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!