Between a Rock and a Wet Place

Well, if I haven't, chances are that I do. As far as I know, few people I don't love read this blog.

Anyway, I chose this title because I adore Hagiuda-san, the woman who works in the snack window at school. If I had to guess I'd say she's probably about the same age as my dad. She's very easy to talk to, she's very pleasant, and she teaches me everything about cooking and weather and all the good daily life stuff. A few weeks ago she gave me some magazine cookbooks and I told her today that I've made a recipe from them every night since coming back to Japan. Most of them have been really awesome too! She gave me two more of them today, we chatted about some of the recipes, and she taught me some new words for cooking.

While talking to her today I got hung up on the word "okazu" which she explained to me and I got the meaning more or less, but I thought to be safe I would look it up on wikipedia. As it turns out, it means "side dish" essentially, usually something with fish, vegetables, or meat, used to spice up a rice dish...Though of course, at the bottom of the entry it said "okazu" has also become an otaku term for things which aid in masturbation, usually pornography. Oh, otaku, is there anything you haven't contaminated?

Anyway, if it weren't for Hagiuda-san, I wouldn't go to the snack window at all. The junk food is good, obviously, but I advoid those things. The lunch options are always curry rice, "a bunch of fried things," "a bunch of fish things," or katsujuu (egg and onion pork chop). The katsujuu is AWESOME, though a little rare and a little unhealthy, and as for the others, if they're healthy then they're really boring. Even Japanese people think so.

But it's just so much easier for me to buy lunch on Wednesdays than to make it because on Tuesday nights I'm so busy with my English conversation group. Since I'm down talking to Hagiuda-san anyway, it's convenient just to grab something there than to go to the conbini. I got curry today because by the time I got there my only other option was "fried things." I like curry, but after Kotobuki Curry Night on Monday, I've eaten curry for 3 of the last 4 meals and there's still curry left in my fridge. Last night I was guzzling water like crazy because of all the salt, so I started wondering if it was really a good idea to eat so much curry, or so much Japanese cuisine in general. Everything has salt, and what's more, probably 1/3 of the dishes have a salt BASE for the sauce. It's kind of heinous. Though oddly enough, I haven't heard anything about the Japanese population having issues with heart disease. I found some articles on it though, so expect a write-up in a few days!

And it's days like today that I wish someone was giving me omiyage. But it's probably for the best because I'm trying to cleanse my system of all the junk food and sweets I got addicted to during the holidays (which of course isn't just America's fault, delicious junk food from Japan sandwiched my trip as well).

I'm optimistic, because today's weather has been pretty warm. Since we live on a warm*er* peninsula of Hokkaido, the snow and ice may melt long before winter ends. That means I can go running again! Of course, running is a topic closely related to food, seeing as I only exercise so I can eat as decadently as I do.

I've been slowly adding bubble wrap to my windows as an attempt to insulate the apartment. I was hesitant to wrap the kitchen window because that's the easiest window to peek out of if I need to see outside, but it's really cold in this apartment so I'd finally convinced myself just to do it. After all, my apartment isn't so big that I can't poke my head out the door to check on the weather if I need to. Then this morning I was about to wrap it when I thought I'd take one more peek...and I saw we were in the middle of a blizzard. I had no idea! Needless to say, now again I'm taking a few more hours to decide whether to wrap it or not. It's nice to have the privacy of translucent windows, but you miss a lot of the world.

I'm having another typical Saturday. Wake up when I feel like. Drink coffee and tea all morning. Jump back and forth between researching random things on the internet and housekeeping. Usually, halfway through the morning I get the urge to cook something special.

Today's themes were Lady Gaga and bruschetta.

This week's Lady Gaga came about because I stumbled across some video footage of her pre-visual-arts-gaga, which made her so multi-dimensional that I wanted a full picture of her in my head. It was a pretty fascinating topic. While she has a lot of superficial appeal as a pop star, she's also quite the artist. Even her biggest shock-driven stunts have a lot of meaning and she's completely serious about them. There's none of that Paris Hilton "that's hot," rationale or that Marilyn Mason, "look at me, bitches!" desperation. I respect her a lot for her ability to put on a new face without losing herself. I respect her even more for being able to do it without anyone even questioning her image. Her entire career is one big gallery about what fame does to people, and the strange thing is, it's all entirely intentional. She constantly makes statements about the fame monster without actually becoming it. Her concept is so simple that it's brilliant. For crying out loud, she has CDs called The Fame and The Fame Monster! I should have figured it out sooner. Artist is the best word for what she does.

