Ninja Village

Last weekend, 13 of us foreign doods piled into 3 cars and headed for Iga ninja village in Mie Prefecture. When we got there, we rented ninja outfits and some of us (me and Jim) bought extra swords and ninja stars. Even though JJ and Gareth were giddy and jumping all over the place early in the morning, it took the rest of us until we had those outfits on before we could fully act the part. Once we got started, though, it was on. Hiding behind traffic signs, pointing our swords at people in cars, stalking children and old women...good times.

We visited an old ninja house, and the guides pointed out hidden doors, stairwells, viewing areas and weapons storage. All in all, pretty neat. They had a museum with explanations of weapons, tactics, and outfits, and obviously had a gift shop for purchase of phone straps, stuffed animals, and other cutsey Japanese type stuff.

We caught the ninja show as well, where some guys put on a demonstration of the different weapons, blew darts, threw ninja stars, fought, made jokes, and basically entertained the hell out of us. Afterwards you could throw 5 ninja stars for 200 yen...so obviously most of us did this 2 or 3 times. They put a target on a tatami mat and leaned it against a wall...some folks couldn't even hit the tatami, with the stars flying over, under and to the side of this huge mat. That was pretty funny.

Afterwards we climbed the walls of Iga castle, took all kinds of pictures with strangers, and basically just screwed around before heading off to return our gear. One of the funnest days I've had in Japan period.

Teacher Movement/School Changes

For those unfamiliar with the way things work in terms of staff in Japanese schools, here's a primer based on what was sprung on me this year.

• School year ends in late March
• Teachers are selected (not sure on what basis, sometimes it seems random, sometimes it seems like they asked for a transfer) to change schools or even positions (a teacher becoming a vice-principal, that sort of thing)
• The teachers leaving are announced near the end of March
• On April 1, the new teachers move to their new schools
• Also on April 1, all teachers are officially assigned their jobs for the year

I have teachers transferring from one of my schools to another of my schools, most teachers changing grades, and an overall change of administration at my favorite school Youdo (principal and vice-principal both changing). My favorite vice-principal (Yoshimoto @ Yanase) retired, and I have yet to see what's happened at all at Ookura.

This combined with the changing of my base school from Ookura to Yanase, the switching of days from M, T from Yanase to Ookura and vise versa, and the requirement of the government this year for 5th and 6th graders to have English every week has me wondering how the year is going to turn out. Every school goes through it, and thousands of JETs have done the same thing, but it's always different when it happens to you.

Either way, all I can do is try to do my job. I never really get in tight with the teachers anyways, since I spend most of my free time playing with kids or doing personal crap in the office, and most of their conversations are either boring or beyond my Japanese comprehension. Mainly the latter.

Following a True Pioneer (Woman

If you haven't heard of Ree Drummond's blog http://thepioneerwoman.com/ and enjoy self-depracating, honest and down-to-earth silly writing, check it out. I started reading it maybe a year and a half ago and still check in fairly often. The author is an LA-born (same here) USC grad (same here) who loved eating a variety of ethnic cuisines (same here) and has moved into a lifestyle that's more country than chic (again, same here). Sure, she's a white lady who moved to the midwest to get married and I moved to Japan to teach English, but there's still some weird correlations between how a person goes about adjusting to a lifestyle that's far less convenient, but somehow more fulfilling than their old one.

Anyway, I thought I'd follow one of her recipes for the hell of it. Since it's tough to get things like fresh cheese or real produce without spending an arm and a leg, I opted for a simple meat sauce recipe (here)...still had to make substitutions though. The list of ingredients is

2 15oz cans of whole tomatoes (I used one cut, one whole)

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 an onion

2 lbs of hamburger (I used about 350 grams of mixed beef and pork, or less than half of what the recipe originally calls for)Thyme
Fresh ground pepper (nope, store bought shaker stuff)SaltFresh grated parmesean cheese (I used Kraft)Rigatoni (I used fuscilli since there's only about 5 kinds of dry pasta available here)

Basically, you can see the kinds of subs I made. Part of the reason is that the ingredients are probably far more expensive here than they are in the US...the meat alone cost me over $5, whereas less than 1 lb of ground beef in the US wouldn't cost that by far. I also paid over $1.50 each for those cans of tomatoes, and a small bottle of thyme was over $2. For the hell of it, I threw in a couple of chopped green peppers because they were sitting in my fridge and I figured I might as well have something green in there. I also threw in some hot sauce for punch.

