mochi... and a little about snow huts.

I just wanted to share a video of the making of one of my favorite Japanese foods: mochi. Mochi are rice cakes and they are delicious. They can be prepared in a variety of ways including just coating the mochi in flavor powder, pour soy sauce over the mochi, grilling the mochi with nori, or putting mochi in soup. All are delicious. Mochi can be sweet or not sweet, depending on your preference. Today, I grilled mochi in my frying pan and then coated it with chocolate frosting. I am sure that has never been done before, but it sure was delicious!

In the video, mochi is being made! They literally started with freshly made rice (it was still steaming when the put it into the wooden thing... clearly I am informed here as far as terminology), and then just pounded it until it was more doughy. Then they made small mochi and coated them in either kinako powder (soybean flour... slightly sweet) or goma (I think black sesame seeds? sorta sweet and salty at the same time). This time I did not get to try swinging the hammer, but back in December at a different event, I did get to give it a go. It is harder than it looks! better than being the lady who has to readjust the dough after each hit, though. Abunai, yo!



here is the finished product! The black one is goma, and the other is kinako. Both were delicious, and still warm!
Oh, these pictures are from the kamakura summit! A kamakura is a snow hut (see picture below)! There will be a kamakura festival on Feb 13-14 so I will report back then probably with more pictures. The summit was to celebrate the fact that there is a festival, so while we did get to make some snow huts and go inside them, that was not really the focus of the day. We (Alaina, Kim, and I) did manage to get some free food out of the day, however. mochi, soup, onigiri and a butadon (pork and rice bowl) so it was certainly worth going. I also got scolded by cops for being on my cellphone while driving, too. Oops. I was lost and Alaina was talking me through where to go. Me being my somewhat snide self thought about telling them to worry less about the gaijin and more about the native bad driving, but instead I bowed and said "I am so sorry, it won't happen again."
Oh! More pictures! From the actual photographer who was there.

First, we are in the snow hut! The picture came out kinda cool...


Second, us in front of a snow hut. They are pretty massive!

It's official

I turned in my form on Wednesday. I am staying in Japan another year! Who knew that would happen?! Certainly not me! I even sort of made a list of reasons to stay and reasons to go. Somehow, there were more "go" reasons, but many of them were silly.
Here is what I remember of the list I made:

Reasons to stay:
-Another year with the same students. I will get to see the current 2nd years graduate next March!
-Continue to build relationships with people here
-Next winter, I can snowboard some more!
-Improve my Japanese
-I love J-dramas!!
-Delicious Japanese food everywhere
-onigiri
-What am I going to do when I move back to the US?

Reasons to go:
-cheese
-pizza
-sandwiches
-Chipotle
-Air conditioning and central heat
-be among the literate again
-the longer I am out of school, the harder it will be to go back
-I will be 25 when I move back to the US, and probably still single... :-/
-pants that fit
-shoes that fit
-shirts with sleeves that are long enough
-won't be stared at anymore by small children who walk past me
-won't have to take the Japanese driving test

So as you can see, a few of the "go" reasons are somewhat silly, but reasons nonetheless. Another reason to stay? Because when I drive home from work, this is what I see:

Today...

I ate whale.

One more thing

This is a picture taken from inside my bedroom. Remember that I live on the second floor.

Nozawa Onsen Village Fire Festival

Fire festival? What on earth could that mean? Well, I am not entirely sure, but every year on January 15th, Nozawa Onsen Village has a fire festival. Kim, Alaina and I decided to venture out there and see what the festival was all about. The answer: it's about craziness!

For starters, it was blizzarding and I ended up driving which was crazy in itself. I am very surprised by the driving here. It was snowing A LOT, but people were tailing me and then passing me! We are talking like no visibility because it was dark and the snow was just coming horizontally right into the windshield. Also, I should mention that on both sides of the road, the snow is piled up about 2m high.

Alright, so we get there, sort of manage to find parking and find our way to the festival. We actually got there after it started because of my slow driving and 2 U-turns. And so, what is the fire festival all about? Well, the 42 year old men and the 25 year old men build a shrine in the week before the festival. I think they cut the trees and literally build it from scratch. I think the 42 and 25 is because supposedly those ages are unlucky for men? I am not too sure on all of this. So anyway, when we first walked up, we can see the huge shrine and then we looked up to see a bunch of drunk 42 year old men sitting on top of it! As we looked closer the 25 year old men were standing under it defending it. Defending it from what, you may wonder? well, from fire! The villagers were taking turns trying to light the shrine on fire! with the men on top! There was a huge bonfire and the villagers would light these straw torches and then run over to the shrine. I heard (from a very drink Australian, so it may not be true) that one of the groups trying to light it was the fathers of all children born in 2009. I guess if they can light it, its good for their children. I am not sure what other "groups" of villagers tried to light it.

