Life of a Foreign Hachikin

Top Five Japanese Movies

2012-03-02T09:20:00.000+09:00

While looking forward to recording this Sunday (!!!!8 hours in the studio!!!!!), I've been trying my hardest to get over a nasty little lingering cold (that I've been nursing for the past three weeks....) and have been laying around my apartment watching movies more often this week than I usually do. Now. When it comes to Japanese movies.... I'm pretty skeptical. I've seen my fair share of horrid Japanese films (and I think I'm about done with actors not knowing how to stage kiss either...) that have absolutely no flow, the vaguest story known to man, and a theme that is so deeply imbedded in imagery and metaphor, it probably drowned before it hit the theaters. That being said, time and time again I give Japanese movies a chance (because when the love stories are cute and simple, I just can't help but spew hearts at the adorableness) and will randomly go to TSUTAYA and pick up two movies that appeal to me from the cover of the DVD box alone. By doing this, I've come to find some of my absolute favorite movies of all time. So, without further ado, I give you the "Gotta Tell Someone Top Five Ranking!"

Top Five Best Japanese Movies (IMO)

5. BECK: Movies based off of manga/anime/dramas are kind of hit-and-miss in my opinion. I've seen dozens of them (Hana Yori Dango movie, All Nodame Contabure movies, 1 Liter of Tears movie, Koizora, Kimi Ni Todokeyo movie, Proposal Daisakusen movie, Nana movie... the list continues). By no means are they all bad. I actually really liked most of them! It's just.... in normal movie standards, drama/manga/anime movies tend to be pretty weak and really only function as fan-fodder in most cases, tying up loose ends and getting characters married (cue new Hotaru Hikari Movie set to come out). That all aside, I really liked the BECK movie for what it was and (though I haven't read the comic etc) thought that the cast was pretty good (I love me some Mizushima Hiro) along with their acting. It of course helped that the movie was about a band and very music related of course ;P

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4. Shimotsuma Monogatari (or Kamikaze Girls, as it became in the English release): This is one of those high school 時代 nostalgic movies for me that I absolutely loved and watched a million and a half times. The story is sweet and simple (Loves-Lolita-Fashion girl meets Yankee-Biker-Gang girl and they become friends), and the filming style reminds me sooo much of Amelie that I immediately fell in love with the whimsicality of it all. The narration style is also extremely appealing, and the scene cuts and flashbacks that they add into the movie takes nothing away from the flow or simplicity of the story and just makes the whole thing rather light-hearted and funny.

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3. About Love: I wrote about this movie way back when I first saw it, but wanted to touch on it again since it was so good. It's a movie about three different (international) love stories, all taking place in different countries in Asia. It contains a total of five different languages spoken during the course of the three stories (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, English, Spanish) and although the love stories don't all come to a conclusion (or a happy ending), I loved each story individually and thought that the movie had a lot of heart and hope. <3

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2. Waterboys: I feel like most people have seen this movie... if not, please go out and rent it RIGHT NOW. It is seriously the funniest, weirdest little story about a high school boys synchronized swimming team. Nothing deep, heart-wrenching, or philosophical about it; it is extremely light-hearted, VERY funny, and has a great cast of actors/actresses that will probably be very familiar to you if you watch dramas/movies.

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1. Shounen Meriken Sakku: Last but not least, one of my favorite movies of all time!! This was one of those movies where the DVD box appealed to me so much that one night, I picked it up from TSUTAYA and me and a buddy watched it in my apartment over dinner. I fell in love on-first-watch. Of course, it could be my closeness with the subject matter (the movie is about punk music, and every single character in the band reminded me of real people living in Kochi that I know) that has me so enraptured with this movie... but honestly it is hilarious and I think even if you aren't into punk music/live concert scenes, it has funny banter and is easy to follow along.

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And thus concludes my third segment of "Gotta Tell Someone Top Five Ranking!" I hope you all go out and rent/download these movies ASAP (especially if you speak Japanese). I don't know the availability for these movies in English/with English subs (I only know that Kamikaze Girls and Waterboys has subs for sure), but even without understanding 100%, I think these are all worth a watch. I know that for me, I just turn on the subtitles in Japanese and my understanding goes up exponentially~

Photo Entry: Kochi, Kyoto, Tokushima in a weekend

2012-02-29T13:51:00.001+09:00

I'm actually amazed how fast the drive from Kochi to Kyoto was, as well as the drive from Kyoto to Tokushima. It took 4 hours on the highway Saturday morning to get to Kyoto, and less than 24 hours later we packed ourselves up and drove the hour and a half to Tokushima for band practice Sunday afternoon. People make Japan sound big, but things are a lot closer together (without trains) than one would expect. I will definitely be going on more road trips now that I know this :)

Mall playing Bass for TURNCOAT in Kochi

Band called AIWANA in Kyoto

Sabu and Kiyomi playing in Kochi for TURNCOAT

Singer for AIWANA, Kyoto

Can't remember the band's name, but they had matching instruments, hahahaha~

Ogi playing for Balladmen in Kyoto~

Old-man Rock n' Roll

2012-02-23T15:17:00.001+09:00

I like seeing my older Japanese friends up on the stage, performing enthusiastically even on a Wednesday night. They still have passion for something they like to do and aren't conforming to the old-man standards! Long live old punks and rock n' rollers!!!

J-Festa: Valentine's Day in Japan

2012-02-22T14:06:00.000+09:00

Although I already wrote a little about my valentine's day in Japan, I figured I would also write a little entry for this month's J-Festa post! Not only that, but I wanted to add another post onto my "I gotta tell someone Top Five Ranking" series that has sat stagnant since I wrote about the dumbest non-alcoholic beverages this country has produced thus far. :P So, without further ado, I give you...

Top Five Cutest Valentine's Day Sale Items

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5. Valentine's Day beer/alcohol: This isn't really that cute, but I think it's funny how Japan tries to even doll beer and sake up with bows, ribbons, hearts, and "couple's packaging" in order to sell booze on this big day of love. The above image is obviously one of the more simpler packaging ideas. This year, I saw tiny airplane-size booze bottles wrapped up in heart shaped baskets with pink plastic grass and enough pink and chocolate beer to drown Tokyo.

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4. Valentine's Day Kit-Kats: If you've ever been to Japan, you know that the beloved chocolate kit-kat has been transformed into a monster with about a zillion flavors and themes over here. To name a few: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate, Strawberry, Macha, Sakura, Lemon Soda, Coca Cola, Yuzu, Orange, Custard, Pudding, Cookies and Cream, Melon, Lemon Lime, Fruit Parfait, Banana, Mango, Kurumi.... The list goes on. I've seen pictures of "Shoyu Kit-Kats" as well (nasty sounding if you ask me....). With that in mind, of COURSE kit-kats are going to be holiday themed! It's only a matter of time before they make a difference one for every day of the year so each person can have a "birthday kit-kat" or something....

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3. Valentine's Day Packaging: I love and hate how much effort goes into packaging things in Japan. Most of the time, food items come triple-quadruple wrapped in plastic and paper. Then, once you've finally managed to get your item of desire out of it's many shells of wrapping, you have to properly dispose of said wrapping into the correct trash receptacles. So wasteful... However, at the same time, Japan does DIY gift-wrapping in the most adorable way. There are soo many cute boxes, plastic bags, wrapping papers and stickers to choose from. Valentine's day especially. You can choose boxes that will specially fit any type of sweet you made and make it look like a store-bought beauty.

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2. Valentine's Day Chocolate Kits: It's the thought that counts, right? And if your S.O can't make you delicious candies and cupcakes from scratch, then at least they tried their hardest with a kit. But honestly, I think that (while very domesticating for females) it's a really cute idea to make special Valentine's day chocolate and pastry kits so that even the people who aren't skilled at wielding a whisk or double boiler can make something that is "手作り" or "made-by-hand" and has some of their heart put into it.

As is written above, in exchange for some strawberry brownies, Yukiko made me her Special Cake~

Hand-made chocolate from students~

Hand-made chocolate from teachers~

1. Valentine's Day Sweets: In the month or so before Valentine's Day, most sweet-making materials (like chocolate, powdered sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon) go on sale so that ambitious people can make their own sweets from scratch. By far, I think this is the best way to "do Valentine's Day" right. Relying on a kit is one thing, and buying a box of chocolates from the store could be seen as a little lazy at times... but actually taking some time out of your day to make crooked cupcakes and lumpy chocolates for the people you care about is the cutest and only valuable thing about Valentine's Day in my opinion. :)

"Frustration Never Disapear"

2012-02-20T16:02:00.001+09:00

３月は１７日(土)にマイペースながらの自主企画、今年一発目やります。今回のゲストは先ず「TheMiscasts」。数枚のレコードシングル(DRIFTAGEとのSPLITも含む)とテープリリースが中心で音の知名度は低いかもしれないが、吐き出す激ヴォイスとポップセンスと見事なドラム捌きは圧巻。ビート感抜群のベースと、replacementsばりのギターメロディが絡まって、最高なサウンドを奏でる。最近配布中のデモCDRではまた新しい境地へと向かっていっている。更に今回はそのMISCASTS権氏がサポートドラムを務めるSANHOSEも初来松決定。UNDERGROUND GOVERNMENT/RECESS JAPANからアルバムもリリースされている彼らのその音はまさにドタバタPOP PUNK。初期LOOK OUT,RECESS,Plan It X等のレーベルファンからHARD CORE,オルタナファンまで必見。そして四国勢は要注目のニューカマーLEEWAY。シカゴ出身高知県在住のマット（ベース）とインディ（ギター・ボーカル）、そして徳島のメロディックパンク若頭Thirsty Chordsのアツシ氏（ドラム・ボーカル）、サポートギターにHAMKの荒瀬を迎えた豪華BAND期待大のその中身やいかに！？

Busy weekend complete with seeing "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (ものすごくうるさくて、ありえないほど近い) with some friends, an art exhibition opening (Sea's landlord's paintings from the past 40-ish years), once again proctoring for the Eiken interview segment (ugh, kill me), and band practice in Tokushima. Also, this poster for my band's (Leeway) next show just came out on a (locally) popular blog called "FND" that two of my friends write on. If the nihongo is okay with you, the little segment about my band is at the end. :) I'm pretty excited for this show, because we get to play with my friend Mall's band "Turncoat," as well as a band I'm rather found of called "The Miscasts" from Kyoto. I've never heard of any of the other bands.... but I'm looking forward to it all since Hoshizora Jett usually puts together some pretty excellent shows~

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T15:53:00.001+09:00

Strawberry Truffle Brownies cut out like Dinos~

Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh, Valentine's Day. I have my problems with this "holiday" in general; the crazy it brings out of people and the bitterness is draws out of others is a bit frightening for a "holiday" where you don't even get a day off! The idea that someone would break up with someone else just because they don't want to get the other a gift for Valentine's Day just goes to show how consumer-oriented it's become. Speaking of consumer-oriented cultures, the way Japan has gone and capitalized on this day is a step faarrrr beyond the normal definition of "insane." Special V-day themed packaging becomes more like an incurable disease as it spreads over everything from chocolate to beer in the supermarket and conbinis. Also, the fact that Japan couldn't be satisfied with just V-day and had to make a White Day too, gender-specifying the significance for each day... *sigh... in any case, I still like making sweets for people and getting the cutest chocolates from my teachers and students.

I also always appreciate a holiday where you can say "I love/like/appreciate you" to the people you care about. With that, I hope you all have a wonderful little (rainy) Valentine's Day and make something special with/for someone you care about~ I know I am ;)

Day 15 – Weirdest food item you’ve seen, and weirdest food item you’ve actually eaten.

2012-02-09T09:25:00.003+09:00

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Surprisingly, I haven't really eaten anything that weird while being in Japan. I've had smelly things like natto and uncomfortable looking things like whole fish heads on platters.... but I suppose the oddest things I've eaten and enjoyed are these two: Horse Sashimi and Motsunabe (intestines hot pot). Okay, so that's pretty weird but... I think Japan has thrown off my sense of the "abnormal" and my reality has become slightly skewed since living here.... ("weird" in my mind equates with eating things like: house hold pets, pigeons and insects...).

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Unfortunately, the tasting of these two foods does not come with the most entertaining of stories. I tried horse sashimi when one of my friends was trying to get her boyfriend to eat it some random weekend early last year. Since the place we were eating at (Hirome Ichiba) doesn't serve it that often, the sashimi came still-frozen and had to thaw for a little while. It wasn't terribly mentionable in flavor but the texture was nice. I'd still go for maguro or salmon over it anyday.

Motsunabe was something that my Japanese friends had wanted me to try for months and months so finally, one Tuesday night, we trekked out to the city and found a good nabe restaurant that specialized in motsunabe. Although the idea of intestines skives me out, I've picked up a certain stubbornness when it comes to food here in Japan. I hate when my Japanese co-workers and acquaintances ask if I can eat something or act like whatever food thing they are telling me about is only Japan and that it's sooo typical foreigner to not like it/not have tried it before. I get really defensive (because I've been using chopsticks since I was small, thank you very much!!!) and insist that yes, I CAN eat it and in fact I LIKE it/don't really care for it because of the flavor, not because I'm foreign (as if it wasn't obvious that Japanese people who don't really like natto/fish/whatever exist as well). Anyway, despite my little rant there, I was really surprised to find the boiled motsu soft and flavorful, not chewy like I expected (since intestines have a lot of fat on them). It's also such a simple nabe and contains little more than the broth, motsu, green onions, bean sprouts, cabbage, and tofu (we added some dumplings for extra~).

What weird things have you guys eaten? Am I missing out on anything out there?!

Day 14 – What is the hardest thing about living in Japan versus your home country?

2012-02-08T09:57:00.000+09:00

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HEIGHT

I considered leaving this as a one-word post but I'll whine a little longer about this instead. :) Fellow Japan blogger, Miss Godzilla hit it right on the head with her nickname. Being a female over 170cm in Japan feels like Godzilla trying to disguise himself as a proper lady at a tea party. I mean... okay, it's not like being 180cm (my height) is really that devastating, but it's enough to notice doors are kinda short in places, dresses/skirts are wayyy too short at times, sleeves don't fit my long arms, and little kids filterlessly shout "デカイ！" (huge!) at you every chance they get (even when they've known you for more than a year..... and yes, those that know me DO get an earful if I hear that word escape their mouths). I hate when my Japanaese girl-friends say they're "jealous" of my height, because I know that if given the chance they'd stay short and unnoticeable compared to turning tall and awkward. Also, the whole kitchen thing is really a pain in my back (literally). Kitchen counters/sinks/stoves are much to short for me in my apartment and I end up achy-er than normal after making lunch/dinner.

The plight of the tall girl is an uphill battle. :P

Flu Season and Singing Songs

2012-02-07T09:05:00.000+09:00

Instant camera picture. I love developing these things and being surprised at what I find!~

I feel like I've been really busy these last two weeks, but really don't have a lot of interesting things that I want to talk about. My weekends have been booked practicing/learning new songs/lyrics for the album we are starting to record at the end of February/beginning of March, so I've been back and forth from Kochi to Tokushima a lot. My wrist feels like it's going to fall off from all of our three-hour long practice sessions (Atsushi doesn't let us take more than one 10 min break during those either... slave driver!!), but I'm excited about what we've come up with and accomplished so far. We had to turn down a show at the beginning of March in order to record... so I hope it all goes smoothly and is done by our Matsuyama show.

With the coming of February (usually the coldest month in Japan), I find that more and more of my children get sick and more and more of my classes are cancelled due to "influenza" (which is seriously over-exaggerated here). This always worries me, because I'm the type of person who picks up colds and flus from the people around me really really easily, and up until today I've been fine.... but then yesterday morning my throat started to hurt and I was struck with a stuffy nose. :x I blame it less on this "influenza" craze and more on the crazy weather that's been going on. It was in the negative numbers on Sunday, only to switch rapidly to rainy and warm yesterday/today. My system has never liked rapid changes in the weather, and with the horrid condition of my house (I live in the most run-down piece of crap apartment.... I'm convinced there is black mold growing in all the walls because one of my walls sweats when I put the heater on...), I feel like my allergies have probably just been super-revved. :P That, and Japanese schools seem to think that leaving the windows open (even when it snows) "exchanges the bad air with the good air" which is BS and they are only making their own children sicker.

Taken after I won "Best Speaker" at a Japanese speech contest and was gifted with wayyy too many oranges. I have crazy eyes.... and everyone says me and Matto look like middle schoolers :P

Day 13 – Something about Japan that reminds you of home?

2012-01-31T09:13:00.000+09:00

When I was in grade school, they did an "experimental spelling" program with my class. To this day I can't spell worth shit. Also, I apparently thought clouds = leaves when I was in first grade.

The definition of "home," for me, is a place where I have a bed to sleep in and a closet to put clothes in. I've never liked living out of a suitcase, so as soon as I move to a new place, the first thing I do is get my clothes put away and a bed made up for myself (no matter how temporary both may look). One of the most frustrating things about my study abroad experience was staying in a room that didn't have a place I could put my clothes away in. Although I stayed in that house (with the most wonderful host family) for six months, I lived out of my huge suitcase the entire time.

