Starting school after a week-long break was a lot harder than I thought it would be! Taco Tuesday at Shooters, our favorite gaijin (foreigner) bar, did help things along though. Japanese food is delicious, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's nice to eat something familiar...pizza is totally up next, curse you Japan for you lack of Pizza Hut! On the bright side, I totally have my host mother fooled that I will eat anything that is put in front of me, because she mentioned it to my host dad at dinner tonight and I nearly choked on my rice. (Note: I've been here almost 2 months, and I've eaten with my host dad 3 times. The Japanese are CRAZY HARD WORKERS) I know I mentioned once that I wasn't the hugest fan of fish, and while I usually like the way she prepares it, I hope she doesn't start getting too crazy with dinner.
our little ND group is also expanding as we "adopt" people (Emily's word choice), which is pretty exciting too. Yay for new friends!
and I ALMOST got to go to a JRock concert on Friday, but I didn't plan far enough ahead and didn't know how to get tickets with such late notice so it fell through. Apparently Jenn loves the band, so now I'm super bummed I couldn't go...she might have died of jealousy, muahaha.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Yuki Matsuri!
I'm super unmotivated to write (for once), but I just got back from a week of vacation and feel the need to brag about it (ha ha). Getting back into the school mindset has been hard, but hey - only 4 days til the weekend? haha.
anyway, my vacation weekend began with a Friday night of KARAOKE! We did the 'all,' aka you pay about $15 and get a small room from 1-8am and nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) from 1-3. It turned out we were all having so much fun singing that we barely touched the alcohol. I was really surprised by how many English songs were in their system- we probably only sang 5 Japanese ones, and they managed to have most of the English ones that we searched for. I wasn't expecting to have too much fun either (usually me+singing = banana dance), but it was awesome. Notable moments include Banzai (the Middlebury favorite), a lot of 90s music, and waking a snoozing Xiao up in the middle of "My Heart will go on" - because we really were singing that loud.
It didn't really help that immediately following karaoke Emily and I decided to go to a memorial service for the 200-some Christian martyrs killed in the 17th century in Japan. It was in Japanese so we had a hard time understanding most of it, but it was held at a temple (outdoors = sooo cold!) with a plaque dedicated to the martyrs which was blessed by the priests. We all got to lay flowers in front of it. Also, you know you're in Japan when there are cell phone pictures being taken of the mass. By a priest. One interesting difference in the mass procedure itself is that the Japanese all do mini bows instead of shaking hands for the sign of peace. Seems a little impersonal, but hey, you can cover a lot more ground that way!
Then at 7:30 on Monday morning, Xiao, Emily, Joe and I were Sapporo bound! Flight was nice and short and the super-nice-for-the-price-we-paid-hotel was right across the street from the train station. It was six blocks to Odori Park, where we saw a lotttt of snow sculptures!
a couple notable ones: (click for larger size, believe me the details on the animal one are ridiculous!! there was even a light on the plane in the corner that blinked at night)
some of them were so intricately carved that it's crazy. I feel bad pic-spamming the blog, so check out my fb album for more!
We also took an elevator to the top of the TV tower (cool, but it was all glass, you got bad glass reflection and you couldn't walk in the open air which was laaaame), looked at some ice sculptures, ate delicious corn butter ramen, grimaced at advertisements for milk seafood ramen, went to the zoo to look at fuzzy cute animals, got lost A LOT, slipped on icy sidewalks (they don't believe in shoveling), and checked out the Sapporo Beer Museum. Where they have CHOCOLATE BEER for Valentine's Day. Okay, so still not my favorite drink by any means, but it did improve the taste, and they get points for trying...
Emily and I by Sapporo TV Tower on a beautiful night!
anyway, my vacation weekend began with a Friday night of KARAOKE! We did the 'all,' aka you pay about $15 and get a small room from 1-8am and nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) from 1-3. It turned out we were all having so much fun singing that we barely touched the alcohol. I was really surprised by how many English songs were in their system- we probably only sang 5 Japanese ones, and they managed to have most of the English ones that we searched for. I wasn't expecting to have too much fun either (usually me+singing = banana dance), but it was awesome. Notable moments include Banzai (the Middlebury favorite), a lot of 90s music, and waking a snoozing Xiao up in the middle of "My Heart will go on" - because we really were singing that loud.
It didn't really help that immediately following karaoke Emily and I decided to go to a memorial service for the 200-some Christian martyrs killed in the 17th century in Japan. It was in Japanese so we had a hard time understanding most of it, but it was held at a temple (outdoors = sooo cold!) with a plaque dedicated to the martyrs which was blessed by the priests. We all got to lay flowers in front of it. Also, you know you're in Japan when there are cell phone pictures being taken of the mass. By a priest. One interesting difference in the mass procedure itself is that the Japanese all do mini bows instead of shaking hands for the sign of peace. Seems a little impersonal, but hey, you can cover a lot more ground that way!
Then at 7:30 on Monday morning, Xiao, Emily, Joe and I were Sapporo bound! Flight was nice and short and the super-nice-for-the-price-we-paid-hotel was right across the street from the train station. It was six blocks to Odori Park, where we saw a lotttt of snow sculptures!
a couple notable ones: (click for larger size, believe me the details on the animal one are ridiculous!! there was even a light on the plane in the corner that blinked at night)
some of them were so intricately carved that it's crazy. I feel bad pic-spamming the blog, so check out my fb album for more!
