Parfait Challenge, Cats Cafe. No real cats.

The UNBEREBUBLE (unbelievable) parfait

We are extremely lucky to have two national holidays in a row in September. An extra day over the weekend is always welcome, and anyway, as one of my fellow ALTs have suggested – “every weekend feels like a holiday here.” Being new to an area and exploring is incredibly exciting, and there’s a festival or event almost every week, as long as you keep your ear to the ground and eyes sharp for information. I keep gathering up leaflets from various train stations and asking my poor JTEs (coworkers and Japanese Teachers of English) to help me translate. They must be fed up of me asking by now, but I find out about too many good events to stop!

I keep returning to Numazu since it’s the biggest city in the area, so it has all the shops and restaurants, as well as the largest contingent of fellow ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers). This time, I had set up a parfait challenge after finding out a particular café called “Cats Café”. In the past, they ran a challenge where up to ten people would have ten minutes to devour a bucketful of ice cream. If they managed it, it was free. I was shown pictures, gaped at the monstrously delicious sight. I knew I had to try it for myself. So many other people were interested that we ended up with two teams (and another team who were too excited and went the week before). They should really pay me a commission, that café. Unfortunately, we found out when we got there that the challenge doesn’t occur anymore, so there was no free ice cream for us, but we could still get the UNBELIEVABLE (yes, that’s what it was called) ice cream if we were willing to pay. It cost ¥5,500, but split between 10 people, it’s not bad.

A big melting pot of sugar-over load

So, we went, we ate, we drank, we conquered. I say drank, as it eventually turned into a sloppy mess. Some were brave enough to knock back the strange chocolate slushie that it turned into; others gave up. I shamefully stopped about two plates in; the combination of cornflakes and sugar was starting to give me a stomachache. Still we conquered the mighty beast, and roared in triumph. Many victory photos were taken. Many poses were, uh, posed.

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Cusine: Italian, desserts

Hours: no idea. Sorry.

Price: ¥5,500, or ¥550 per person. Normal parfaits are around ¥400

Directions: Numazu North Side, Bivi building

Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bivi-Cats-Cafe/319519311441700?rf=388851691140854

QuIzu score: 3/5, but 5/5 fun factor. Great if you like sweet desserts, perhaps to the point of being sickening, but hey, totally worth it.

Keepin movin', always groovin'

Decked out like a hipster, taking snazzy photos

So, my weekend was pretty dope. Hangin’ with an LA homie means that everything I write today’s gotta be read with a Valley Girl accent. I joke; my accent is as British as it ever was, or, as the Americans say “limey”. I honestly didn’t think people said things like that anymore.

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So to recap my weekend: on Friday, I left school a mere half hour after my official work hours, which is nothing short of a small miracle. There’s always plenty of work waiting for me, I learned this the fun way… after marking 300 essays, I politely asked around the staffroom to see if I could help any Well, it turns out I certainly could, and had to make a worksheet to prove it. Serves me right. Not that I mind doing it, but my free time in school goes towards Japanese language study and the past two weeks have been totally neglected because of the essay marking.

A shrine I'll never find again, off a road I can't remember

Zen

Anyhow, I set off to Numazu, the biggest city in the area, on the Eastern part of the Shizuokan prefecture. It’s about half an hour by train if you manage to get all the connections right, with one stop in the middle. It takes a little longer by bus, but the route is terrifically scenic, so it’s worth taking once or twice, or of course if you want to get somewhere in between. It follows the coastal line, so it’s always lovely.

I met with Bong at the station, stomach ready for the challenge. Peruvian food at Mi Peru, a lovely little place just a ten minute walk from the station. I’ve never eaten Peruvian food before, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure whether it’d be any good. I’m still at the stage where I’m perfectly happy to eat Japanese food day in, day out, and from previous experiences in SEAsia, I find that cheap Western food tends to be pretty bland and uninteresting. You have to pay through the nose for the good stuff, and I’m so smitten with Japanese cuisine that I simply just don’t think about other foods very often. However, the food here was the bomb. Bong ordered a whole bunch of stuff – I just ate whatever was put in front of me with impunity.