Since this post is about nostalgia, I only thought it appropriate to show pictures from "way back when" I was about as good at English writing as my junior high school students, hahahaa

I've also never been one to get terribly attached to places I live in. During my childhood, I moved 5 times. Add that to changing living spaces every year in college and finally my major move to Japan and you can see that I've never had a very stable place to call "home." Of course, this has been fine with me! I love traveling around, moving to new places and discovering new things about where I live. My moves have also never been quite as dramatic (always the same school district or close when I was younger and my campus was small, so it really wasn't much of a move each time) as the one I did from Chicago to Japan. I know that this prompt is about what's something that reminds you of your home country in Japan, but the word "home" always strikes a chord with me. I feel like life is a constant battle about where one should call "home." Japan has become home just as much as Chicago is my home.

So. Something about Japan that reminds me of home. My answer is going to be really abstract and can be described through an anecdote:

A few days ago I was over at my friend Nat-chan's house having dinner (as I usually do Tuesday nights) with her, her boyfriend, and my friend Yukiko. Whenever we make dinner together, we all prepare dinner together, then sit down and watch some sort of movie/chat/watch youtube videos/listen to music. This last Tuesday, we watched some of the Lady Gaga Monster Ball tour DVD Nat-chan got cheap (because it was in English) and they had be translate some of her dialogue (difficult, to say the least). Once we got tired of watching her strut around stage, Yukiko pulled out the Famicon and we all started playing the original Mario. For all of us, the game is so nostalgic of childhood (even though I'm the youngest of them all) and it had been awhile since any of us had played the game. Even so, there's that deep-rooted memory of the jumps, moves, and secret boxes you're supposed to get that had still resided in all of us. This feeling is what reminded me of home.

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All through childhood and high school, me and my friends would sit around and play video games together. I'm not much for video games, but I appreciate the classics like Mario and Donkey Kong, and I've always been a fan of hack-and-slash or racing games. However, sitting around with my friends here while playing nostalgic games brought me the warmest feeling of "home" I've ever had. It was so comfortable and familiar that I didn't feel like I was in Japan, in America, or really anywhere at all. I was in a good place with good people, enjoying something that made us all laugh and remember what was fun about being a kid.

Day 12 - Describe a fail!gaijin moment/gaijin!smash moment.

2012-01-27T15:48:00.003+09:00

Describe a fail!gaijin moment (where you did something wrong or completely misunderstood because you couldn’t ~read the air~ or just plain had no idea what you were supposed to do because you weren’t born and raised here). Describe a gaijin!smash moment (where your foreignness was to your benefit).

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While I have friends who like nothing more than to yell out, "Gaijin smash!" and proceed in committing some sort of social faux-pas, I try my hardest to blend in, follow the "rules," and not increase the amount of stares I already get on a day-to-day basis here in the countryside. With that said, like anyone else who isn't a native to Japan, I do have my moments where I let my foreign-ness aid me in slipping away from awkward/complex situations. We all know that feigning ignorance can be much better than having to deal with life sometimes, right? ;P

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However, above all of the subway-ticket-mishaps and awkward-lunch-time-incidents in bigger cities, there is one thing about being a foreigner in my particular region that has finally shown me more of an advantage than not. I am a novelty. This is nothing new, of course. Many foreigners are seen as novelty items and get special treatment/tolerance because of their "exoticism." The reason random people go out of their way to talk to us and/or buy us drinks/dinner is because some people seem to think talking to a non-Japanese is novel enough to allow such behavior. Okay, great! Free dinner and drinks!

This type of treatment, however, is not what I'm referring to. Surprising to even myself, as a member of a half Japanese band (two members of LeeWay are American and two are Japanese) who can speak Japanese, we have rendered ourselves enough of a novelty in order to get some pretty special treatment, considering even the punk scene here in Japan is heavily reliant on the sempai-kohai caste system that perpetuates through everything in this country.

A photo a friend took of our show~<3

Anywhere me and my friend Matto go, we are invited EVERYWHERE by EVERYONE we meet. As soon as people find out we're in a band, they invite us to play a show with them, go along to a show with them, go drinking with them, crash at their house, wear their band's t-shirts... the list goes on. To top it all off, this subculture of amazing people doesn't look at us like we're alien monsters (for the most part). When people notice we speak Japanese, we are 9 out of 10 times immediately accepted into the discussion (of course, it helps that by now, we know a good portion of the people involved in this subculture in a variety of cities around Japan...).

Looking vicious

While most of these people are genuinely amazing individuals with interesting things to say, and more often than not experience with traveling abroad (for band tours and such), I think that they also realize we are not permanent fixtures in this country. They realize that our home is called America, not Kochi or even Japan, and before we escape back to that country, they want to hang out and have a good time. Whether or not Japan is the place I'm going to stay forever, I appreciate the fact that people will drop the rigid social structures (like the sempai-kohai system) and make some sacrifices in order to get to know us in the short amount of time we're here.

Live @ Crowbar

2012-01-24T09:09:00.000+09:00

After-party, everyone hung around the live house and we sang to Arase's acoustic playing.

This past Saturday marked the first show my band, LeeWay, has gotten to perform! Everything about the night was spectacular, and I don't think I've been to a better show than that one (and I'd say that even if my band hadn't been playing). The line-up was amazing (three great Tokushima bands and two great Tokyo bands), everyone was in a good mood, and the place was the most packed I've ever seen it!

We went fourth in a line-up of six bands. At first, we were all kinda nervous about it because that meant we'd have to hold off on the drinks and just let the nerves build up over the course of three other bands.... but honestly once we got up on stage to start setting up and tuning, the nerves just kind of melted away and our set went amazingly. The bass player from FOUR TOMORROW even jumped off the stage and started crowd surfing!!

FOUR TOMORROW went second. Second time I've seen them and they were amazing <3

After the show, instead of going out to an izakaya as usual, we all stayed at Crowbar and had a birthday party for the guitarist from THE MADWIFE (the band that set the show up in the first place). Everyone sang happy birthday and there was a very very cute cake presented~ Afterward, we all stood around the stage, singing songs to acoustic guitar (the best part of this genre, pop punk, is that even in Japan, everyone knows English songs like Weezer, Jawbreaker and Blink 182). Perfect perfect night.

Our set~

Tuning before hand

Those "speed red" glasses (originally our drummer's) really got around that night. Me with Spalding from What-A-Night's

Sea's b-day was also Saturday so we took her along to the show <3

THE MADWIFE went after us

Kana fell asleep on an amp after the show

But during the show, she showed off speed red too

ELMOC, being amazing as usual

Hikko was sooo drunk she fell over onto stage once, into the crowd once, and into an amp once <3

More speed red

After the show, presenting Ayaka with flowers and cake for her birthday.

誰かに言いたいトップ５ランキング

2012-01-20T13:34:00.000+09:00

If anyone watches mid-day television (I only occasionally get to when I'm allowed to take my lunch breaks at home), there is an afternoon show that features a panel of popular "talent" who, depending on the day, try and guess the top 10 most popular celebrities/celebrity couples/sports senshu/things among a certain demographic of polled people (more often than not, this demographic is women ages 30-50). The talent get point cards for every right answer, and the "winner" usually gets to taste-test some sort of food that they introduce near the end of the show.

The other segment that they often feature on the show is the "誰かに言いたいトップ５ランキング" (I suppose you could translate it as "The 'You Want To Tell Someone' Top Five Ranking") and as the name suggests, it is a top five ranking of something that someone wants to share. This top five ranking can and has included anything, from top five Tokyo all-you-can-eat buffets, to top five most beautiful snowy onsens, to top five most popular Mr. Donuts donuts. It's a pretty fun segment to watch, and the talent always react amusingly when they get to try the no.1 ranked steak or nabe (if you can get past the annoying audience scream "食べたいいい〜良いなあああ〜” the entire time).

I decided I want to do a 'Top Five Ranking' of my own on this blog, and have decided to post my 'Top Five Gotta Tell Someone'-s every once in awhile. This first one was spurred on by a segment I saw on my favorite morning TV show ZIP today. They were talking about non-alcoholic drinks and how their production and popularity have increased dramatically over the past year. I myself have noticed the varieties of "non-alcoholic beer" increase in the past months, as well as the CM's for them increase in frequency and variety. Anyway! Without further ado I give you my first 'Top Five Ranking':

Top Five Stupidest Non-Alcoholic Drinks

and why (in my opinion)

five = least offensive while one = most offensive

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5. Non-alcoholic Sake: While amazake has a pretty low percentage of alcohol to start with (if it has any at all), Sake with no alcohol seems absurd. You can't call it sake if it has no SAKE in it! Even so, I see it given out at festivals all the time to children and adults alike. It seems too traditional and deep-rooted to really make much of a fuss. Plus, I think it's pretty tasty :)

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4. Non-alcoholic Beer: I don't understand why anyone would want to drink beer when it has no booze in it to at least make the awful taste worth while.... but I give this a little more credit than most things. Nothing else tastes like beer, and if you really truly like the taste of beer (I'm talking about normal, shitty beer. not yummy micro-brews), then I suppose this is a good option for when you want the taste and not the inebriation. (I have had the Suntory all-free and Kirin free before and I think they're both actually not terrible)

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3. Non-alcoholic HighBall: In the English speaking world, a High Ball is a clasification of drink, made with soda and a certain type of liquor in a high ball glass.... in Japan is seems to be exclusively whiskey and water/soda water/flavored soda. I've never tried one of these fake ones.... but really. Why would you want to reproduce the taste of whiskey in cheap soda? It seems idiotic, and judging from the color of the liquid in that bottle, should probably just be called ginger ale instead.

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2. Non-alcoholic Wine: Sparkling grape juice. That's all it is. All calling it "wine" does, is make adults not feel like children on New Years Eve. Wine is fermented grape juice. Grape juice is non-fermented grapes. If you're so embarrased about having a soft drink with dinner, ask for it in a wine glass or champagne flute. Don't go around calling it "non-alcoholic wine" when it's juice.

source

1. Non-alcoholic Chu-Hi: This makes me the angriest of all of them. How companies get away with calling shitty-tasting soda "non-alcoholic chu-hi" and jacking up the price absolutely floors me. I also don't understand why anyone would buy something like this. Unless you are trying to get a contact-high (or drunk in this case) from the mere fact that you are drinking something called a "chu-hi," I'd give up and just buy a CC Lemon. It tastes better AND has the added bonus of vitamin C.

J-Festa: Winter In Japan

2012-01-18T15:48:00.001+09:00

Winter in Japan... while the phrase immediately brings to mind images of warm kotatsus, heated blankets, mikan, illuminations, and hot-pot (nabe) galore, it also brings to mind something a little different: 酒 (sake). No, I'm not talking about the numerous winter-themed drinks that have come out around this time, like apple-cider chu-hai and sparkling umeshu. No, I'm not talking about fighting the cold winter air with a cup of atsukan (hot sake), hotto wine (hot wine), or amazake (usually hot, sweet sake). I'm talking about 忘年会／新年会 season (bonenkai/shinnenkai).

Standard nomikai food. Sushi, fried food, sashimi...

With this being my second consecutive winter in Japan, up until now, I have had my fair share of enkai (drinking parties). I've been to 送別会 (soubetsukai: farewell parties), 歓迎会 (kangeikai: welcome parties), 終業式／始業式飲み会 (shuugyoushiki/shigyoushiki nomikai: end of school/beginning of school drinking parties), ゴッコン (gokkon: group dates), and regular nomikai/enkai type of festivities. While drinking with your co-wokers/classmates/friends is all fun and good, I think that all of them pale in comparison to most bonenkais. For me, I went to two types of bonenkai this year. The first was more or less a normal nomikai with the added bonus of gifts! Teacher included, my Japanese class gathered at Kochi's busiest restaurant bazaar (Hirome Ichiba), donated 2000 yen each to the group tab, and brought a general present that we thought anyone would like. The night went pretty typically; lots of beer, fried food, polaroid pictures, present opening, and good conversation (as well as getting to hear our Japanese teacher speak English for the first time!!!). All-in-all, a good way to end a year of studying and the completion of the JLPT N2 (our class is called N2 class because we were all studying for that goal or the N1).

Some of our N-2 Class and three teachers in Hirome Ichiba.

Small Izakaya in Aki we went to.

The other bonenkai I attended went a little more typically of bonenkais here in Japan (and on the tame side, if you ask me!). All the teachers from one of my junior high schools got together at a local izakaya, donated 5000 yen to the group tab and gift buyer, and settled in for a night of drinking and Christmas-themed games/gifts. We all had to choose a seat number from a hat when we entered our assigned room, which also decided the teams we were a part of when the game portion started. After a kanpai and some chatter, we used our fuzzy minds and were put to the task of solving a variety of paper puzzles. The teams that finished fastest were given preference for choosing from the gift pile, so after a few puzzles we averaged out the wins/losses and let the first team go and choose gifts. I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed there was no teachers dressed-up in drag or song and dance like one of my other friends got to experience... (where her male teachers dressed in school girl outfits and did a play) but we all went out for Karaoke afterward and got our singing in elsewhere.

And there you have it. My experience with the collectively drunkest period of time Japan will ever be during the year: winter. Anyone else have fun bonenkai/shinnenkai stories to share? ;)

Gotouchi Foruma Postcards

2012-01-16T09:04:00.000+09:00

WARNING: Nerd alert.

I'm not much of a collector.... I don't really have the motivation to collect things like a lot of my friends do. Yukine collects rubber stamps from castles, and I have friends who collect cards, coins, postage stamps, figurines.... lots of different things that show where they've been etc. That being said, in my opinion, Japan is a quite the collector's society. There are soooo many things that have the potential to be collected, things I never would have thought of! Most local post offices have regional postage stamps/postcards you can collect, every prefecture has some sort of mascot (if not every city in Japan) which in turn has a toy/sticker/cell phone strap, hello kitty has an endless supply of collectable items including cell phone straps and toys associated with each region of Japan (and to be honest, the globe), there are rubber stamps you can collect and put into specialized stamp books, the mere existence and continued popularity of pokemon/yugio... the list goes on.

I guess you can say I collect live flyers and tickets from shows I've been to (since I like to post them around my house for decoration).... but other than that I do have one collecting guilty pleasure... and that is Japan's Gotouchi Foruma Postcards (ご当地フォルマカード) which translates to be "Regional Form Cards". If you're living in Japan and have never heard of them, here is the website. I suggest going to your local post office and picking up a few of these amazingly-designed items. Each prefecture's post offices sell three form cards, and each card has something to do with a famous place/person/food from that particular prefecture. For example, Kochi's three cards are: Sakamoto Ryoma (Ryoma den, anyone?), naruko (noise makers used in dancing the traditional Yosakoi dance), and the Kochi Fighting Dog (not sure of the history of this.... but it's a thing here).

The difficult thing about collecting these cards is, when I go on trips, it's usually during a) holidays or b) the weekend. One of the more annoying things about Japan is the hours kept by banks/ATMs and post offices. During the week, they are open from about 9AM until 6/7PM and on the weekends, 9AM-Noon (if they are open at all. Why an ATM closes EVER is beyond me). Because of this, it's been difficult to collect some of the cards that I shouldn't have much trouble acquiring if post offices were open normal hours on the weekend (such as the Tokushima ones, since I go there basically every weekend).

Anyway... that's the end of my nerd rant about postcard collecting. I feel a little embarrassed about the whole thing... but the way the cards are designed is so neat that I don't mind trying to collect them when I go to a new place (I've gone sooo far out of my way looking for post offices that sell these things...). I've been trying to get the Kyoto/Nara/Osaka ones for awhile, but my timing has never been right. It would be amazing to be able to collect all of them... but who knows if I'll get around to every prefecture. :\

Day 11 – What do you find most overrated and underrated about Japan?

2012-01-13T09:30:00.000+09:00

Robot

I've always been one for hearing bad news before some good news, so let's talk about what's overrated about our beloved Japan before we move onto greener pastures, shall we~?

Technology. When I saw the word "overrated" I thought it was going to be difficult to think of what I wanted to pin point. In all honesty, it took about 5 seconds for that single word to pop in my head. For instance, if you are an American with zero knowledge of Japan, I feel like one of the first things that comes to mind when asked about the country will come from the following list:

Anime
(kinki) Porn
Ninjas
Robots
Sushi
Samurai

Robots of course meaning, Japan's "super advanced and completely unique" amount of technology (which occasionally includes robots). Cars, MP3 players, cell-phones, washing machines, point-and-shoot cameras, (robots) you name it! Japan has tons of electronic/appliance brands that are shipped around the world and are used by every persuasion of human being. Popular youtube and internet videos feature humanoid robots walking around and talking, or that cute little one that fell over when trying to get up some stairs last year. If you've seen any Japanese car commercials recently, ECO cars where you can "mantan" (fill-up) your tank at home are getting popular, as well as the recent car convention that featured cars you could control with a smartphone or change the color/image on the outside.

