Baseball

Today was a holiday, so I had the day off. Many students and teachers from my school went to go watch our baseball team play near my apartment, so me and a couple other ALTs went to go watch as well. The weather was nice to start out with, then it started to rain, but then it stopped again. Overall it was a good day, but Iwaki ended up losing in the last few innings. Here's some photos of my first baseball game in Japan.

Rainy Day Enkai

 I just got home from a teacher party tonight. It's also been raining quite a bit for the last couple of days. Here are some photos of us leaving the hotel where the party was at.

Food for thought

I just finished some Japanese curry over rice for lunch today. The curry was leftover from a batch I made for some people that came over to watch a movie – although we didn’t end up getting to the movie. I made a basic vegetable curry with potato, carrot, onion, and green beans, and then people brought their own main ingredients to go with the curry. For myself, I had a piece of tonkatsu (to make it katsu-kare), but other people brought other food such as chicken, croquets, and squid to go with their meals. I also made a salad using all of the leafy greens that I had acquired throughout the week: green leaf lettuce, cabbage, and a bitter leaf that is often used in hot pot dishes. I had lots of salad left over from the night, as well as some un-cooked squid, so I cut and cleaned the squid, fried it up, and had squid salad with sesame dressing! Fantastic!

For breakfast lately, I’ve been eating toast with peanut butter, strawberry jam, and mashed up banana over top. Usually I used to slice the banana, but I started mashing it into a banana paste after an Australian friend treated me to his mashed up variety – I haven’t sliced a banana since. For someone like myself with a high metabolism that needs to be fed often and doesn’t have a lot of disposable income – or time for that matter, peanut butter and jam has always been a staple of my diet. I find it very strange when people get excited about me eating peanut butter and jam – apparently nobody really eats it, but really enjoys it when they do. I brought peanut butter and jam sandwiches to a potluck dinner around Christmas and everybody loved them (as I knew they would). When I tell Japanese people that I eat bread with peanut butter and jam, they find this very strange. They believe the combination to be “way too sweet.” Maybe I’ll have to teach them the phrase: “goes together like peanut butter and jam.”

Some other foods that I’ve cooked recently have been: sushi rolls, chicken salad, chicken sandwiches, Gyudon (beef over rice), nabe, fish filets, and I’ve also been trying my hand at Indian curry.

I was originally going to try to include a blurb about how the molecules that make up the cells of our bodies are replaced over a certain amount of time and that certain parts of our bodies replenish faster than others. The entire human body itself is said to replace itself somewhere around the 7-10 year area – mostly on account of our dense bone cells that take longer to replace. Other softer tissues like eyeballs and skin cells replenish themselves much faster. I was going to then measure the amount of time I’ve been in Japan (268 days) and make estimates on what parts of my body have become entirely Japanese. For example, if the cornea replaces itself in 24 hours, the skin every 14 days, blood cells every 90 days, and soft tissue every 6 months, then each of these parts of my body would – in the sense that I’ve been eating the same food that Japanese people eat since I’ve been here in Japan, essentially be Japanese. When I return to Canada, certain parts of my dense body structure, such as my bones, would also then retain some of this Japanese-ness within them for an additional 7-10 years.

Anyway, after searching the Internet for a while, I could not find any definite answers to what the actual regeneration periods are for different parts of the body. There is actually a lot of contention over whether this theory of molecule replacement for the entire body actually takes place. Many scientists believe that certain parts of the body, such as brain cells, don’t in fact replenish themselves at all.

It’s also worth mentioning that Japan only produces 40% of the food that they consume – the rest is imported. You can see a video on this on another blog: Strange Japan.

Some of you may think it odd that a few days ago, I mentioned that I started work at a new agriculture school last week that focused on growing produce, flowers, and raising animals, but only showed a few photos of cherry blossoms from the school grounds – and hence, neglected any visual data pertaining to the odd looking barnyard animals available to me. I didn’t have a chance to go to the farmlands, which are apparently a bit farther away from the school grounds, but the cows and chickens were indeed raised right next to the school building, and I did get a chance to look at them with my camera. There were also at one time, pigs that were raised at the school, but now the pig building (stables?) are only used for storage – I’m not sure why.