It really gets me thinking about Japan and their Visual-Kei pop stars like Malice Mizer. I should look into them more. I don't know much about that subculture except the eccentric costumes and backstories, but it seems to be the same idea. You also look at the harajuku girls, the gyaaru, the maids, and the ganguro fashion subcultures in Japan and it becomes very clear that something bigger is happening other than a bunch of kids that like dressing up. There's something in all people that's screaming to get out and do something big. It creates a lot of food for thought when you think about how this manifests itself in a culture that's as group-oriented (and group-subjugated) as Japan.

Anyway, my morning. The bruschetta was made from the random things I had in my grocery-deprived fridge. Fortunately a bunch of eggplant and tomato was all I had. It turned out pretty well, especially with all the spices I've been snatching up whenever they go on sale at the store, so it was a nice treat. And now my apartment smells awesome!

I do feel a little bad that I always hermit myself for a day or two on the weekends. Especially when I hear my upstairs neighbor cleaning from 8 AM til noon every Saturday morning. I should really have that kind of discipline. Maybe she'll end up inspiring me.

The good part about living alone is that you don't have to do dishes right away if you don't feel like it. The bad part about living alone is that you don't have to do dishes right away if you don't feel like it. Freedom can be your enemy.

I regret to inform that the recycle shop, “2nd Street” is better than “Hard Off.” It’s cheaper, larger, and higher quality. Too bad!

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately and have been largely successful with my meals, but I tried making banana cake in my rice cooker and failed miserably. I have a theory that people in Japan don’t usually make their own desserts. They don’t eat them much, western desserts are popular but they require an oven, and there are dessert shops everywhere. This means supplies, even simple things like shortening and chocolate chips, comes in very small portions and they’re very expensive and somewhat hard to find. Even flour isn’t easy, though there are hotcake mixes and tempura mixes which very well might be the same thing but I don’t want to risk it. I want with the bag that said “flour” in katakana. This made my grocery bill even more embarrassing because I bought enough to make several cakes for this weekend. I like to buy a lot while grocery shopping, considering that I hate grocery shopping and like my food to last two weeks. This is difficult in Japan because I’m not so keen on prepackaged foods that last. Also, kitchen storage is small and even the carts in the Co-op are nothing more than hand baskets you can put on wheels. I always overflow it lol God pity the check-out lady.

I always worry the other patrons will judge me, like as a foreigner I eat so much more than they do, but I feel better realizing that they don’t know I live by myself. For all they know I feed a family every week.

Now that I’m not sick, I’ve started running again. It feels good!

I was sitting at work on Monday when I felt my first earthquake. It was weird, like sitting in a big truck as it starts up, but then you realize you’re in a building and your brain tells you this kind of movement isn’t possible. It was very small, but a long one. Enough to make me say, “huh, that was a quake.” But not to really be scared.

In other news, I think I hit paydirt. Going through old things in The Pred’s mess she left here in the women’s locker room I found a plastic sword that I will use for my Halloween costume. FTW!

In OMGFail news, I was walking nervously with a full mug of soup across the teacher’s room back to my desk when I started to spill. Being horribly embarrassed I tried to catch it in my hand and ended up burning myself hardcore. T3H suck, insult to injury. In other burn news, apparently when I dried this shirt by the heater I burned the sleeve. It was a cheap thrift store shirt, but it fit well, I liked the material, and it went with everything. Now I have to wear a sweater over it because the sleeve looks golden delicious.

Getting up at 5 was a beast, but I really didn’t want to be late so I sucked it up. I’ve been late for these people often enough. I put on some clothes that I thought would be warm enough for a Muro autumn morning (wrong!), and raced my bike off to the 7-11 to be picked up. It was only about a 5 minute walk from my house, but I guess that shows how much those extra minutes mattered to me. As it turned out, I waited for about 10 minutes before a solitary woman in a car showed up, flagging me down. I figured since this was Japan and nobody else knew my plans at 6 AM, she was probably not an assassin or abductor. I asked her her name and made a big show about meeting her for the first time and didn’t really understand what she was trying to express to me until I realized it was Megu, the woman who’s birthday I’d helped celebrate at the end of August >,< I was so embarrassed! Still, I didn’t feel like it was too much my fault, since the last time I’d seen her she had been really tired and quiet, wearing glasses, and being otherwise mousey in every way, whereas today she was very beautiful and relatively chatty.

As it turned out, The Actress had been running late, so it threw us all out of whack (I was supposed to be picked up last but instead was picked up first, and late at that), so then we picked up Mochi, and then we went back for The Actress. So much for me feeling bad about ever being late - at least when I was late I wasn’t an inconvenience, I was mostly late on account of work, and I arrived within 10 minutes of the time I was supposed to be there. She was rockin’ closer to a half an hour and she definitely wasn’t coming home from work at 6 AM. Not to say my lateness is ok, but comparatively…y’know.

