out. She made it home safely and her car still functions. :)

Tuesday - Eikaiwa Class/Christmas Party
Everyone brought some snack food, so instead of a class, we sat around eating and talking. We all asked questions about Christmas in America and in Japan. Then, I busted out the cheap-o presents I bought them for an attempt at a White Elephant gift exchange. (I just ran to the hyaku-en shop and bought anything from pens to christmas ornaments to a bungee for a bike basket...) I think everyone had a good time... last Eikaiwa class until February, so things might get easier for me.

Wednesday - Class, as always
Went to my Japanese lesson. Same as always... oh, except this week, I got partnered up with someone else, so I didn't get my own private lesson. It was good to review a bit, and also to have another person to have to bounce some Japanese off of. OH, and at the beginning of the lesson, I successfully told my teacher what I did last weekend entirely in Japanese. (Granted... BROKEN Japanese... "Friday... I went... christmas party... and karaoke... uh... uh... it was fun... " etc. etc.) Oh, and dinner that night was at a little mexican restaurant. Good food!!! Holy cow. :D (Yes, they have guacamole, Anna... though I don't know how you'd rank it)

Thursday- Nabe Party
Since Tim's headed off to Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos for a couple weeks, we decided to have a sort of "Good-bye/Nabe Party" for him. Basically, throw a bunch of food into a pot, set the boiling pot in the middle of the table, grab what you want with chopsticks, soak in some sauce, enjoy. Pretty fun night overall. Wooo.

Friday - Light shopping and a night off.
I didn't really have a night off, I don't know why I said that. I stayed at school until about 5:45 working on projects (and keeping up appearances, so the other teachers don't think I'm lazy and always leave at 4:30-4:45...) and then ran home to meet up with Tim. He had some shopping to do for his trip, so I tagged along out to Hikari-no-mori. It's always fun to wander around this mall, I dunno why. Oh, I bought an electric blanket/bed warmer thing that works AWESOMELY. We grabbed some dinner and headed home.

Saturday - Too much...
Tim needed a hand getting his bags up to the train station, so I had to wake up at 6:40 AM and tag along. The plan was, we drive up, I wait with his bags, Tim takes his car back, brings back his bike, he leaves, and I ride his bike home. I found myself waiting at the train station at 7:00 AM and sure enough, a group of my students wander in. The girls ping-pong team apparently had a competition that day. Of course, they all saw me with the bags and were like, "Oh, Sandall-sensei!! Wh-... uh... where are you going?" I tried my best to explain that I wasn't going anywhere, but to no avail. They looked puzzled, so they dropped the subject. A few minutes later, their teacher came in as well and said hellp, and they asked HER where I was going and told her to ask me in english. I tried again to explain (because I don't want the teachers thinking the lazy American is enjoying himself too much on the weekends and spending all his money travelling around... then they'd expect omiage every Monday... :( ). I hope they got the idea... anyway, I eventually biked home and crashed for a few more hours (in bed... not on my bike... heh).

A few hours later, I woke up to get ready to head into the city. The plan was to meet Kana downtown to help me look for clothes stores that work for tall guys like me and then finally check out the castle. (I'm the worst Kumamoto ALT ever, since I haven't even been there yet.) After all that, we were going to drive to Arao and watch another friend perform on her violin (MUSIC GEEK ALERT!!). Shopping was a bust, but I did find some neat stores. Turns out, though, in Japan, Big & Tall means pretty much just Big. The things that were tall enough for me were pretty much tents, since I'm a scrawny dude. Ah well.

The castle... THE CASTLE. Is COOL!!! I took lots of video and pictures, but yeah. Good times. And a lot of it is in english, so that's a plus. I saw less than half of it, though, since we were crunched for time.

We finally drove up to Arao to see this concert, which ended up being the town's Environmental Awareness party, or something. There were a couple of random acts before Julie's violin, but finally, she started playing. Holy cow, she's good. After that, a whole group of us went out to dinner at a "viking-style" restaurant (All you can eat buffet... which turned out to be all you can eat yakiniku. ALWAYS A PLUS).

A long drive and a short train ride back, and here I am. See? Now do you understand why I haven't been around? I'm sorry if I've seemed distant lately... it's just that I've had a lot on my mind. If it's okay with you, I'd like to still be friends... *sniffle*

*roll credits, cue music, yadda yadda*

Catch you all later! ^__^

PS: Oh, and I finally experienced my first earthquake!! Just sitting around at 2 AM and WHAM. Nice. A 3.5 says the report, so I don't know if that's big or not. Didn't feel terribly big and only lasted a few seconds. It was too cool for me to be scared of. :D