The beef hearts were delicious. Bong wasn’t going to tell me what they were until after I’d tasted them as he didn’t know what an offal person (or should that be awful?) I am, but I picked out that distinctly organ taste straight away. It was marinated in a really delicious sauce that had penetrated all the way through the meat, and cooked perfectly – no bouncy rubbery heart for me!

So nice, I had it twice

That wasn’t all we ate that evening. We also headed over to a Chinese place; Xiong Xiong (which aptly translates into panda), had peking duck, some gyoza and veg. It was pretty standard; the Mi Peru was awesome, though. The local flavor of people was more interesting – there were a few heavily tattooed guys sitting next to us, who, as it turned out, were Bong’s friends. I was trying to catch local dialects and casual talk, as well as pick up on the waitress’ Mandarin!

We also walked through a local festival, meeting We headed over towards the river, and bumped into some sort of casual festival just in front of the bridge. There were a few ALTs around that Bong knew, so I met more fellow foreigners and chatted a little. The pool of English speakers in this area is pretty active, so everyone knows everyone, and I haven’t met anyone who I don’t like yet, believe it or not!

The night ended with a Game of Thrones/Firefly marathon, and good conversation until about three am. This sounds fun until you hear about the plans we’d made for Saturday. A morning run. Setting off about 6 am if we could. Well – as you can imagine, that didn’t happen, oh no. We went at seven, instead. I’m not even joking. We went for a 10k walk/run in the morning before the sun came out too strong. Bong has this Zombie run app on his phone, which is ridiculously fun. It talks you, a runner for your commune, through zombie infested areas, so you speed up and slow down as it narrates an excellent storyline.

One of my JTEs (my coworkers – Japanese Teachers of English) had told me about a local arts and crafts fair in Gotemba, about half an hour from Numazu, so after the run, we refreshed outselves and headed out that way. We met up with Shihyeng, a local Singaporean ALT who I’ve been in contact with for a while, but hadn’t yet had the chance to meet. She’s lovely, though. Unfortunately she had to head off pretty quickly,

The live music was amazing – I really liked this guitar-playing duo because they had wonderful harmonics. I purchased their CD even though I don’t have a CD player; but I’ll find a way to listen to it somehow. Later on there was a really hippie group who were playing washboards and a double bass, with a toddler on a tiny taiko drum. Their music was bizarre, but Bong loved it so we’re going to have to burn and exchange the music.

I recently misplaced (I won’t say lost, because I still hope it’s going to turn up again) a necklace very dear to me; and it was the only piece of neckwear I bought with me. There were a number of gorgeous necklaces at the arts and crafts fair, but one suited me in particular – a pendant shaped like a stack of books; wood wrapped in leather. It doesn’t replace my other necklace, but it suits me well.

After that, we headed to a nomihoudai and beer festival about half an hour away. Again, more ALTs (where there is beer, there are Caucasians) and friends made. Stomachs filled. Oh, boy, was my stomach ever filled. For ¥3,500, which is about 25 quid, it had better be filling, to be honest. It was much better than standard buffet fair, though of course you’d get better quality food in specialized restaurants where you order to your liking.

Round One

Round Two

After eating, drinking and travelling well, my Sunday was rather chilled. Although I had originally planned to go to Shimada to visit the festival, both the weather and my wallet conspired against me. There’s a typhoon somewhere, which means intermittent but heavy rains. Even the Shinkansen, the bullet train, was delayed because of landslides; that’s how bad the weather was. So, I stayed home, took two naps, read a bit, and cleaned the house, mostly by imagining that it was clean, to be honest.

Ashley, my sempai down in Shuzenji, did something similar, and contacted me last minute to go for some food in Mishima. I jumped in, and we headed up towards the city. Unfortunately, the place she had planned to take me to was closed! I suggested Mi Peru instead, because she wanted something along that type of cuisine, and I didn’t mind eating there again. Because, you know, I’m a glutton for punishment. I had the beef heart. Again. It was just as good. We met up with sempais Bong and Tiffany afterwards for a drink at a local bar, which also happens to be a hairdresser. The bartender cuts hair during the day, and pours drinks by night. Only in Japan.

