If you ever find yourself in Japan and you need a snack...

...go to a konbini and get an ONIGIRI!

So you may have seen some very random pictures on my shutterfly of onigiri, so I thought they needed further explanation:

I love onigiri. My students think it is hilarious that I love onigiri, I am not sure why, but every time I tell them that I love onigiri, they look at each other and giggle. For those of you who do not know, an onigiri is a rice ball and it is DELICIOUS. You can get them at any konbini in Japan and also at most of the grocery stores. Essentially, it is rice wrapped in seaweed (nori) often with something in the rice. Some types of onigiri include: tuna mayonnaise, salmon, salmon eggs, and some sort of vegetables. My favorite is tuna mayonnaise (its like tuna salad). However, opening the onigiri can be a challenge! In fact, when I took Japanese in the US, we watched a video in my class about onigiri. The video was essentially Japanese people making fun of tourists who could not open the onigiri correctly. My first onigiri was a bit of a disaster, but I have the hang of it now! Here are some pictures to show you how to correctly open and an onigiri so you can avoid the typical tourist frustration, in case you ever find yourself in Japan and need a quick snack!

First, read the directions! Not that they are helpful. They look sort of like origami instructions, and I don't know about you, but many a time I have set out to make a beautiful crane and ended up with a crumpled ball due to frustration from unspecific instructions.




Step 1: peel from the top all the way around to the other side.






Step 2: carefully pull the right side, leaving the nori but getting all the plastic off.








Step 3: Same as step 2 but with the left side of the plastic.

Voila! Onigiri!!!!!!!!!

Last step: ENJOY the AMAZINGNESS of your onigiri!!!

You are correct, this post had no point, but at least you know what the random pictures are now!

Iiyama 第三中学校 school festival

At most schools in Japan, festivals are part of the calendar and are EXTREMELY important. My school had its festival this weekend, and although I missed the first day, I was able to go to day 2 and see the music festival. I wish I could have gone to the first day because that was the day with the sports festival and all of the students' skits and dances. Some of my third years wanted me to see their dance, but I had a JET conference that was "mandatory." (you can ask me for that story... it's not funny, it's just irritating) I got to see a video with some clips of day 1, and it looked like it was a lot of fun. They did a lot of the usual sports things and then there was also bowling (knocking over water bottles) and some other random things. It rained, however, so the big race where each student has to run like 600m is postponed until Tuesday after school.

The kids do a LOT of preparation for these festivals. Pretty much since I got here in August, they have been doing things after school to prepare, and this past week was insane. Classes were shorter or canceled for decorating and cleaning and setting up the school for parents. Also, the fact that the festival was Friday/Saturday means the whole school has a holiday on Monday! Awesome!

ANYway, I did have a good time watching the music part. The morning started with performances from some elementary school sixth graders. It was interesting to see, because some of the schools had like 8 sixth graders total, while others had two groups of 20 perform. Essentially, the more rural schools are pretty damn small, as in 50 students total. Crazy, ne? I think I get to teach at one of those.. but that is still to come. Back to the festival, after the elementary school performances, each class at my school sang a song, and then each year sang a song. Also, the teachers/PTA sang a song, and I participated! This means that I sang in Japanese in front of a LOT of people. It was a good song, though. Afterwards, the music teacher apologized to me for picking such a hard song! Apparently some of the teachers even were having difficulty singing parts of it, so she figured I must have found it to be impossible. Little did she know that I practiced the song several times at karaoke, so I was actually ok, with the exception of one line. (I love karaoke!)

At the end of the day, there were some awards given out, and then a trophy to the best third year class which resulted in a lot of tears. The winning class was happy they won, so they cried. The losing class was sad they lost, so they cried. All third years were sad that this is their last festival, so they cried. Constant tears for like an hour!

So the main reason for this post: meet my students! I have just under 300 in the school, and I teach all of them. It could be worse, but learning the names is quite a chore! A lot of the kids look very similar! Also, I think there are two sets of twins. Here is a video of the whole school singing a song. If you watch, that is a student conducting, the piano accompaniment is also a student. They are so talented! Can you imagine if middle school students in the US were forced to learn all kinds of songs and sing. The Japanese kids even sing different parts! Bass, tenor, alto, soprano! WOW. I think it's ok to post this, cause you can't really distinguish any faces. Apologies for the parts where the sound cuts out when I zoom.

Do they have fire drills in Japanese schools?

Why, yes, yes they do! Let me tell you about it!

First, an alarm sounds, similar to the fire alarms in the US, but it does not sound during the entire evacuation. After the alarm sounds, the Vice Principal goes on the loud speaker and announces something about the drill (in Japanese, so, clearly, I could not understand)

Next, the kyoto-sensei comes into the teachers' room and says, "Come on, Elissa-sensei!" Then he runs (yes, runs) outside to the field with the asthmatic ALT running behind him. BUT WAIT, it gets better. In the school, to properly simulate a fire, they had firemen there blowing fake smoke into the hallways for students to run through. So, the asthmatic ALT runs behind the kyoto-sensei, chokes on the fake smoke, and finally makes it outside, coughing all the way.

NEXT, all the students come pouring out of the building and run across the field. Their homeroom teachers quickly go through and count and then go to the kyoto-sensei and report attendance. I should mention that when they report attendance, they shout to the kyoto-sensei, even though they are standing right in front of him, and then he shouts back an acknowledgement.

NEXT, the firemen come and set up a little demonstration. They have the student leaders (6 students) and 3 teachers come forward and use fire extinguishers. The extinguishers were filled with water, though, and the demonstration was to put out the oh-so-terrifying traffic cone that was the pretend fire. It was interesting, however, because I have never actually used a fire extinguisher. I just assume that if the time came, I would know how.

Finally, the kocho-sensei gave a speech about the importance of the fire drill. Sometimes there are earthquakes and they cause fires, so it is important to pay attention and know what to do, just in case an earthquake hits.

So that was how my day ended today.

One other thing I wanted to share: for lunch, we had pregnant tempura fish. Yes, they took whole fish that were pregnant and deep fried them. Silly me, I looked and thought it was shrimp tempura, so I bite right into it, and then these things that look like eggs are inside, and as I am chewing, I realized that it was not, in fact, shrimp. The JTE I was eating with saw my face, and said, "Oh you just ate the head! It's a pregnant fish! You do not have to eat it!" I dutifully swallowed what I had in my mouth, but I did not eat more. Normally I would have forced myself to eat it, but this was too much. So lesson learned: Always ask what it is before eating, not after taking the first bite!