Source.

But the fact that it took me 6 weeks to get internet in my apartment, makes me shake my head at all of that flourish and fancyness (and robots). Yes. 6 WEEKS. And it's not even that great of internet either! It stops working when it rains. I think I've made my case.

An onsen in Kami-shi, only about 40 min from my place. It overlooks a gorgeous river.

Onsen. I think one of the most underrated things about Japan are onsen, or public baths. It seems very roman and a little unhygienic (the word "public" just doesn't ever bring clean images to my head), but is honestly one of the most amazing experiences that I don't think a lot of people go out of their way to take part in, or even know about.

If you've never visited an onsen, you might be thinking "Public bath?! I have to be naked in front of other people?! How awful!" Which is what most of my foreign friends living here have said to me if they have too many body issues. What girl doesn't have a few body issues? For me, all that is pushed to the side when it comes to onsen. How could you be worrying about the shape of your thighs when you are surrounded by old, saggy women (or men, if you aren't female) with bent backs and wet towels wrapped around their heads?

Source.

I love going to the onsen, spending 30 of more minutes massaging shampoo and conditioner into my hair/brushing my teeth, and then sitting in the outdoor hot baths with the cold winter wind blowing against my face. If you're a person afraid of the potential non-cleanliness of a public bath, I really wouldn't worry about it. Those places are being constantly cleaned by small old ladies (or robots), and the natural spring hot water replaces itself every hour or so. The water is also usually so hot (between 40-50+ degrees celsius) I can't imagine that many micro-beasties have a chance to live long in them. The other cool thing about onsen is the "specialty baths" offered at most. Some have special minerals flowing through them, some are super hot, some are super cold, some have crazy water jets ready to pummel your calves and lower back, some have stones lining the bottom you can walk on, and some have (kinda scary) electrical currents running through them (for health, is what I hear...).

If you got anything from this splattering of thoughts, I hope you got the idea that my cell phone is not a teleportation device (or robot), but a trip to the onsen is well worth your time (and 500 yen)!

Robot

Birthday Cake Cake Caaaake~

2012-01-07T12:14:00.001+09:00

Yesterday was Matto's birthday, so in preparation for celebrating today, I made a cake! Matto being a vegan, I put my vegan baking-pants on and made this PPK chocolate cake (although the recipe says cupcakes) with a slight alteration to the mousse. Vegan chocolate chips are hard to come by in this region, so I subbed them for melted peanut butter :D I will post the recipe and the steps I took to make it below~

Chocolate Mousse Cake, PPK

For the mousse:
1 cup melted peanut butter
12 oz/350 grams extra firm silken tofu
1/4 cup plain soy milk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the cake:
1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cooking spray/vegetable shortening

Prepare the Mousse:
1. Crumble the tofu into a blender. Add the soy milk, syrup and vanilla extract. Puree until completely smooth. Set aside.
2. Microwave the cup of peanut butter, stirring occasionally and keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn.
3. Add the peanut butter to the tofu and blend until well combined, use the spatula to scrape down the sides of the blender every so often.
4. Transfer the mousse to an air tight container or a bowl covered in saran wrap and let chill for an hour.

Prepare the cupcakes:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F/180C and grease a cake pan with some vegetable shortening or cooking spray.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.
3. Add the sugar, oil, and vanilla extract to the soy milk mixture and blend well.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain.
5. I made a small layer cake, so just split the batter evenly into two cake pans.
6. Bake 20 minutes, until a toothpick/knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

To assemble:
1. Once the mousse is chilled, use a frosting spatula to spread the mousse between the two layers of the cake. After putting the layers together, completely cover the top and sides of the cake with the mousse and keep in a cool place until serving.

Day 10 – Something about Japan that sets it apart from anywhere else.

2012-01-06T10:29:00.000+09:00

Source

With my recent trip to Korea and around Mie-ken behind me, I think this is the perfect time to write about the 10th prompt in the "30-Day Japan Meme." As always, leaving Japan even for a short while (a four day jaunt in Korea even) gives me some perspective on the country I live in, and when I come back, I rediscover what I like and don't like about my daily life here. More often than not, I'm ecstatic to be back on the clean and orderly streets of Japan.

I'm a city girl through and through (which is why living in the country-side of Kochi can be draining and exhausting... not at all lively around here), and have to say that Tokyo and New York are my favorite cities in the world (thus far). When deciding to visit Seoul for a couple of days, I was wondering if I'd fall in love with that city too, with it's expansive subway system, variety of cultural gems, and cheap shopping at every turn. Not so much the case, however.... The subways were too big and wide (if you wanted to transfer to another line, oftentimes you spent most of the time walking to the next station underground), people were pushy and rude, and the shopping wasn't all that exciting (though I did get to indulge in a little Forever 21 shopping spree...). I missed being in the country where I understood the language, the foot-traffic patterns, and knew what to expect of customer service and politeness between strangers.

Source. Look how happy they are to help! With neck ties and all.

What sets Japan apart from other places? A lot of things... but I think that the predictability is what I like best at times (and hate at other times). Perhaps more specifically, the predictability of customer service. I know what to expect when I go to the grocery store, and I'm not going to get glared at by the teenaged cashier just because he/she's having a bad day. I know that the post man will always come back at 5:30 when they miss delivering a package of mine. I know that the trains will leave at their scheduled times, I will be notified of a coming train, and I will clearly be told where that train is going/what type of train it is. Even if the train is late, I will be well-informed as to why (unlike in Chicago, where the reason will never be known or conveyed to you).

For me, while I like unpredictable things and being spontaneous, I like my day-to-day life and essential things like going to the store/bank/ATM/post office, to be systematic, predictable, and informative. It's calming and reassuring to know that the combini down the street is open 24 hours a day and I can pay my internet bill any time I please. At the same time, the systematic-ness of Japan can get irritating when you make a mistake. Take for example, my recent trip to Korea. I had to buy a bus ticket to and from Osaka. In the process of my trip, I managed to misplace and/or lose my ticket home from Osaka. When inquiring at the help desk the morning of my departure, they told me I needed to re-buy my ticket, a thing that I had clearly paid for since they had my name and phone number registered in their computer system. I feel like in the US, when you make a mistake, people will more often than not be forgiving and let you slide by. This however is not the case with the type of customer service you get here in Japan. You can whine and cry all you want, but the system is the system, and sometimes you must pay in order to get organized, reliable service.

Source

Back To Life

2012-01-04T10:04:00.003+09:00

AHHH a nearly perfect line-up of amazing bands that I will *probably be going to see (a few complications may stand in my way...). Mall said that he'd take me and Matto along with him on the drive up to Tokyo, so if it's possible, hellz YES I'm along for the ride! Of course, judging from the live's he's performing in that weekend, this most likely means driving up Friday night to Saitama (where they have their first show) and then going back down to Hachioji to hang out. Rough sounding-drive (11 hours to Tokyo, I don't know how long to Saitama...), but totally worth it to see WHAT-A-NIGHT'S last show until May.

Anyway, other than being back to work and back in Kochi, I wanted to write about my last day of vacation in Mie-ken with Yukine. We ended up taking an early train out of Matsusaka to Nagoya, since it's only one and a half hours from her place (and the trains are so warm and easy to fall asleep on...). Since my dear friend Yukine has recently picked up an obsession with castles and collecting castle stamps (I did not even know something like that existed), we went to Nagoya castle first. The outside of the castle is absolutely gorgeous, but the inside was a real disappointment. Instead of being one of those old, creaky castles where your feet freeze because you have to wear the provided slippers, and the staircases are so steep one wrong step could probably kill you.... it was one of those re-done castles that had a museum inside of it and central heating (LAMEEE).

Lame-ness aside, after our castle wanderings, we ate some Nagoya meibutsus and tried Kishimen (a flat noodle) and miso katsu (delicious~). They had a huge castle teishoku that we split and got served the noodles in two separate bowls (after Yukine spent ages sticking her extra 10 and 50 yen coins into the ticket machine). First time I've eaten a flat noodle in Japan!

Later, we wandered over to Osu-Kannon to check out the shrine (still packed with hatsumode visitors) and gobs of used-clothing shops in the area. There were streets and streets of shops selling used everything and it was hard to pull away from some of the cute dresses and sweaters I found (was running low on funds at the time). I did, however, find the local record shop and picked up a couple of super cheap 12 inches to add to my collection~ (Goofy's Holiday, Water Closet, 29 band comp CD, and 30 band comp double EP).

Upon arriving back to Matsusaka, Yukine took me to a well-known beef restaurant that sells 1万 200gram Matsusaka steaks and treated me to a delicious teishoku <3 Don't know how it compared to Kobe beef (since I've never tried any), but it was simply to-die-for. What a wonderful way to end an 8-day holiday~

Ise Shrine and Tekone zushi

2012-01-01T21:48:00.001+09:00

Me and Yukine went to Ise Shrine (only a 15 min train ride from her place in Matsusaka) to have our first shrine visit of the year today (hatsumode 初詣). From the Ise train station, the outer shrine (geku 外宮) was only a short walk down a very cute street lined with shops and restaurants. The Ise shrines are both very natural and beautiful looking, made of plain unpainted wood and set back into the greenest most peaceful forests I've ever seen. Geku wasn't that crowded and we were able to make our way around easily, but the main shrine (naiku 内宮) was packed full, and it took us an hour of standing in a sea of people (photo below) in order to toss in our yen and give our thanks.

It was amazing how far people came just to do their hatsumode at this shrine. There were periodic car announcements that were trying to tell people from Ehime, Gifu, Tokyo, and Hyogo Ken about how their car lights were on or something. I wish I knew more about this tradition. Considering Japan is a pretty unreligious country, there are so many traditions that involve going to the shrine or temple to pray and people go amazing distances just to attend the right ceremony, the famous festival or the best "power spot" for whatever.

After giving our thanks, we went out to eat Ise's meibutsu dish, Tekone zushi, which is basically a maguro donburi that has sushi rice underneath. It was really really good and I highly recommend trying it out if you take a trip down to Mie. I also got my first taste of Matsysaka gyu and bought a Matsusaka gyu man. Really hot but pretty good, although Yukine insists that it is nothing compared to the expensive steaks they serve in restaurants where the "meat melts in your mouth." Apparently we are going to try and eat some of that tomorrow for dinner so.... Excited!

Tekone sushi..... so sooo good.

Sea of humanity

Matsusaka gyuuu~

Almost to the shrine after an hour of waiting!

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます！

2011-12-31T20:35:00.001+09:00

After a very late night out in Kyoto with some old coworkers (went out dancing until 4:30!), me and my travel buddy decided to just stay in for new years eve and watch the NHK Kohaku Utagasen in her house in Mie Ken. We are going to Ise jinja for hatsumode tomorrow morning and then to the wedded rocks. It feels lame not going out for new years eve, but excluding one new years eve three years ago, I don't really ever go out for new years eve. Plus, we've been traveling so much recently... I'm at the breaking point and just need to rest and chill out for a night. :P

I hope the omikuji I get tomorrow is a good one! I need a lot of guidance this next year. Farewell 2011. You started out rough and slowly turned good. All I hope is that 2012 will continue the same and I won't have so many rough patches. I'm ready for you, 2012!!

I think everyone's expressions sum up my year: weird, scared, excited, apathetic. hahaha

Korea Day Three, Photo Diary

2011-12-30T12:21:00.001+09:00

Day three was a shrine day! We saw two shrines: Bongeunsa Temple and Jongmyo Royal Shrine. The Bongeusna Temple was free of charge, and really unspeakably gorgeous and serene, considering it was in the middle of huge skyscrapers and near the noisy COEX building. I was surprised how pretty all the wooden buildings looked juxtaposed with the metallic, shiney, business looking buildings in the background.

The Jongmyo Royal Shrine was quiet, but for the reason that they would only let you in if you took a guided tour. We had missed the English tour by thirty minutes, and didn't want to wait another ninety so we took the Japanese guided tour. Yay for bi-lingualism!! Haha~ It was actually a really interesting tour; the shrine houses the ashes of all the dead Korean kings and has a bunch of buildings dedicated to religious ceremonies. The coolest thing I learned from the tour was about the raised stone paths. The paths have a raised area going down the center so they look like they are split into three parts. You're not supposed to step on the middle path because that's the path for the spirits of the dead to walk to the shrine on.

After shrines, we walked around the COEX building and then headed back over to Myeongdong to see the Seoul Tower in the evening light. The cable car up the mountain had a gorgeous view of the city, and the tower itself is really pretty lit up in red. On the observation deck, you could see the entire city in all it's night time glory. Comparable to the view from Tokyo tower: lights going on for miles and miles in all directions. The other cool thing about the tower is that they have this "Love Letter from the Highest Post Office" project going on, where you can buy a cute postcard and send it from the top of the tower. Me and my travel buddy sent a few :)

After that, we went out to yakiniku again but at a much nicer place this time. The beef we chose was to die for, and we also got a lot of fun side dishes along with the meal (like this spicy soup and fluffy dashi egg dish) and some makkori! I guess traditionally makkori is sipped from a bowl instead of cup or glass, so it was a bit awkward holding liquid in that way, but really fun. A good way to spend the last night in Korea! Now, onto the photo diary~

Yukine tying her wish to the tree at the Bongeunsa Shrine

Cool lanterns decorated the place.

No meat yet, but the awesome side dishes.

Cutest hot-drink sleeves I've ever seen!!!

More shrine-ness

Yukine being a huge tourist. NERD.

COEX art

Highest Post Office

The shiney-ness coming from this area was insane.

Makkori!!

View of the city from the cable car.

Seoul Tower.

Korea, Day Two, Photo Diary

2011-12-28T22:32:00.001+09:00

After being completely beaten down by that mountain yesterday, it took a lot of effort to do anything today :P Thus, shopping ensued!! We went to two of the shopping districts: Namdaemun Market and Myeongdong to check out the shops. After that, we made it to the five o'clock Nanta performance, which is like Stomp or Blue Man Group but with kitchen utensils. It was really fun to watch, and is my big おすすめ from my trip.

After Nanta, we went out for yakiniku and so-ju at a place near our hostel. Can't go to Korea and not have the BBQ, kimchi, and sake equivalent so-ju! It wasn't bad either! A little sweeter than sake but a lot stronger I think. Pictures to follow!

A food cart near our hostel we frequented once. :D Best imo tempura I've ever eaten.

Nanta in action!

First time at yakiniku, Korea style~

Illuminations were all over the city.

So-ju!

Cart food.

Korea and the Hike of Death, Day One Photo Diary

2011-12-27T22:18:00.001+09:00

First day of four in Korea and we ended up hiking up a huge mountain. All because we wanted to see a wall! Haha~ somehow me and my travel buddy got roped into checking out the military zone of the Seonggwak fortress wall that sits on top of Bukhansan mountain. It didn't seem like a huge endeavor, but the whole thing ended up being a 2.5 hour hike up a really really steep mountain path. My legs wanted to give out by the end!! This was all after checking out the two palaces in the area: changdeokgung palace and gyeongbokgung palace. They were both gorgeous and it's interesting seeing the Chinese and Japanese architectural influence on the buildings.

Other than that, I finally got to try real Korean bibimbop! Tomorrow, BBQ awaits us~ I love kimchi and spicy food sooo much :)

Cool moving lights on the building near Seoul station

That is the first thing I've ever seen sold in a KFC that looks appetizing (besides the biscuits)

EGG CART.

Bibimbop, my favorite Korea dish ever. Finally got to try some real stuff :D

Breakfast the first morning~

Cat cart.

The north gate along the fortress wall we nearly died climbing.

When Santas attack..

Kitty Cafe!

Gorgeous view of the city from the top of a mountain we climbed.

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-26T07:00:00.001+09:00

Just in time for an American Christmas but a little late for a Japanese Christmas (by seven hours). The last week has been really busy, filled with finishing classes, bounenkais, band practice and a Christmas party I held yesterday. I feel like compared to last year, the end of the year really snuck up on me this time. I wanted to design some nengajo and send them out but didn't have any time at all! :P Oh well. Next year is my year, year of the dragon, so maybe being in my element will bring me some extra luck.

On Thursday I got to spend a wonderful evening with all my junior high school teachers at their bounenkai. I love that school best of all, and the teaches all treat me so nicely and are so friendly and chatty. We played a really fun team game and all got to receive presents that varied in usefulness. I chose the gift wrapped in the Kaldi bag. You can never go wrong with food, in my opinion. Saturday was the bounenkai for my Japanese class. It was hilarious seeing our 60 year old teacher drunk, sassy, and speaking English. She is probably my favorite person in this country and I'm so happy I started going to that class last February. We all hung out in Hirome Ichiba for the evening and did a gift exchange.

Friday, me and Matto went to band practice in Tokushima. Because our drummer had to work (on the emperor's birthday too! Damn you Sunny Clean!!) we went early to eat dinner with kabuki face and his girlfriend, then went to practice from 9-11. Arase had just gotten this really amazing recording device as a gift so we got to test it out. The quality and balance of just our practice tracks is impressive, to say the least. Can't wait to start recording for real!!

