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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

Saturday 30 September 2006

Hehe..

I submitted a bunch of photos to CLAIR (one of the authorities for the JET Program) for their publications like the JET Programme 2007 calendar and one of my photos was chosen! Yay! Haha, Rob's (sunburnt) face is gonna be published.. :P

Wednesday 27 September 2006

Hanging out with other Noto JETs

At a dinner a few weeks ago in my neighbour fellow JET's apartment with most of the Noto 'elitist' group (so nicknamed because we are so far away from Kanazawa where most Ishikawa JET-related parties and events are held, which we don't usually attend):

Playing cards:

Tuesday 26 September 2006

Cooking Japanese food

I've been cooking lots (usually twice a day), but haven't had time to blog about my food. Anyway, yesterday I cooked a Japanese meal. I'd bought some marinated herring at school (caught, dried and prepared by some of the students), and one of my JTEs (Jap Teacher of English) recommended panfrying or grilling without oil. I'm glad that one of my JTEs share my passion of cooking and has been giving me all sorts of advice and suggestions on how to prepare Japanese dishes.

I also prepared hijiki (a type of seaweed) by boiling it in dashi (Japanese-style soup stock, which is simple and quick to make), mirin (sweet cooking sake), sugar and shoyu (soy sauce). Apparently seaweed is really healthy (a rich source of calcium and other minerals) so I would like us to eat more of it. Vegetables was the usual yasai itame (Japanese for sauteed vegetables - this time the mix consisted of daikon, brocolli and cabbage stirfried with chopped onions, garlic, ginger, chilli, oyster sauce, shoyu and lots of pepper). Serve these with rice, and voila - a complete meal with lots of nutrition.


Photo: Everything crammed into one bowl with the rice hidden beneath it all (okay, so it's not nicely presented typically Japanese-style where all the food are served in multiple small plates and bowls, but we saved on washing too many dirty dishes! Besides, the food all ends up in the tummy right?):

Thursday 21 September 2006

Scuba-diving and superfresh snail sashimi

The marine teachers at my school have been very kind (they were especially interested in the fact that I'm a marine engineer) offering to teach me scuba-diving and windsurfing. I joined in the scuba-diving class at my school today for fifth and sixth period. Okay, I did not actually do any scuba-diving since I don't have the basic knowledge, but I did go snorkelling and it was fun! (The students from both the windsurfing and scuba-diving classes were somewhat puzzled when they saw me at the back of the school (where they were preparing for the classes), probably not expecting me to actually do something un-ladylike like actually getting myself mucky and wet.) The waves were choppy so it was somewhat tiring (I'm not a very strong nor confident swimmer so there were times when I freaked out a little whilst in the water) but I was glad I did it.

Anyway, whilst snorkelling, Miyashita-sensei grabbed a few sea snails from the rocks, cracked them open and offered them to us to eat. I love sashimi, and it isn't the first time I had raw snails so I took one. Just before putting it in my mouth, the thought that it was still alive crossed my mind, and I hesitated. Apparently long enough for Miyashita-sensei to notice and chuckle. I shoved it into my mouth (partly out of pride), and it was delicious. It is pretty hard to beat the taste of seafood superfresh out of the sea.

Monday 18 September 2006

More festivities

Ever since arriving in Japan, we have had a pretty packed itinerary of places to see and things to do, that I feel like I'm constantly playing catch-up with updating my journal using the abundance of photos I've taken using my camera. This is yet another catch-up post as these photos were taken well and truly a few weeks ago.

Wajima tai sai

Wajima is the next major town closest to where we are in the Noto (about 45 minutes' drive if we go via the short cut windy route away from the main roads without getting lost - not easy without a proper road map). They had their tai sai (big festival) over three days a few weeks ago in late August.

We made a day-trip to Wajima on the first day of the tai sai and went nice and early in the morning to catch the asaichi (morning market), which Wajima is pretty well-known for. Asaichi is held everyday except for two days a month. Another thing Wajima is famous all througout Japan for is their lacquerware, which can be quite beautiful, but boy are they expensive! (We saw a jewellery box at the lacquerware museum going for thousands of dollars!)

Yes, I love my markets:


Whilst at the market, we saw an adorable dog:


Near the morning market, we saw residents busy with preparations for the festivities to happen that night. The thing in the next photo is called a kiriko, which is a vertical rectangular mikoshi (portable shrine) lantern. Apparently they are very expensive and costs hundreds of millions of yen:


After the asaichi, we took a lovely drive along the coast towards Sosogi (as recommended by the brochure) and stopped by a place called Senmaida which means a thousand rice paddies. It was gorgeous, being located right next to the sea:


We stopped at this waterfall to have our lunch break:


We headed back into Wajima later that day, met up with a group of fellow JETs and joined in the first part of the festivities. Around the port area, there were a lot of men dressed up in bright and colourful outfits with ridiculous makeup. They were very rowdy (probably drunk), and their job was to carry this mikoshi (portable shrine) all around the streets and make their way towards the beach where they will eventually enter into the water. Apparently the story behind this ritual is that the goddess of the ocean (who lives in the shrine??) will only allow women to carry the shrine and enter the water whilst carrying the shrine. Or something like that. It certainly was an entertaining spectacle to witness.

