Surprise Birthday Party

My girlfriend and my friends organized a surprise birthday party for me the other day. Here's some of the awesome gifts I got, plus some nice cards (including an amazing handmade job by my buddy's girlfriend)
That big red one is handmade, and has stuff on front, inside, and on back.

From a couple of Japanese girls I know, a glass for drinking and a small mesh bowl for edamame.

From the master of my local hangout, DASH, and his wife: pineapple, talking card, tie, and polo shirt.

From my buddy Tim and his fiancee Kazuko, some tequila (everytime I drink with Kazuko, she orders tequila and I end up passing out on a counter)

Some sake from Meghan and Saku, another int'l couple. Can't wait to crack this, maybe back in the States.

From Tanya and Yoshi, int'l couple #3 on this list. Pandas doing naughty things on a mug.

Rubber chicken stuff from a couple of friends of mine.

First in a set from the folks at Jalan, Ryohei and Noriko. His 2nd ramen joint is rock-themed, and he loves Pulp Fiction, so he had these made up.

The entire Jalan gift set, Wanderlei Silva action figure, One Piece shirt and some funky shorts.

From Matt, some Hokkaido ramen.

Epic Sandwich

The other day I decided to make a huge sandwich, and as I went through my fridge, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. Eventually, it included:

2 small green peppers and half an onion, lightly tossed in olive oil and fried
1 egg white
Gouda cheese
3 chicken strps seasoned with salf and pepper
Half a tomato
1 pickle
2 slices of Akina's mom's homemade cheese bread
BBQ sauce
Sriracha

It was awesome.

Poor Kid

So lately this kid, K-kun, has been showing up at my house. On the regular. Like 4 days in a row. He's a 6th grader at one of my schools and I believe has a learning disability, but is generally fine. He's not a part of the separate classes often held for those with more challenging situations, and regularly takes part in English as well as other subjects without drawing too much attention to himself.

That said, he's also famous around our school for a number of things. He doesn't listen to instructions. He sneaks out of class and disappears somewhere into the school. He addresses teachers as "anta," a shortened form of "anata," which basically means "you" (like saying, hey you). Those in his group in class are regularly called upon to corral him into class. He also can be incredibly stubborn.

He has always taken a shine to me, perhaps because I am one of the few people in the school who answer him earnestly and truthfully. I like the kid, he's funny, energetic, and honest. Like a great number of my kids at this school, he knows where I live. I used to have a 4th grader in my apartment complex, and now I have a 3rd grader. I see her homeroom teacher every once in a while, and I often spy children going into the stationary shop across the street. I used to play catch in our parking lot with the 4th grader, actually. It's no secret, but until this year, no child has taken it upon themselves to come up to my apartment and ring my doorbell. Well, K-kun has adopted a rather disturbing habit. He camps out in front of my door on the 3rd floor, and calls my name out. He yells at neighbors returning home, asking if they've seen me. He bangs on my door and rings the doorbell. He attempts to peek into my window.

The other day, I came home from school sick as a dog and just wanting to sleep. I could hear K-kun yelling as soon as I got out of my car, and walked up the stairs to hear him saying things like "Andrew, get out here! (Andrew, dete koi!)." I asked him what he was doing and he responded by ringing the doorbell and saying he was looking for me. He proceeded to pepper me with about 4 or 5 different questions for the next 45 minutes, during which I made and consumed 2 cups of tea and made comments about being sick.

Another time I woke up (in the afternoon) to him calling my name softly through my window. In fact, the first time he came, he didn't know my apartment number, so he was just shouting my name in our apartment complex's parking lot. On Sunday, I had told him I was headed for a baseball game early in the morning so I wouldn't be there. He showed up at 8 am and waited for me to leave my apartment with Akina. He asked me a number of things, and proceeded to inform me that the bus I was taking didn't run on the weekend and I wouldn't be able to go to the game. I would have appreciated his advice if I didn't know for a fact it was wrong.

I can't help but wonder what this kid needs right now. Does he just need a friend? I know he isn't the most popular kid in 6th grade, and he has confided in me that he likes a girl in his class. He's also said he likes me, in a way that one might misunderstand quite easily. On Saturday, when I had work all day, he apparently went to my apartment 5 or 6 times over the course of the day, waiting for me to get back.

I'm not sure what to think. If he just needs a friend, that's fine, I'll play catch with him. But it certainly doesn't seem to be normal in Japan for kids to do this to their own teachers. When I informed my school rather casually that he had shown up at my house, there were shocked gasps and I heard a TEACHER say "stalker!" Now that's weird.

Ramen in Umeda

My cousin and her husband were passing through Osaka last weekend and I am always looking for a reason to make the 2-plus hour trip down from the land of cows and onsen to the hustle and bustle of the nation’s third largest city. We headed down the night before and hit a few bars to relax from the week. Anytime I’m out drinking until 3 in a city, I ALWAYS have a craving for ramen afterwards. That doesn’t mean I want a full serving with gyoza on the side to add food coma to my alcohol-induced collapse, but the steamy, salty stuff always seems to help blunt the impact of the inevitable hangover.

After the bar, we hit Yousukou (揚子江), an extremely popular place in Umeda. They’ve got a couple branches in the area, and this one was packed to the gills. It’s a tiny place, just an round-ish counter that seats maybe 15 if you pack in. On this night, it was full of red-faced salarymen, young construction workers, and feathery-haired hostess types. After a 7 or 8 minute weight, we plopped into newly opened seats and ordered the basic ramen.

Known for its assari taste, the shio broth is perfect after drinking. The chashu was nothing to write home about, and the noodles were fairly average, but that soup will clear your head and open your eyes. I’m not typically a fan of lighter soups, but it was perfect for the situation. If you ever have the chance, give it a shot. The fried rice also looked delicious, and the serving was gigantic.