Turns out Mochi lives in the next neighborhood from mine, one I’d discovered on my bike ride the day before. Together the four of us drove to a Lawson’s and picked up the 2nd in command from the jazz cruise, a dweeby dude who is really nice but whose name I don’t think I ever learned. We went to the shrine in old downtown so that we could get our samurai garb on >:D Walking in, it was the coolest shit I’ve ever seen and I really think the family in charge lives there, which sets of fantasies of shrine life in my mind. So much beauty and style in one building! A tatami and shouji dream!

Admittedly there was some awkwardness for me in the dressing process, since I was always only about 3/4 of the way informed on account of the language gap. This was most awkward when the old man at the shrine kept implying that I needed to change some of my clothes to put on the samurai outfit, and I wasn’t sure if he meant now, later, here, in another room, and what parts. As it turns out, I did had understood everything he was saying, the only problem was that I was hesitant because I hadn’t known that he was the one dressing us (kind of important, perspective-wise!). Also, as I remarked in earlier entries, in Japan it’s okay for high school kids to strip down to their skivvies in front of each other, including the opposite sex, but the same is also true for adults. Nobody expected me to strip down in front of the dudes, being all foreign and everything, but it did throw me off a little.

In the end, I worked out a sweater/leggings combination out of the clothes I’d been wearing and I’m old enough and comfortable enough with myself that most of my awkwardness didn’t come from being indecently exposed, but from worries about whether or not I’d make a faux pas by doing it surrounded by the wrong people, since I didn’t know the culture.

Anyway, everything was fine, just culturally amusing, and in the end I got to wear the Taisho (captain) uniform while my three friends wore more brightly colored, less authentic looking ones. Mochi and me had a little too much leg showing on the bottom on account of our heights, The Actress had a little too much on the floor, but Megu’s was just right. We also got to carry real katanas (though not sharpened) and that was pretty effin’ sweet. I guess it’s fairly common for shrines to have stocks of period costumes in their closets. Cool.

So the four of us, completely dressed as samurai, piled into a car and drove across the big famous bridge in my city that I hadn’t been on yet. The port was gorgeous, seeing as it’s all wonderful ocean lined with soft blue mountains along the entire horizon across the bay. We also stopped at a 7-11 and bought some breakfast, which I thought was a hilarious thing to do dressed head to toe like samurai, but oddly enough no one in the store, working or otherwise, seemed surprised in the slightest. Perhaps the ridiculous stereotype Westerners have isn’t so far off, maybe samurai and geisha really do stroll around modern Japan every day.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather, though it was a little cold to be dressed as a warrior, even with all the extra layers of folded and tied shirts and such. When the foreigners started coming off the boat, many of them didn’t inherently notice, “Hey, that woman isn’t Japanese,” though if I’d talk to them they’d stop, look thoughtful for a moment, and say, “I didn’t think you looked Japanese.” So here we were, my friends trying to use as much English as possible and me trying to use as little as possible, all to keep up appearances and make the guests comfortable. I took a lot a lot a lot of pictures with tourists, but very few for myself.

Almost everyone I knew in Japan was out in the city working at some point, foreigner residents included, though I didn’t get to talk to any of them because we were all so busy. I think overall the passengers were very impressed by the energy of the city, as they should be because everyone tried damn hard, was damn friendly, and it was all volunteer! The City by the Sea can really snap into action. And let’s be honest, here they were training ordinary folk to use the right English to accommodate the passengers and setting up all sorts of special parties and cheap rates, when if this were to happen in the States nobody would even consider learning more than a greeting in another language or taking the guests beyond tourist spots. It’s kind of amazing.

Mochi and I separated from the girls and went to a quiet, more-industrial, part of town. It was kind of sad because there weren’t many people around and the Japanese hosts were a little disheartened. I stuck around making conversation, helping people haggle on both sides of the language spectrum and coercing the passengers to try the food. I had some great conversation with the obasans and ojisans in the food tent and they showered me with yummy yummy foods while I was there and even sent me home with a cob of roasted corn and two onigiri. My favorite though, was the mushroom miso soup, which was awesome beyond awesome. I made some good conversation with the ship passengers too, offering as much insight to Japanese culture as I could and smoothing the gap between everyone. I’m glad I was there because most of the passengers didn’t know the parking lot of antique and food tents existed, let alone had the guts to ask for something they wanted. When Mochi came back to pick me up, I bought a wall scroll from the antique dude and a cute little hanky from the obasans. It was a good day :) Though unfortunately I sensed a bit of a cold coming on, and you know damn well that while you might be mistaken about any other thing in your life, you never have a false positive when you feel a cold coming.

Mochi and I puttered around a little in a busier district, hob-knobbing with our other friends, and then we headed back to the shrine to dawn our regular clothes. My only regret was not buying my own set of tabi socks and kimono while they had them in Western sizes set out for the passengers. I always hesitate when it comes to shopping!