Running around back and forth on the streets:


Descending down the stairs towards the beach:


Some sort of ritual performed prior to entrance into the water:


In the water:


We then made our way into the main part of the town where the night festivities were held.

This is the same kiriko we'd passed by earlier in the day:


Rob jumped at the opportunity to joined in carrying the kiriko, and of course the Japanese residents were more than happy to let him. Alex and John joined in and off they went running up and down the streets, back and forth, spinning around like crazy. And these things aren't very light either. These celebrations and running around continues into the wee hours of the morning. We had a long-ish drive ahead of us in the dark so we had to leave while the night was still young. Still, we were so tired having started out so early in the morning that we were glad to return home.

Mingling with the locals:


With Alex next to Rob:


The same road that held the asaichi every morning was transformed that night with stalls and stalls selling all kinds of festival food like takoyaki (octopus balls), yakisoba (fried noodles) and okonomiyaki - it was not the healthiest place to have dinner, but it was fun to be in the midst of it all:



Ukawa Matsuri

Ukawa is the little community/town that we live in, and we had our own little festival a few weeks ago. Instead of the kirikos (portable shrines), we had niwakas (floats) with portraits of samurai warriors painted on them. There were about 10 different floats, which I think were made by (or at least represents) the different areas of our community. Prior to the night-time celebrations and feasting, the floats made their rounds in the streets in the afternoon.

Of course, Rob could not resist the opportunity to mingle with the locals, and of course the locals would not refuse Rob's request to push the floats:


Displaying the floats:


One of the floats:


That night, we ate very well, thanks to my fellow JETs' supervisor's vast network. I think he brought us to three houses to socialise and eat. The food was great and we had loads of fun.



Rob, of course, had fun interacting with people who were quite drunk:


We even had fireworks lasting about 20 minutes:


Then it was more running up and down the streets with the niwaka, which Rob participated in for about 45minutes until he found out that it was to continue until 3am in the morning. At which point he said we ought to walk back home.

Friday 15 September 2006

Matsuris!

As mentioned before, the summer season is matsuri season, and it truly was a fantastic way to start a long-term stay in Japan. A 2nd year JET even said that matsuris are one of the main reasons why she recontracted for a second year. Lots of yummy food and amazing displays of community events usually involving carrying or pushing the kirikos (vertical rectangular lantern) or niwakais (floats). If you think about it, the matsuris are really a form of religious event (although I think the Japanese people just like another reason to party and drink hard - and boy do they drink!). Individual towns and communities hold their own matsuris which is the reason why we had the opportunity to attend so many.

Fellow JETs who are located closer to a big city said that the festivals they've experienced are not as spectacular as the ones we've been to. Heck, even the Japanese girlfriend of a fellow JET who is from Osaka said that she has never experienced matsuris like the ones she went to with us. I guess this is what they mean when they say that you'll get more of the Japanese experience out in inaka away from the cities.

Did I mention lots of yummy food? I kid you not - the hosts go all out as they display their wealth to guests (albeit subtly) with the variety and quantity of food (and expensive fruits). My favourite part? Eating the sashimi. A HUGE variety of sashimi - snails, prawns, squid, octopus, a million different types of fish - the list goes on. So delicious. My favourite type of sashimi? The prawns - raw, fresh prawns are quite sweet and have a deliciously tender taste. That's the wonderful benefit of living in the Noto where tasty seafood are freshly available in abundance. It is a paradise for a foodie who loves her seafood!

Prawn sashimi:


Usually there will be platters of food such as sushi, seafood, various yummy finger foods as well as our own individual servings of sashimi, chawan mushi (an egg 'custard' - basically it is egg and dashi steamed with various ingredients such as chicken, gingko fruits and mushrooms - very delicious and similar to one of my dad's steamed egg and minced pork dish) and many other yummies. To give everyone a rough idea of the type of food, the following photos were taken at some of the places we went to - all thanks to my fellow JETs' supervisor who has a lot of contacts and he kindly drove us all to experience these feasts (some nights we visited up to three houses! Talk about getting stuffed!). A lighted lamp outside a residence during a matsuri is an indication that the house has a feast prepared and is open to visitors.







Sannami Matsuri

Remember the Australian owner of a bakery about 5mins drive from our place? His family opened their house during their community's matsuri last month. This feast was a little less traditional and there was even pizza at the table!





