Normal Stuff

There's nothing super interesting to report at the moment, but I will report nonetheless!

A few days ago, a package came in the mail with the pottery that my host family made oer Golden Week while we were in Atami. If you recall, I also made a piece of pottery while I was in Minakami. I got that one sort of recently too so I thought to put up pictures of the finished products.

The one one the left is the one I made in Minakami, and the one on the right is the one I made in Atami.

Event-wise, things have been pretty quiet. This is partly because of some trouble with my cell phone over the weekend. Seeing as my friends live scattered about Tokyo, a cell phone is an absolute necessity if you want to have a social life. But mine wasn't working (I got it all worked out yesterday though so yay to that). Unfortunately, my weekend was rather boring because of that.

Yesterday was the one kind of cool thing. My Japanese class had another field trip (you may remember that last semester we went to a traditional Japanese sweet shop). This time we went to Shibuya to visit NHK Studio Park. NHK is the big public owned broadcasting company here in Japan (when I say public, think more like BBC and less like PBS). It was pretty fun though not super amazing. However, the tickets were paid for by our tuition so we didn't have to worry about money (except for transportation as I actually have to pay to go to Shibuya since it isn't on my commuter pass).

This is Bobby from my Japanese class pretending to be a newscaster on NHK's Ohayoo Nippon (morning news program, the title tranlates as "Good Morning Japan").

And just for fun, last night Mami and I were teaching Su-chan how to do the peace sign for photos.

He is one cool kid isn't he?

My Month Away: Part 4

So I realized that I really need to finish off my blogging about Minakami since Vammy's coming on Monday then right after she leaves, I go to Seoul with Rachel. If I don't get it all down now, it's never happening which I'm sure would disappoint everyone who reads this.

So here goes! With pictures!

This is a view of the lake that was right by my house. There were lots of beautiful shots, but the one time I remembered to bring my camera, the batteries died right after taking this photo. Every other time, my decisions to walk around the lake were spur of the moment so I'd forget to grab my camera.

The water was the most impressive thing to me. It was such a beautiful teal color.

This lake is actually there because of a dam. The river that they dammed to make this lake is the second largest in Japan and provides much of the water used in Tokyo. So when I turn on the tap in the kitchen, it's likely that water came from Minakami :D I thought that was a pretty cool tidbit of trivia.

This next picture is of me trying to climb a rock wall though I was not very successful (this was the harder climbing wall by the way). Lydia, Ian, and myself were given several cool activities where we mingled with Minakami people doing fun things. The wall climbing was one of them that we did with a children's sports club.

After wall climbing, we got to participate in another super cool activity. We helped make mochi! Mochi is a Japanese food that is pretty much flavorless so you can put it in anything and is very chewy and sticky. It's a traditional food to eat at New Years (though you can eat it at other times). As you can see, the process of making mochi is rather labor intensive when done by hand.

After making the stuff, we got to eat it. There was sugar and soy sauce and other flavoring to mix it with (obviously the sugar and soy sauce were not together).

The last picture I put here from that day is of Ian (from my program) and Takkun (from Garuni--the inn I worked at). Ayami-chan and I kept trying to convince Takkun to cut his hair because we both liked it better that way (he had short hair at their wedding--Ayami-chan showed me the wedding album).

The next activity Lydia, Ian, and I did was visit a high school in the area. We went an talked to an international econ class. In the picture is me, talking about New Mexico (in Japanese!). When Lydia and I walked in the classroom, several of the students said "Kakkoii!" which means "cool!" and that made us happy. They all really liked Ian too maybe because he's super tall...

They got to ask us questions and were told to try to do so in English so we got a lot of "what sports do you do?" and, of course, "do you have a boyfriend?" We also got several questions in Japanese because they were mostly pretty shy about their English. Actually shy in general since the teacher had to pick someone at random to ask the first question (that person then picked the next, etc.)

Except for the uniforms and the fact that everyone was Japanese, it was really a lot like high school at LAHS. Well, the class size was bigger too I guess... But the students acted pretty similar. Like teenagers.

After going to the school, we were taken to Takumi no Satou which is a village place where there's these shops that let you make crafts. Some are traditional Japanese crafts like making Japanese paper and some could be less traditional, like glass blowing. We decided to go traditional and paint omen (masks). Though I picked a cat to paint which isn't exactly a traditional one, but I like cats. Everyone else went scary.

The lady on the left is from the Minakami city office. Then there's me, Lydia, and Ian. Kobayashi-san (also from the city office) is taking the photo.