Yesterday, I held a small party at my house with some close friends and my young JTEs. I made a vegan caramel apple pie that came out soooo wonderfully and Matto made his vegan pasta bake, which tasted better than usual. We also played a game that my family always plays for Christmas where everyone brings five presents and adds them to a massive pile in the center of the room. The contents of the presents vary greatly in quality, which is the funnest part of the game. Everyone receives three playing cards and when your card is called, you get to take a gift from the center. Once all the gifts are gone, you can steal from other people. It gets really fun when people get possessive of a gift they don't even know the contents of. Me and Tomokazu kept stealing a present back and forth that ended up being an incense tray or something silly like that. We also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I haven't seen in ages. One of my favorite movies, no doubt.

Hope everyone has/had a lovely Christmas as well! Whether you're with your family at home, or far from home with your friends, spending christmas with loved ones and people you like is the most important thing to me. :) Now, I'm off to Korea for a four day vacation and then will be in Mie Ken for the new year. This is the first time I'll be spending new years in Japan. I'm pretty excited to go to the famous Ise shrine and pray for a good new year. I have a feeling 2012 will be a good one. ;)

Seisui Enkai

so much love

APPLE PIE

People love showing me the bird in love <3 Christmas party!

"Tease Me, Please Me #3"

2011-12-19T09:51:00.002+09:00

I like how our band's name is the only one not all in caps.

The flyer for our first show was finally made!! Yahoo!!! The picture used for it is one of Hikko from ELMOC in a particularly drunk-looking state, hahaha. Oh man, can't wait! Other than FOOL THE PUBLIC (which I've never seen before), the rest of the bands we are playing with are awesome. I need to be on my A game for this...yesterday, we had the singer/guitarist from THE MADWIFE, one of her friends, and the bass from WHAT-A-NIGHT'S come and listen in on our practice. I got kinda nervous the first song and royally messed up my guitar part. :P The song we always start with is a little tougher, so having an easier song to start with will help take the edge off playing a real show I think. As soon as the first song was done, I eased up a lot and was able to get through the rest of the songs fine. I wonder what they thought of it all... the singer/guitarist from WHAT-A-NIGHT'S really liked our practice recordings and mentioned that at the show me and Matto went to on Saturday evening, but no one said anything in particular when we were taking a break Sunday. Of course, I don't really think that means they didn't like it or anything. Thinking about it, when I went to the recording for Horse and Deer, it's not like me and Matto jumped up and down and yelled "OMG you guys are soooo awesooome~!" or anything. You just smile, bob along to the music, and enjoy what you're listening to.

Turncoat

Saturday, me and Matto headed out to Takamatsu to see a show at a place called Rizin. I've mentioned this before, but Takamatsu is famous for their udon, and ever since I had a taste of it (at a place apparently called "God Hand") I've craved it. I did not satisfy that craving Saturday because the place we chose to eat at was just a lame chain restaurant, so the udon was only so-so. :\ Next time I'll have to do it properly. The only notable bands were Turncoat, WHAT-A-NIGHT'S, Shipyards, and Parkmates. Everything else was pretty bad...

Wine wine win~

Friday night, one of my friends in town had a wine and cheese party that I went to. It was really nice tasting different wines and indulging in ligit tasting cheeses. Japanese cheese tends to be so mild and dull tasting... it was really nice trying a strong blue cheese and brie with apple slices and nut-filled bread. I brought a crumble cake to the party, and Sea brought some cheddar. Unfortunately, the cheese was rather mild and only had a hint of any true cheddary taste. I miss sharp cheddar's bite so badly sometimes...

Last week of classes and work until I take a 12 day vacation! Pretty busy week, actually: I have classes everyday this week, a bonenkai on Thursday and Saturday night, practice late Friday night, and I'm holding a little Christmas party on Sunday the 25th right before I head out to Korea next Monday! Me and my college buddy (that came to visit last month) living in Mie Ken are going to Korea from the 26th-30th, and then I'm bumming at her house until I have to go home on the 3rd. We decided that we are going to go to the extremely popular and very famous Ise Shrine for New Years. I've never done the traditional Japanese New Years thing before, so I'm excited to get freezing cold receive omikuji, and see what sort of fortune next year will bring me~

Atsushi's new nickname is going to be "Speed Red," after those awesome glasses we got for him in Tokyo.

Arase nicknamed himself "This is shit" after the poop stickers we also brought back for them. His Tokyo gift was a lighter that had a heart that lit up on the front when you used the lighter. Hahahaha~

Day 09 – Favorite stores/shopping centers.

2011-12-14T23:05:00.001+09:00

It's been awhile since I've written a "Japan 30 Day Meme" blog post, but I think this one is my favorite prompt thus far!

I think I can safely admit that I am a bit of a shop-a-holic. While I am definitely no where near clinically-diagnosed bad (shopping can be just as addictive as gambling or alcohol), I still do have the tendency to buy things I don't need and spend money that I really should be using on rent or food on buying a cute new dress. The thing about Japan, as anyone who has been to the country is well aware of, is that there are cute dresses, shoes, bags, and blouses exploding out of every shop front and crevice available for use. Styles and seasons change quickly, and once one thing goes in fashion it's everywhere and then no where in a flash. I love Japanese fashion, but I don't make that much money, and can only splurge on a few nice things every once in awhile.

The other thing about Japan that I like is their access to nice quality used shops. Everyone and their brother has probably heard of the chain "Book-Off" if they have any experience traveling or studying abroad in Japan. They've even started opening stores in the US! If you don't know, Book-Off is a used book store where you can find used (and in very nice condition) books, comics, magazines, CDs, DVDs, and video games (sometimes the consoles too). They have walls of 100 yen comics and books, and you can usually find what you're looking for in a Book-Off somewhere near you and at 2/3rds the cost (at the very least).

Now, something I'm not sure everyone knows about Japan. There is not only Book-Off. In fact, the "Off" chain of stores (if you can call it a chain...) has a bunch of different resale shops! Among the stranger include: Off-Garage (car stuff) and Golf-Off (...obvious?). My two favorites are the magnificent Off-House (used clothing, furniture and house wares) and Hard-Off (PORN SHOP!... no it's electronics, DVDs, games, CDs, and musical instruments). I have spent countless hours going through the racks in Off-House and coming across 300 yen adorable dresses and skirts. Not to mention the fact that half of the furniture in my house is from Off-House (4000 yen yellow couch, 800 yen lamp, 500 yen lamp, 3000 yen bamboo bookshelf.... the list goes on). On the Hard-Off side, I can thank them for my lovely blue acoustic guitar (6000 yen) and a number of fun film cameras I've been collecting (nikon FE for 6000 yen and toy camera for 300 yen that takes really fun pictures), as well as most of my electric guitar accessories (picks, strings, and input cables).

THRIFTING!!!!

On the same line as Off-House, I also love to frequent the two other used-clothing chains called "Jumble Store" and "B.J," which I'm pretty sure they have all over Japan (I've seen them in every prefecture on Shikoku at least). The clothing that they accept for those places is of amazing quality and basically brand new. While these type of "furugi-ya" can run a bit expensive, if you look hard enough, you can find cheap gems everywhere. The existence of these stores, and the high quality of clothing they provide, while maybe not the latest fashions, has made it rather difficult for me to resist the urge to spend my yen when I step foot in them. :P

Tokyo Photo Diary

2011-12-12T15:39:00.001+09:00

I had such a fantastic week/weekend in Tokyo, that I really don't have much to write about it. I just want to share pictures. Being back in boring Kochi is also not really doing much for my mood... it's weird but taking the 11 hour bus back is better for the mental transition than a 1 hour plane ride. In the 11 hours, you dread coming back, but it's such a tiring ride that getting home feels like a relief. Riding on a plane takes no time, so the transition is stark. I went from big city lights, busyness, noise, movement back to dark, slow, empty fields and mountains... Meh, oh well! This December weather is gorgeous today, and I have dinner with my friends, so I really don't have a lot to complain about right now. :)

Advertisment in Shibuya.

Beautiful blue sky in Shibuya.

Antique toy store, one of the many weird shops in Broadway (Nakano) we went to with Shota

Shota on his giant computer phone.

Band called "Water Closet." An older band but really awesome!

My favorite Tokyo girls, ELMOC <3

With Kazue. She almost didn't make it to sing because she was hung over from her bonenkai the previous night.

More ELMOC <3<3

"Horse and Deer" recording a new CD. Matto got to do some guest vocals. It was fun hanging out with them.

Recording the vocals for another part of their song.

Oh Tokyo...

2011-12-09T17:29:00.001+09:00

Every time I come here, my desire to live in this city grows. I suppose it helps that the number of awesome people I know who live in this city keeps steadily growing. :) I really hope I get into IUC with some financial support... If that happens, living in Tokyo will finally become a reality~

Yesterday afternoon we hung out with my professor in Kichijyoji and went to a really good vegan cafe and gilato place. I love hanging out with that prof because he always inspires me to keep reaching for my Tokyo dreams. Then, last night we got to hang out with Kana and Hikko from ELMOC. Along with some fun izakaya-ing, we were invited to play a show in May of next year!! Kya! Tonight, dinner and drinks with the guys from Balladmen and Takashi. Tomorrow, day tripping with Shota and a kick-ass live in the evening in Nakano.

Although yesterday was rainy, this weather us not terrible for december, and the second half of today was gorgeous!!! Love it love it here <3

Welcome to December

2011-12-05T20:45:00.001+09:00

Awful three days of teacher's conferences this week. Not the best way to start off the last month of 2011 but oh well. Today was day one... lectures and workshops (kill me noooow!). Tomorrow is model lesson day and more workshops about English Pronunciation and story telling. :P BORING!!

HOWEVER, Wednesday night, I get to fly off to Tokyo and hang out until Sunday night! Can't wait!! Shows, delicious food and nights out with awesome people to look forward to~ :D Now, enjoy some photos.

Matto in Dino garb. His early x-mas present.

Fall happening at my mountain school.

We had to take a quiz at the beginning of one of the lectures. This is what boring conferences bring out of us. :P

Day 08 – Share a funny anecdote about living/working in Japan.

2011-11-30T09:08:00.000+09:00

Today's 30 Day Japan meme prompt is a walk down memory lane! I have a number of funny/weird/uncomfortable anecdotes about Japan... but then again, if you're a foreigner living in Japan, how could you not have a dozen waiting to be pulled out for a cocktail party (because being a fancy foreigner in Japan, you also always go to fancy cocktail parties, am I right? haha). I feel like my life turned into one giant circus the moment I set foot on Japanese soil as a worker rather than a student. Of course I have some funny stories from my time abroad at Kansai Gaidai... but none of them are as odd or as uncomfortable as the ones I've collected trying to live a normal adult life in this country. Especially if you're teaching English in an elementary school or junior high school! That's where the best weird things happen. :)

I will never get over the fact that nearly every human being born in this country has ridden a unicycle.

One of my favorite stories to tell is about one particular day of class I had at one of my larger Elementary schools, Ioki. As an English teacher in Japan, if you teach at a public school and have 5th and 6th grade students, you are probably familiar with the standardized textbook called "Eigo Note" and truly know just how awful it is (it's being updated for the next school year, apparently, but I have little hopes for the new one). The school district I work in enforces Eigo Note in their schools, and to top it off, I have to follow pre-made lesson plans that a non-native English speaker created for me to use in class (I won't even start with how irritating that is to me). Each of these lessons touches upon something covered in Eigo Note and includes extra activities as well as a "daily conversation" to start off the class with. To say these conversations are useless is an understatement. They are redundant and completely taken out of context. But I digress...

Not the 5th graders I'm talking about but my weirdest, most trouble-making classes.

The "daily conversation" that me and my JTE were supposed to be demonstrating that day was something along the lines of:

ALT: I'm Hungry!

JTE: Are you?

Poetry, I must admit. So, seeing that a drunk dog could probably spit out these four words, we decided that the 5th graders we were teaching could do better than that, and we came up with a different conversation:

JTE: Are you okay?

ALT: My head hurts!

While it's not Shakespeare, we figured it was more useful than the previous tomfoolery, and a number of kids had already been complaining of aches and pains during the "how are you?" portion of English class without being able to properly express their complaints in English. Thus! We started class, with the specific goal of letting them know you could replace head with stomach, arm, back, etc. How useful!

After our demonstration, we always let the kids practice with three or four different partners so that they can play both roles and get the hang of the awkward sentences. At one point, one of my students comes up to me, holding his ass and asking, "先生、けつの穴って、英語で何?" ("Teacher, what is the word for asshole in English?") Stiffing a giggling (because I'm 4 years old), I told him we probably wouldn't reveal information like that in English anyway, so he didn't need to know. Of course, instead of giving up like a good kid, him and his friends decide they needed to figure this out and came up with the two wonderful options of "My hip-house hurts" and "My little black hole hurts." While nearly rolling on the floor with laughter from this exchange, a girl came up and asked how she'd say that her arm was itchy. Of course, this introduced "itchy" to the conversation and quickly, "My hip-house is itchy" was being thrown around the classroom. I don't think I've ever laughed so much during a class as I did during that one. Despite the ridiculousness, it's moments like that, that make my job feel fun and not nearly so bleak.

No sports fest is complete without looking like a complete idiot at least once during it.

The Only Way To Spend Thanksgiving....

2011-11-28T20:22:00.001+09:00

With other Americans :) No, but really.... No matter the nationality, you should spend thanksgiving with people you care about, especially when you're thousands of miles away from your family. Even if that means holding it on the Monday after the actual day.

In addition, this year's thanksgiving was completely vegan! Matto is vegan, so although we usually make vegan dinners together on Mondays as a group, this Monday funday (as we call it) was a thanksgiving edition, and included homemade bread, apple walnut stuffing, mashed potatoes (both regular and sweet mixed together), mushroom gravy, baked tofu, pineapple cranberry sauce, green beans (steamed and fried with onions and garlic), and a pumpkin pie with homemade crust that I worked on last night. To say that the meal was satisfying would be an understatement. We all enjoyed the post-feast comatose nap while watching "Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses." It helped to have the heated carpet for everyone to hibernate on too. :)

I'm thankful for my awesome friends, all my new adventures and an active life!! I'm ready to take on the last month of 2011!!

The thanksgiving spread. From left, baked tofu, mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, apple walnut stuffing, greenbeans, bread, pineapple cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie!

Yes, I did finish that. :D

And that. I must say, my first attempt at a pumpkin pie did not come out too shabby! Especially since the dish I used was wayyy too deep for pie.

Pumpkin pie Sunday night when it had just come out of the oven~

What I've learned about myself from being in Japan....

2011-11-25T15:40:00.000+09:00

First day of ALT orientation in Tokyo.

When I first saw this prompt on the blog, "Whoa... I'm in Japan" I thought, "No problem! This will be an easy post! I reflect constantly about the choices I make, the way things have turned out and what I want to do about the future! This will take 5 minutes..."

... and after 17 days of letting this post sit in the "drafts" section of blogger, I think I finally have something to say. For whatever reason, when faced with the task of physically putting words on paper (or type on screen, in this instance), I couldn't pinpoint exactly I've learned about myself in the past year and a half of living and working in Japan. I can always start with the obvious:

I'm effing tall
I've gotten better at Japanese
and worse at English
I can play the guitar
I have a higher tolerance for beer than I did in college
I know how to pay bills
and cook for myself

But those are just facts and skills. Things that come along with the act of living on your own and trying to fill the empty time between work, sleep, and the weekend. Not really things that have changed me as a person. Now at the same time, I can't say that I've changed drastically as a person either. Not that most people change 180 degrees when they have life changing experiences like living abroad, but I do know that I've gotten stronger in some regards. I can say with certainty that I've become a more confident person. While the simple idea of standing in front of people used to make my heart squeeze in anxiety, I am now ecstatically looking forward to the first live show with my band in January. Instead, I'll break it down into three categories.

Soccer event I went to last year around this time on "freedom island" as one of my stoner Japanese friends called it.

My first Kikusui zadankai (sake tasting)

Social: I am more of a "people person" than I ever thought I was. Not to say that I need attention 100% of my day. I'm the type of person who has a few super close friends, a couple of good friends, and a lot of acquaintances. No, I figured out that just the mere act of being around other people (being near people in a coffee shop/book store/shopping center) is enough to keep me from falling into some sort of depressed slump. I just never knew that the energy from being around people was so important to me. I think that's my biggest motivating factor for wanting to move out of Aki (the definition of countryside) and get to a bigger city.

DORKS <3

Lounging with his beer and cig in front of the venue.