Our group (Ben, the bakery owner, is to the far left on the back row):


Incredibly, we found out that Ben's (that's the Australian guy) place was featured in a manga (Japanese comic).

The manga:


The page featuring the place:


Ben's front door, as featured (compare with second panel on left page in the photo above):

Thursday 14 September 2006

Gakosai, takusai and enkai

Gakosai (school cultural festival) and takusai (sports day) are the two words most commonly uttered by teachers' and students' alike during the first week of school. That's because my school had their gakosai (cultural festival) on Friday and Saturday and their sports' day today. Japanese people are very "group" oriented, and the matsuri, gakosai and takusai that I've experienced all enforce that mentality. This particular characteristic of the Japanese is often shown in a bad light, but I think that it is good to have community/team spirit. Japanese people know how to work hard, but they also know how to party and play hard. :)

School Festival

The students put so much effort into the school festival - during the first week of school we had many cancelled classes and even whole days reserved for festival preparation. And I was told by my predecessor that the students begun preparations months ago. And I'm blown away by how artistic these students are - the decorations around the school is proof of that. The first day of the gakosai is purely for the students to enjoy themselves - there were chorus contests (homerooms compete with each other by presenting a class song), karaoke contests (a couple of pretty good voices, and a couple of really bad ones) and the Dance Battle. I was asked to be one of the judges for the Dance Battle, which was pretty fun :) The second day of the gakosai was held the next day (a Saturday) and it was open to the public. I asked Rob to come along, and so many of my students were excited to see my 'darling' ("Jean! Your darling?"). This particular group of girls were literally shrieking with joy as they lined up to shake Rob's hand:



Students and the PTA opened foodstalls, and there were performances by the school's brass band club, the top 5 teams of the Dance Battle, a children's lion dance (I think this is a traditional Japanese thing) and a women's taiko drumming group.

The stage area of the school gym - the Snoopy characters are made with paper..


The outdoor stage:


Taiko drumming performance:


It is a cultural festival, so it is also an opportunity to show off the school's cultural clubs. Unfortunately the English Club is classified as a cultural club so that meant I had to do something. I was given a room, so I set it up with the Experience Australia Kit that I borrowed from the Australian Embassy in Tokyo. I even played 'Aussie' songs on the CD player. I commented to Rob that I was surrounded by more Aussie things in that room than I ever was in Australia. I brought some Vegemite on bread to let people try. The students didn't really like Vegemite, but the teachers were a lot more open-minded and said it tasted a lot like miso and the notoriously stinky natto.

The English Club room:


One of the drawings in the Art display room:


I went to the Tea Ceremony room for the experience - we were first served this yummy anko-type translucent warabimochi (I think these traditional sweets are called wagashi) whilst watching a student demonstrate a short ceremony, and then we were served the matcha. Quite interesting to watch, but the length, formality and rigid structure of the ceremony doesn't attract me to learn the art.





The highlight of the day for me was watching the PTA in action making mochi balls with anko filling. These mochi balls were done via the traditional method of mochitsuki in an usu. Very interesting to watch - two people have to work together so correct timing is quite critical to avoid injuries.

Mochitsuki:


Making the o-mochi


Final product next to the anko:



Enkai

The staff and PTA held an enkai (welcoming party) for me at a ryotei after the gakosai on Saturday. It was nice. The food was yummy (although it was a bit difficult to eat dinner after filling up on junk food at the festival), and it was interesting to mingle with my collegues outside of work. Drunk people are funny, and tend to have less inhibitions when talking with me. Apparently I got to sit in the 'important' seat in the room since the party was held for me (although I think its important ranks below the principal's and vice-principal's seats). The dinner is the formal part of the party - there was a 2nd party but I didn't attend.

My food (very nicely presented, and was so delicious):


The room:


Tuesday 12 September 2006

Okonomiyaki @ Monja-tei (Kanazawa)

We had our first okonomiyaki (Japanese-style pancake/omelette) at a place in Kanazawa recommended by the Lonely Planet called Monja-tei (where would we be without the Guide? Thanks to my peeps at Maunsell for giving this book to me :)) - it is located maybe 10 steps from our ryokan - we were starving and tired so didn't really want to wander too far away for food. This is our first experience with okonomiyaki and it is quite entertaining to watch. Usually it is a make-your-own affair at okonomiyaki restaurants, however since we've never done it before, we had it cooked for us. Basically, we were seated at a table with a big flat hot cooking plate in the middle of the table. We placed our orders (scallop and prawn okonomiyakis) and our food came out shortly after. Then the action started (photos are pretty self-explanatory):







It's pretty tasty (with all that seasoning, you'd at least hope that it is yummy!) but probably not so healthy for you. It certainly hit that hungry spot in our tummies!