Wafu Thanksgiving

I can see it now. The families all get together. They visit in the living room. They all play catch-up and see how everybody has been and rib lil' Johnny about the new girl he's asked to the Ice Cream Social. Grandpa shows some pictures, the guys watch some football, and suddenly, Susie comes running out of the computer room. "Everyone!" she cries. "Colin's updated his blog!!" The family scrambles in and huddles close to have their brains sufficiently rocked out by the awesomeness contained herein. (Roll credits, wipe tears)

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone again unnoticed in the world of Nippon. My Tuesday night conversation class this past week consisted of me explaining Thanksgiving to everyone for an hour. They were all pretty interested in it and those who have spent time in America during the holidays really enjoyed sharing their experiences about it. I think I gave the wrong impression though... I got a question or two that made me wonder if they thought that Americans are ONLY thankful one day a year... (Oh sure, both you and I know that's likely true, but I'm here to promote GOOD culture!) I also found out turkeys aren't found in Japan. A few of the ladies were shocked to learn that Americans can just go to a supermarket and buy a frozen turkey. They then asked me all the details about how to prepare a turkey... as if I've ever done that before. I may have made up a few details ("Okay, then you take the 2 liter of pepsi and drizzle it over the top of the turkey to brown it, but be careful not to let it soak into the marshmallow and steak garnish...")

How did I celebrate? Spaghetti. I made some spaghetti and some garlic bread and called it Thanksgiving dinner (Oreos and milk for dessert!). I guess that's the bachelor Thanksgiving Feast of Champions, because... yeah. It rocked. (And I feel like a champion!) Then just relaxed and watched a movie, and here I am, nuzzled in front of my brand new space heater (I'm pretending it's a roaring fire).

Wow, is that not the most depressing picture of Thanksgiving ever? Despite my description, it was actually an enjoyable evening. I'm starting to relish the few nights a week I have off that I can just chill out and relax. :D

I was thinking of being all lame and cliche and giving you the "I'm thankful for..." list (with a 'colin-ish' spin...) but I'll spare you the facepalms and confused head shakings. Indulge me only one or two. In short, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't missing home at all. Now's the time when all the ALTs and JETs start to stumble into the lower reaches of Culture Shock. I haven't collapsed or anything yet (and don't intend to), but I have had a few pangs of homesickness and frustrations. This whole "Japan thing" isn't easy. It's just a little more difficult than I thought, but I'm actually thankful for that (that's one). If I can be sentimental for a moment, it's really helping me to learn more about myself as a whole. I've always imagined, with boundless idealism, that I'd be able to do something like this and that it'd be easy and a cakewalk and all that, but to actually, finally, be here doing it is a whole other story. There's challenges I didn't forsee, "easy things" that weren't easy at all, simple tasks compounded by cultural and language barriers. The idealism slowly falls away, and the realism sinks in. Nothing at all impossible, but definitely enough of a challenge to keep things interesting, and to make me feel deserving of that moment next year when I can look back and go, "Well, I did it."

In the midst of the few difficulties that spring up, I don't think I'd be doing nearly as well if it weren't for all of you. My amazing friends and family have all helped to provide a pretty good support structure back at home. It's a massive comfort to know that I've got people to talk to at the push of a button, or with a few strokes of a keyboard. So, thanks to all of you. I'm incredibly thankful to have you all looking out for me (or at least feigning interest in what I'm up to. heh heh. (Oh, and that's two)). So again, I say... Thanks.

(...and somebody hand mom a tissue... maybe Katie, too.)

"Do you like Japanese Food?"

It occurred to me that I haven't really talked about the food here. Maybe it's because I talked about it enough for the first few months I was here, I didn't feel like talking anymore. Every conversation with a local person went like this, "Hello, I'm Colin!" They'd say, "Hello! Are you liking Japan?" I'd reply, "Yes, it's great!" And they'd inevitably ask, "Do you like Japanese food?" Now maybe I got it so much from the schools because the ninensei learned that sentence right before I came... but everyone asks that. As if it's a greeting.

Anyway, in no particular order, here are a few of the new "old foods" I've gotten to try. (Seriously, a lot of this stuff has lost the novelty since I eat it about everyday. :D)

Okonomiyaki - First food I had in Japan. I've had it a few times since. It's referred to as a "Japanese pancake," but as another ALT pointed out, it's more like a "Japanese pizza/Pancake." I guess Okonomiyaki means something like "Cook it as you like it." (*ding* The more you know!) Basically it's a bunch of cabbage mixed with a batter that's sorta like pancake. But the ratio is something like 1:1, so it's it's own beast altogether. From that base, you throw in whatever else you want. Meat, vegetables, maybe even cheese... I have yet to try cheese, but that could be good. :D You fry this up, flip it, and then smother it in this sauce. Drizzle on some mayonaise, throw on some fish flakes (I forget the name of these...) and you're all set. It's pretty cool because the fish flakes sway around because of the heat. Dinner and a show! Woo! (Only imagine it as NOT disgusting... it's good, seriously!)