Tolerance: It will sound strange to say that my tolerance has gone down, but it is true. I am no longer the over-all tolerant human being that I used to be. To be more specific, I no longer have much tolerance for unadulterated ignorance. I used to smile politely when people would ask if I was able to eat rice, use chopsticks, or if America had TVs. That sort of ignorance I am no longer able to tolerate. It makes me cringe and I have to put a lot of effort into not responding in a snotty fashion. Especially the type of ignorance that won't stop asking the same question until it hears the answer that it wants to hear and expects. Instead, I have gained a lot of patience for curiosity. I appreciate questions that are asked out of a pure desire to learn about something/someplace/someone new. My friends here are those sort of people; the type who want to better themselves through knowledge and not remain ignorant to the outside world.

Screaming into the abyss is one of my favorite past times :)

Individual: I understand what it means to be an individual so much more now than I used to. I understand how it feels to be lumped into the massive labels that are "American" and "foreigner" while trying to fight against the sort of negative connotations that others automatically associate to both. I am me. I am not part of the mind-hive that some people think societies have. I am an individual with my own thoughts, beliefs, experiences and morals. Just like it's not fair to say "the Japanese are..." any certain way. I have met so many people while working here that step outside of the stereotype and "norm" of Japan. People like to look at the differences between Japan and America so much so, that they forget we have more similarities than anything else. All foreigners don't speak English, and all Japanese people don't like natto. It's that simple.

It's an appropriate time of year to start reflecting on oneself, with New Years coming up. I just finished a column for the local newspaper's (in Japanese) January issue about this as well. Hopes and dreams for the New Year. It's interesting how once we change our calendar, it really does feel like we have a bit of a fresh start. Even though the difference between the minute we are living in and the "previous year's minute" are no different. It's a good time to start making resolutions, writing out goals, and thinking positively for the new year we are going to face in a month's time. 頑張ろう！

Why Japan Wins At Public Holidays

2011-11-24T15:47:00.001+09:00

Yesterday was the second public holidaythis month! And really, what's a better way to get through a coldworkweek than to have a holiday splitting it into two manageablehalves? I do love my three-day weekends, but with how cold it's beengetting recently, it was a relief to not have to wake up before thesun rose, as well as wear jeans. :x

Since it was labor day here in Japan, me and Matto packed up our gear and drove over to Tokushima tohave band practice and see a live. Why they decided to have a liveshow on the actual holiday and not the night before so everyone couldparty.... I will never understand (but it was a fantastic show,nonetheless). We practiced for two hours in Torigoro's(practice/recording studio) nicest studio; it was soo spacious andfancy feeling, compared to the cramped old spaces they rent out herein Kochi. We finished a 6^th song together and finallydecided on a band name: Leeway. It feels appropriate for our strangelittle group of four (our two Tokushima bandmates keep gettingweirder/more interesting the more time we spend with them. I'm lovingit).

Arase, our amazing teddybear-esque lead guitarist and my lyrics notebook in the spacious studio <3

Atsushi still in his work clothes. Isn't the studio fancy looking?!

After practice, Atsushi had to get to ashow at another venue called Grindhouse, so Matto, Arase and I allwent out to an izakaya/sushi-ya to eat, drink, and bond (I could notparticipate in the drinking part, seeing as I am always DD). Sincethere was so much time between practice ending, and the show atCrowbar beginning, we wandered over to see Thirsty Chords play atGrindhouse. They played amazingly, as usual, but for a crowd who wasnot thrilled to see them. Now that I've seen them enough times inenough live houses, it's interesting to see what songs they choose toplay for which crowds. When they know that the crowd loves them, theyplay all their amazing songs from the “I Continue I...” album.Otherwise, they play either really old or really new stuff...

I know he's my band's drummer, as well as married but damn, Atsushi looks really hot when he drums.

I love taking pictures of these guys. They're such an attractive band XD

The band before them was a Sublimeripoff, and the guys after them (who were assholes) had thisreggae/ska/rap thing going that I was really not a fan of. Thank godthe tickets to the show were cheap, because we peaced out afterThirsty Chords finished and headed over to Crowbar to see anti-18,not for, Your Pest Band, Gleam Garden, and WHAT-A-NIGHT's. As usual,I love WHAT-A-NIGHT's and their perfect performances (they seriouslysound like their recordings every time), but I was especially excitedto see Tokyo's Your Pest Band again. I think the main vocalist got evenhotter since I saw him last time in Tokyo during the summer... and Iforgot how tall he was too!

Your Pest Band

Spalding from WHAT-A-NIGHT's

Anyway, great way to spend a publicholiday (even though I didn't get to sleep until 2AM): full of musicand Arase's drunken kabuki poses. :D

Winter in Japan

2011-11-23T08:24:00.001+09:00

I have a love-hate relationship with winter in Japan. I love how Christmas lights and holiday music start being used even before Halloween is over. However, I hate people's sense of design when it comes to putting up said Christmas lights (usually looks like Santa had a little drink-reverse all over a house/gas station/mall). I love mikan, strawberries, and all other winter food like nabe and sukiyaki. However, I hate how my schools keep the windows open even in the dead of winter in order to "air out" the building.

What I hate most, is how effing cold my house gets during this season. I have a very strangely arranged apartment with high ceilings, no neighbors, an empty shop below me, and doors on loose hinges that make it sound like elephants are trying to break in when a strong wind blows. At the same time, I favorite thing about winter is the type of products that Japan provides in order to fix these problems. Last year I survived the winter by gritting my teeth and hiding under my kotatsu. This year, I can live in luxury with my new electric blanket and heated carpet!! Doesn't it look cozy?! All I need to do is set up a tent and portable stove and I can live on my heated carpet aaallll winter :)

Heated carpet, cup of hot tea, my kotatsu, and computer... what else could you need?!

A Night Out at Hirome Ichiba

2011-11-21T08:31:00.001+09:00

This month's J-Festa Blogging theme is "Dining in Japan," so I thought I would share a little bit about the "hottest spot" in all of Kochi Prefecture: Hirome Ichiba. Lonely Planet even ranked the restaurant as the 5th most interesting thing you should waste time doing if you ever drunkenly stumble into this prefecture (since we are #1 in that department). But in all seriousness, Hirome Ichiba is the hangout of Kochi City. You will only find the place empty during the afternoon, and even then you can find people scattered about drinking beer and eating katsuo tataki. The establishment takes up the first floor of a two story warehouse-esque building made of solid grey concrete and filled to the brim with gift shops, bars, and small food "stalls" (parking on the 2nd floor). The rest of the space is filled with picnic tables and benches that you need to circle like a hawk in order to nab on a busy Friday/Saturday night.

People pack like sardines onto those benches on most Friday/Saturday nights.

The back of the building where the best bar tender ever resides as well as some amazing ice cream.

Since there are so many different shops and stalls lining the interior of the building, it's hard not to find something everyone wants to eat. A number of places offer standard, cheap, izakaya food like korokke, yaki-tori, assortments of fried finger food and beer. Other places are more specialized, and offer a specially made gyoza, ramen, takoyaki, karage, or donburi as the main draw to their particular shop. There are even a few non-Japanese food shops that offer Chinese, Korean, Indian and a shop called "Kei's Cafe" that offers a slightly more western-style menu including Jerk Chicken and Taco Rice. Of course, out of all of these things, the almighty Katsuo Tataki reins supreme and has one especially large shop near the front of Hirome.

This shop sits front and center in the Hirome Ichiba complex and serves only Katsuo Tataki (along with the standard white rice, miso soup and tempura-fried kimpira) in about three main flavors. They even have the kitchen area set up with a huge pane of glass so you can watch as they freshly sear the Katsuo you'll be eating over a roaring straw fire. Flavoring options include salt, tare, and yuzu, and each order of Katsuo Tataki is garnished with slices of garlic and a sprinkling of green onion and grated daikon.

Raw in the middle and perfectly seared on the outside. Yum.

Katsuo Tataki (#5) would rank in my top 5 Hirome Ichiba food choices. Along with it, I think I would have to add:

bacon wrapped onigiri (#4)
Hirome korokke (#3)
cheese nan (#2)
macha soft-serve in a waffle cone (#1)

I apologize that I don't have pictures of each thing..... if you tasted them I think you'd understand why I can never wait to take a picture. :P

Best bar-tender in the world, A-chan.

Last but not least, booze! If anything, Hirome Ichiba is the place that everyone in Kochi goes to relax, unwind, and down a few beers before the week ends/weekend starts. Every store in the place sells one of the following: cheap beer, chu-hai, nihonshu, or wine. The exception would be A-chan's middle bar, which remains as one of the few places that sells liquor and has such an adorable tender to go along with it (there's another bar that sits on the outside of the back of the building, run by an American). No fail, every time me and Matto go to visit him he will have shots of free whiskey and vodka waiting for us (and will subsequently take a shot himself). He's a dangerous man. Everything he sells is 500 yen and he's the one bar tender that fully understands that Americans don't like foam on their beer (and god bless him for it).

That about wraps it up for my post on Hirome Ichiba. If you ever find yourself lost and in Kochi Prefecture (because unless you're doing the 88 temple pilgrimage... why would you ever visit Shikoku?), come on over to Hirome Ichiba, located at the end of Kochi's shopping arcade "Obiyamachi," and find a tired salary man or drunken college student to share a beer with. :)

Day 07 – Which Japanese words do you use in English? (hanami, shinkansen, etc.)

2011-11-18T11:14:00.000+09:00

I already briefly went over this prompt in the "mannerisms and expressions" post, but I think I'll go into more detail this time around~

As I said in the aforementioned post, I use a lot of Japanese words in my daily conversations with other foreigners. The degree to which I try and sensor myself varies, of course, from person to person. People who have a good grasp of the Japanese language (which most of my friends around me do), I usually don't sensor myself at all with. After studying Japanese for five years, living in this country for two, and texting/interacting with my Japanese friends on a daily basis, it gets difficult sometimes to come up with the English word first (yes, this does prove to be a problem teaching English sometimes) and instead, the Japanese word comes flying out. Even when I'm having "I-just-can't-speak-Japanese" days, common words and phrases will still come flying out of my mouth. With people who know a little Japanese (most other English teachers in my area that I see frequently), I try to hold those words back (though sometimes to no avail). At the same time, these friends seem to understand when I slip up and have to backtrack with the English word. They also usually know enough Japanese to not always need an explanation.

I can't think of the English word!!!!!!

The hardest is when talking to friends and family back in the US on skype. I want to use Japanese so badly, and I have to repeat over and over in my mind, "NO, YOU CAN NOT USE KOUSOKU WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE HIGHWAY" so that I don't use a completely incomprehensible word while talking to my mother or best friend. I find that the pauses I take to search my brain for a word have gotten longer, and I use simpler words more often than the concise, intelligent-sounding words that I went to University in order to learn and use.

Now, without further ado, here is a good sampling of the words I use on a daily basis:

Undoukais never fail to make a non-Japanese person feel like they are at a child-run circus

:General:

uchiawase: business meeting (used when meeting with teachers about lesson plans)
enkai: drinking party (this includes shinenkai-new year drinking party and bounenkai-end of the year drinking party too)
nijikai: 2nd party. The party you go to with your co-workers/friends after the initial party was held, and all the sober-debby-downers have shuffled home. this means it's time for karaoke or a bar!
undoukai: sports day
bunkasai: culture festival
hanami: flower viewing
shinkansen: whoever uses "high-speed train" or whatever else is going out of their way to not use Japanese
nihonshu: sake or any other type of Japanese alcohol
gokon/konpa: is there even a word for this in English? It's a set-up group date
purikura: because "print-club" sounds stupid
chu-hai: because "canned cocktail" is also really stupid sounding

Purikura! We look so glowy in this picture <3

:Me-specific:

kousoku: highway (here in Kochi, I need to take the highway if I want to get out of the prefecture quickly).
horenso: spinach. for whatever reason I can never get the word "spinach" out. ever.
negi/mame/piman/satsumaimo/hakusai: leak/bean/green pepper/sweet potato/Chinese cabbage. a lot of my problem words end up being food words :P
nonbiri: leisurely. one of my friends used this a lot and I ended up picking it up.
gorogoro suru: to lay around the house. I just feel like this describes that action so well.
bimyou: strange/off/questionable. one of my ex's used to say it when I would make faces at him. it stuck.
betsu betsu: usually said when splitting a check. Even with my English-speaking friends, we usually say, "Do you wanna best-betsu this?"
uchiage: afterparty! I get invited to a lot of these after shows. Way more fun than any enkai will ever be.
dorama: Japanese dramas are such a unique thing, in my opinion.... drama isn't just a genre for dramatic acting. it has become something completely different and absurd in the Japanese hands.

::Ways in which Japanese has messed with my English::

live: a concert/live show. It's not terribly off from English, but saying "I'm going to a live tomorrow" is considerably off for standard English....
4th month/5th month/etc: This is seriously just my own weird problem. I've always had issues with coming up with the names of months. Japanese has it laid out so logically with the number... so I just English-ify the Japanese and come up with, "Hey, aren't we going to that meeting in 7th month?"
guitar: ever since a Japanese friend told me he was taught that the pronunciation of guitar was "gu-wii-tar" I can't help but think about it constantly and sometimes accidentally say it. Just like thinking of island like "is-land" when you spell it out...

The aftermath of an uchiage.... same as most enkais but co-workers are at least kind enough to pass out at home/the nijikai

I'm not counting formal names, places, dishes (okonomiyaki, takoyaki), or objects that are specifically Japanese. English is the most plastic and adaptable language in the world, so it'd be unfair to say that "kendama" or "udon" isn't as much English as other words we've adopted (or to say that ramen and bi-ru isn't somehow Japanese at this point).

Japan Blog Matsuri: Autumn

2011-11-14T23:22:00.000+09:00

Since I write a lot about Japanese music and going to see shows here in my blog, I decided that my entry to the Japan Blog Matsuri this month, hosted by Cooking In Japan, and under the theme: An acrostic poem spelling out AUTUMN, was going to be band/song related! I will share one or two songs from a few of my favorite bands as well as a picture/link/some info on them! The link on the song title (italicized part) is the link to the MP3 download. The link on the band's name is to their website/myspace.

PALL MALL, a picture from the second show I went to see of them play: One More Time Vol 7; The Lions, Parkmates, Tin Soldiers, PALL MALL, In The Unknown (all fanfuckingtastic bands

After The Rainbow; PALL MALL
LUck At Last Night; The Because
Thirsty Chords; Air-In & 少し泣く (sukoshi naku)
Undecided; FRAGMENTS
Make A Fool Of Me; ELMOC
TurNcoat; Sand In Hand & Theme Of Dead End

PALL MALL: (picture above) One of the first bands I was introduced to upon arriving to Kochi and some of my better friends here. From left to right, Kyohei (Mall), Kyosuke (Pall), and Dorami. They would fall into the Melodic Punk/Hardcore genre around here, because their songs are a bit darker, and there are a lot of screaming parts as well as the vocal melodies (vocals being both Mall and Pall). After The Rainbow is my absolute favorite song, and the have never failed to play it as their last song whenever I go and see them. I love these guys; they have dragged me along to shows, come to my house parties, and have been fun friends over my stay here in Japan.

THE BECAUSE: All I have is a picture of one of their 7-inch splits with One Reason at the moment because The Because had already broken up before I came to Japan this time around (also have yet to find video). I love their sound; it's more Rock than Punk, with a dash of folksy blues tossed in (like Balladmen). Their songs are feel good and I wish I could have seen them play a show once. Luckily! Their members are now in two other bands, "Balladmen" and "The Tiffs" both of which I've seen play shows a few times in Kyoto and Tokyo now.

THISTY CHORDS: I could not rant and rave about these three (lovely) boys enough. Just in case you didn't get to see enough of them in my last post, here is one more photo for you featuring all three of them! From right to left: Daisuke, Atsushi and Yusaku. I fell in love with the first album I ever heard of theirs called "I Continue I..." and I only wish their other recordings were not out of press (although, now that I think about it, I could always ask Atsushi about handing over some MP3s....). They would fall under the genre of Melodic Punk but with way less screaming than PALL MALL. Atsushi, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is the drummer in the band I've been practicing with the over the last 2-ish months and I still have a sort of idol-crush-syndrom whenever I think about it.

FRAGMENTS: Another band that is no longer together but instead scattered around three of the four prefectures of Shikoku now! The bass player is Mall (left) from PALL MALL, the guitar/vocalist is Spalding (right) from WHAT-A-NIGHT's (another awesome Tokushima band), and the drummer is Ikawa-san (center) from Matsuyama (Ehime) who plays in about a million bands (I swear, every time I see him he's in a new band playing the drums amazingly for someone new), one of which is called "Conception" and has most of it's members based in Kochi (not a fan. hardcore/wall of noise type of music). I'd consider Fragments to fall into the alternative/indi category of music these days.

ELMOC: As I said in my last post, ELMOC are the three lovely ladies from Tokyo who we will be playing a show with in January! I've only recently been introduced to them and their music, so I'm still getting to know it a little... but I love what I hear so far!! They remind me of another, slightly older band called "Pear Of The West" that is also from Tokyo. Worth taking a listen to.