The whole time we were there, it was blizzarding. We just watched from behind tons of people (including a whole lot of foreigners, who were there for the free sake) as the men on top taunted the other villagers with shouts of "Bring on the fire! Bring on the fire!" and as the villagers continually ran with huge straw torches trying to light the shrine. A lot of them would just throw the torches from a few meters back, but others would run right up. The 25 year olds defending the bottom received face-fulls of fire several times. It was insane to watch. I wish it had not been snowing (so hard) because it made it very cold and very slippery. It also caused me great anxiety because I was worried about whether or not my "driveway" would be plowed when we got back. In fact, it was a valid concern because, as it turned out, when we got back they had not plowed! Thankfully, my Kyoto-sensei was there shoveling and he had driven through and cleared the way a bit. Kim, Alaina and I spend a good 15-20 minutes clearing the 2 feet of snow out of the way so I could get my car into the garage. They both ended up spending the night because we decided it was just too blizzardy to drive them both home. I think it was a good decision.

Well, my description is not very good, but luckily I recorded some videos last night. I took a bunch of pictures, too, but all you can see in them is snow. So here are some videos:

In this first one, you can see the bonfire, and people lighting the torches. Notice the snow.



In this one, you can sort of hear the chant of "bring on the fire!" Oh my gosh, snow!



This one is the shrine on fire! Did you see the snow?

snow video

Included is my lame commentary.

It is a crazy amount of snow though! I think we have had 180cm total this winter, but most of that has been since new years and not much of it has melted...

Funny things my students write

Assignment for the 2nd years: Write about your hometown.

We gave them examples of complete assignments and then wrote out ideas of what they could write (I'm from~ / I live in ~/ My hometown is famous for ~ / There are many ~ / We can see ~ from my house. etc, etc, etc.)
So most students followed the formula and wrote almost the same thing as the example, which is fine. Practice is practice, regardless of creativity. However, there were a few that stuck out that I thought were worth sharing for one reason or another.

(#1) By: Can't remember his name:
My hometown is Iiyama.
We can see the sky from my house.

Comments I wrote: "Really? We can see the sky from my house in Virginia, too! Good!"
I don't think he will pick up on the sarcasm. I just could not resist!

(#2) By: Yuya Tanaka.
I live in Iiyama.
It's in the north of Nagano prefecture
It's famous for a baseball player.
His name is Yuya Tanaka.
There are some temples.

Comments I wrote: "Great! I did not know you were a famous baseball player!"
Points for creativity on this one!

and finally (#3) By Genki:
I live in Nishiootaki.
It's in the Iiyama City.
It's in the Nagano prefecture.
It's in the Japan.
It's in the Asia.
It's in the earth.
It's in the galaxy.
It's in the universe.
I love Nishiootaki.

Comments I wrote: (after removing all the extra "the"s and changing "It's in the earth." to "It's on Earth.") "Great! I enjoyed reading this! What do you love about Nishiootaki?"
I guess this is still considered on topic! Definitely creative. Made me laugh.

Still need to take it for its first run...

SNOWBOARD!

Close up of the middle:

And look at the jewel!


I will become a somewhat decent snowboarder! Plenty of snowy mountains to practice on!

Monkey videos!

Yay!

Ignore me talking in the background...



I had a hard time catching their fights on video. This is the best I could get.

Mister Donut is Awesome

Why, you ask?

Because this lion is the mascot! Here he is!


Look! If you take off his mane, it's a donut!


Also, the donuts are pretty delicious. Or, I think they are. Of course, I am picky about donuts, and I will only eat specific ones, so the ones I have eaten are delicious. I don't know how their "glazed" donut compares to a normal "glazed" donut seeing as I do not like glazed donuts.

Family in Japan!!!

Ah, the post you have been waiting for (maybe)! Stories of my family being in Japan! I think the stories might be better told from the other side, so if you are curious you should ask my mom or Kevin what they thought of Japan. However, I do have some fun ones from Kevin coming to school with me. Kevin actually came to school with me on Christmas, which was pretty fun. Mom played in Nagano while we were at school, and then we met up with her after school and had yummy yakiniku for dinner. So anyway, back to Kevin being at school. First thing that happened, Kevin and I walked into the teachers room and said good morning, and then we sat (Kev sat at the open desk next to mine). The English teachers all introduced themselves in English, and then one of the Japanese teachers came over and introduced himself in English too! However, this time Kevin answered in Japanese, which threw the whole room off completely! They actually all started laughing, which I had to assure Kevin was not at him, but at their own surprise. I think he was not too thrilled to have them laughing at him, but I have been laughed at many-a-time by that same room of people, so I told him not to worry.

So next, Kevin and I went to some classes. For some reason, my students here were being even shier than usual!!! The 2ne years did ask Kevin some questions, but nothing really about America or school in America or that sort of thing.They asked him if he likes Harry Potter, and then they asked him if he IS Harry Potter, which was entertaining, but I was hoping they would take advantage of him being like a foreign student of almost the same age and ask some questions about living in America, etc etc etc. Oh well, I did not want to force anything on them, so I did not do anything. Kevin did get to eat lunch at school, which was actually a major point of frustration for me. The school got an extra lunch for him, but he would not eat it. People do not really waste food here, so it was not a good thing that he did not eat it. Luckily the homeroom teacher of the class we ate with was really nice about it, but I was not too thrilled with him at that point. So after lunch, Kevin and I went to Togari Elementary school to teach 5th graders. How perfect, Kevin is also in 5th grade! And these kids were great that day! They talked to him in English AND Japanese and did not become quiet and shy. Though, they are not usually shy, so I would have been shocked for them to have been completely silent, but they were the same as usual. First Kevin got to meet every kid in the class (good practice of "hello, my name is~ whats your name?") and then we did the lesson and at the end they got to ask questions about anything, so they asked some about school, some about Kevin, etc. They asked some in Japanese, too, because they wanted to see if he could actually speak Japanese or not. I think he passed their test.