Sushi - K, first time I had sushi was in Japan. So sue me. If you need a description of sushi, umm... google it. :D Though I guess the kaiten sushi place is pretty neat. I wrote about it way back during my homestay, so I'll spare the details. Basically, it's a cheap, quick meal on a conveyor belt. Grab what you want off the belt and have at it. Count the plates at the end for your price, and get out. (I prefer my raw fish to be sliding past me, thanks.)

Sukiyaki - This, to me, screams Japan. Maybe I'm way off and it turns out it doesn't come from Japan at all, but whatever. It's Japan to me. :D You throw everything into a big griddle. And I mean everything. Meat, vegetables, tofu, there's some special sauce... when it's all about done being cooked, you crack a raw egg into a bowl and beat it (Single white glove is optional, moonwalking is not). When the food is ready, you grab chunks with the chopsticks and then dip it in the raw egg. Then... eat it. :D It sounds/looks/smells worse than it actually tastes! If you can get past the fact you're eating raw egg, it's actually pretty good! Slimy, slimy good!! unlike our next guest...

Natto - Tim swears by this stuff. Eats it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, bathes in it for all I know. What is this "delicious" thing called natto, you ask? Fermented soy beans. I'll say that again in case you missed it. Fermented soy beans. It's a little pouch of soybeans covered in this slimy, gooey, stringy mold-like substance. And yes... it tastes as good as the description makes it sound. I tried 3 bites, to give it an honest shot, but no thanks. It's not kind of the joke between me and my students. If I ever need to pull a random english question out in class, "Do you like Natto?" or "Will you eat Natto today?" Before I tried it, my answer to the "Do you like Japanese food" question was almost always, "Japanese food is delicious! ...but... uh... Natto wa kowaii desu (Natto is scary)." I learned that vocabulary just to talk about Natto. When I finally tried it for school lunch, several teachers asked for my thoughts on it. I learned more vocabulary through that, "Natto ga kirai desu." (I don't like Natto.) Hooray for educational food!

Kyushoku - "School Lunch." It's different things everyday, but I figured I'd give it it's own category, since it spawns it's own question (Right after "Do you like Japanese food?" comes "How is Kyushoku?"). I never know how to answer it because I don't know what "normal" Japanese food should taste like. Like in America, when you had a school lunch Pizza or Hamburger, you knew it wasn't good because you've had the legit stuff, the really good stuff, outside of school lunch. You were spoiled. You knew better. To me, kyushoku is just fine because I haven't ever had the "real things." It's cheap and convenient, so I can't complain. Except for the time I had a special salad.

Usually, Kyushoku has 3 dishes (and a carton of milk. Relax, mom): Bread or rice, the main dish, and a salad of some sort. I grabbed my bowl of the day's salad and started eating it. It tasted alright... not bad, but I was able to choke it down. Something tasted fishy, though, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The ichinensei teacher, who is always surprised when I like japanese food, sat down next to me and said, "Oh, you like that???" I said, "It's okay, I guess." "Wow, most Americans don't go for the fish!" ...and it dawned on me. I looked down and realized that what tasted fishy was actual fish. Little tiny fish that get thrown into random things almost as a spice. And they were COMPLETELY SATURATING MY SALAD!! Easily 50or 60 little tiny toothpick sized fish were just hangin' out in my bowl (Yes, they were dead... kyushoku isn't THAT terrifying). Brave Me thought, "Hey, I've already had 3 bites. It hasn't killed me yet." but curse that teacher. Now that I KNEW what I was eating, I couldn't stomach another bite. The lesson learned is that when people say "watch what you eat," they literally mean watch what you eat. Or else don't sit around people who know what you're eating. :(

Bento - Yes, this gets a category of it's own. The little conbini boxed lunches that get made fresh daily and may or may not be healthy for you (they're not really)!! I've had far too many of these than I should, but they're pretty good. There's a good portion of rice and usually a pretty tasty meat something in the main dish portion. There's this cool little fried chicken (tempura) thing with awesome dressing on it that gets made across the street. Always a safe bet. Or, if you're feeling more classy but still want a bento, hit up Hotto Motto. Bentos made to order, and slightly healthier than the conbini bentos (Hotto Motto bentos are to conbini bentos as McDonalds Double Cheeseburgers are to Big Macs...)!! There's usually a good variety spread out, but the trick is... umm... reading what each one is. I've bought an interesting bento or two. :(

Udon - An awesome little ramen thing, but a thicker, soft noodle. Usually pretty good, but again, there are tons of different kinds. There's some neat toppings that go on them, too. And by neat... I mean good. :D Great to have when you can get some.