TURNCOAT: Turncoat is a supremely attractive band (hahaha). The female drummer and guitarist (Kiyomi and Sev) are the most beautiful couple I think I've ever seen. They are also amazingly nice and amazing at playing what they play. Once again, my buddy Mall plays bass in this band as well as some lead vocals. They are a Matsuyama/Kochi band and have been getting pretty popular recently, doing some shows in Kyoto and Osaka. They just put out an 8-song CD called "Raise Your Flag," which is what the two above MP3s are from. I also included the video below of them playing late last year!

Just as an added bonus, another amazing band called "Balladmen" who is made up of members from the infamous "The Because" and "Blotto," two great Tokyo Pop Punk bands that are no longer in existence. Instead, members from those bands are in Balladmen and another band called "The Tiffs." I'd share MP3's but these bands only have 7-inches out and my record player does not have one of those MP3 converter cords with it. :(

Hope that was an interesting view into my area of the sub-culture that is Japanese pop punk/melodic punk/indi bands. Obviously, there are more bands out there than I could ever think to have taken a listen to,and I've really only skimmed the top in my own region of Shikoku/Chugoku (though if I wrote out the list of bands from here I've seen/heard, it would be sickeningly long...). More importantly, these are the bands and people I've been going to see, supporting, making friends with, and playing music with over the past year. I couldn't be more pleased~

Throw Away The Book

2011-11-13T15:02:00.001+09:00

Flyer for last night's show

Last night reminded me why I love being here in Japan, that not all people are as lame and shy as the people living around me, and that I know some really really awesome people.

My all-time favorites: Thirsty Chords with the lovely Atsushi singing in the background.

Me and Matto went to a show in Okayama City yesterday. Since the drive was only about 2 hours on the highway, we got there early and did the touristy thing for a few hours: saw the castle (which is special because it's black and not white), a gorgeous garden (which is a world heritage site and the 3rd prettiest garden in Japan), and walked around the city (which reminded me vaguely of Kyoto with it's square layout and wide sidewalks). We ended up heading over to Pepperland early (4:30 for a 7PM show) because Atsushi called us to find out if we found cheap parking. We were introduced to the (super sexy) guitarist/vocalist from the headlining band, "What's What," who had a really amazing Husker Du tattoo on his lower back (as Matto said, the boldest tramp stamp he's ever seen) and was only 22!!

Two of the three ELMOC girls. I want the one on the right to be my new best friend. She hug tackled me after they performed.

We ended up going out to dinner with the three girls from ELMOC and all three guys from Thirsty Chords. Let's just say, I'm really excited to play a show with these girls in January. If I hadn't had to proctor for the Eiken (English Proficiency Test) today in my city, I would have been indulging just as much as everyone else was (sucks being sober driver sometimes). I don't remember ever having seen Atsushi drunk, and it was hilarious. It was also just really nice to be able to hang out with him and the girls from Tokyo. If only Arase had been there, it would have been a nice band bonding moment. :)

Bass player from Short Story, a band with 3 guitarists and a singer who looked like he was going to explode.

The show promised to be pretty long... a 7 band line-up (Japan just doesn't know when to stop sometimes), but it all went by pretty fast, and I don't think I've ever had such an amazing time at a show before, honestly. The guitarist/vocalist from The Mad Wife came with all the members of WHAT-A-NIGHT's, we were introduced to so many different people from all over Japan who had come to the show because they had friends playing that night, and the atmosphere was just so much more friendly than any show I've been to in Kochi. It actually felt like a little community rather than a bunch of moody punks dressed in black, smoking outside. For once, people didn't get freaked out by the two foreigners joining in the conversation. No one even really batted an eye at our ability to speak Japanese. They just embraced it and let us join in! Seriously, such a breath of fresh air compared to how stuffy and alienating Kochi can feel sometimes.

Thirsty Chords played 3rd from last, and at the rate Atsushi and Daisuke were drinking, me and Matto were slightly concerned with their ability to play... but as usual they nailed it and were the only band that had everyone singing along to every song, getting rowdy, and even had some crowd dives (Daisuke threw his bass down for the last song and dove onto the crowd at one point, ahahaa). I was also concerned about my new besty from ELMOC, Hikko, because she was falling-over-drunk by the time their set came about. Of course, with a little water in her she pulled it together and they also killed. The show ended around 11:30 and we were back in Kochi by 2AM (with my expert driving skills). Wish we could have stayed over-night in Okayama to go to the after party with everyone, but that will have to wait until January. Or in the case of the ELMOC girls, December, since me and Matto have already booked plane tickets to go to Tokyo and they happen to be playing a show on the Saturday that we will be there. :) Can't wait~ Sorry for the photo spam, but here are some more of my favorite shots from the show.

11.11.11

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000+09:00

I've never been superstitious, but ever since I started doing the "make a wish at 11:11!" ritual back in college, I feel like today should be the luckiest day in the world. Of course, if this really was the luckiest day in the world, it wouldn't be drizzling and weirdly warm/cold (I don't think the weather can make up it's mind down here in Kochi) but brilliantly sunny and perfect jeans and sweatshirt weather.

I've been aching to get into the studio recently. Three weeks without practicing with everyone makes me itchy and all I want to do is make some noise and teach the two new songs I wrote. Luckily, me and Matto are driving out to Okayama tomorrow (with my brand new ETC card reader!) to see a live at a place called "Pepper Land." Our drummer Atsushi's other band "Thirsty Chords" is playing and it's been a long time since I've gotten to see them perform (last time was actually when he asked me to start the band with him). Elmoc, a band that we'll be performing alongside in January will also be there, so hopefully it'll be a good night to make some new music-friends. :)

A picture of tsukimi lanterns feels appropriate for this magical day, haha

~Make a wish~

Just felt like I needed to share...

2011-11-08T23:12:00.002+09:00

Just how amazing this day was. I woke up to a text from Atsushi, telling me we were invited by a band named "The Mad Wife" to play a show in Tokushima in January. I've seen them play before, and the one female guitar/vocalist is really bamf so it was super exciting to get invited by them to play a show!! We get to perform along with a band from Tokyo called "Elmoc," which is an all-female melodic punk band, "Four Tomorrow" who are from Tokyo, and "WHAT-A-NIGHT's" one of my favorite bands at the moment from Tokushima.

Then, once I got to work today, I found out that the photo I had submitted into the Aki City art contest on Sunday won a prize! And not just any prize (I won two last year that were really just recognitions), I won the prize where you get 1万 along with it!! Can't wait to go see the exhibit. There are always so many interesting pieces of art submitted.

Starts off as a huge pile and cooks down. Those lame-os were hiding behind the pile of cabbage.

Once it had been stewing for about 20 minutes.

And in addition to all that good news, Yukiko, Nat-chan, Ryoku-chan and I got to drive into the city and have some Motsu Nabe (which honestly should be added to the food post below). Mostu is intestines, and although I knew this, like I mentioned before I will give most anything a try if I hear it is made well. This was fantastic. I'm kind of in awe at how delicious intestines stewed in a pot with cabbage, tofu, dumplings, and green onion was. Not to mention how amazing the zousui was after (when you put rice and egg into the nabe and let it all cook and soak up the left-over flavors). We also went to AEON to get a birthday present for Nat-chan's older sister, and I was able to prep some gifts for De-'s birthday next week, and gather some ideas for Christmas gifts~ Gotta get onto making a design for my new years cards this year!

Although it's only early November and there are already Christmas trees and illuminations going up everywhere, I actually really love the early Christmas feeling and could care less that Thanksgiving hasn't come and gone yet. Who wants decorations of leaves and turkeys when you can have sparkly trees and lights?!

Day 06 – Food that you swore you would never eat but now love (or tolerate).

2011-11-08T09:08:00.002+09:00

The thing about me and food and Japan, is that every time I've come here, I've started liking/loving a certain food that I hated before. I'm the type of person who will give food I find disgusting a second chance if I'm told it's been made well. I blame most of my preferences on the fact that I was never given/never ate/never bought the right thing in order to make me like that particular food. I hate octopus and will continue to hate octopus until someone puts some good takoyaki in front of me and it's not like eating a rubber band. :\

Thus far, Japan has turned me on to eating (which I disliked before):

onions (all because of katsudon)
mushrooms
salmon (first cooked and now also raw)
tuna
leeks
squid (never thought I'd eat this...)
eggplant (Aki eggplants are sweet~)
tofu (I used to be able to eat it when it was heavily seasoned, but now I crave plain firm tofu and agetofu when I'm hungry)

On the other hand, I think I hate corn even more because of how many ridiculous places you'll find it (on top of pizza or in pasta with meat-sauce, for example), I don't like jako (those little dried fish with the ever-staring eyes), and I don't like fish that aren't cut into pretty slices for sushi/sashimi (like whole fish heads and bodies...).

GROSS

Don't let the cute flower carrot fool you. GROSS

And speaking of food in general, I was never a terribly good cook/baker before coming to Japan. My mom and friends used to make fun of me because I'd find ways to mess up refrigerated cut and slice cookies. I'm not sure how that was possible... but now-a-days I bake when I'm bored and cook meals for friends and at parties (people actually say I'm good at cooking, which I never thought I'd hear in my life). Not that I could never cook, per say, but I just never made any effort to make interesting dishes when I lived on my own in collage. It was always easy stuff; stir-fries and sandwiches that just required whatever was lying around the house (except when I decided to splurge and go get bulgulgi beef to make bibimbop).

Curry Omurice

Best karage and miso soup ever

Soup with vegetables and thin-sliced pork

So yeah, I appreciate Japan for how much wider it made my taste-preferences and for taking soo much care in making food at restaurants. I don't think I've ever been dissatisfied upon going to a restaurant or cafe. If the place doesn't make the best whatever, it will still make a really good version of it and be reasonably priced. :)

Speaking of food, I made tempura with my Monday evening dinner buddies yesterday! My house smelled like an oily mess after, but the tempura came out really well (did tofu, mushrooms, green beans, eggplant, onions, and broccoli) and I made this interesting green onion dip with tofu, onions, and garlic~

Visiting Friends and Travel Plans

2011-11-07T13:26:00.001+09:00

Nabe the first night with Yukine~

The end of a busy weekend always leaves me a little sad and at the same time, a little relieved. I love being busy, constantly moving, and hosting people at my house whenever I can. If Japan has taught me anything, it would be that being around other people makes me a happy and healthy individual. But... I also really need those moments where I can flop down on my coach and just breath, play a Mixtapes song on my guitar, eat an unplanned meal made up of whatever is around my house, or toss my clothes on the floor (I mean, who doesn't?). Sometimes I like to think that I don't need those moments of reprieve and that I can be active 100% of my waking hours. But whenever I start thinking like that, I hit a small breaking point where I just get anxious about having to do something. Like last night. After driving Yukine back to the station to catch her 9:30 bus, driving against horrid traffic to take a practice test for the N2, and having dinner with one of my friends who was in "Saturday Night" mode, I just wanted to crash the second I hit home. But I couldn't. I had to call someone back and we ended up talking on the phone for over an hour. Not that the conversation was bad, but I ended up getting so anxious before calling this person back. All I wanted to do was ignore everything and fall asleep.... but for whatever reason, the overly-social part of me wouldn't allow that to happen and only brought on anxiety until I picked up the phone and completed the task.

Me with Yukine and Kiyoko in Ma'chama (as they used to call it)

However, other than that, I had a great weekend with one of my amazing college friends (my itoshii, Yukine) who is finally living over here in Japan too! Since she lives in Mie-ken right now, I showed her around Kochi (and she'll be showing me around Matsusaka around the New Year). We went to see some amazing views at the cape and the top of mountains (went to Katsurahama and Godaisan again, twice in a week!), and also went to visit a mutual friend we worked with who lives in Matsuyama. The drive there was kinda crappy because of the rain, but the misty mountains are always worth seeing along the way, and we got to have dinner with her and take Purikura. I also got my Personal ETC card in the mail on Saturday!!!

What this means is that I can take the highway throughout Japan for wayyy cheaper than I would without it. I may have mentioned it before, but just to get to the other major cities on Shikoku (like Takamatsu, Tokushima, and Matsuyama) it costs about 2900-3500 yen one-way. That's only about 1.5-2 hours driving (at 70mph)!! Ridiculous, right? Well, with an ETC card, I can get to those same places for about half (1200-1500 yen one-way). Still pricey, but with half of my band mates living in Tokushima, it's going to cut my costs down significantly. Which I need, because I bought two plane tickets this weekend as well. :x One to Korea for the holiday (going Dec 26-30) and one for Tokyo in early December (Dec 7-11th). Can't wait to get back to Tokyo for a couple of days! I'm planning on visiting IUC in Yokohama to get the feel for the school and the area along with a lot of soaking in the big city~

Hello Hello Halloween 2011

2011-11-02T08:59:00.002+09:00

Kochi Bay

Katsurahama

I've had the most unexpectedly busy last week of October! Last Tuesday night, my friend Goro, who is studying in Kyoto at Doshisha University, e-mailed my phone and told me he was arriving on a bus in Kochi the next morning at 11:30!! It was his fall break last week, so in an attempt to save money he came to visit me and another friend of ours who lives in Ehime Ken. I felt bad that I couldn't take Wednesday off to go and hang out with him... instead I had to book it to the city before Japanese class to pick him up and then dragged him to class with me. Luckily, my classes got cancelled Thursday so I took a half-day in order to show him around Kochi. We went to Katsurahama (beach), Godaisan (mountain), and I made him eat Katsuo Tataki (seared bonito sashimi) and drink a Yuzu chu-hai (yuzu are Kochi's famous fruit). I somehow worked a "boshi pan" (sweet bread shaped like a hat) into our diet as well, and he introduced me to "aisu no mi" (those annoyingly addictive pearls of frozen fruit). Friday I had to go to work again, so I took him into the city to Karaoke with some of my friends after work and then took him back to the bus stop to catch the over-night bus. :) It was a nice surprise visit~

Yasuda, Kagami, Kyujyomae, Shimoyama

Saturday night was Kochi's big Halloween party night. I was really excited to finally wear my mikan-chan costume out and do my make-up all dramatic. In all, four of us went as characters from the Kuroshio Gomen-Nahari line. It's too bad we couldn't get more people to join us, but I think our costumes looked good and it made people giggle when they saw our station signs. Me, Matto, and De- hung out in Chuo Koen the 3 hours before the party started (11PM) and talked while this KB guy kept stopping by and engaging us in conversation (he was totally into Mikan-chan, hahahaha). Once it hit 11, we headed over to Hirome Ichiba where the party was going on and hung out until about 1:30 when me and Matto went home. I got to kiss A-chan on the cheek and eat van burger before we left, so it was totally a successful night. :)

Me and Matto with two of the teachers from the international center where we take Japanese class. A big group of the teachers and students were dressing up like AKB48

Sunday, I had to wake up early to drive me and Matto over to Tokushima for practice. No new songs, but I'm starting to really love the four we have so far. The latest practice recording we have sounds pretty good, albeit muffled from my sweater, so I'm excited for the next practice! Both me and Matto have new songs to teach. I'm nearly done writing mine and just need a little help with the bridge and ending.

The most addictive dessert in Japan. Aisu no Mi

My itoshii from Mie Ken is coming to visit tomorrow morning (have to pick her up at 5:30AM from the station in the city...) and I'm very excited!! We're gonna do all sorts of touristy stuff and hang out. It's been over a year since I've seen her so, YAY!! Besty-reunion! All I have is one class today and a "farewell party" tonight with the BOE to go to before I have a four day weekend to look forward to. :)

Day 05 – Which, if any, Japanese mannerisms or expressions have you adopted?

2011-10-26T15:13:00.000+09:00

I feel rather embarrassed admitting how many Japanese words and mannerisms I have ended up inserting into my everyday vocab/behavior.... Though, in my defense, I end up interacting with other people more in Japanese than in English so, how can things not slip in? Most of my friends are Japanese, and if they aren't Japanese, they can speak it extremely well. When my foreign friends and Japanese friends mix, all speaking is done in Japanese because that way, everyone can understand each other. Anyway, excuses aside, the things I use the most on a day to day basis.

1. Bowing on the phone
One of those funny things I started doing and didn't notice until a friend commented on it. I was calling my office to ask for a favor, and the friend I was with started laughing at me because as I said "thank you" etc, I started bowing as if I was talking to my supervisor directly.

2. Unko-suwari
Unko-suwari basically means "poop sitting" and is termed this way because it's the way you squat over a Japanese style toilet. Like many of my friends sit when waiting outside a venue for the next band to start, it's an easy pose to take when you're smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. I just find it comfortable so I often take this position to talk to them or drink my own beer when waiting.

3. Kousoku, uchiawase, enkai, undoukai
Even when talking to non-Japanese-speaking friends, these words often come slipping out with absolutely no barrier. They are words I use all the time and sometimes saying their English equivalent would take longer or not hold the same meaning. Luckily, once you've worked in Japan for awhile, a number of these words become familiar to you, whether you speak Japanese or not.

kousoku: highway (here in Kochi, I need to take the highway if I want to get out of the prefecture quickly)
uchiawase: business meeting (used when meeting with teachers about lesson plans)
enkai: drinking party
undoukai: sports day

4. kankei nai
For whatever reason I felt like "kankei nai" needed it's own explanation. The phrase means "no relation" and in my opinion, it is the best descriptive phrase when talking about Japan (so very many things are kankei nai here). Because of this, I end up using it a lot while speaking Japanese and a lot while speaking English because, "it has absolutely no relation" is longer and doesn't hold the same weight to me as "kankei nai" does.

