I'm still here

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've just been busy with day-to-day life. Today was the first day back at ikebana, though, so I had to post a picture of my latest creation.


I'm glad classes are back on, because my apartment just feels gloomy without flowers on top of the TV. Today was another day of freestyle, but next week I get to try my hand at one of the formal Japanese styles (I forgot what it's name was, though Sensei told me before I left). I'm definitely looking forward to it, even though it'll have lots of rules and restrictions.

Also, I promise a significant update this Sunday or Monday. I won't say what I'm doing, since that would ruin the surprise, but if all goes well (and my batteries don't die on me again) I should have a bunch of great pictures to post.

Until then~

Fields of flowers

So I might not be able to go to ikebana this week, but that doesn't mean I have to be flower-deprived. Here are some pictures of a very pretty flower field I went to yesterday:

Here is that same field taken a few minutes later with my camera on its night-setting:
It makes a big difference, which is useful since it's been getting dark really fast here lately.

Anyway, times like these I really appreciate my placement in my little town, because it is just gorgeous. Especially with this autumn weather. Just last month biking to and from my schools was awful in the heat, but now it's nice. I've been opening the big glass sliding doors/windows in my apartment and enjoying the breeze, and I am going to be very upset when winter comes around and freezes me.

Can't we just skip winter and go straight to spring?

School; Gakkou; 学校

Today I took my camera to my little school in the mountains, because the scenery is beautiful up there. The bus dropped me off in front of the school at 8:50, and I decided to take a picture of the steps leading up the mountain side through the trees to the school's entrance. I took my camera out of its case...

And saw that the batteries were dead.

So, yeah. Sorry about that everyone. I forgot to take the batteries out of the camera after my last picture, and my camera has a nasty habit of sucking batteries dry even when it's turned off. (How does it do that? Seriously?) So I have no pretty pictures for you.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and while this blog entry isn't going to be that long, I figure I'll take the chance to describe some aspects of Japanese schools and let your imagination do the rest.

Those of you who watch anime probably already know this, but people have to take off their shoes before entering a Japanese school (in the same way they have to take them off before entering a house). The students have to wear uniform slippers, but the teachers can wear anything they want. At first I used the visitor slippers. They're up on a rack at the entrance, have the school's name printed on them, and in the case of my mountain school are bright green. I'm lucky in that I can manage to just fit into them (Most guys I talk to can't), and it worked out well enough until the first time I wore stockings. The slippery slippers combined with the stockings caused the shoes to slide off my feet constantly--which made getting up stairs awkward, I can tell you. So now I bring a pair of sandals with me.

A great part of teaching English in Japanese schools is the teachers' room. In America (at least in my experience) teachers have their own classrooms with their own desks, bulletin boards, storage cupboards, etc, and the teachers' room is a sort of break room. In Japan, all the teachers' desks are in the teachers' room, and they go to the different grades' classrooms to teach. Now, some people would rather have their own space, but I like this setup because it puts all the teachers in the same place for me to chat with. It also serves as a break room because there's tea and coffee, and because of the Japanese tradition of omiyage (bringing friends and coworkers presents back when you go on vacation) there's always various snacks and treats. FYI, this setup is the same in businesses; workers don't have cubicles or seperate offices, but rather everyone's desks are set up in the same room.

Also, Japanese schools have designated cleaning time, where students get out brooms and stuff and tidy up the school building. Pretty different, huh?

So there are some tidbits about Japanese school life for your reading pleasure.

More food

I've been posting a lot of food entries lately. I guess I just like to eat? Anyway, here's three Japanese dishes I cooked recently:

Soboro
Soboro is the word for meat/fish/egg that has been crumbled and seasoned. This was pretty easy to make. I just cooked the chicken in a mix of soy sauce and mirin and scrambled the egg. They're sitting atop a bowl of my new rice in this picture, which I regret to say is almost all gone.

Kabocha
Kabocha are Japanese pumpkins. Sort of. I'm not sure if you can see it well in this picture, but their skin is green. And also really hard to cut with a knife. After I chopped it up and boiled it in water, soy sauce, and sugar, I didn't take another picture because I'd cut it so messily because the skin was so tough. But it was still tasty.

Taro root/Satoimo
This freaky looking thing is a taro root. It's brown and kind of hairy, but it's okay because you cut the skin off before cooking. I boiled this one and a few others in miso dashi and added tofu to them. It turned out looking like this:

It's sort of potato-like. Sort of.

So yes. I'll try to take some pictures of exciting, non-food things soon and post them here.

Roses are pink this time

In typhoon news, my town was completely passed by. It didn't even rain. By tomorrow the clouds should be gone. We were lucky.

Now onto the weekly installment of ikebana!

Today's ikebana class was in a different house, but fortunately that house was right across the street from the old one, so it was easy to find. It's bigger than the last house and absolutely gorgeous with tatami floors, wooden engravings on the walls, and traditional Japanese crafts on display. Now that I think about it, I really should've taken some pictures of the place. I'll try to get some next time.

Here's what I made in class after Sensei fixed it:

And here's my attempt to make it again at home:


I didn't get home until really late after class because we spent so much time talking before and after flower arranging. Have I mentioned how much I love ikebana class? Well, I'm going to have to do without it for a while, because Sensei is going up to Kyoto, so the next two weeks' classes are canceled. On the bright side, once we resume we'll be making Christmas wreathes.

This means I'll have to get something to replace my weekly ikebana posts for the next two weeks. Any requests?

Natural Disasters

There's a typhoon coming. The news stories I've read describe it as being really strong, but fortunately it's heading for Honshu, which isn't the island I'm on, though Tokyo's there. (And so is Chiba. Watch out, Jamie!) Unfortunately, that means it's going to start pouring rain here any time now. There have been big gray clouds overhead all day, and I was really happy to make it to school and back without getting wet.

Being a Floridian, though, I'm not too worried. I've got my bottled water, flashlight, and batteries, and I even bought a spiffy new raincoat. Typhoons? No problem. Earthquakes, however...

I have felt a few since I've gotten here, but they've all been really small. So small, in fact, that I wasn't sure I'd experienced an earthquake the first time and not just, say, a really big truck going by outside, until the other JETs texted about it.

Japan really is the land of natural disasters, isn't it? At least the closest volcano on my island is pretty far away...

Sushi!

Japanese schools have something called 文化祭 (bunkasai), which translates to culture festival. My tiny school up in the mountains had one this Saturday, and I attended. The morning was a sort of ceremony/recital. Each grade sung songs and showed pictures from their class trips. A few students had solo numbers either singing or playing instruments, and the 3rd year boys put on this really funny dance number. Artwork was on display, and the morning concluded with a final song sung by the entire school.

Then it was sushi-making time.

A bunch of teachers, students, and parents gathered in the cooking classroom to make makizushi. We were grouped at tables like this:

This is actually a really good picture, because it shows all the stages of sushi development. First you have the blank sheet of nori, as shown in the top right corner. Then you spread the rice over it and add ingredients (shrimp, cucumbers, etc), like the top left. Finally you roll it, like the person is doing on the bottom left, and you end up with the final product, shown on the bottom right.

I made three rolls all together, and it was a lot of fun. The lady who was instructing said I'd gotten really good at it by the third one. :)

Once I got home I chopped the rolls into pieces:

And it was delicious.