At the shrine I got to look around the rooms a little and we had to go to the kitchen and rinse our mouths with alcohol because we were in such a special place. I was glad to get out of my tabi socks, since I’d been wearing a 27 and am really at 27.5. That half a centimeter really makes a difference, believe it or not. Also, I think the geta I wore them with only went about halfway across my heel. Many expressions of thanks and good work were exchanged and we headed down to the port again to see the passengers off. Of course all the people I’d met no longer recognized me, but I did get to hear some stories about how some people thought I was from the boat, and I made some jokes about getting my Japanese friends on the boat by pretending to be a passenger. Note to self: take a cruise, that shit is bananas! 6 ports in different countries, spend all day getting fawned upon on land, and the travel time in between playing games and eating at a buffet? Sounds like a recipe for fun (and disaster).

We waved goodbye with glowsticks and yosakoi dancers from ages 5-15, and us hard workers downed some tako-yaki and some mascot-shaped waffles filled with bean paste (my favorite!). Fifteen hours after we’d started in the morning, we were dismissed, frozen to the bone and ready for dinner at 10 PM. My crew and I went for heaping bowls of the most beautiful ramen I’d ever seen at a Beatles-themed place in the district I’d been working that afternoon. I think I made friends with the cook, though I’m sure he’ll remember me more easily than I’ll remember him.

The Actress, Mochi, and I walked home together since our respective chou’s are so close. I really enjoyed the time I spent with my Japanese friends today, considering I’m getting comfortable enough with Japanese to take risks and after our English lessons they all felt comfortable enough too that we can all start to express ourselves in ways we couldn’t before. Then I came home and died on account of my lack of sleep and presence of cold (though I wasn’t the only one who died, my computer did too). Gotta get that fixed…

Now the difficult thing will be deciding whether to go to a meeting in two weeks to get to know some JET friends better, or to stay here in the City by the Sea and hang out with my Japanese friends. I’ll miss out either way and I’ll have great fun either way, so I guess I’ll just have to make a decision and not look back.

ZOMG AFTER ALMOST TWO MONTHS this is the entry where I catch up!

Too bad I'll fall behind again when my computer gets sent off to be fixed.

Yesterday after classes ended I had a nice long work period and chat with the Smartest Girl in School. I'm really enjoying school a lot more now that I have relationships with some of the students.

Granted, this made me get home a little later than I wanted but I thought I'd still be okay for time before getting to my English conversation group. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed and after making excellent fried rice with egg (or more accurately for what I'd made, fried egg with rice lol) I arrived at the station just in time to watch my train take off.

Well, after some awkward, unintelligble conversations with The Actress, I hopped the next train and was only a few minutes late. I'd considered riding my bike again, but I knew it'd take just about as long as waiting for the next train, plus I'd be tired and half to bike all the way back. Going so far once a week is probably enough.

The conversation group will meet in an old rathole of a building, kind of creepy and run-down, in fact. At first I was a little nervous about how things were going to turn out, seeing as I've had bad experiences going into situations where people had certain expectations of me (which usually are not made known to me until after the fact). As it turned out, I'd successfully made my activities applicable to multiple levels of English, and even the students whose English was quite poor turned out warming up. Suddenly the impossible 20-something Japanese was also intelligible and between all the intelligibleness, both languages were a huge success. I ironed out my plans with Mochi for Sunday's cruise ship welcome, but I'll be dressing up as a samurai from 6 AM to 9 PM, so really, how could this day go wrong?

I also got to try a new food, since one of the conversation group members had visited Tokyo over Silver Week and brought back omiyage. It was what I call, for lack of better description, "chestnut flavored sweet red bean paste jelly logs." As unappetizing as it sounds, it's pretty good lol

And suddenly my Japanese burn-out rut broke! I felt good last night, and then today I walked down to buy a bentou from the lady at the snack window and the Japanese just came spewing from my mouth. Of course I made mistakes and of course she spoke slowly and chose her words carefully, but the fact that I could do it after all the involuntary tuning out I'd been doing was pretty sweet. Then the Vice Principal joined us and the three of us had the cutest Steph-loving chat ever about food and Silver week and other parts of Japanese life that I can now accomplish on my own.

Tonight I'm supposed to do some dinner with the other foreigners again, but I haven't heard from most of them so it might just be me biking out to the park in the next city to take more picture. No argument here! Now, after a 2-day work week I head off into the weekend ready for good times, hard work, and lots of cleaning that I'd put off all during Silver Week :)

Passing through sliding glass doors flanked by flaming torches, we entered the famous onsen hotel. I kind of expected a Japanese flute to sound somewhere off in the distance.