Ramen - It's... ramen. Good good good. None of the instant stuff (The instant ramen here actually tastes worse than American Instant Ramen, if you can believe that... tough there is one particular brand that has a Fonzie-esque character pointing at his bedazzled leather jacket). The real ramen is delicious. There's this cool ramen shop I've mentioned in the past called Ajiman that has some great stuff. It's one of the popular hang outs in Ozu, so I expect to go there many more times. :D

Curry - Good ol' standby. Easy to make, and usually very good. Pretty filling, as well. Not much to say about this other than it's the ultimate bachelor food. I liken it to american pizza. When it's good, it's great. When it's bad, it's still good. I say this because it's shown up on Kyushoku a few times, AND IT STILL ROCKS! but speaking of pizza...

Mentai Pizza - "Fish egg pizza." yes. That's right. I braved the storm and tried it. Tim had to try some because he lost a bet, but I was man enough to try it on my own. Actually NOT BAD. ...I mean... for fish egg pizza.

Basashi - Raw horse meat. Nah, jk. I haven't tried this. Not a chance. :D

I'll wrap things up here. There is a lot more food that I've had... I don't always know the name, or the ingrediants, but it's usually good. Plus my chopstick abilities are actually not too shabby, so that's always good for some compliments from the people who ask, "Do you like Japanese food?"

I'm a rock star, what can I say? Every little thing I do is "ooo" and "aaww" worthy. ;)

Busy!! BUSY!! (Lazy. :( )

"Ok, Colin. 50 words or less, what have you been up to?"

Not a chance, but I'll try. :D (Post edit: The pictures are from Fugendake... it was a mountain hiking trip)

I know it's been a long time since a post, but I keep finding other things to distract me (Such as watching season 2 of Dexter... holy crap, AMAZING show... but... rated R as far as TV shows go... sooooo.. yeah). Here's an attempt to fill in what all has been going on since the Kyoto trip! Annnnnnd GO!

Friday, the 17th, we had the English Recitation contest. The three groups of students got to compete with all other schools in Kikuchi with their english skits. I think overall, they did... well. Not exceptional, but well. My ichinensei needed to LIGHTEN UP more and be more ENERGETIC!! My Sannensei did fantastic, but there were just others that did better... they read this story about a girl who died from radiation from Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped... sad, sad story (but after you hear it by 5 different groups, it starts to lose it's touch. How many times can that freaking girl die??? GEEZ!!! (...Too soon?)). My ninensei did a GREAT job and got 3rd place overall!!! Something like 13 schools total, maybe. It was great, because there was another ALT that was kinda... nasty about it. Insulting of my students, and completely stunned about it when they won (and was very vocal about their opinion). Whatever. It's not about the ALTs. Everyone did a fantastic job and the students all worked VERY hard, so it doesn't matter who won! (Annnnd let me tuck away "teacher-Colin" for the night)

The following Wednesday, The school had their culture festival. Basically, it's a day of plays and music stuff put on by the students. The english kids did their skits again for the rest of the school (I had to stand in for an absent student... it got a couple of chuckles from the student body when they saw a line of students in uniform, and then tall, lanky Mr. Sandall following them). The koto group performed (I wanna learn to play), the taiko drum group performed (I wanna learn to play... I didn't know the schol HAD a taiko drum group!!) and the marching band performed. (I wanna play...) scratch that, I WILL play. I got invited by the director to join them for their March concert. :D Hopefully it pans out and I get to rock out on some drums for the first time in over a year. They played Take The A Train at the concert, so I can only hope I get to play some jazz. :D ANYway, the culture festival was kinda fun. I got to see the students do things other than sit in their desks and fall asleep during english class.

Day 2 of the culture festival was actually Monday. It was a choral competition. All of the classes learn two songs. One that they sing with the rest of their grade, and another that just their class sings. here''s the format, though. The entire grade sings the group song first. Then, each class from that grade takes their turn on the stage... and they sing that song again, just by themselves. So... I heard 3 songs (one for each grade)... 6 times. 6 TIMES. Ah well. In any case, it was fun to get to listen into a choral contest again. The poeple I figured would win won, so that's a plus. I also got to throw out some Japanese conversation with teachers I usually only say "Ohayo gosaimasu!" to. A few came up to me and asked what I thought about being at a choral contest, since they know I'm a music geek. It was kinda cool to talk music again, not gonna lie. :D

What else is going on? My wednesday night Japanese lessons are going well, I think. Last week, my tutor wanted to know about my kyoto trip (in Japanese), so we talked about that. I think I carried about 1/2 the conversation staying in Japanese... but the interesting stuff, I had to break into English. (I got sick of saying everything was "sugoi." Note to self: learn more adjectives.)