We also took an elevator to the top of the TV tower (cool, but it was all glass, you got bad glass reflection and you couldn't walk in the open air which was laaaame), looked at some ice sculptures, ate delicious corn butter ramen, grimaced at advertisements for milk seafood ramen, went to the zoo to look at fuzzy cute animals, got lost A LOT, slipped on icy sidewalks (they don't believe in shoveling), and checked out the Sapporo Beer Museum. Where they have CHOCOLATE BEER for Valentine's Day. Okay, so still not my favorite drink by any means, but it did improve the taste, and they get points for trying...
Emily and I by Sapporo TV Tower on a beautiful night!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Happy Setsubun!
Setsubun, or the bean-throwing festival, is held February 3rd, the last day before the first day of spring (according to the Chinese calendar). The typical practice is to throw roasted soybeans out your window to cast out demons of ill-fortune and welcome in the new year. (I'm a little vague on the exact procedure, I learned this from wikipedia - I guess it's not a standard practice in every house!)
One tradition I did get to take part in was eating makizushi. You're supposed to eat an entire uncut roll (about 6-7 inches or so long) while facing the lucky direction based on what year it is. If you eat the entire thing facing the right direction and without pausing or talking, you will have good luck for the whole year. I think my host mom also said something about making a wish too, but since I can't understand half of what she says...Anyway, this year is the year of the Ox, so we ate our huge makizushi facing west-southwest. :)
Today was also a bit of an adventure day. We ate lunch at Osu (or Osu-Kannon), where there is a famous shrine. The surrounding area has a ton of cool little shops and places to eat. We went intending to grab some pizza (Ashley-I finally understand your pizza cravings. I think even Sbarro's would do at this point), but the place was closed so we went for Mexican instead. It was pretty mediocre, but the azuki flavored soft-serve was amazing. I'm already sad when I think about having to leave the amazing food here in a couple months. Red bean needs to catch on in the US. Fast.
After lunch we just wandered a bit, and managed to catch a mini-parade heading to the shrine. There was a marching band and a bunch of people in various costumes. We didn't stick around for the Setsubun celebration, but the area was pretty packed. There were a lot of decorations up.
Today I also went to the ward office to pick up my foreign registration card! Okay, so it wasn't that exciting, but getting there was, because I got to ride a bike! I didn't realize how much I missed riding mine (or really, how often it really is that I ride it at school), but I had a huuuge grin on my face the whole way there and probably everyone thought I was more than a little crazy. It was one of those city bikes too, with a huge basket on the front which made balancing a little tricky at first. They also have these awesome kickstand things which is actually a triangle-shaped stand that comes down over and under the back wheel. There's also a lock directly built into the bike, which is also pretty cool and different from anything I've seen before.
I also took a much-needed nap today! It was actually really cute, my host mom came in the living room around 6pm, threw me a blanket and was like 'okay you look tired so we're both going to take a nap now.' And we did. On the sofas. I'd like to think that we've bonded over sleep. :)
Hokkaido status: five days and counting!!!
One tradition I did get to take part in was eating makizushi. You're supposed to eat an entire uncut roll (about 6-7 inches or so long) while facing the lucky direction based on what year it is. If you eat the entire thing facing the right direction and without pausing or talking, you will have good luck for the whole year. I think my host mom also said something about making a wish too, but since I can't understand half of what she says...Anyway, this year is the year of the Ox, so we ate our huge makizushi facing west-southwest. :)
Today was also a bit of an adventure day. We ate lunch at Osu (or Osu-Kannon), where there is a famous shrine. The surrounding area has a ton of cool little shops and places to eat. We went intending to grab some pizza (Ashley-I finally understand your pizza cravings. I think even Sbarro's would do at this point), but the place was closed so we went for Mexican instead. It was pretty mediocre, but the azuki flavored soft-serve was amazing. I'm already sad when I think about having to leave the amazing food here in a couple months. Red bean needs to catch on in the US. Fast.
After lunch we just wandered a bit, and managed to catch a mini-parade heading to the shrine. There was a marching band and a bunch of people in various costumes. We didn't stick around for the Setsubun celebration, but the area was pretty packed. There were a lot of decorations up.
Today I also went to the ward office to pick up my foreign registration card! Okay, so it wasn't that exciting, but getting there was, because I got to ride a bike! I didn't realize how much I missed riding mine (or really, how often it really is that I ride it at school), but I had a huuuge grin on my face the whole way there and probably everyone thought I was more than a little crazy. It was one of those city bikes too, with a huge basket on the front which made balancing a little tricky at first. They also have these awesome kickstand things which is actually a triangle-shaped stand that comes down over and under the back wheel. There's also a lock directly built into the bike, which is also pretty cool and different from anything I've seen before.
I also took a much-needed nap today! It was actually really cute, my host mom came in the living room around 6pm, threw me a blanket and was like 'okay you look tired so we're both going to take a nap now.' And we did. On the sofas. I'd like to think that we've bonded over sleep. :)
Hokkaido status: five days and counting!!!
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