You can see the steps I took here...cooking for an hour was kind of annoying since I started after 8 and was STARVING, so I cut the total time down to 40 minutes. It turned out well, but I think real cheese, more meat, and a longer cooking time would spruce it up a bit. Also could use some red pepper flakes...it ended up far more bland than I think it should have (may have taken out too much of the fat as well as underseasoned). All in all, though, I thought it went pretty well. I also have a TON of the sauce left over since I'm cooking for one, so I can toy with the sauce bit by bit as I eat the leftovers. Tonight, it's going over pasta AND tofu :)

Fitness goals

So I looked at my body fat percentage today for the first time in about a year and while it's down to 18.8 from 24.5 when I was in LA, it's still not at the sub-15 level that was my New Year's Resolution last year. I'm down to aout 74.5 kilos, which is just under 164 lbs, but that doesn't mean anything if it's all flab. This country and my lifestyle cause me to lose weight without necessarilly dropping only fat, so it's my new goal to be around 15 by the time my birthday in June rolls around. Maybe that's unrealistic, but there's a few reasons why that's my deadline:

Summer = the beach and beach parties...and girls :)
Tajima Ultimate - Ultimate Frisbee tournament in our area that I'm learning how to run as well as participating in. Our team is looking like it'll be small, which means less subs, which means more running around for me. Time to get in REAL shape.
New clothes - none of my shorts, outside of athletic ones, fit anymore. This means I need to buy new stuff, and I want to make sure I only have to do it once.
I'll be turning 27...what better time to get in the best shape of my life?

I'm sure this interests very few, but it's said that publishing your goals helps you achieve them and I'm want to make sure I have no excuses. This may mean less beer, but I'll try to make sure it doesn't mean less ramen :)

Speaking of which, the other day, JJ and I had a kaedama challenge. We basically ordered noodle refills until we couldn't eat anymore...we both stopped at 4 (5 total bowls of noodles) and declared it a draw.

Random pictures of stuff I make for dinner

Peppers and tofu in some mabo tofu mix with ground pork, poured over sliced tomato and rice

Corn, tofu and veggie gyoza in beef curry over rice
Soba with raw tomato and lightly pan fried tofu and peppers
Peppers and tofu in spicy curry w/ rice (love curry :D)
Ground pork, tofu, peppers, corn over rice

I eat a lot of noodles as well. Summer was all soba and somen, now I eat udon and various shapes of Italian pasta: rigatoni, macaroni, spaghetti, etc. Most of the meat I eat is chicken breast or ground pork, but I've recently started playing with salmon. Try to avoid beef at home because I eat it out more often than other meats. I also eat most of my veggies raw.

Care Package

So my mom sent me a pretty sweet care package last month and I thought I'd share it
Here's the contents:

• Snowboard goggles (I bought them online and shipped them to LA...cheaper overall than buying in Japan)
• 1 full set of thermals
• 2 pairs of thick socks
• 1 Taco Bell Beef Bowl (eaten)
  
• 1 huge bag of mixed nuts
• 1 small can of nacho cheese
  
• 6 packs of 100 calorie beef jerky (eaten)
  
• 1 cup of Easy Mac (eaten)
• 12 corn tortillas (expired, but eaten)
• 5 different kinds of Spanish/Mexican rice mix (2 eaten)
• Taco Bell taco seasoning (used on ground pork and eaten)
• 1 can Taco Bell refried beans
• 1 can green chiles
• 1 can Frito bean dip
• 1 package instant refried black beans

I've been working on the food while trying to not let it dominate my diet. I've managed to eat fairly fresh since getting here, and have been keeping the processed foods to a minimum. That said, those first couple of tacos (more like enchiladas since I just put spanish rice and meat into tortillas) were awesome, especially with the Tapatio I got from my co-workers and the Filipino hot sauce from my buddy Mark.

BTW, that space that everything is on is basically my cooking area. To the left are 2 offset burners that are next to a wall, and to the right is my sink which is the end of my counter.

Edit: forgot to mention the egg clock. It's behind the goggles...sorry Danielle :)

Hadaka Matsuri

This past weekend, I was one of the bravely foolish (or is that foolishly brave) foreigners who decided the prospect of wrapping some cloth around my pelvis, slapping fabric wrapped cardboard on my feet and jostling with a bunch of sweaty men was my idea of a good time. Yes, I took part in Hadaka Matsuri/Naked Man/Saidaiji Eyo at Saidai Temple in Okayama City. There was a good 40 or so of us runners on the bus, representing 5 or 6 different prefectures. As far as I knew, there were only 4 JETs from Hyogo taking part, and I was hoping to uphold Tajima’s sterling reputation as the region which seems to have a bunch of pretty bad, but not life-threatening, injuries.