I also started my Eikaiwa class, English Conversation class for adults, last week. It's on Tuesday nights, and it's going to be a lot of fun. I have 21 students registered for the class, but only 16 showed up the first night. Tonight, only about 14... I hope the trend doesn't continue. Anyway, I just gave them surveys last week to find out their ability levels... everyone seems pretty good at english, so it makes my job easier! Now we can relax and play some games and enjoy the conversation side of things! Like tonight... we had a pretty good discussion about Halloween in America. THEN we played this awesome party game called Alibi. I won't go into the details or anything here, but basically, 3 people have to think up an airtight alibi about a crime while the rest of the class asks them nitpicky questions, trying to get one of them to slip up in the story. It worked VERY WELL. And was a lot of fun. (and made me miss all those group games that my sister and her friends would play. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! *tear* :( ) The class is going to be great, though, I think. next week, we'll get more structured and crack down some actual conversation, but I had to win them over in the first few classes being super-genki Colin-san!!

Oh. Sunday, I climbed a mountain. And by climb, I mean hiked... hiked really steep trails over rocky terrain, but still. STILL. It was fun. I went with Kuroda-san and this School board/mountain climbing group. I was the youngest there by about, oh... 10 years. I think the average age had to have been about 50, and if you took me out, it raises to 60. I had no problem keeping up. ;) (I'm going to hate young upstarts like me when I get that age... now all I need is a porch, a lawn, and neighbor kids to yell at to stay off) At the top, we had a spectacular view of the active volcano right next to it. Unfortunately, it was raining, so all morning, we watched the clouds pour in and fill up the valleys. Not to mention, it was COLD. Basically, imagine this group sitting at the top of a mountain n the pouring rain with sack lunches huddled under raincoats, but smiling proudly. That was us. Though I did get to ride the ferry over to Nagasaki prefecture! That was neat! I guess 17 or 18 years ago, the volcano erupted and flooded the port town with lava, so while on the ferry, you're watching this mountain and seaside town get closer and closer, and you start to see the trails the lava would have taken. Pretty spectacular ("sugoi!" *sigh*), says I.

After that, a small group went out and had some Yakiniku (yaki-niku = "cooked/burnt - meat"). It's that type of restaurant where they give you all the raw stuff, and you grill it at your table. It was fun, and DELICIOUS!! ("Tottemo oish-katta desu!") Let's see.. other strange food I've tried. Oh! Sukiyaki. ("Suki = like," and yaki was covered earlier... can you figure it out??? (Hey, wait, I thought teacher-Colin went to bed!)) I finally had sukiyaki. Basically, you have a pan/hot plate thing in the middle of the table that you cook things in. Each person has a bowl that you crack an egg into... you mix the egg around... then, you chopstick out some stuff food the pan (yes, I used chopstick as a verb) and dip it in the raw egg... then... you eat it. Raw egg and all. Ok, at first, I was nervous, but it was actually quite good! There's a video that might be showing up soon that one of the other ALTs took of our first bites, so I'll keep you all posted, if you're interested in seeing us shove the stringy messes into our mouths. ;)

Ok, I think that about wraps up the major events of the week (or two). I'm getting excited to start Halloween lessons this week with the sannensei. Sadly, no costume for me, but eh. We'll have fun. :) And there's a rockin' ALT halloween party this weekend that is supposed to be one of the biggest events of the year. Man, I love Halloween (and I really wish Japan celebrated it more... dangit).

Things at school have been... good. I continue to love my ninensei classes, continue to feel awkward in my sannensei classes, and continue to feel annoyed/frustrated at my ichinensei classes. Such is the gamble that is the JTE. Ah well. C'est la vie! ("wtf, french now??" I know, I know. Shut up.)

Japan: 2, Typhoon: 0

That's right. For the second time, the threat and worry of an imminent typhoon turned out to be for naught. The sucker passed south of us again. Except this time, we didn't get the awesome weather that accompanied the last one. :(

Anyway, it's been a long week, and lots of random bits to go on about... so let's get crackin'! (Or... crackuhlackin'... if you're into that sorta thing) And it should be noted that I'm watching this cool show right now, while typing this... there are about 12 people dressed in flamboyant clothes walking around a city... there are also 3 or 4 (I can't figure out how many) guys dressed in suits and sunglasses walking around like weird cyborgs ("hunters") trying to catch the 12 people. Like a giant televised game of tag... there's a timer ticking down from an hour, and a money counter going up... it's some weird reality TV game show... nice. :D ANYway...

Strap yourselves in... this is a long one.

After my Friday night spider escapades, I called it an early night to get up at 6:15 AM ON A SATURDAY!! I had to be to the school at 7:20 to meet my ride to go with a student to an English Recitation contest in Kumamoto. It was a pretty good morning and I'm really glad I went! The contest was part of the school's culture festival (Ours is coming up soon... I can't wait!) so the first part of the morning was to go watch the students put on an english play. They did Cinderella with a little bit added onto the end, and it was HILARIOUS! The students acted great, the costumes were delightfully over the top... man, good stuff. I sat with a bunch of other ALTs and they helped translate the few jokes that flew over my head. After the show, we headed back to the contest room and watched 14 students from all over Kumamoto Prefecture perform their speeches (the same speech 14 times that we've all practiced for the past 2 months... I swear, if I hear about Peter getting home from school late ONE MORE TIME...). It was a solid win for Kikuchi Gun, though... First, second, and third place all came from my gun, so all the Kikuchi ALTs celebrated. MY STUDENT GOT 3RD PLACE!!! WOOO!!!! (Not that I did a lot to help her... the girl was pretty much awesome before I got there, BUT I GAVE HER A FEW POINTS OF ADVICE, DANGIT!!)

