Festivals, Sake, and Thanksgiving

Hello, hello! Yes it’s been a while since my last post. In my defense, I’ve been busy. The teachers at my schools actually get me to help them do stuff like marking so I’m rarely bored at work anymore.

But work is boring so let me tell you what I’ve been up to the last couple of weekends. The second weekend in October was the Takayama festival so a large group of us ALTs, several of who came in from cities throughout our prefecture, and three parents of ALTs went off to see the festival. Sadly, the floats weren’t running because it was pouring rain. But the matsuri portion, the little food and game tents, was still running so we checked that out. I got one of my favourite festival foods, crepes. They are super delicious.

So after wandering around for a bit we went to the Mexican restaurant where we’d reserved the back room. And yes, I know how odd going to a Mexican restaurant in Japan sounds. There we ordered plenty of delicious food and drinks. The drinks were, as always, our downfall. Carl had brought his breathalyzer with him and so we started a scorecard on who blew what throughout the night. Emma’s dad Phil ended up winning, much to the amusement of all.

Now due in part to the alcohol, and in part to the fact that we are never able to be quiet, one of the ALTs had taken it on herself to introduce herself to the rest of the restaurant because of how loud we were. Just so we didn’t get kicked out. Later on, two of the Japanese people she’d introduced herself to came and joined us. Keiko and Takuji especially like the breathalyzer and got right into use playing Bang Bang Clap. That’s right, we kidnapped and corrupted two unsuspecting Japanese people. Keiko even got into the sombrero wearing with me. We found said sombreros in the corner and being the mature people we are, had to wear them.

I ended the night earlier than the others, making sure Emma’s parents got back all right, and it was a good thing I did. I was drunk enough that I couldn’t tell the difference between a sen (1000) yen and a go sen (5000) yen. That would have been a recipe for disaster.

That was Saturday. On the Monday, a bunch of us locals headed down to Gero for Canadian Thanksgiving at Danielle’s. Nothing we had was really traditional Thanksgiving food. Danielle tried by cooking some Japanese pumpkin and baking the seeds. The rest ranged from curry chicken to marmite sandwiches to butter shrimp to mushroom salad. It was a lot of fun even if it did leave all of us exhausted for Tuesday morning and work.

Now this past weekend we went to Shirakawa which is a world heritage site. Though the reason we had less to do with the history and more to do with the fact there was a sake festival going on. We decided on Friday night to go and Saturday morning we met up.

I did run into a little snag. Apparently, there are no trains that go from my village into Takayama from 10am to 3pm on Saturdays. We were meeting at 12:30pm. This left me with a little bit of a dilemma. I bit the bullet and made the 10am train. I spent the next two hours shopping. I spent more than I probably should have but I ended up with all sorts of awesome stuff. Including my very own kimono. I can’t wait for an excuse to wear it!

I also picked up some baby clothes since I’m going to be a Belarusian aunt come November. Dziana’s having a little girl! I’m super excited!

Anyway back to the story of Saturday. We all met up in the Sega World parking lot and got into the two cars we were taking. Shirakawa is about forty minutes away from Takayama and most of that way is tunnels through mountains so there wasn’t all that much to see on the drive there.

The village itself is really cool. Most of the houses still have thatched roofs and people still live there. There were a lot of people there, mostly Japanese tourists with the odd group of foreigners thrown in for variety. After a bit of wandering and getting lost, we found the sake festival at the shrine we’d driven past on the way in. Hey, no one said we were good at finding things.

There were some food stands set up so I bought some grilled stick meat. Sadly they had no crepes as both me and Emma wanted some. We bought our little red sake cups, 400 yen, and got our first round of sake. This was the first time I had ever had sake. And it was lumpy. No, I am not making that up. There were actual chunks still in it. It was not tasty at all.

Then we sat down and waited for the real sake pouring to begin. What happens is everyone sits on these long tatami mats as people from the shrine come up and down with kettles and pour the sake into your cups. It’s an all you can drink deal after you buy the cup or it is until they run out of sake. Three cups was my limit. The others assured me this wasn’t good sake and I should try some of that before deciding I don’t like the stuff. One of the others said that this sake was what they’d been brewing in the back room and so it really wasn’t a good example of sake.

Now because this is a festival that is pretty much giving sake away for free, pretty much three quarters of the people there were old Japanese men. We ended up meeting two. One was a guy I imaginatively named Glasses due to his glasses. He came up to us before the sake pouring began, already drunk, and began talking to us. Then he insisted on pouring beer into all of our cups. After talking for about fifteen minutes to us he wandered off. But not for long.