But wait there's more! Lydia and I got invited by Ian's host family to do a snowshoe tour! Ian led the tour though his host father also came with us. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! We went up to a really cool cave called Ooyu (Big Demon/Death or something like that, hard to translate the second kanji, but the big part is easy).

The first picture is of the Totoro tree that was near the path. We fit Ian, Lydia, and myself in there (anyone who's seen Tonari no Totoro will understand the reason for the name). We were trying to make a snow bunny but decided it looked more like a totoro so we put it at the tree's entrance. Cute yes?

The next photo shows Ian snoeshowing, Lydia biffing, and me snowshoeing. I also fell at the exact spot Lydia did. That slope was steep! Next to Ian is our destination. This cave was super cool!

We had lunch at the cave (mmm... udon and really good tea) before heading back down. Ian and Nori-san (his host-father) had brought little sleds so the down was super fun (and way faster than the up).

So behind us in the picture you can see what makes the cave so awesome. Those things grow like stalagmites except they aren't pointy. I thought they looked kind of like jelly-fish-scicles.

Next we have the last group outing. Lydia and I went to Takumi no Sato this time without Ian and made pottery. That was really fun though I was not very good at it. Here is me pictured with my pot.

After that, we met up with Ian at an onsen which was relaxing and very nice of course. And after the onsen we went to an izakaya (Japanese style bar) for a nomihoudai with some people from the city office. A very fun night though I won't go into details ~_^ All you get is this picture. I think Ian is trying to look cool, Lydia is imitating a guy that you see often on Japanese television, and I'm trying to be creative with my use of the peace sign...

I hope this helps to satisfy you guys and show you that I got to do many things during my time in Minakami. Certainly a month well spent. It was a really great experience. So much so that all three of us want to go back when it gets warmer and go river rafting!

I also hope there's enough pictures for you (we are visual creatures, I know). However, if not, let me add this video of me sledding down part of the mountain we snowshoed up:




I will have you know that everyone was super impressed by that 360 I did.

And here's a video of us running in our snowshoes (Minakami Baywatch Style!):




Wow, we look like idiots. It was super fun though.

My Month Away: Part 3

Sorry this is taking me so ridiculously long. I've been surprisingly busy. Tuesday I went to lunch with Watt-sensei (our resident director) then went shopping with friends. Yesterday I was again hanging with friends (a shabushabu tabehoudai and karaoke in Shinjuku). Today I had to go to Shinagawa with Rachel so we could get our reentry permits for Korea. Because it would suck if we couldn't get back to Japan. After that we decided to wander around Shibuya, but apparently for us all roads lead to Harajuku so that's where we ended up (so of course we ate crepes). Anyway, I am now back at home having eaten a giant meal of Indian curry from the delicious restaurant from accross the street. And I've decided to sit down and blog.

So, Minakami:

The first evening I just unpacked and relaxed. The next day though I started to work. Now when I was working my schedule was something like this: wake up, work, eat, work, sleep, eat, sleep, work, eat, work, sleep (this time for the night). Seriously, I did a LOT of napping. However, sometimes instead of sleeping after lunch I would go for a walk. That first day, Ayami-chan and Takkun took me to see the lake right by the house and Ayami-chan and I bonded over her cat (the actual cat is very shy but Ayami-chan has a digital camera full of adorable pictures of her). I was also shown around the ryokan and introduced to everybody (though remembering names was super hard...) Since I first arrived on the weekend, my working schedule continued for a few days.

Hideko-san's husband (my host dad) returned from his business trip after a few days. They both love movies so the first day back, we all watched Hancock (mmmm....Will Smith). After that I would probably watch a movie every few days at night with Hideko-san and sometimes her husband (if he was around).

Another activity I got to enjoy on one of my free days was horseback riding. Once a week, Hideko-san gets a horse riding lesson and she took me with my first week there. It was lots of fun but also really cold. I thought my fingers would never be warm again. There also two very large, very lovable dogs there that I had lots of fun playing with and loving. I would also go shopping with Hideko-san, Ayami-chan, and Kyoko-san (Hideko-san's daughter-in-law/Takkun's older sister) when they went to get a change of scenery. Minakami has several similarities to Los Alamos including mountains, pine trees, and a lack of public transportation. Tokyo has completely spoiled me so not being able to go where I wanted whenever I wanted was hard.