(Somewhere I missed it... they're down to 8 people... the hunters are catching the contestents... eesh. And everytime it shows the people in the jail who have been caught, they play COWBOY BEBOP MUSIC!! "The Egg and I!" SUGOI!!)

The evening was great fun. I thinkk I'm getting better at Tennis... well, I KNOW I'm getting better, because it's hard NOT to improve from "terrible" after almost 2 months of it... I still feel like I'm the weak link, but my "accidentally awesome shots" are getting more and more frequent (like from once a night to... twice). After that, I headed up to a little ramen shop with a few friends and finally had some real ramen. That stuff is GOOOOOOD. I don't think I can go back to the instant stuff! (Don't give me that. YOU knew what this was all along, Top Ramen... )

...6 people left... 20 minutes to go... 272,000 yen at stake...

Sunday morning brought our second Kikuchi Gun trip into the Kikuchi Gorge. It was kind of a nice nature walk, but nothing ramarkably spectacular (though the 2 pictures in the post are from there... click to make them bigger). Though, the car I was in went to the higher parking lot that's free, but requires more walking, and got seperated from the lazier rest of the group. So we had a good time with just the four of us wandering around the forest/mountains. Eventually, we found the group and had a big picnic near a stream (in a little pavillion area with modern toilets... yay nature) and chatted for a while. That was pretty much the end of that, so we headed back to the cars and went our seperate ways. It was good the have the evening off to relax. I watched some english TV shows (thank you, SurfTheChannel.com) and saw this awesomely scary spanish horror movie called REC. (The upcoming movie, Quarantine, is the American remake... but do yourself a favor and watch the original one, instead. The trailers for the remake look like it can only ruin this perfect gem of a movie)

6 people, 15 minutes, 360,000 yen... and they're adding more hunters while minimizing the play area. INTENSE!!! Oop... 1 more down. 5 people left.

Monday was a fun day, but it was busy. First of all, I woke up to pouring rain... and since it's illegal to bike with an umbrella up (and since I probably would kill myself trying), I had to walk to school. The morning was busy, and I was looking forward to having some free periods to make up some games for classes later in the week, but it turns out that the last half of the day was a big assembly (Oh the things you miss in the meetings when you don't speak Japanese... :D ). The assembly was awesome, though. A travelling theatre group was hired to come in and perform Don Quixote. I was expecting some little tiny production, but it actually was pretty awesome. we went into the gym to find the front 1/4 of it taken up by their massive, multi-layered set that spanned the length of the gym. The windows were covered (the walls are all glass, so this was a big effort) and the play began. I knew the gist of the story of Don Quixote, so I was able to follow the play pretty well. but I couldn't help but chuckle at how "Japanese" it was. All the knights and princes, and all that stuff looked like characters straight from a Final Fantasy game. The comedy was largely physical humor, and the actors did some amazing acrobatics during the sword fights. The audience laughed, they cried... and a good chunk of my pirate crew was called on to stand in as soldiers in a scene, each of them given lines to deliver. :D

3 people left... one got caught, one actually finished and made it to the phone... and there are 7 hunters out now. 5 minutes left, and 483,000 yen at stake... OO, OO, PURSUIT!!!! oh man oh man oh man... HE RAN INTO ANOTHER HUNTER!! 2 HUNTERS ARE CHASING!!! GAAAAHHH BAM got him. 2 left. Man, that was exciting... can you feel the excitement???

Monday night was great... I got to go shopping!! Finally I bummed a ride to Jusco and picked up all sorts of foods to stock my kitchen. I shall survive on Bentos no more!!! Now I just need to decipher how to make everything... (I think the bilingual cook book I bought last night can help me with that!!) Anyway, I was so excited about having food that the next night, I ACTUALLY COOKED!! Hooray for Yakisoba!! Easy to make, and good, too! (Just not terribly good FOR you... "yaki" - fried, "soba" - a type of noodle... yeah)

oh man... 20 seconds.... 2 left... they;'ve dodged the hunters... just make it to the phone.... THE PHONE...hey, wait! They don't NEED to go to the phone?? They just have to out last the hunters?? Nice!! 2 winners walk off with over 500,000 yen!! (And it's occuring to me that this is a sort of Matrix themed game...)