Once the sake began flowing we saw Glasses again sitting across from us. And with him was his friend Sweater Vest. At one point Glasses was squeezing my toes. Eventually we understood that he was concerned because I was wearing flipflops and the tatami mats were laid over gravel. After assuring him repeatedly that I was fine, he let the subject drop.

Then it was Sweater Vest’s turn. For some unknown reason, he decided that me and Jason, one of the other ALTs, needed to get married. He spent a good ten to twenty minutes going on about it. It was actually pretty funny.

Eventually the sake ran dry and we slowly wandered back to the cars but not before buying more alcohol and snacks at the combini (convenience store). Though we had a couple of mishaps, Danielle left her sweater on a bench and Jason dropped his camera down a hill, we eventually made it back to Takayama. Since the night was young, we decided to take Purikura. These are little photo booths where you get your picture taken and when they’re printed, they’re stickers. We are forever cramming as many people as we can into those booths.

After the Purikura, we walked, though not straight, to the bowling alley. Sadly I had to leave early as the last train to Miya leaves at 9:30pm on Saturdays. I would normally have stayed longer and either taken a taxi or crashed at someone’s house but I had already drank way more than was good for me and the plan was to continue drinking after bowling.

So I got on the train. A nice girl showed me how to get off after I tried to exit the wrong doors, and I staggered back to my apartment and enjoyed my glorious bed.

And that’s about all that’s new and exciting in my life. Next month we’re planning trips to Toyama and Tokyo. At the end of this month is the Halloween event and this weekend we’re planning on heading to Gero again so I should have lots to report in my next post. Well, bye for now!

School Lunches and Library Reading

Here we are, another post. I’m writing this now as I only taught two of the six periods today. Which is actually a nice change from teaching five of the six and being given a job to do during my free period. Mind you those two days went by super fast so it wasn’t all bad.

Do to popular demand, and by that I mean mom suggested it, here’s some info about school lunches. To start with, everyone eats these lunches. And I mean everyone. From elementary school until the end of junior high you have to eat them. And if you’re a teacher at an elementary or junior high school you have to eat them too. No opting out.

Now what we eat changes every day. Most days there’s rice and some kind of soup. Most of the soup is fine but one day I had some kind of dark soup with seaweed in it. Now I’ve eaten seaweed before. It’s not bad. But when it’s been boiled into an almost goo that you can’t really chew but you can’t swallow straight off, I can’t do it. I tried about three times but after the third time my gag reflex got triggered I gave up. Which meant I have to sneak what was rest back into the empty pot so that I didn’t get in trouble.

Because that’s another element of school lunches. You’re supposed to eat all of it. I had finished one day at Miya JHS when the teacher held up a plate and asked who’d left bits of salad all over the plate. It was me. She laughed and I got by again because I’m a foreigner but if it’d been a student they’d have gotten in trouble.

So I’m sure you’re now wondering if you have to eat everything how do you deal with food you honestly can’t eat. I’ve had this happen when they served shishamo. Shishamo, for those of you lucky enough to have never come across it, is a pregnant fish, compelte with bones and eyes, wrapped in some kind of batter and fried. I can’t eat it. Not after the first time when I thought it was a shrimp and bit the head right off. Never again!

Anyway, when you want to get rid of something you don’t like, all you have to do is find the kid in the room who likes it and give it to them. The other ALTs told me to do this. Then I saw one of the teachers, who also doesn’t like shishamo, foisting there’s off on the kids so I didn’t feel so bad. It’s win-win. I don’t have to eat anything I don’t like and the kids get more of what they do like.

Outside of school, this past Saturday I joined Krys and Tom at the Takayama public library for the monthly English reading hour there. Parents bring their kids to listen to English storybooks. This time was Halloween themed. The kids range in age from baby, the shiniest headed baby we’d ever seen, to one of Tom’s first graders. Most of these kids are only there because their parents want them exposed to English/have them improve their English.

Mind you, most of them seem to have a lot of fun. Especially when we get Head Shoulders Knees and Toes going. One kid just sat and watched and at the end began clapping. There was this one little girl who just bounced the entire time. Her and her older sister must have said goodbye to use twenty times. They kept waving and shouting goodbye then coming back and doing it again. They were really cute!

The other great thing about the library is that they’ll order in pretty much any English book an ALT requests. That’s because they’re trying to improve their English section but they don’t know what people like. So I don’t have to buy books. Not that that’s going to stop me. I still prefer owning books to borrowing them.

So that’s pretty much it. Nothing too exciting’s been happening. This weekend’s one of the huge Takayama festivals so I’ll be going to that with the other ALTs. Anyway, bye for now!