Other things I did with my host family and coworkers included making Valentine's Day chocolate (which I then gave to my host parents since I had no boy to admire in Minakami), going strawberry picking (the strawberries were GIGANTIC and so sweet you'd think they were dipped in sugar except you know you just picked it off the plant), and I taught them to make guacamole. The guac was for a welcome party held for me and Kaori-chan and Kine-chan (two new members of ryokan staff). We all had to introduce ourselves (in Japanese...even me) which ended up being kind of funny because Kine-chan was way more nervous than me even though Japanese is his native language.

I did lots of other activities that were organized by Kobayashi-san (one of the city office members that helped get us Japan Study people to Minakami), but I think I'll save those for another post. As well as pictures. Sorry, but I ate so much today that I'm kind of sleepy and lazy.

Also, does anyone know if there's an actual word in English specifically for "gunk in your eye"? Mami and I were talking about it and she gave me the Japanese word (mekani?) and asked what it was in English. All I could come up with was "gunk in your eye". Mami really enjoyed the word "gunk" though.

My Month Away: Part 2

So I was totally going to blog all about Minakami this weekend, but Mami, Su-chan, and I all went to Mami's parents house to hang. Sorry. Starting in April her parents will also a have an American student living with them so Mami promises we will all go there often to asobu (asobu is the Japanese verb "play" but is often used in a more "hang out"-like context).

Anyway, about Minakami.

Rachel and I took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Tokyo where I had an hour and a half to buy a bento (boxed lunch) and omiyage for my Minakami host family before catching my shinkansen to Minakami. This seems like a lot of time, but it was really just enough as Tokyo station is gargantuan and I had all of my luggage to drag around.

I went to Minakami with two other ACM/GLCA Japan Study students: Lydia and Ian. I was very happy that Lydia was going since we're buddies. Anyway Lydia and I wandered Tokyo station together and got confused and finally found our platform.

At left is Lydia with our combined pile of stuff. And this is not everything I have here in Japan by any means. I often wonder how I'm going to get everything home.....

I believe our group was actually the closest to Tokyo (with the exception of Jazz who stayed in Tokyo) as our shinkansen ride was just over an hour.

We arrived and were met by a welcome committee of people from the town office (or whatever you call it, I hate translating that kind of stuff) and Watt-sensei and Michiyo. There was a little welcome gathering where we met what member(s) of our host family came to pick us up (for me it was just Hideko-san as her husband was away on business). From there Hideko-san took me to her house where she assured me that I would have no duties that night but would get to work the next day.

I will start by describing the kinds of things I did. Hideko-san and her husband own three ryokan (Japanese-style inn) all near each other. Hideko-san manages and works in one (called Garuni), her son and his wife manage the biggest one (Maruichi), and a long-time emplyee manages the third (Maiyote<--not sure of the spelling on this one...) So I worked in Garuni. The cleaning is done by a company that comes in once a day so I didn't have to deal with making beds or vacuuming or anything. I worked in the kitchen. At Garuni there's a couple that work there and take care of things probably at least as much as Hideko-san does: Ayami-chan and Takkun (his name is actually Takuhiko, but people rarely call him that since it's so long). They are absolutely wonderful people with whom I had a lot of fun. I especially loved Ayami. She's only a few years older than me (she's 25) and really sweet. Random fact: she and Tony have the same birthday.

Really everyone there was really nice. The best part was they were all willing to talk to me (with the exception of Kine-chan, who despite the feminine nickname is a guy, because he's super shy) despite my limited Japanese. It was also funny to see what English they knew. One of the high school girls who did her baito (part-time job) at Garuni knew the word "coordination" even though her English was super basic. So I had lots of conversations involving mostly Japanese with lots of gestures, sound effects, and the occasional English word thrown in.

Anyway, I wanted to explain what I actually did. Winter is the slow season for these three ryokan as they aren't really near any of the Minakami ski slopes (like Lydia's pension) so we only really had customers on weekends. This meant that I usually worked Friday morning cutting vegetables and preparing food and things we would need for the weekend that we could do ahead of time. Then Friday night, Saturday morning and evening, and Sunday morning (and sometimes Sunday evening and Monday morning) I would help put together plates for the guests (other people cooked, I just put things on the plates so they looked pretty then took them to the tables). After the guests were done, I was general on dish drying/putting away duty. This involved me standing next to the giant dish washer and drying each batch of plates, bowls, etc. as they came out then putting them away. Since the meals were pretty complex, this was actually quite the job (each place setting probably had at least ten dishes, multiply that by about 20 guests, sometimes more).

So during the week, I had a lot of free time, but you'll have to wait to hear how I spent that because I'm tired of blogging for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I didn't take any of me working, sorry :P I really think this might take at least two more entries. Sheesh. So much...