Come Monday, the national holiday, I slept uneasily, the typhoon winds whistling around my house. It seemed like we were going to be in for a rough day. Even so, I didn’t want to spend my national holiday sitting in the house, so I donned a pair of wellies that my predecessor had left behind (and ft me perfectly), and headed towards Mishima to find Kawashima coffee, a shop that had been recommended by previous ALTs in the area. It was worth it. I got there about half an hour before the shop opened, but it was magic when we got inside. The gentleman running the shop was lovely, and I got myself some great coffee swag. He gave us free marshmallows! I’ll be back biweekly, I think, just to pick up some new coffees and sip on some new brews. My addiction has been rekindled.

I don’t like cooking by myself, but I love cooking with friends and family. So, Bong and I dropped off at my local supa, picked up some groceries and cooked up a storm. It was amazing.

Observe.

A foot long fish, merely 990 yen!

Sashimi

Asparagus, mushrooms, shiritaki noodles

Garlic butter prawns

Kawashima coffee and petit fours

I rounded off the evening by trying darts for the first time up in Mishima Tamachi, at an awesome bar/club called Hustler 9. I met the proprietor, Kosaka-san, and the food there was amazing too. Have you ever tried kimchee squid? No? You’re missing out.

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On Bong’s recommendation, by which I mean, my blatant rifle through and robbery of his personal library, I’ve just read Yakuza Moon, by Shoko Tendo. It’s a rather straightforward autobiography of her rather troubled lifestyle, beginning with her birth into a yakuza household. It was an interesting read – nothing out of the ordinary, but a good hour to while away and learn about the consequences of a rebellious childhood, drug addiction and abusive relationships. Still, she’s obviously out of that vicious cycle now, happily, and makes a living as a writer. I wonder what it read like in the original Japanese.

That said, I’m going to get on with reading 1Q84. Murakami awaits me.

Japan-I-can

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I touched down in Japan. I’ve been incredibly busy settling in and meeting new people: what a chore, eh?

Near my house

view of the river, also outside my house

  

At the risk of sounding like a complete fangirl, I love it here. Sure, some things take a while: every piece of paper is done in triplicate, but it’s amazing. I live in a beautiful area, surrounded by rice padi fields. One teacher handed round a piece of paper – his family owns one of the farms and was ready for orders. Unfortunately, whilst my appetite is limitless, ordering 5kg of rice for a single girl is a little too much, especially since my predecessor left so much behind!

A teacher at my school told me about a cooking class. It was held by the Kannami Sistercity Friendship Association. I’m not sure what the name is supposed to mean, but they were absolutely lovely. It was a class held especially for foreigners, and better still, completely free of charge! The ladies even offered to pick us up from the train station and drive us to the cooking school.

Bento cooking!

I spread the word that this class was up for registration, and six other lovely ALTs expressed an interest, so come Sunday, seven of us headed out to see what it was all about. There must have been about thirty participants altogether, but we were the only “Western” foreigners; the others there included a huge party of Indonesians, a Bangladeshi gent, a Chinese lady, and a Filipino too.

Peace

It was quite bizarre chatting to the Indonesians. Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia are very similar, so I mentioned the only phrase I know: minta maaf, tak faham, sila cekap bahasa inggeris, which basically means, I’m sorry, I don’t understand, please speak in English! Of course, we started chatting about foods we share and miss – nasi, rendang and the rest of it. However, they didn’t speak much English; our levels of Malay and English matched one another, so we eventually settled on conversing in Japanese! It felt really strange to talk to South East Asians in Japanese. In fact, many of them had much better nihongo (Japanese) than I, so I felt rather stupid. Still, it was lovely to meet them and brush up on my extremely rusty Malay. It was also nice to meet Indonesians in a rather different context – in Malaysia, they’re usually the people to avoid as they are generally shipped over as cheap labour, often working illegally, and in rather bad situations. They’re all studying at Mishima university as architechture students or some such, so obviously it was rather different.

Participants and teachers

We cooked three dishes – a huge piece of sushi each; bento sized, some tempura, and a jelly dessert. We had a whale of a time; the teachers were incredibly fun and friendly, and got to gobble up our work at the end. It was a little sweet for my tastes – I’d probably halve the sugar in everything, but it was still incredibly yum, even if I do say so myself.