The hotel was so big that I had to ask for directions to get to the onsen. Using Japanese here wasn’t really a problem though, seeing as I’d forced myself not to be nervous about anything today. I was about to get naked in front of a bunch of people, after all, what language problem did I have to fear?

We paid our fees and walked a million miles into the depths of the hotel, walking past massage stations and riding an elevator with only two buttons, “Lobby” and “Onsen.” Best elevator ever! We’d been wearing indoor slippers that we acquired at the entrance, so when took them off to enter the dressing room it was kind of hilarious. I’d taken the bigger size slippers from the lobby, which meant that since it was a Japanese women’s locker room, there was my one pair of gigantic baby blue men’s slippers in a sea of tiny navy women’s ones.

I’d been pushing back thoughts of awkwardness all day, but I realized I didn’t really have to suppress them at all because once the whole business started, it wasn’t very scary. It’s all very natural as you pick a basket, strip down, and head out to the showers.

The whole place was pretty luxuriant, like a spa, really, and at the entrance to the baths, there a line of little vanities where you sit on your Japanese shower bucket and scrub down. An important aspect of the Japanese hot spring bath is that you don’t use it to bathe, you use it to soak, so putting soap or hair into the bath is a big no-no, and seeing as it’s communal, you have to scrub very well before you enter. Since it was such a nice hotel, they had quality shampoos and cleansing oils there for you to use, and there are also little mirrors - maybe in case you forgot what you looked like without any clothes. Seriously though, the mirror is the only reminder that you are in the buff.

Then you get up and walk around, looking for baths and carrying clothesless conversations as naturally as if you were dressed in a three piece suit. Some women carry “modesty towels,” small towels they’ll carry in front of their bodies which they then use to exfoliate or wrap around their hair. The modesty towel is really more like a distraction than an actual cover though, it’s kind of the equivalent of carrying a drink at a party.

It would have been more refreshing to be at the hot spring if the day had been cooler, but after all our walking and the temperate weather, we got pretty toasty pretty fast. I’m not sure about this onsen, but the area is famous for its natural springs so I think perhaps the natural water is tapped in somehow. In areas where they are not renowned for good water, usually it’s tap water with additives. I’m not sure, but I’m hoping this comes straight from the ground. The first bath we tried had an open window view into hell valley, which was pretty neat. In the States this would never happen – “someone might see you!!” But here it was just fine. There were tall trees planted and it wasn’t such an angle that it put you in line with the tourists’ view or anything, but still the laxness is mildly entertaining. In fact, I think the men’s baths *do* look out over the tourist part of the valley.

I wanted to try a thick green-colored bath, but the water was just too hot and I couldn’t bring myself to get in it. We toured some of the outdoor baths but they were pretty hot and pretty crowded so we didn’t stay long.

I’ve heard foreign people worry about getting stared at for looking different in the onsen, but even though we were the only white people in town that day, few people actually stared, even after we traded our clothes for onsen bliss. It was, however, a little weird getting into the larger outdoor bath because for whatever reason, though they ignored us before, everyone stopped to stare at us. It wasn’t really like we were being sized up though, it was the typical foreigner stare that I get on the street when I’m riding my bicycle. The more face-oriented stare that says, “Oh! You’re not from around here! If I was bold we would have a conversation right now!” We had some good quality talk time at that point, Kei and I soaking in minerals among the baby trees, though occasionally my mind wandered to how big of a catastrophe it would be to suddenly be discovered by mosquitoes.

By then it was too hot and I even copied the other women and sat mostly out of the water. If you’d have asked me this time last year if I thought I’d be stark naked up to my knees in sulfuric water in a forest with a bunch of Japanese woman, I would have said “uh…probably not.”

When we’d had enough soaking, we headed to the last two baths, the gimmick ones. The first was a nice tepid water over a pool shaped like an easy chair and the other was a stool with a stream of water that massages your back and shoulders. I figured that was a good way to end things and headed out.

In my haste to get ready in time for dinner, I forgot to use the complimentary scale and drink the complimentary tea, but I did enjoy the huge gorgeous vanities complete with toiletries, hair driers, and ambient task lighting to reapply my make-up. I could primp in that room ANY DAY. When we left, I was literally glowing with heat, health, and happiness. All night I smelled vaguely of minerals and when Kei’s student/friend Asami picked us up in her car we fogged up the windows.

It was very late at that point, but Asami took us out for Mongolian Barbecue, which is essentially a little grill in the center of your table where you grill meat and vegetables yourself. This was much calmer than the Genghis Khan party with the ALTs, seeing as we trusted each other not to steal each other’s meat and there was plenty of meat to begin with! We drank lime and grape chuuhai mixers and ate real beef (probably the first time I’ve done that since I’ve been here!) and seasoned chicken and pork. This is a dream come true after eating nothing but pork in this city. Where the pork comes from, I’ll never know, considering I haven’t seen any animals anywhere near here. Though I guess we’re not eating the cows I see in Wisconsin either. Still, it’s eerie when there’s so little agriculture. But that’s probably less of a “Japan” thing and more of a “I’ve always been in agricultural cities” type thing.