5. Gestures
Just like a true Japanese, I have found that I picked up the "shark hand" move for cutting through a crowd of people, the "come here" gesture that looks like I'm shooing someone away, covering my mouth when I laugh, and pointing at my nose when referring to myself. There is truly no reason that I picked these up other than studying Japanese and the culture for far too long now.... However, I think I picked up the "shark hand" gesture and held onto it because of the sign language club I was taking part in last year. Holding up your hand so that it makes a T with your face means "excuse me/sorry" in sign language, and I've always been one to remember physical movements better then verbal phrases.

Welcome to my world, Shinji

2011-10-25T15:07:00.000+09:00

Weird effect added by the iphone.... it's just a black guitar with a red polka dotted strap.

Shinji the Squier Jagmaster came into my world Friday evening at approximately 7:30 PM.... I could not be prouder. :) But seriously, I was counting down the minutes until pay day when I could get my hands on a brand new ~guitar~ Up until now, I've been borrowing a friend's crappy electric that's way heavier then it should be and has thicker strings than I ideally want to play.... so the moment I was able to whip this guy out and start playing, it felt like pressing on air (especially to my poor calloused fingers). I got to play him for the first time in the studio on Sunday afternoon! Three hours of band practice later and I think I got the hang of how to play him. Plus! We have a really cool new song that Atsushi taught us (which brings the number to 4 completed songs) and I can't wait to get some lyrics written as well! This will be the first song I get to sing in Japanese. Quite excited. :)

Day 04 – What’s your favorite place that’s not in any of the guidebooks/lists of places to visit?

2011-10-20T11:23:00.000+09:00

My favorite place that would never be in any guide book is a little place called "Chaotic Noise." Chaotic Noise is the name of a record shop/live house situated in the main shopping arcade of Kochi city called Obiyamachi. The shop changed locations back in August to a more central location in this main shopping strip, and since that time I've only been twice. Being the music-enthusiast that I am, I go to a lot of live houses around Shikoku. I've been to about 8 different ones within the four prefectures that span this island, which I feel is a lot considering the time it takes to drive between the major cities on this island. There are some that I like better than Chaotic Noise because of the music-scene in that particular city (Kochi hosts more hard-core shows at the venues I frequent, and I like indi/melodic punk better). However, none hold the same type of emotions and memories that Chaotic Noise does for me.

Little "hallway" outside the basement venue where everyone goes to smoke between bands.

Friends from a band called "Parkmates"

Firstly, Chaotic Noise was the first live house I ever went to in Japan. I've been to this country four times and I had never been to a live-venue before last year. Secondly, it's the place that really marked the beginning of something new and special to me. I've always loved music, been to plenty of shows and concerts in the US and have always played instruments my entire life. I've played the piano since I was three years old and during middle school and high school I played clarinet in band class. I search out new music constantly, and love singing along to my favorites anywhere I am, but especially the car. My car in either country (America and Japan) is my singing-safe-haven.

The sign they put out in the street. When it's out, you know what's goin down.

The old venue smooshed a live house with a record shop so, needless to say, it was crowded.

However, going to Chaotic Noise for the first time back in September of 2010 with my good friend Matto was the beginning of something for me. It sounds really lame to say, but going to that first live show changed my life a little. I can say without hesitation that my life would be quite different right now if I had never started going to shows at Chaotic Noise. The type of friends that I've been able to make, the trips I've taken, the slump I had at the beginning of the year, the late nights out, the band I was a part of and the new one that has just started... All of these things and more were only possible/happened because I started going to live shows at this venue.

Crowd surfing on a bass case. People like to stand on things and play music here in Kochi.

Actually, when looking through the photos I wanted to use for this post, I noticed that more than half of the people I took pictures of that were at the first show I went to are now friends of mine/we've had a few good chats by now. Bands that I was unsure about back then, I'm a huge fan of now (it always takes me two listens to give my initial like/dislike status). People that I was nervous to talk to back then, I can easily joke around with/have been on a road trip with/gotten drunk with/slept on someone's floor with after a show. While the place and people may change, what I appreciate about the original "Chaotic Noise" and what it means to me will always stay important and be a place I think fondly of when I'm no longer in Kochi.

A UK band came to the new Chaotic Noise about two weeks ago.

The new venue is a split basement place with a hall in between the live house and record shop.

Day 03 – Most interesting person you met.

2011-10-18T16:27:00.000+09:00

Enjoying her first American-style party at my house.

It took me awhile to decide on who I wanted to feature as my "most interesting person" because I think that the lines between "most interesting" and "weirdest" have started to blur a little after being here this long. If this was a "who's the weirdest person I met" post, I could have easily come up with more than five answers. However! Since this is interesting I'm going to go with my dear friend Yukiko!

I met Yukiko in April of this year at the city office's huge "kangeikai" or welcome party. Nearly 100 of us stuffed into one of the dozens of banquet halls of the Tamai Hotel (the tallest, most penis-shaped building in Aki) to say "Howdy" to the new city office workers, and "Adios" to the ones who had served their time. The whole ritual of switching out public service workers come April 1st is an interesting and confusing ceremony that I'd like to elaborate on, but will do so in a future post.

Yukiko just happened to sit next to me at party. Just a few days earlier she had done her self introduction to our office and came to occupy the desk diagonal to mine in the island-formation I occupy in the BOE office (we have three "islands" of desks). She looked young, seemed relatively nice, and was surprisingly chatty for a new-comer to our office. I wasn't skeptical of her sincerity, but ever since a few unfortunate incidents have happened with information privacy in my office, I tend to keep to myself and wait for after-office times to get to know someone better. We finally got a chance to talk during this party and ever since she has held a place as one of my best friends.

Yukiko, master takoyaki maker

While Yukiko is 30 and coming to the time where most Japanese girls think they all need to "settle down," she was surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing and not ashamed to be single. I've met so many girls out here in the countryside that think they are doomed to be alone their whole lives at the mere age of 23! Along with that, she had majored in English in college, is one of the few adults I've met in Kochi that has gone to college out of the prefecture (in Kyoto), is widely traveled and has an extremely open mind when it comes to people, the world, and how we all fit in it together. When we hang out, together or with other people, we never run out of things to talk about. She loves hearing other people's opinions, has strong opinions of her own, and loves learning new concepts and English words (although she doesn't speak English very well, her writing capabilities are awesome so I love teaching her words like "hipster" "fratboy" and "silver fox"). She's also the most amazing "translator" for some of my heavily-tosaben-accented friends (she'll take something Nat-chan says and turn it into standardized Japanese hehe) and is just a blast to be around! I'm so glad I met her and although she is also only a one-year-contracted worker, I hope we can continue to hang out past this coming April~

We were Yosakoi "partners" this year, which meant that when we all paraded around, we stood next to each other in rows.

Endless amounts of gorgeousness

2011-10-17T13:41:00.001+09:00

Sometimes, the sky rewards me for getting up at 6AM to go running.

Mixi

2011-10-16T16:30:00.001+09:00

Ever since I studied abroad at Kansai Gaidai back in my junior year of college, I have tried to sign up for Mixi. For one reason or another, I've never been able to do it until recently. I think it was because at one point, Mixi required a cell-phone e-mail address from a Japanese phone and not until a year ago did I finally have that... Even while I studied abroad, I couldn't use my cell-phone e-mail because the pay-as-you-go softbank phone didn't have proper internet to play with on it. :P

Anyway, behold! Mixi! Does that link even work? Either way... I am having issues understanding exactly how to find people to friend and such, so, if you have a Mixi account, let's be friends! :) My profile name is: インディ

Day 02 – Describe your neighborhood in Japan.

2011-10-16T12:36:00.002+09:00

The mountains to the north of us.


The Ocean to our south.

Welcome to Aki-shi! Aki is a small city an hour east of Kochi City (biggest city in the prefecture) and has about 20,000 people living in it. It sits right against the ocean, in front of the mountains, and has 6 stops on the Gomen-Nahari train line. Aki is made up of a number of different sub-villages that decided to combine to be one large city within the last 10 years. All of the schools in Aki are named after the area that they reside in but there's about 15-20 sub-villages within the city limits. (Everything on the English wikipedia was written by me on a boring day at work, so I am the self proclaimed internet-expert of this city, heh~)

Yosakoi festival in Aki

Hanshin tiger's game

Aki is well known for producing eggplant, being the birthplace of Iwasaki Yatarou (the founder of The Mitsubishi Company), having the Hanshin Tiger's training camp, and making a dish called "chirimendon" which is rice covered in green onions, thinned soy sauce, and the tiny tiny dried fish with forever-glaring eyes.

This is Yatarou. :D

I live right by the main train station, behind the fire station, and within spitting distance of four different clinics (foot, general, eye, teeth) and a really delicious bakery. Yum~

View from my front door, 2nd floor.

There is also a really cool cave in the sub-village Ioki. It honestly looks like you've just stepped into Jurassic Park or something. You can't hear the noises of the highway anymore and it's just gorgeous and green.

Among the many different festivals that happen in Aki, my favorites are the Annual Yosakoi festival and candle festival. Yosakoi is Kochi Prefecture's famous dance-festival that happens for a week every year in the city. The Aki-version happens a week prior to the bigger festival on a Sunday where they set up the usual festival booths and have teams dance in this large "city square" area. The candle festival is a night festival set up in order to celebrate Iwasaki Yatarou's birthday. People parade into the area in front of the station with candles, hand-made candles sit all around the parking lot, musical groups perform, and all the local restaurants have food booths, selling things like cheese cake and hot wine. It's near Christmas time, so a lot of the surrounding houses have "illuminations" set up, and a few of the trains are decked out in snowflake lights as well. And that is Aki-shi! Although it's a little too country-side for my taste.. it has its fun things, its beautiful things, and of course, some of my best friends :)

Handmade candles and illuminations in the background.

Majority of Aki is just rice....

We have two sake companies in the city. One of them is De-'s company (this is one of their products, shaped like Ryoma).

Two gorgeous rivers run through the city too. The Ioki River and the Aki River.

Day 01 – A picture of you “in Japan”. (doing or wearing something “Japanese”)

2011-10-14T17:25:00.002+09:00

I chose this picture because it was the first time since coming to Japan (this time around) that I actually felt like I should be here. I felt like I fit in, that I had some really AWESOME friends right in town with me, and felt like Aki-shi was home rather than a cage. While I know my future lies elsewhere, in a bigger city somewhere in the world... because of these friends and good memories, Aki-shi will always hold a special place in my heart.

Also, what's more Japanese (or Kochi-esque) than spending five hours at an izakaya drinking, eating, and laughing with fun people? Nothing, I think. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of friends, I went on a pseudo-date yesterday with the goofy one in the above picture (with the blue towel). I say pseudo-date, because it definitely had the makings/shell of a date, while not feeling terribly date-ish/being called a date etc. He picked me up at 6:30 and we drove to the city, ate kaitensushi (which he paid for) then drove up to the top of this mountain called "Godaisan" and looked out at the city and lights from the look-out point. It was a gorgeous night, though cloudy, and the temperature was perfect. We chatted the whole night about random shit, and there was no awkward pauses, silences, or anything weird. It was really pleasant. :) Whether he thinks it was a date or not is unknown to me, but it was a fun night with a friend and I got a free dinner out of it (score!).

Japan 30 Day Meme

2011-10-14T16:21:00.001+09:00

I haven't had a ton of inspiration to post anything recently, so I decided in order to start the creative juices flowing again, I was going to steal the idea of doing this 30-Day Meme over the next 30 blog posts (not one-a-day sort of thing) from Caroline Josephine's blog! :) Here are the themes I will be attempting to write about:

~~Day 01 – A picture of you “in Japan”. (doing or wearing something “Japanese”)~~
~~Day 02 – Describe your neighborhood in Japan.~~
~~Day 03 – Most interesting person you met.~~
~~Day 04 – What’s your favorite place that’s not in any of the guidebooks/lists of places to visit?~~
~~Day 05 – Which, if any, Japanese mannerisms or expressions have you adopted?~~
~~Day 06 – Food that you swore you would never eat but now love (or tolerate).~~
~~Day 07 – Which Japanese words do you use in English? (hanami, shinkansen, etc.)~~
~~Day 08 – Share a funny anecdote about living/working in Japan.~~
~~Day 09 – Favorite stores/shopping centers.~~
~~Day 10 – Something about Japan that sets it apart from anywhere else.~~
~~Day 11 – What did you find most overrated and underrated about Japan?~~
Day 12 – Describe a fail!gaijin moment. (Where you did something wrong or completely misunderstood because you couldn’t ~read the air~ or just plain had no idea what you were supposed to do because you weren’t born and raised here) Describe a gaijin!smash moment .(Where your foreignness was to your benefit)
~~Day 13 – Something about Japan that reminds you of home?~~
~~Day 14 – What is the hardest thing about living in Japan versus your home country?~~
~~Day 15 – Weirdest food item you’ve seen, and weirdest food item you’ve actually eaten.~~
Day 16 – How you realised you’d acclimated to Japan. (if you have)
Day 17 – Your karaoke top 5, your sushi top 5, your conbini top 5.
Day 18 – Post some amusing/cute/faily purikura.
Day 19 – Your favorite Japanese character(s) and Gachapon/UFO Catcher toys
Day 20 – Favorite Japanese festival or folklore.
Day 21 – Favorite and least favorite Japanese fashion trends.
Day 22 – Your favorite Japanese saying or kotowaza (proverb).
Day 23 – What is something you have/do in Japan that you wish you had/could do in your home country?
Day 24 – Your favorite Japanese slang or borrow-word (外来語), e.g. セフレ “sex friend”
Day 25 – Most interesting vending machine find.
Day 26 – What’s your favorite/least favorite train line.
Day 27 – Place you avoid going to if at all possible.
Day 28 – A picture of you looking like a weaboo/A picture of you trying to blend in and failing.
Day 29 – What’s the thing you [will] miss most about Japan when you leave (either on vacation, or move away)?
Day 30 – Did Japan meet your expectations, both good and bad? What has been the most surprising thing about Japan for you, or the thing you least expected?

タイムスリッピ

2011-10-07T10:17:00.001+09:00

I feel like a time slip has happened since I got back to Japan TWO WEEKS AGO. These two weeks have passed by really quickly... but in a good way!

Seeing my friends and family was amazing and sad all at the same time. I had to schedule myself very carefully, and I ended up not being able to see everyone as much as I wanted to... I also had to go through box upon box of junk I'd left my parents before I moved here. Clothes, weird toys and tons of school supplies that, after a year, I finally figured out I didn't need/really wanted. I ended up bringing back tons of shoes and clothes for the next year here in Kochi, and donating a TON of stuff to good will. I felt a lot better going through all those boxes and being able to get rid of stuff. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest because I was lightening a burden I had shoved on my parents (taking care of all that junk).

My one regret is not getting my hands on the baby grand piano that sits in my parent's living room. I've been aching to play the piano for the past year and I just.... didn't have time, between seeing people, cleaning things, and trying to spend as much time with my parents as possible (if it was up to them, I wouldn't have seen ANY of my friends.. :| but that's parents for you...).

Other than the usual work work work, me and Matto got to go to Tokushima last weekend to have our VERY FIRST PRACTICE with our new band! (not yet named) Atsushi, the drummer and singer from my FAVORITE band in Japan is drumming (I was soooo nervous playing/singing along side my not-so-famous idol crush) and Arase from HAMK is lead guitar. I'm doing vocals and guitar and Matto is doing Bass. In the three hours we practiced, we got through two songs. After, they invited us to dinner and it was really really fun~ :) These guys are soooo much more reliable, nice, and opinionated than our former bandmates. I'm sooo stoked for our next practices!!

Three day weekend ahoy! Not a busy weekend, but I do get to go to Matsuyama for some shopping and girl time~

On the way home...

2011-09-16T14:56:00.001+09:00

Yup! Waiting at the gate for my flight back home! Not looking forward to 11.5 hours in the air, and I know this will go quickly, but I'm excited for the vacation!!

America, here I come!!

From my iphone

2011-09-15T14:26:00.001+09:00

I remember checking to see if blogger had an iPhone app awhile ago, so either I got it terribly wrong or this is an awesome new feature :)

My junior high school kids are practicing for their undoukai today. I had my last two English classes before going to the US so I'm happy to just watch them suffer today, hahaha~ t-minus one day until my flight leaves from narita airport!!!

This is called the "seisui ippiki" which means they are ALL tied together by the legs and need to run as a unit and not fall.

So much to do....

2011-09-13T15:18:00.000+09:00

WOW I've had an exciting two weeks.


They made me wear the pink pin suit!