Backlit Blossoms

Here's another photo of cherry blossoms. It's been rainy and windy for a couple days, so i don't think the blossoms will be around for much longer.

Hanami and the Misadventures Thereafter

Hanami is an event that signifies the beginning of many things here in Japan – for me, they became the beginning of my misadventures of the week (last week).

The cherry blossoms are still in full bloom in many places in Iwaki, but most of the cherry blossom celebrations happened the weekend before last. These celebrations are called “hanami,” where basically, people go to sit beneath the cherry blossoms with food and drink and enjoy the beauty of the flowers.

I went to one of these celebrations, which was organized by the international association at city hall – basically, some people at city hall suggested that we all go to a park together. It was a bit more complicated than this however, as the park apparently gets quite busy, so some of us arrived early, about 10am to reserve a spot with tarps and blankets. The place where we met was more extravagant than I expected: the park was actually somewhat of an amusement park with old derelict rides and food vendors and was decorated with sponsored lanterns. When we arrived, there were already several Japanese people drunk with their families; one guy who seemed particularly inebriated was dressed up in a Draemon costume complete with face paint – although the paint was starting to run and held a “why so serious?” likelihood to the Joker.

The day itself was actually quite fun. Cherry blossoms are very symbolic of the new year’s beginnings. The cherry blossoms usually mark the beginning of new jobs, the new school year, and outdoor social events begin once again after the anti-social coldness of winter. It was good to see many people who I haven’t seen for quite a while. After an afternoon and evening of Japanese snacks and Ozeki One Cup, before I knew it, it was almost midnight. People were still in the park at this time and there were a few lights that gave illumination to the blossoms.

Many people from our group had already left for an evening of karaoke, but me and a friend decided instead on a hot bowl of ramen before heading home. We had parked our bikes on either side of the park, so we agreed to meet each other at the Nissan dealership on the road nearby. We met as promised, although, I had misplaced my bike key at some point in the day and was without wheels.

At this point, you may be wondering how many embarrassing stories I can possibly post on this blog, but yes, this is another one of ‘those’ posts.

I was feeling a bit bummed about the situation, so Don, being the kind person he is, agrees to go back to the park to help me look for the key. We have friends that live close by, so we stopped in and borrowed a lantern to help us look. The light wasn’t good though, and we looked without any success. I even jumped over the fence to examine the train tracks beneath the sky-pedalling ride that we went on earlier, but still, no dice.

Our friends, the lantern owners, had gone to a bar that was on our way home, so we stopped in to return their light before walking to a ramen shop downtown. The shop is one of my favourites because they let you squeeze fresh garlic into your bowl with the garlic presses handy at each seat. I usually go for about 3 or 4 cloves before popping a whole one into my mouth for fun. I won’t be kissing anybody for another few months, so I enjoy myself while I can.

After ramen I walked home without my bike.

The next day I searched multiple times through all of my clothes and phoned people asking them if they found my key in any of the tarps/blankets we sat on the night before, but still no key. I phoned my supervisor in the hopes that the school might have a spare key – or that they may have some other solution to my problem; I couldn’t have been the only irresponsible ALT that this has ever happened to.

I forgot to mention that the night before, I ended up walking my bike to a Mini-Stop convenience store, where I had hoped in a last ditch effort, that my key had fallen out of my pocket while reaching for my wallet to pay for my Ozeki One-cups. They didn’t know where my key was either, so I ended up leaving my bike there. My supervisor suggested that I check with the Mini-Mart people this next morning to make sure it was okay to leave the bike there for a day or two while we figured out what to do with it. I had already decided to walk back to the park to look for the key in daylight and the Mini Stop was close by.

At this point, I should also clarify that nobody in Japan locks their bikes “to” anything. Instead, most bikes just come with a collar attached to the back of the bike, where, when locked, immobilizes the rear wheel. Hence, by walking the bike on its front tire, I was able to get it to the Mini Stop.

After checking with the clerks at the store, they assured me that they did not find my key and that it was okay to leave my bike there, I walked back up to the park to look one more time. It was noon, but people were already set up on their tarps with food and drink. I bothered a few people with my bad Japanese, who were in the area we occupied last night, but with no success. Some other friends were having their hanami event later that day, so I hung around and took photos before meeting them for more hanami.