Anyway, yummy vegetables, yummy meat, and good company. Asami was very cute and her English was good enough that we were easily able to teach each other things. She was impressed by my kanji, and in fact I even impressed myself because I’ve learned very many of them lately and hadn’t really had a chance to use them yet. Turns out many of them appear in restaurant talk :)

This is definitely not the last time I’m going to the onsen district, nor the last time I’m seeing these friends.

Sunday and Monday we’ll just blur together because vacation time does that. Sunday I did a lot of laundry and eventually got to the grocery store. Or maybe that was Monday? I don’t remember. Lots of inactivity and artsiness was mixed in, though it rained both days so I couldn’t go out to continue my photo quest :( I did, however, discover that our vending machine across the street sells coke zero and limon&nada, which are two delicious beverages that make my day :)

When I was hanging my laundry outside, I knew I should have stopped to talk to my neighbors but I looked like hell and I was scared, so I figure I’ll do it later. Oddly enough, I’ve done no cleaning, no self introductions, and no work, as I thought my vacation would be full of. What have I been doing? Not sure. Small tasks, reading, and exploring. Good things, I’m just not being as productive as I’d have liked to be.

It’s kind of exhausting looking at my new recipes. There’s a ton of really good ones in the book that I’m really looking forward to trying, but since it’s all in Japanese and my Japanese cooking terminology is so-so, it’s very time consuming, especially with the kanji because often times the words aren’t in the dictionary because they’re proper nouns. There were a few things I just copied exactly and decided to ask at the store (go me!).

I also decided not to worry about how much money I spent. Cooking is a hobby for me, I have an adult job now, and I need some love, so I figure it’s okay to buy whatever I like. In the end, my bill was only about $60 and I bought a lot of food, including meat, and a lot of staples like oils and vinegars and such that will keep my pantry stocked for a while to come. I even treated myself to some bananas :) This is only the second time I’ve bought meat to cook from the grocery store (crazy huh?). I’m not vegging-out though, because I get meat at restaurants and buy a lot of tofu and other stuff for when I cook. Tofu is so easy to use!

It was fun planning my new meals though, and I was very excited. I also learned a new vegetable (komatsuna, Japanese mustard spinach?). I asked the guy at the counter to read the kanji, and when he told me it was “komatsuna,” I was like “Oh! Okay!....what’s that?” and he showed me and we talked about how much I needed for the recipe. So, here goes! New foods, yah! Tonight I’ll be cooking a mushroom chicken dish :)

Additionally, my time off has included a few dance parties in my living room. Put on a little Pitbull, Lady Gaga, Timbaland, and even Britney. I miss this stuff a lot. I miss dancing and hot summer dresses and even vodka. I’m not the biggest partier, but I like being young and it makes me sad that I haven’t figured out how to do that here yet. Don’t get me wrong, drunken Labyrinth and karaoke are fun things, but I kind of want to go dancing. I’m trying to figure out if there are any good booty-shaking clubs in Sapporo and if there’s anyone who will go with me. Also I’ve been thinking lately that I want to visit South America – my buddy Tom studying abroad there is making me very jealous with his endless fruit, beaches, and salsa clubs. Next stop? Maybe Argentina?

9/16
Now that I’ve taught with all the teachers, I can’t help but expect the real cold shoulder from Ichi and Mick-sensei (or Batman as I’ve begun to call him behind his back). I find this upsetting. They both kick me out of the classroom when I’m done with my activity. They’re both proud men, so I suppose that makes sense, they may feel like they’ll embarrass themselves in front of me with their English, but somehow I don’t think that’s it. And so, I have less respect for Batman.

Mumbles-sensei is great because he doesn’t care what we do in class, so he uses his insecurity to give me free reign, which has lead to some hilarious Q&A sessions (though I did get the “what are you hips, waist, bust measurements?” from a boy today, fortunately for his sorry ass he changed his question when I asked him to repeat it). Even K-sen kicks me out, but at least he’s warm in the classroom. Shadow-sensei is the real surprise, however. He’s probably middle of the road as far as English skill goes, but he has me stick with him the whole time and we team teach together. I’m very pleased and I respect him a lot for that.

I’ve been meeting with a lot of kids for the big English competition, even though it doesn’t start until next school year lol. Literally, the last competition just ended a month ago! I finally know all the rules though, that was a big pain.