On the third I had a chill birthday party in the city with some friends and newbies. We all went bowling at Round One and then went to Hirome for drinks. I was driver, so it was a dry weekend for me. Instead! Me and Sea shared the most AMAZING cheese nan I've ever had and then a few of us went back to my house to play Wii and have a good old-fashioned sleepover! :) The next day we all went shopping at Shimamura and went out for Indian Curry at Masala. Seriously, can't ever get tired of that place... I tried the lentil curry for the first time~ After that, I went to Sea's house to work on the patchwork quilt I've been making. All I have to do now is sew down the inside and get some backing to it all!

This last weekend was probably the best weekend I've had in a long time. Friday night, I had a party at my house that I had been planning for awhile. I wanted to have a party not too long after the new ALTs came in order to make sure I get to know more of them better. A bunch of my Japanese friends were able to come (Akiko even brought her DJ stuff and actually DJ'd the party for me!) and I got some of the nicest gifts!!! Mall gave me Turncoat's new CD (which is an amazing recording) as well as two new records which are really good; De- brought me the sparkling sake I've been DYING to get hold of as well as her (now) customary birthday Aomori melon; and Nat-chan and crew started the cutest photo album for me based off the adventure book from the movie UP! Seriously, to-die-for amounts of cuteness <3<3<3 I only had to deal with the dentist/neighbors giving the loud people on my porch dirty looks a couple of times.

Saturday, I went shopping again with Juri and some others then, peaced out in order to see Pall Mall play at a live house called Bay-B. I guess it's called that because it's a smaller live space within the Bay-5 Square building (which houses more big-name concerts and such). The show was great (Pall Mall, In The Unknown, Bacho, Lovers, Keep Away From Children, and EYE) and I was able to get Bacho's CD, as well as a t-shirt from "Keep Away From Children." Between sets, Dorami told me that they were playing in Matsuyama on Sunday with Thirsty Chords (LOVE LOVE LOVE), Turncoat, Circle Flex, three of the bands from that day and a few others. I mentioned that I would love to go but driving by myself is aways such a drag, so she offered to let me carpool with them!

After the show, I went back to Obiyamachi to catch up with a group of people going to Karaoke for Sash's bday. I was exhausted by that point, and had to wake up at 8:30 the next day in order to meet everyone in Pall Mall by 11 but I went for two hours and then drove Sea home at 2:30.

Sunday, I met up with them at 11:30 and we took the highway to Matsuyama. We had a rather good time hanging out in the car. :) I really love talking to all of them <3 The other awesome part of coming with the band was that I didn't have to pay the full ticket price and only had to contribute 500 yen for the drink ticket. The show was great, but the best part of it was talking to the drummer from Thirsty Chords, Atsushi. I've told him before I like his voice (he's also the main vocals for Thirsty Chords), but hadn't had a chance to actually chat with him until Sunday night. He told me it was too bad my other band wasn't still playing because he wanted to do a show with us since he heard we sounded like Lemuria and Little Lung. I said that I really really wanted to keep going with it, but there are so few drummers in Kochi that it was most likely impossible we'd ever perform again. After a few more minutes of talking about it he said, "Okay. Let's play in a band together. Tokushima and Kochi are far apart but I think I could make it down to Kochi twice a month to practice."

I nearly shit myself, I kid you not.

We exchanged numbers, and yesterday he e-mailed me saying "What I said about making a band, I meant. Time might be an issue, but I think we can work this out. Yoroshiku."

I'm trying not to get too excited right now, because Japan has stomped on my hopes and dreams sooo many times before, that this could just be a dead end.... but the mere thought of having my absolutely favorite Japanese Band's drummer/vocalist be a drummer/vocalist in my band..... I could die. I suppose the last half a year of practicing guitar won't go to waste because I think with some more intense practicing, I could add some guitar to the band, ahahaha (the one that doesn't do the impressive riffs but keeps the simple melody chords going).

So yes. Exciting last few weeks. Also, I'm going back to the states in T-minus three days so there's also that excitement to look forward to. That! And classes have started again so I've had a full week at work actually DOING things and TEACHING kids again rather than, as Matto so elegantly puts it, "sitting with my dick in my hand and my thumb up my ass" in the office. :D

Another 気に入った week~

2011-09-09T16:22:00.000+09:00

Have been lazy and should write about my birthday. However, there is a party tonight at my house and I'll be packing for going HOME TO AMERICA next week so I'll write about something later on~

Instead! Here are another 10 things I found interesting this week...

1. Just love this picture.

2. I want one of these! It doesn't look so hard to make, either.

3. Oreo pies?! kill my heart now.

4. LOVE THIS DRESS

5. I want wedding photos that look this beautiful...

6. CUTE!

7. Audrey <3 One can always look up to her.

8. Tin magnets <3

9. Map of Paris.

10. Wine cork pin-board?! AWESOME!

More "things I like"

2011-09-02T08:50:00.001+09:00

Today is my first day of classes for 2nd semester! The typhoon pushed my only class today from the afternoon to this morning, so I'll be driving out to mountain school once again after a 2 month break! Nice, chill way to start the new semester.

10 more things I've liked from various blogs etc this week...

1. Such a cute gift idea!!! I want to send something like this to a friend~ (source: PPK)

2. I went out and bought patterned tape as soon as I saw this awesome DIY.

3. Love the illustration style, and of course the CLOTHING. <3 modcloth (source: modcloth blog)

4. One of my favorite Japanese bands (that happens to be Mall's band) just came out with their first CD!!! (source: FND)

5. Love that color <3

6. Just thought this was cute :)

7. Pretty water colors are always good~ (source: Catherine Campbell)

8. Love this photo.


9. Cute cute pattern!

10. SEPTEMBER! Because it's my birthday month and my birthday is Sunday. :) Too bad this typhoon is coming to RUIN my sunday-jump-in-water-falls plans... but hopefully I can go and hang out with my friends tomorrow like we've been planning anyway~ Korean food, bowling, and wii games. Nothing intense, just a chill Saturday night.

Mid-Week Food Spam!

2011-08-31T13:31:00.000+09:00

Other than thinking of how excited I am about going home for a visit in 2.5 weeks, I've been reading a health book and trying out lots of good, healthy, recipes! It's been fun (albeit expensive to be buying so many more veggies than I was before), and I think it's totally worth the extra effort some of these take. Most of them don't take any more time than my usual lazy food, and they are so much more delicious!! That, and making the salmon one yesterday opened my eyes to the fact that my oven/microwave has a "grill" function which I assume is the same as broiling.

Ham, cheese, and chive omelet with tea and vegetable juice for breakfast.

Nabe lunch. I got the idea from the morning show I watch, "Mocco's Kitchen." Has eggplant, orange pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, onion, garlic, wakame and chicken broth in it. Nabe-ed over a flame for 10 min and seasoned~

Broiled salmon with fried onions, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. Love salmon <3

Yesterday, I cut squares out for the quilt I'm planning on making. Thus far, I have 30 squares each of 3 types of fabric. I need one more color and then I can start stitching it and putting on the back, etc. I'm excited to finally have a quilt again! I left this adorable one my friend made for me in High School back in the US. It had a huge strawberry on it and said いちご in hiragana underneath. I don't wanna do anything that fancy, but I'm excited anyway. Other than that, I went over to Nat-chan's house round 7:30 and watched Burlesque with her. Great movie! I liked that a lot better than Chicago and actually, I don't usually like musical movies but this one made it much more natural (not too hard with the premise). おすすめ！

Please Don't Stop the Music~

2011-08-29T08:53:00.000+09:00

Busy weekend! Friday night was the "group birthday party" on the west side. Including me, there were 6 other birthday people (august and early september birthdays) celebrating. We all piled into Dy's house, BBQ'd and chatted. Around midnight four of us drove back to Juri's house to sleep while the party kept going for a few hours. Saturday, we caravaned out to Shimanto for fireworks (some honestly AMAZING fireworks), drinking and a clubbing event that was packed full of people! Good 3AM night and an amazing breakfast made by Bear the next day. :) Some how a house of 13 people didn't feel that full the next morning as we all lazed around sipping juice and eating an amazing egg scramble on english muffins. Most other people stayed in Shimanto for a beer float but the four of us who came together decided to hit an onsen and then get back early (I still wanted to chill and grocery shop). I also stopped at Hard Off on the way and got myself a birthday present~ (new film camera, only 6000 yen!!). Tiring but fun weekend to end August with. Here we come, school year!

Lemony Goodness

2011-08-26T08:52:00.000+09:00

This week's baked good is brought to you by the blog, "Xai Eats A Lot." I have never made lemon bars before (or for that matter, ANYTHING that involves that many lemons and zest) and it was really easy! My oven, being a Japanese oven, bakes a little unevenly so one side of the bars were a bit firmer, and the other side were more gooey.... but I don't think that hurt them in any way (the gooey side was FANTASTIC) and I will know better next time! I think that the recipe for the lemony topping is fantastic and a nice blend of tart and sweet~ Can't wait to show these things off tonight at the combo birthday party I'm going to (5 or so people's b-days being combined into one party kinda thing)! Here is the recipe:

Lemon Bars

(shortbread crust)
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. cream butter, sugar and salt until fluffy.
3. when it get’s paler that the butter’s original color, add flour and mix just until it’s combined.
4. press the dough in a 9 x 13 inch parchment-lined or buttered and floured baking pan. make sure you cover the whole baking dish with the dough. bake for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned. let it cool and set aside. do not turn off the oven, you’ll be returning that pan back into it with the lemon filling.

(lemon topping)
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
3 tbsp flour

1. whisk sugar and eggs until pale and thick.
2. stir in lemon juice and zest, and add flour until combined.
3. pour this mixture over the cooled shortbread crust. bake for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the lemon filling is set.
4. let it cool and cut in squares. just a note when cutting, make sure you wipe the knife clean with a damp towel everytime you slice the bars so that you’ll have clean cuts.

Looking forward to a busy weekend! Tonight is the combo birthday party in Sakawa, tomorrow will be fireworks and a dance party in Nakamura, and Sunday there is a possible beer float (depending on how I feel/weather) to attend on the Shimanto river. Nice way to spend the last weekend before school starts, I must say. :)

Pretty things~

2011-08-24T15:50:00.001+09:00

I've been enjoying the "10 pretty things" posts that fashion blogs like Blue Bird Vintage and the Dainty Squid have once-ish a week and thought maybe I'd take a crack at my own! :)

10 Pretty Things under the cut....

1. Pretty simple drinking glasses (source: A Pair and a Spare)

2. Pretty DIY dress made of RUGS! (source: A Pair and a Spare)

3. Pretty healthy little cookies (Source: Peanut-Butter and Jelly Cookies)

4. Pretty cute skirt that's waiting for me when I get home to the US in September~ (source: modcloth)

5. Pretty illustrations for a pretty uninspired artist (myself) (source: Catherine Campbell)

6. A lot of pretty naked people! (source: Spencer Tunick)

7. Pretty interesting doors (source: unavailable)

8. Pretty twisty cookies that proved to be a bit of a pain to make... (but still DELICIOUS) (source: Heat Over to 350)

9. Pretty easy looking DIY sleeve-less trench (source: honestly WTF)

10. Pretty much to die for looking tart (source: 17 and Baking)

I will probably add more food links than any one person should. All I do is dream about these recipes during working hours, where you can't actually MAKE any of the food you drool over.... Sigh....

Live it up~

2011-08-22T13:04:00.000+09:00

Phew... This weekend felt a lot longer than two days! Although I had a good 8 hours of sleep last night, I still had to drag myself out of bed to go running and chug some coffee before I left for the office. :P Of course, it was rather busy and draining so...

Friday, a few of us went over to E's for drinks and food. It was a pretty chill gathering, and I got to see her new house for the first time (SO JEALOUS! It's huge and really cool!! She also told me I could make her 'secret room' into a darkroom!). We all made and brought over some food and De- brought over some new sake that her company just started selling last week (I think it's one of my new favorites). E's friend from Okinawa was visiting Kochi so it was fun to chat with him (his English is amazing). On Saturday, Matto picked me up and we drove over to Nangoku to take the N2 practice test that our teacher had set up for us. 4 hours of sitting in a cold gymnasium and taking that horrid test... not my ideal for a Saturday afternoon but the コンパ I had set up a while ago was happening that night, so it felt like at least I'd be getting some pay-off for the grueling test.

The funniest part of the night was that, one of the girls I had originally invited out got sick all of a sudden and had to cancel on me, leaving the numbers lopsided with 3 girls and 4 guys. I told my contact Saturday morning about this, but SOMEHOW ended up getting to ask this new girl in our Japanese class, Sao (a 帰国子女 "kikokushijyou" who grew up in California and so isn't 100% fluent in her parent's language) if she wanted to come along! She said yes, even though I'd literally met her 4 days prior, and told her where to meet us in the city. Unfortunately, one of the guys ended up being hung-over and dropped out last minute, BUT we all got to know Sao because of the date so that was a much bigger win than going out with the guys, hahaha! I say this, because of the three guys left, one was married, and the other two just.... awkwardly didn't say much until after dinner, when we went to a bar called "Boston Cafe" and then to "One Love" to dance. Because married-guy was the only one talking, De- and Sao took over the conversation and it seemed more like a girls outing with some guys observing us, haha. Dancing was a lot more fun, though, because married-guy apparently took ballroom dancing lessons and was spinning us around the floor all night. Anyway, despite the awkward start, the night was SO much fun and I'm really glad to have a new friend that lives decently close.

Needless to say, I was kinda worn out and head-achey the next day, so I just dozed until I had to go to my taiko performance in Ioki and then went to our usual after-party of drinks (none for me thanks) and lots of food at Jack Bauer's house. We all sat around watching old taiko performances on DVD. Not a bad way to end a busy weekend, I must say. :)

And now, a bunch of pictures from Yosakoi.

At the Aki Yosakoi festival: Energizer Bunny, me, Hiro, De- and Nat-chan.

One of the teams that had really fun costumes.

Yukiko!

Love this girls expression

Juri dancing <3

One of the dancing areas had a street that people paraded down

It was such a beautiful day to go see the dancing! So glad I took the day off for it. :)

1600km to Nagasaki and back

2011-08-19T18:27:00.001+09:00

Chinese Temple at Temple Row in Nagasaki City

Same Chinese Temple

Another temple on Temple Row

Gunkan Jima

The ruins of Gunkan Jima

Obon parade.

Each family creates a "boat" to honor their deceased relatives.

Everyone parades down the street with their boats, banging gongs and blowing up fire crackers.

The night was rainy and cool so the smoke from the fire crackers gave everything an eerie glow.

Truly a wonderful celebration to be able to witness.

Glover Garden, where all the foreign houses remain.

Glover Garden is located on the side of a mountain so you can get a nice view of the harbor from there.

After three days, I think I've finally recovered from my trip to Nagasaki (two days of 14 hours of straight driving... plus days in between PACKED with walking around Nagasaki city and it's steep steep hills). The above pictures were taken with my 300 Yen film camera (I think I've finally gotten the hang of how to use the old-school focus on the lense) and I think they came out kind of fun :)

Friday was spent driving. Saturday, me and Liz went to Gunkan Jima with her friends and then looked at the temples on temple row. I've wanted to go to Gunkan Jima since mountain sensei told me about it (and his love for ruins) last school year. The island has been people-less since the 80's and is completely broken down and overgrown. An interesting view into a post-apocalyptic world, even on a man-made island!

Sunday we went to Glover Garden where all the old western-style houses remain from the 1800's. They were gorgeous and made me kind of nostalgic for home, haha. Then at night we went to see the last installment of Harry Potter (GREAT ending I thought, even though I never read all the books) and had dinner at the most AMAZING Italian place. REAL cheese on the pizza and REAL ceasar salad dressing!!! Monday was spent at the Nagasaki Peace Museum learning up on the bombings and seeing the Peace Park. Then Monday night, we went to the Obon festival. Apparently obon is celebrated differently in Nagasaki. Everyone builds boats for their family members and parade down the street to the harbor. Once at the habor, the boats are loaded on a barge and then floated out to sea. I think they may also be burned.... but I'm not sure. Anyway, the night was cool and because it was raining, the gongs and smoke from the fire crackers was super cool and eerie. I couldn't look away from it all, the weather was extremely appropriate for the type of ceremony/celebration that was going on.

The whole trip was a lot of fun, and it was nice seeing Liz again (it had been over a year). I also got to indulge in my latest dorky endeavor: collecting all of the "ご当地" "gotochi" postcards. I got 6 prefecture's cards from this trip!!! I also probably wasted a lot of time running around trying to find large post offices in each prefecture... but oh well. It was my VACATION.

More updates on Yosakoi later (since I went the Thursday before Nagasaki and have lots of fun pictures~).

Can't forget Nagasaki's famous food, カステラ〜 sooo yummy <3

Nagasaki!!

2011-08-12T06:42:00.000+09:00

Went to see Yosakoi yesterday and today I'm off on a 12 hour road trip to Nagasaki to see a high school friend!! Here I go~