Last night, I had another english lesson. It was fun, but tiring... reading hiragana/katakana for an hour and a half straight while trying to pronounce it all is hard work... afterwards, I was feeling like my brain was going to 'splode... but all the ALTs there were feeling the same way, so yay. It'll be one big pile of ALT brain mass (wtf, really, Colin? Did you really just say that?). The other ALTs all had to bail on dinner, so Tim and I walked over to Shimotori to try out this Sri Lankan curry place tha he said I definitely needed to try. The stuff melted my face. Seriously. But it was awesome. :D

After dinner, we went to a few shops quickly before driving back home. And walking around downtown Kumamoto, we played a fun game of, "Guess who paid for their date?" Oh man, the prostitutes were out in full force, and the guys weren't even hiding it. Everywhere you looked, there were business men as well as average middle-aged men walking around being closely followed/accompanied by younger girls who looked dressed to go to homecoming (I'd say prom, but come on. They're not THAT classy). As a fun side note, if you want to anger a girl, walk up to her and say, "Ikura desu ka?" (We had to resist the urge to mockingly ask a large group of the homecoming queens this... "How much?" But feel free to use it on friends who don't speak japanese! You'll insult them, and they will have NO IDEA!! It's pronounced "ee-koo-rah dess kah" just to make sure you do it right! (You're welcome!))

We made it back to the parking garage and drove down the 8 floors (yes, we drifted... this IS Japan, after all) to head home.

I think I covered all of it... I left a few things out I wanted to say (to save you from being here longer than you already have been... Gomen nasai) so I'll catch them another time. Basically, my students continue to be awesome, and a certain teacher continues to be terrible... but more later!

I think August is the time of year where Ozu news stations send their top notch meteorologists on extended vacations and leave the forecasting to the interns. It's just so easy at this point. "Weather Forecast for Ozu in the month of August: Rain. Back to you, Taro-san!" Ok, it doesn't rain ALL the time, but it rains a little each day, it seems. Sometimes, it's nice and cools everything off. Today, it rained most of the day and was overcast. Typically, I love these kind of days... but then I remember I bike to work. *enthusiastic thumbs up*

I tried to get a cell phone today... guess I'll wait until pay day, because I wasn't expecting having to pay everything up front. Blast that. I wanted a keitai. :( But seriously... probably the most frustrated I've been here so far. The lady went and grabbed several models of phones and set them on the table without a word. Chieko was there to translate and said, as confused as I, "...I guess you pick one?" So I stared at them having no idea what each of them do... cell phone technology is a bit more advanced here, so combine that with the fact that I have only really bought a cell phone once, and you've got a very confused guy. It took maybe about 10 minutes before the lady realized she'd have to explain things and, you know, actually do her job. By that time, Tim was finished dealing with his business, so he came over and explained everything, since he'd just found out from a better, more personable employee. Long story short, I picked out my plan and took care of all the annoying busy work today (and felt special/like an idiot with two translators...) and just have to go in and pick out my phone and sign a paper or two next week. But come on. After I finish raving about the service, this happens?

Other than that, same old same old. Took care of tax forms, made a trip to KFC for lunch (Awesomely American!), and just came on home. I managed to make an early morning Skype call to Anna, so that was good. This internet thing sure does rock. :D (Contact! With real people! I am OVERJOYED!!! (And incredibly dorkier and dorkier with every post!))

Tomorrow's chore day. Love those lazy Saturdays. :D

August 14th: And one for mah homies...

The work day was... again... uneventful. I need to get out of that office, or at least be given something relevent to do. As of now, "Get adjusted" is too vague, so I take that to mean "learn Japanese speaking and writing!" Which I'm doing. It's kind of cool that I'm getting to the point where I can phonetically spell out the kana. Not at sight, of course... I have to stop and think about each one, so I'm reading it at about the speed of a kindergarden kid would sound when reading. ("See... D-...Dick... run? Run.... umm... S-... see... oo, look, ponies and sparklies!" ...blasted ADD) I attempted some kanji today... which killed a good half hour. Seriously, it was, like, 6 or 7 symbols, and it took me a half hour to decipher. I was expecting something grand for all my effort, but it was just letter head saying, "To Ozu North Junior High Principal:" ("Drink more ovaltine.")

After sufficiently killing the day destroying my eyesight by counting strokes in tiny japanese characters, it was time to relax. I'd heard that Ozu had an irish pub. Initially, I thought this was funny, but then realized it's probably no funnier than the US having irish pubs... or indian restaurants... or korean puppy woking... (Plus side! Japan doesn't have NEAR as many irish as America does! .....jk) So Tim and I decided to hit up Sligo, the pub, for a burger. It's kinda cool because it really is like a classic irish pub. And the food was pretty much awesome. A little pricey, but definitely worth it ("Now THAT'S a 5 dollar milkshake..." (Note: There were no actual milkshakes (sorry, Anna))).