Cooking wise, along with my huge-ass pot of curry, I made what I call “Pizza Tofu Rice,” which consists of sticky rice with a tomato-sage-garlic-cinnamon sauce with tofu squares and cheese melted on top. It’s AWESOME. I’m so glad to have found something easy and delicious that I can make in Japan! Also, I don’t need to use much tomato paste, which is good because it’s expensive here. Another easy and delicious meal I made was pork miso nasu, I made little pork meatballs and stirred them in a miso sauce over baked eggplant. With my fried onigiri and shimeiji tamago, I almost have a full week of legitimate homemade meals that are more complicated the sandwiches! :D Not like I ever eat sandwiches here though.

But all is not sunshine and rainbows. I had my second meeting with the International Club and there were a good 8 new people there. Among them was a girl who seemed excited about me, but is otherwise what I’d describe as a “delinquent.” The Pred had told me she was a cool girl but she had an attitude and she once wore a necklace of bleeding plastic bear claws (?). She was very nice and she’d been nice when I met her in class that afternoon, but as I taught the lesson she looked really upset and grew less and less cooperative to the point where I walked over and asked her to do something and she just shrugged and smiled and ignored me.

I got the sense that the class was a little too bookish for their tastes and I resolved to put more fun games in. But I don’t consider it entirely my fault, the Pred said “make a lesson plan,” and K-sen had said “make a lesson plan,” and last week no one said anything, so I figured it was ok. The kids from last week are really academically aggressive, so y’know, whatever.

And then the delinquent hurt my feelings. I was talking to the club president who was being kind of strange, he kept repeating himself without giving me any information. I just kept thinking “you sound stupid. Why are you saying this stuff once, let alone over and over?” That should’ve been the indication for me right there - as soon as I start wondering why someone sounds so stupid, that usually means they’re trying to say something negative. I’d noticed the delinquent girl hanging around just out of our conversation circle. She’d gone to talk to K-sen and come back, I was kind of waiting for the club president to shut up because I wanted to catch her before she left so I could tell her next week would be more fun. Finally, the kid stopped talking and the delinquent girl actually came to me.

She flagged me down and looked at her handout like she was going to ask me a question about something we’d learned. Boy was I wrong.

“Stephanie. I hate this club now. I hate the club that is like class. It’s bad. I want talk. We should be…circle. I hate this.”

Well, shit.

I told her I figured she’d been upset based on her face and I apologized, promising things would change. I was kind of upset, so ordinarily I wouldn’t have been so self-deprecating, but I’d already prepared this speech in my head so I went with it in my surprised state. Fortunately she did go on, “Stephanie is not bad! This is bad.”

I was feeling kind of emotional to begin with, so I was pretty hurt. I knew she liked me, she’d been in the awesome class the other day when I made all the students fall in love with me. Still, I couldn’t help but feel sheepish like everyone was going to think I sucked now. I wish her delivery had been better, but all things considered that’s all she could do, barely being able to speak English, let alone politely.

I went straight home after that, which I’m glad I was able to do. It ruined my trip home and the first few hours of my night. Eventually I shook it off, but I’m sure there’ll be lingering feelings of embarrassment and bitterness. I’ve always been a sensitive person, after all. I gotta be able to shake this kind of thing off though: Welcome to Teaching.

9/6
My computer’s been screwing up, but I don’t want to talk about it. Now everything seems to be fine except the internet, which I can get sporadically but it won’t seem to stay. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to navigate necessities of life without the proper language skills.

Last night I went for a sprint instead of a run, since I got such a late start and have been realizing more and more than I need to start sleeping.

I’ve been trying to shop lately so as to finish my apartment, but the thing about Japan, is that no matter what you want to find, it is only available in “powder pink,” “powder blue,” “flowers,” or “kitty.” While that may *sound* like cute paradise, it really pisses the hell out of you after you’ve bought a few dishes and are ready to move on to respectable carpeting. Cuteland is a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to live there.

Today, as I was going around the major home store and getting really really frustrated by all the unmatched adorable, I finally just gave up and left. Suddenly, I read “home fashion” on a sign and followed it, so I was lucky enough to find a wonderful, wonderful store!! It’s like the Pier 1 of Japan! I went ahead and bought a futon cover and some wall hangings, and I plan to return for other things after I take some measurements. I think maybe after Silver Week (my 7 days off in a 9 day expanse with nothing to do), my apartment might be finished.