Alright, so my school is awesome and they told me that after we finished at elem school, Kevin and I could go and that I did not need to go back to my school to finish off the day. That was amazing. He and I took the train to Nagano and meet up with my mom. We had yakiniku for Christmas dinner (thats the grilled meat that you cook yourself on a grill that is in the table.) Kevin was thrilled with this meal because he loves meat. And so ended Kevin's day at Japanese schools. You will have to ask him what he thought of it.

Other family stories... Let's see. we went to see the snow monkeys! It was actually much easier to find that I thought it would be. When I researched the trip, it said, from Nagano, there's a train, then a bus, then a 40 minute walk, But Kim (who came too) figured out that there is a way to do it with just a bus, so we took the bus from Nagano station and it dropped us off at the bottom of the walk. The only problem with the "walk" was that 25 minutes of it was through the mountains (more of a hike) and the path was almost entirely covered with ice. We had to be really careful when walking to make sure we did not fall, especially because if you fall down the wrong side of the mountain, I don't think you come back. Ok, so 25 icy minutes later, we are there! In fact, before we even got to the actual pay to get in "Monkey Park," a monkey appeared out of nowhere! He wanted Kim's karaage (fried chicken) which she was holding in her hand. He literally sat there and begged (see picture to the right), and then watched as she put the food into my backpack. With his super sad eyes, he walked away. So next we went to the actual Monkey Park and there are monkeys everywhere! And they really do go into the hot spring! It's crazy! I think I heard in the video that this is much colder than their usual habitat, so into the hot spring they go as part of their survival technique. Of course, they are also fed as a means to keep them there, but I do think they figured out going in the hot spring all on their own. So we got to see them in the hot spring, we got to see them playing, and then the guy came around and fed them, so we got to see them eating, and also fighting over food. The fights are kind of crazy! They sort of bark and screech and chase each other in a non-friendly way.

Other days they were here, one of the days I had to work, so they played in Nagano all on their own, and another day I wen to Nagano and we went to Zenkoji temple and just sort of wandered around Nagano. We took Kevin to Animate (which is an anime store) and he got tons of Yugioh cards that I guess are hard to find in the US. I think he actually went to that store 4 or maybe 5 times while he was here, so at least he found something he was happy with. Of course we did some shopping, including going to the dollar store equivalent. The dollar stores here are tons of fun, because they are not full of useless and poor-quality crap. They have some very useful things and also some very random things! Oh, of course, one day mom and Kevin came to Iiyama and saw where I live, and the stores around here. I also took them to Kappa sushi for lunch which is the conveyor sushi restaurant that is cheap and delicious!!! I think they enjoyed Kappa. That was actually their last day here, because their flight was at 11am the next day, so the taxi came to get them at 3am. I also had my school end of the year party that night, so I dropped them at the train station in Iiyama and they went back to Nagano!

Well, that pretty much covers adventures with my family in Japan. Again, for further details, ask them, because they did spend quite a bit of time without me while they were here. Luckily they made it out of here before the insane snow came, or they very well may have found themselves stuck in Iiyama/Nagano for a few extra days.

More monkey pictures: (there are quite a few more on my shutterfly)

Bringing in the new year with a lot of snow

That's right. Snow. I have not actually been able to leave my apartment since about 5 o'clock on new years eve because of the snow. In fact, when I first got home yesterday, I could not get to my apartment because the plow had not come yet, and there was more than a foot of snow in my "driveway." So after some panic and some phone calls, the plow did come (though the plow coming was completely unrelated to the phone calls) and I managed to get into my garage, and I have not left since then. Also, the snow has not stopped yet, so we are now at about 36 straight hours of snow. If I had to venture a guess at how much, I would say three feet, but its hard to tell from where I am because they do plow every once in a while, and also the snow falls off the roof and makes the piles of snow VERY tall! (Actually every time the snow slides off my roof it sort of freaks me out. It makes the whole house shake and is very earthquake-like) *Hopefully* the snow will stop tomorrow morning and then the plows will come, because I would like to be able to go places before school starts again on Monday. Also, Sarah might come visit tomorrow but I need to see what the weather does, because I might not be able to go to the train station!

So, here are some pictures of the crazy snow. This is from the afternoon, and now its 10 at night, so add another 8 inches or so.

This one is when I first went downstairs. The plow had come by once in the morning, so the snow was already back on the ground in my "driveway."

You can see the mass amounts of snow on the roof, and also where some of it has fallen already.

Then I started shoveling... and shoveling, and shoveling...

FREEDOM! Not that I went anywhere at that time, and now I am stuck again. However, the plow came in the middle of my shoveling and helped me out a ton.