On a side note, we walked in and saw a table full of college-age japanese guys hanging around ("Jeager bombs...") a table. We found a table away from them. About 5 minutes later, about 5 well-dressed (*wink wink*) japanese girls around the same age came up the stairs and entered the bar. We're not sure, but it looked like they sort of lined up in front of the guys... a moment later, there was applause... yeah, we figured they came up from the "Snack Bar" downstairs... if you don't know what a japanese snack bar is... umm... nevermind. Let's just say we think the guys ordered some friends. ("I'll have mine with a side of sad, lonely, depression.")

After that, we headed back, watched some arrested development and called it a night after a quick trip to Everyone, the rockin' lil' conbini across the street. Seriously. That place rocks. Tomorrow should be kinda cool, because Tim invited me with some of his friends to go to the Yamaga lantern festival... basically, tomorrow is the fireworks portion, but it's where everyone goes to hang out. It's about an hour away, so it should be a neat little road trip and an excuse to get out of Ozu and meet some people; other ALTs and some natives.

For now, it's off to bed. I have another glorious day of doing nothing tomorrow. Actually, at 4, I meet with the principal of my school, so that should be kinda cool. Hopefully. Otsukaresama dashita!

August 9th: And on the 6th day, Colin tried SUSHI!

The real stuff. Not that fake Nebraska wannabe sushi. But more on that later.

After breakfast this morning, we watched the rest of the olympics while Kuroda-san's wife was away. It was pretty cool! I think this family really enjoys sports, so we might be watching a lot of olympics. Once everyone was back, we drove up to the mountains through Nishihara-mura and Aso (both are towns... mura = village, Aso is a city). Oh, also I got up close and personal with the windfarm I've always seen to the east of town waaay off on the horizen. Oh man, the sound those massive fans make when you're directly under them is scary. You've got these massive blades spinning disgustingly faster than anything that size should be moving, and you can literally hear them SLICING THROUGH THE AIR!! When I got out of the car, I looked up just in time to see one spinning right down towards me. I kinda flinched. C'mon! Can you IMAGINE one of them slying off and spiking through the car into the ground??? *shudder*

Annyway, we went to find the friendship forest. It was kinda cool. He told me that in 1996, Hastings College students came to Ozu and planted a little grove of trees up in a little non-descript part of the mountain. He was going to show me the little commemorative post placed there, but the weeds were overgrown to be about chest high. We hacked through some to see if we could find it, but to no avail. In the winter, though, all the weeds die off, so the post is in the middle of the field. Still fun, either way. I felt like a marine, or something, climbing through the tall brush on some Japanese island... maybe that's a bad comparison... haha

we drove around the mountain a bit and he showed me some of the spectacular views of Ozu, Kumamoto city, Nishihara, and Aso. He also pointed out the different mountain peaks. (Including "neko dake"... you guess it. Cat Mountain!) The whole area (maybe not Ozu and Kumamoto... my geography is shady) is one massive crater from a volcano blast, but the only real volcano (nakadake, I think) left was just over the horizon. Since it was late, he said he would take me to Aso Nakadake tomorrow morning, so off we'll go. We had more important matters to attend to...

...like SUSHI FOR LUNCH!! Oh man. OH. MAN. Sushi is AMAZING! The little sushi bar we went to at first seemed like a little McDonald's type place (and that comparison is NOT doing the place justice... not to self: think of new comparison) with tables and everything... but then I looked and saw that each table, while at usual American height, was raised off the floor about 2 feet. So, yes. Standard routine. Take off shoes, and sit on knees or cross-legged at the table. Crap, here goes my legs again. :(

The place was pretty cool. It had a constantly moving conveyer belt running by each table with pre-made sushi standards running around on it. You just grab what you want as it goes by, and the waitress counts the plates at the end (105 or 210 yen per plate, depending on the item/color of plate). I thought that was where the fun stopped, BUT WAIT!! There was a call button that Den's wife pressed and soon the server came over. They placed an order for some specialty things, and within about 3 minutes, there was suddenly a little monorail-shaped tray sliding along above the conveyer belt. It stopped at our table, a buzzer sounded, and we grabbed the food off of it. The little train shot back to the kitchen, and we devoured the food.
I have never had sushi before, so part of me was nervous. What if I hated it? I'm in freaking Japan, and I wouldn't like sushi! not the case, though. It was VERY good! The shrimp, tuna, salmon, beef, chicken... everything was awesome. The wasabi on a few items kinda caught me off guard (seriously... for a second, it felt like every pore on my face opened up and screamed... but not in a bad way... nice mental image... where was I?), but it was very good. After this, they showed me around Jusco (Kinda like Walmart) and the 100 Yen shop (oh man, so awesome) before heading back home. On the way home, they showed me where my apartment and my school are. They're very close, so that's good. Also, tons of rice fields!

Too much going on... see the next post.