As I was coming home, my neighbor across the hall also happened to be coming out. That never happens and I hadn’t met him yet, so I introduced myself and he was like, “just wait!” and he came back out with a melon! The man gave me a cantaloupe! Do you know how much those are worth in Japan?? It’s like a $15 fruit! So I scurried in the house, packed his omiyage with some extra chocolates (best I could do in short notice) and came back to ask him about his work and explain that I would have introduced myself earlier but I wanted to practice my Japanese before going around the neighborhood. It was a pretty good conversation, but I was so nervous that I rehearsed it in my head a million times first while packing the omiyage. I definitely want to make it up to him for giving me a melon! It was sooo good ^.^ and it was really nice to have an American food for free so that I could eat it freely, which meant sitting down to half a melon for breakfast without feeling any guilt!! Though if anyone asks, I shared it with 8 of my friends for dessert, ok?

I did a lot of eating out in my first two weeks, which I think was, on my predecessor’s part, a combination of time constraint, a last attempt to live it up, and a disdain for cooking. At any rate, I got to try a lot of great things, so now I can sit at home and be a food miser.

Takoyaki – octopus dumplings. Sounds awful, I know, especially when I tell you that it's dough around a chunk of octopus, then covered in katsuo (Bonito fish) flakes, severed with mayo and wasabi. I don’t tend to like anything with the same consistency as my tongue, but the octopus is so small. Same goes for fried squid legs. You can’t really taste it, it’s like eating a breaded mushroom. I’m not saying I’d like to eat octopus prepared in any other fashion, but this is ok. It’s cool to watch them make it too, because it’s like a big sheet of half-spheres, and as it fries, it gets turned with cooking chopsticks, and so it keeps that form, which makes it a complete sphere. I bet there’s not a single person among you who wouldn’t enjoy this dish. I once ate at a fast food joint that served only variations of takoyaki and fried potato (which are also very popular, think streak fries that have been breaded), though really it's a festival food, like a corn dog in the States.

Often times at fast food joints, there’ll be both water for free and hot green tea, that’s how common tea is here.

Yakitori is what my city is famous for, which means the delicious smell is always wafting down the streets and into my windows. Technically "tori" should be chicken, but it’s always pork here. In fact, most meats here are pork, which is considerably difficult for my pred because she can’t eat pigs. One of our city icons is a pig eating yakitori (and smiling). Counter-intuitive.

On my first real yakitori night we went to a famous joint in town. Everybody ordered a drink and then it was a crazy mess of ordering appetizers. That particular night was a welcome party for all the new foreigners in town, planned by those we were replacing. I did a lot of networking that day and ate some mayo-sauced soba noodles (yeah, I don’t know, but it was good!), pickled daikon, yakitori, fried rice ball (not fried rice, but a rice ball filled with cheese that’s been fried), fried potato, fried chicken (see a theme?), and various other things I won’t be able to remember because I didn’t know what they were. All I can tell you is that there were a lot of sauces.

On the topic of mystery foods, there is a food called "Handsome Yaki," which it what looks like a fried oval with a man's face on it. It's quite charming, but I don't know what it is. Our little family here hasn't been able to figure it out. It will have its own booth at the Jazz Cruise, so perhaps I will buy some and let you know.

Another very popular restaurant of the fast food variety is Mister Donut, or “Miz-do,” as it’s affectionately called. Every time we go, someone will be there. There is always one or more adult friend of The Pred’s in this restaurant (especially because it’s a popular hang-out for people going to the private English classes held across the street) but also there are always kids there too. On one occasion, we ran into a girl from the school and one of her friends. They were very excited to talk with us and insisted on being call Saki-chan and I-chan instead of their last names or even their full names. It was pretty cute. We had a spirited conversation, and I can tell this girl will be key to winning over the other students during class hours (she’s the girl I mentioned who danced “macho man” with The Pred on my first day).

My favorite interaction at Miz-Do thus far, however, was the one with the little girls from Sapporo. I was waiting in line for The Pred to get a green tea doughnut with crunchy crème filling (delicious) when I saw a little girl gawking at me. I smiled and said “Hello,” in English, figuring that’s what she was going for. There was a layer of glass in between us, but she kept staring and mouthing, “Hello.” Eventually she came over and said it to me. I asked if she spoke English and she said no, but I told her it was okay because I spoke Japanese. The only table open was next to her, her cousin, and her grandmother. The Pred joined in and eventually we discovered that they were taking English lessons, and that they were 5 and 7 year old cousins from Sapporo here visiting their grandmother. The grandmother didn’t speak English, but she was tickled by the girls' excitement and so she kept feeding them more questions to ask us in Japaneses. Most of the conversation we translated into both English and Japanese so the girls could learn but still understand what we were saying. There was a lot of talk about the new nail polish they bought, how cool they thought our names were, (“Naoko is such a boring name! I hate it!”she said), and what everyone’s favorite colors were.

People tell me that it gets old having strangers strike up conversations with you just because you look like you speak English, but I kind of think exciting conversations with little kids is what I live for. I might be wrong, but I think it’s going to take a long time for me to get sick of it, if ever.