Just about enough rice for me!

I’ve already regained my reputation for eating copious amounts: it was something I thought I could hide, but the way my food disappears down my gullet is too distinctive to ignore. I’m met some awesome sempais (seniors) that have been incredible about showing us around: two Californians especially, both of whom are within about half an hour’s train ride. I’m pretty close to two girls nearby, Francesca and Yuxi, as well as Kat, who lives a little further away in Fujieda. Ashley, the sempai in  I’m hoping to visit the J-team soon, too, Jeff, my friend in Fukuoka, and Joe, down in Aiichi. My budget’s stretched a little tight until pay day, but I’d like to explore Japan as much as I can.

All the ladies

I was hosting Kat for the weekend – there was a great welcome party of about 20-30 JETs on Friday which she came up for, so I offered my place up. I have 4 spare futons in addition to a bed I don’t use, so I could host loads of people! I love having people around, so I’m more than happy to entertain. I need some private time too, but weekends, my place is open to all. Kat, Ashley and I tried out an onsen in Ohito after the cooking class – hyakuwarai, which means 100 smiles. Kat’s verdict? “I’m definitely smiling 100 times in here!”. I’m going to turn into an onsen addict, for sure.

"So, we're using milk cartons? Ok..."

I’ve got an excellent weekend planned ahead. On Friday, which it probably will be by the time this gets posted, a sempai, Bong, is taking me on a food tour. He was pretty impressed by my eating skills last week, so I think I’m being challenged – we’re going to a Peruvian restaurant and then a yakiniku nomihoudai – all you can eat seafood and meat, and there may be more after. Then, we’re headed to the park so that he can teach me caporeira. The next day, a good 10k run in the morning, an arts and crafts fair in Gotemba, and  then I return to check out a free language class in Numazu. In the evening, Shourinji Kempo; I’ve just started the martial art at a dojo nearby. Then come Sunday, there’s a festival over in Shimada (easily confused with Shimoda, which is just down the bottom of the Izu Peninsula, where I live), about 2 hours away. Near on a hundred traditionally dressed ladies will have their hair done in a style specific to Shimada, the “mage” style. I’mma check it out, come back, relax, and then the next day, one of my new friends, Yuuki, will be playing guitar at a local bar. I’m gonna go support him, and round off my national holiday on Monday with onsen, because Yuuki works at one.

This was inserted especially to make you jealous

And this pretty much rounds it off. Peace out, yo!

Walking Around Sevenoaks

Bluebells everywhere!

I went for a walk last weekend with some family and their friends. Someone from my aunt’s workplace organized a few colleagues, and my aunt and uncle invited my mum and I along. We happily accepted, and motored over to Sevenoaks together. My cousin, Steph, tagged along too, so we had a good time catching up: we’ve managed to miss each other at family gatherings several times over the past year. She’s mid-uni, so we’re at similar places in life, and had a good natter about the things we’re up to and what we’re planning for the future.

We had just visited Stan, my cousin’s grandfather, and headed further into Sevenoaks to meet with our fellow walkers. We were the first to arrive, so we wandered around, peering at some beautiful gardens and houses. I spotted a Secret Garden-type door, and peered through. What I was rewarded with was the sight of a beautiful garden. The house had a “For Sale” sign outside, so I surreptitiously took a few photos, reckoning that if the owners spotted us, I would pretend that I was an interested buyer.

Secret Garden

There were about thirteen of us in total, a mixture of some fifty-plus seasoned walkers, along with their children, about fourteen years old, and of course Steph and I straddling the divide as the oldest of the younger generation. Even though thirteen is touted as an “unlucky number”, since we weren’t heading to Smaug’s cave, we encountered no mishaps. If you don’t get the Tolkien reference, go and read The Hobbit, immediately.