The next day I was at one of my visit schools, which is about a 40-minute bike-ride from my apartment -- and there are no buses. It’s also about a $20 cab ride each way. I managed to borrow a bike from another friend for what turned out to be a very wet ride. It poured rain all morning and the zipper on my bag opened while I was riding, so I spent the day wearing wet jogging pants; I also didn’t bring a change of socks.

During my day at work, in a moment of sulkiness within my damp clothes, a teacher phoned me for directions to where I had left my bike. He said that he wanted to drive the school’s truck to retrieve it and bring it back to my base school. Once at the school, he would try to “break” the lock. Now, I grew up with a mechanical engineer for a father, so when this teacher used the words “break the lock,” I cringed slightly. I would prefer the words “cut the lock” or “dismantle the lock”; as it is, I can only picture my teacher with a screwdriver and a hammer – or maybe some kind of heavy rock, pummelling my bike until it is able to move once again. I try to persuade him to let the school’s handyman to take a look at it, but also try to brush his choice of words off as a possible vocabulary misnomer.

The following day I was back at my base school, which I often walk to as a change of pace, where my teacher told me that he could not get the lock off and that maybe I should talk to one of the school’s maintenance staff, but it is also the first week of lessons for me and I end up too busy to do anything for the next couple of days.

It ends up being Thursday when I go to another visit school, but this one by bus. I ended up very lucky this day for a couple of reasons. The first was that as I walked out the door of my apartment in the morning, I realized that I may have spent all of the cash in my wallet to buy groceries the night before and that I would have to run back inside to grab some change. The other fortunate moment was when I decided to check my wallet, there was in fact a gaping cavity where all of my funds had been depleted, but, because there were no extraneous amounts of cash to obstruct my view, I was able to catch a glimpse within the bottom crease of my wallet, where I found a glint from the toothy smile of my prodigal bicycle key returned to me.

Super Sushi

Why is it that I do the things that I do? Maybe I’m starting to go a little crazy here living on my own…

Tonight was sushi night, so I spent most of the evening making sushi rice and putting together nori maki rolls. A couple teachers I was talking to today said that they had never eaten California rolls before, so I thought that I would make some tonight and bring some for them tomorrow.

I’ve made sushi a few times since I’ve been in Japan, but I always make the same thing: California rolls and usually a salmon roll to go with it. These are easy rolls that I know how to make and I know that they taste good. Tonight however, I didn’t feel like the usual sushi fare, so I made a point of exploring new sushi flavours. Actually, I told myself that I was going to make strangest sushi that I could come up with. Janice and I once attended a sushi making class where the instructor encouraged us to make up our own sushi concoctions. He even showed us some of the weird stuff he makes, which were far from the typical “Japanese” style flavouring; many of them were just weird. I like a good challenge, so with this in mind I got to rolling the stuff I bought from the store – as well as stuff I already had around my apartment. Since Janice is not around, I am free to explore all of my palatial desires without any concern for others.

After reading this post, many people will probably want to ask me whether any of them were any good. All I can say is that it was a lot of fun and that I’m exhausted. Coming up with all of these rolls requires a lot of planning, prepping, and tasting – by the time I actually got around to sitting down for dinner, I was stuffed from tasting all of my concoctions.

Here are some of the rolls that I came up with:


Garlic Sardine:

I bought what seemed to be marinated sardines of some sort, which I made rolls out of, but I also tried rolling them with garlic and negi.

Konbu and white onion:

I also bought some konbu – which is kind of a soy-sauce marinated seaweed; I rolled this with cucumber and white onion. (sorry, no photo).

Kimchi Peanut Butter:

This was probably the weirdest one of them all. I rolled kimchi with peanut butter and cucumber for crunch.

Sour Crab with a kick:

This was probably my favourite of the night. I rolled crab with cucumber, lemon rind, and added chili flakes inside and on top as a garnish.

Stinky Crab:

I don’t think I even tried this one – it’s in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow. I rolled crab with kimchi and garlic.

New school

I had my first day at Banno High School today. It's an agricultural school that grows its own produce, flowers, and even raises cows and chickens. The cherry blossoms are still in bloom -- in fact, full bloom at the school. It is no coincidence that the cherry blossoms bloom during the first week of school; they are symbolic of new beginnings. Here are a few photos of the school grounds.