The next morning around 10, we ventured into Nishimatsuya（西松家）. It’s a 24 hour joint that serves tsukemen as well as ramen, and does each in 4 flavors (shio, shoyu, miso, tonkotsu). It also allows you to choose the spice level of your miso soup, how many pieces of pork you want, and a number of other options. My companion chose the tonkotsu ramen and I got the miso tsukemen at the recommendation of the chef. Mine came first, a pile of 200 grams of cooler-than-room-temperature noodles topped generously with negi, menma, and my 2 slices of chashu. The soup was burning hot, a layer of oil preventing the steam and heat from escaping until I dipped my spoon in to taste. My first mouthful of noodles was fantastic, the springy, starchy noodles holding the flavor of the broth well from bowl to mouth. The pork was fatty, but firm, yet I was left unhappy with the flavor combination as the miso overpowered a somewhat subtle pork.

The tonkotsu ramen was just ok. A layer of tiny chunks of fat used to be a far more welcome sight, but as my tastes move in the direction of better strained bases, I don’t look forward to slurping it down as much as I used to. Nothing about it jumped out at me, a very average entry.

Spring Cleaning

Just did some big spring cleaning that included moving my bed, TV, clothes, kotatsu, and chair to different spots. Also got rid of a huge rug, and tons of old stuff that had been piling up. Here's pics of Akina beating the heck out of the kotatsu quilt with a hangar, and what the room looked like as we went over every inch of wood floor with a broom, vaccuum, then wash rag.

Sansan Ramen - Sannomiya, Kobe

Anyway, thanks to the Ramen Walker, I dropped by two places recently, Hakata Ramen Makoto （博多ラーメン真実）in Himeji and Ramen Dokoro Nidaime Sansan（ラーメン処二代目さんさん）near Nishinomiya Station. Seeing as I liked Sansan waaay better, I’ll talk about that one.

They had a special ramen running, meaty spicy miso tonkotsu ramen (肉みそピリ辛とんこつラーメン…couldn’t think of a better way to translate that) for 800 yen and that’s what I was there for. I ordered my ramen and a small chashu pork bowl and started salivating straight away. It was only AFTER I ordered that I noticed the free super size (大盛無料-oomori muryou) signs all over the place. Too bad, so sad.

The food came out and looked exactly like the picture in the magazine. A full half-boiled egg, chopped in half with it’s slightly runny yolk just barely staying within the wobbly confines of it’s hardened white. Rich ground beef and its accompanying oil spreading slowly throughout the broth. Large chunks of fatty white chashu

The ramen was as good as it looked, packing a bit of tantanmen like flavor into a tonkotsu miso broth that had depth and a rather pungent flavor without being overpowering. I’d definitely come back and this time bring a bigger appetite and opt for those extra noodles.

Pottery

Lately I've been learning pottery from Akina's mom. Here's some progress shots, but I don't have many yet. This is going to take a while, so hopefully there'll be some more soon.

Valentine's Day chocolates

These are the chocolates I got from Akina yesterday. For those unfamliar with the way things work in Japan, on Valentine's Day, women give either obligation (giri) chocolate or true (honmei) chocolate to the men in their life that they have some connection to, whether co-workers, friends, relatives, or (possible) lovers. Giri chocolate is simply meant to keep relationships smooth (though it's also a sign of how male-oriented/dominated Japan has traditionally been). Honmei chocolate is for those towards whom the woman has romantic feelings. On March 14th, "White Day," men return chocolate to the woman they want to return romantic feelings to.

New Year's Cards

I know it's late, but I wanted to show off the new year's cards I made. They're called "nengajyo" and this year being the year of the tiger, I made them tiger-themed. These are all hand-done (I had time at school :D). Some teachers saw them and said "wow, they're cute...it's kind of surprising considering it's Andrew." Wasn't sure how to take that, so I just assumed it was because I was so cool and laid back, and not because I'm creepy or something.

Eating Shit

Excuse the language, but there's really no other way to describe what happened Saturday night during night boarding. We went to a place called Mikata Snow Park that has a fairly decent night run with rails, jumps, and even a large quarter pipe (the crummy half pipe was tried, but it was falling apart).

The night started out ok, but the first few jumps I tried were just not happening. Couldn't stick a landing without almost stopping, and I was digging a few holes with my butt out there. The big screw up on my part, though, was my attempt to go over a barrel jump. Basically it's just a barrel that sunk into the snow with a small kicker going up to it. You're either supposed to go up and over the barrel slowly, or use the barrel's side as an extra ramp and jump even higher. I'd seen a few folks go over it and thought I could do it. It looked like this:

I rolled towards it with some decent speed, and hit the barrel going decently fast. Being an inexperienced jumper, I wasn't ready for the way the shape of the barrel was going to affect me and I apparently ended up like this:

I laneded on my left shoulder and head, though to a lesser extent, before the rest of my body hit the ground. I sort of crawled over to the side a couple of feet before collapsing. It definitely hurt, but not as much as one might think when 170 odd lbs and a snowboard plus gear falls from about 6 or 7 feet in the air onto a single shoulder. My friend found me and made sure I was ok, then I got down the mountain with my goggles and beanie in my hand and took a break before continuing til they closed, though I only managed one more jump and it was a small one. On my next trip up, I checked out the landing, and found the main indention of my body was about 9 or 10 feet beyond the barrel, meaning I was in the air the entire time. My buddy Gabe said he could see my head above the barrel and that thing was at least 3 or 4 feet high.

Suffice to say it was very scary.