The bus ride to the temple was pretty uneventful. Folks are drinking, there is talk of cooperation in the event someone comes out with the main Shingi stick (rumored to be worth 500,000-1,000,000 yen), and a poll is taken of those who played “real sports” and what skills could be applied. As a guy of average height and build who played basketball, tennis, and volleyball growing up, my advice on a proper bounce pass went unheeded.

After we got to the temple and walked around a bit, I was sure of 2 things: it was cold, and I needed more beer. Okayama City is nowhere near as cold as the town I call home (Asago for those who are keeping track), but it still isn’t warm enough for a fundoshi and tabi outfit to keep the nipples from getting hard. Speaking of that fundoshi, paying someone 1,000 yen to shove the thing into your but and LIFT YOU UP by it (think ultra-wedgie) wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. It’s important that they make it tight, because the last thing you want is for it to fall/get pulled off, but man, that sucked. We taped up our tabi and got pumped up.

Few things are as noticeable as a group of foreign guys jumping around and yelling in a temple full of Japanese people. We took part in the chants of “washoi” as well as creating our own (“gaijin yuushou” was my favorite). You run around a temple with thousands of spectators, splash through cold water meant to purify you, and bound up and down stairs. I must have given 200 high-fives to people on the side of the pathway, mainly kids and young ladies of course. The other Japanese groups either welcomed us with open arms or gave us weird looks, particularly when we were chanting something outside the norm. I find it hard to believe we were the first group to come up with foreigner-specific chants, but who knows.

We managed to get up into the elevated temple area before most of the other groups. I had splashed around in the water 7 or 8 times, bounded up and down stone steps and was quite enjoying myself when we made it into the temple. This is where the madness began. Cramming a bunch of wet, semi-drunk men into a small area and telling them to wait is an interesting concept, one that really has to be experienced to be understood. I’ve stood on morning and evening rush hour trains, last trains out of Tokyo and Osaka, and been in many a mosh pit and I can’t remember ever feeling as helpless as I did at Naked Man. Initially there aren’t many people up on that platform, but as word gets out that it’s filling up, people race up there to try and secure a spot. The shingi sticks only get thrown out at midnight in this area, so if you’re not up there fighting over a stick by then, you might as well be a fully clothed spectator.

I was perhaps 3 feet back from the front wall from atop which priests regularly threw cold water down on us. I’m pretty sure I drank some on accident, not unlike what happens when you get caught under a wave at the beach. I also caught some in my eye and had to frantically adjust my contact lens. Arms were up for the entire time I was in this area, perhaps as long as 2 hours, so the shoulders definitely started to ache. The swell moved side to side, heels came down hard on toes (remember, you’re in tabi, so there’s no support), and there was a struggle to stay upright. People to the rear rested their arms against my head, shoulders, arms, whatever, and the only option is to rest mine on the guy in front of me. The push went on for what felt like forever, left and right. I caught an elbow in the ear and a skull in my eye, neither of which felt great.

There were regular announcements in Japanese about people getting kicked out, updates on the situation, whatever, but if you can understand Japanese over a loudspeaker when mean are yelling washoi in your ear, you’re a better person than I. There were arms everywhere, and I couldn’t see what was happening above me. Then the lights suddenly went out, and thus began a futile struggle for a 20 cm stick in the dark that everyone in the temple desperately wanted. I was hoping just to get my hands on one, to fight with someone over it, not even really caring if I got it.

The craziness of pushing and shoving mostly naked men in the dark was relatively short-lived, though, and soon the lights came on and people starting clearing out. There was a few small skirmishes near the entrance, since the sticks are officially up for grabs until they’re past a certain gate. Apparently the wise thing to do is hide it in your fundoshi, or have a bunch of friends carry you out. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and back into some dry shoes.

It turns out my buddy JJ came away with one of the smaller sticks. There’s apparently 2 main sticks, and a few smaller, less valuable, sticks tossed out as well. The large ones can fetch monetary prizes in excess of 50,000 yen (roughly $5,000US) and the small ones will maybe get 10,000 (about $100US).

It was a crazy event, from drinking in the cold, to getting naked in a tent with a bunch of dudes, to running around in water, to the wild fracas that was the actual goal of the night. At this point I’m against it, but I can see myself running again next year.