It was a good walk, not a stroll, by any means, but not a hike. It was a nice, relaxed, chatty one. The younger kids were a little bored (are we done yet? Can we go home yet?), but I got to know my aunt’s co-workers, and more about the British social system, since they’re all public servants. It’s a bureaucratic, generally unrewarding system, but it is necessary. It needs an overhaul, but at least it exists. It was interesting to see it from the perspective of the people who are helping to administrate the system, one often reads news items on people who are using the system, with rather overblown titles like “MOTHER OF TWELVES GETS FIFTY MILLION KAZILLION POUNDS AND A MANSION, SHE’S ON THE DOLE, UGH, GOVERNMENT”, but there are just as many people who genuinely require the support system, too. And then the people who work inside it get to see both sides of the coin.

The walk was a little convoluted – we started at one pub, walked for two hours, and then split ways, one group to walk a few minutes back to the pub we had parked at, and the others walking briskly to the we would be eating at, so that we’d all meet at the same place. It was well timed, actually – I went with the walking group, and after strolling another fifteen minutes, we arrived at The Chaser Inn, sat down to order drinks, and in came the drivers, who had just pulled up outside.

We followed the orange highlighted circle in the middle.

More bluebells

The gentleman who planned our walk, Patrick, or as he was aptly nicknamed – PatNav, led us expertly through the woods. We I always find that I glue my gaze to the floor in an attempt to avoid muddy patches and tripping over, but the walk was too pretty not to keep looking up and around. We went through some gorgeous fields. 

 

 We also passed by an old farmhouse, a stately home, a church and cemetery, and all the lush greenery and flowers were beginning to bloom. There were bluebells everywhere. We even sniffed out some wild garlic! It was a proper English walk, in other words. Wordsworth might not approve, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves!

This was apparently a Dubai Sheikh's driveway. @_@

Ye Olde Church

Arriving for a well-deserved meal!

The pub was fairly large, with a number of different rooms, such as a covered, heated patio, which has quite a French bistro feel, because of the way it’s laid out. We were placed in a more traditional area; bookcases filled with old tomes, a fireplace to our backs. There were a few other families around, the Inn was rather busy, but still with a laid back, family atmosphere.

The Chaser Inn had lovely food. The more you know me, the more you will be aware that I am one of those hated people who both takes pictures of her food, and critiques it, and will gladly discuss it with fellow diners for about three hours on end. I love gastro-pubs, markets, street-food, Michelin (I’M SO CLASSY, RIGHT?), mamak stalls – the whole shebang. I also eat about the same amount as three shaggy bears that have just emerged from hibernation (I’m also as grumpy as a trio of bears if I’m hungry, so it really is an apt metaphor). So. This gives me scope to sample just about everything, and steal everyone’s food on the pretense that I’m a food critic.

 Mama Laulet and I shared an asparagus starter. It certainly helped take the edge off my ravenous appetite, and the puree under was gorgeous: I could have eaten five times the amount. The quail scotch egg was interesting – a tad overcooked, but still very edible.

Mama Laulet's lam shoulder

My slow cooked pork belly had a lovely, crispy, well-seasoned skin. It’s making my stomach rumble just thinking about it. Unfortunately, that meant that the meat itself suffered a little, and was quite dry, but I just mopped it up with loads of sauce. Cider sauce is a new one on me, and as a cider fan, I can’t complain. The scallops were a little rubbery, but there were definitely more positives about the dish than negatives. 

My mum’s lamb shoulder fared better – as you can see, a generous herb-encrusted portion! The potatoes dauphine weren’t bad either. I “helped” her eat it, by quite a lot, actually! Meaning that I finished it off once she showed signs of filling up. Which in turn is code for: I ate about half.

Pork belly, crunchy skin!

Gratuitous extra shot

My mum actually has a knack for choosing what I’d want to eat – for dessert, she had this wonderful, moist, orange and pistachio cake with clotted cream. I chose a raspberry pannacotta with accompanying sorbet, which was probably a little too heavy for my rapidly filling stomach. I guess I’ll just have to go back and try it again sometime! 

Mama Laulet's dessert

Raspberry pannacotta and sorbet

I’m doing as many English-y things as I can before I leave, stocking up on my Western hobbies and memories before I head over to Japan and start scoffing down sushi and drinking green tea, or learning ikebana or something. Two months to go!