Nicknames

Everyone remembers making nicknames up for teachers when they were kids. Whether plays on their name or simply references to physical features or behaviors, I can recall many a time a nickname felt absolutely necessary. Here's some of the ones my kids have made up for me (remember, they're only in elementary school):

Shirotama-sensei - obviously just a lazy reversal of the 2 kanji of my name, but one they find amusing nevertheless

Kintama-sensei - kintama means testicles...they use the first part of my last name, obviously.

Tamago-sensei - tamago means egg

Kurotama sensei - depending on the characters used, "shiro" can mean a number of things. One of those is "white" and "kuro" means black.

And of course, the tons of variations on my given name:
Andy
Andoyu
Anjuu
Ando

They only use the term "sensei" (teacher) when making fun of my last name, sort of an ironic respectful diss. The funny thing about these nicknames is that they're used to my face and usually in an attempt to get me to chase them. I often oblige them with a light smack on the top of the head (as is customary in manzai) or a short chase. I really don't mind the nicknames, because at least they know my name well enough to make fun of it.

Also, I've been called by my predecessor's name many times (Kaneko), as well as odd combinations of the two (kaneshiro, kanetama, etc). One time, I even was labeled as "Gordon-sensei," who is the guy who was here BEFORE my predecessor. I find myself wanting to say the same thing my teachers used to say to us; "you only have one name to remember, I have to remember 500," but I don't care all that much :)

Ramentary - Ippudo, Kobe

Ippudo is a chain of ramen shops out of the Hakata area, with outposts in Tokyo and as far off as New York (I heard it's really expensive, though). We had one near Waseda when I was a student, but the lines were always long as we preferred Kokuran (RIP) anyway. It's one of the better chains in my experience, but I haven't been to one since my days as a study abroad student because there's so many other ramen joints I want to try.

This branch of Ippudo is located outside of Motomachi station in Kobe, about a 2 minute walk opposite Chinatown.

Pictured below is the Akamaru kasane aji version of their ramen. It's one of their spicy versions, but doesn't approach the spice levels offered by ramen-ya that specialize in it. You can see the pork, green onions, bamboo, seaweed, and mentaiko (spicy cod roe) floating around in a bowl that I polished off in about 4 minutes :) I'm not sure what the black oil was made with, but it tasted of burnt garlic. I love garlic in my ramen.

Some what disappointing, and not pictured, was the fried rice. Though well-seasoned and not too oily, there was no meat anywhere in the 500 yen dish. I expect more than rice and frozen veggie bits, no matter how well made the yakimeshi may be.

Snowboardng at Sapporo Kokusai Ski-jo

The day before I had to go home, my friend Yolanda and I went snowboarding at one of the nearby mountains. We had originally planned to go to a resort called Niseko, the most popular destination in the area, but we were ignorant of the schedule and missed the only morning bus by about an hour. Rather than take the 2 hour bus ride starting at 11 am, we opted for a closer mountain and still had to run through the station to make it to the bus on time.

The bus fare (90 minutes each way), rental, and lift ticket were packaged for 5400 yen, or around $60US, which is ridiculously cheap. Lift tickets at my local mountains run up to 4500 yen by themselves. Needless to say, I was happy to pay it.

We were on the mountain by 11 am, but had to deal with RIDICULOUS lines for everything that first run. There were at least 5 or 6 different high schools doing "ski kyoushitsu/ski classroom" and they were clogging the runs and lifts everywhere you looked. For some reason, I expected high schoolers that live in Hokkaido to understand basic mountain etiquette, so I was surprised to see so many of the skiiers simply standing about in the middle of the mountain. The best run was perhaps 75 feet wide and fairly steep, and the kids were forming too lines and snaking their way down slowly, forcing boarders and other skiiers to ride the super thick powder on the left side and risk their board simply stopping, or braving the middle of the two lines and hoping for the best. I did each once, then resorted to waiting for them to finish.

Fell and slid on my head when I tried the black diamond run that turned into a mogul course...that was fun. Thanks to the snow, nothing hurt at the end of the day, and I managed to land my first small jump. A great time, and I'm definitely trying to get back out to Hokkaido next year.

On the busCrowded

Powder

Far off view of line for Gondola 1


Line for Gondola 2...almost all HS kids doing "ski classroom" field trip

Nothing like an empty mountain

Bundled up

The view at 5pm...slopes were pretty empty