All the tea leaves in China Japan

Being some of the only officially sanctioned gaijin in the town, us ALTs get invited to quite a few events that require an international presence, mostly being things organized by the local chapter of the Rotary Club. I can't seem to get too far without bumping into them. Maybe it's the blood of International House running in my veins. XD

The first time we were asked to go to one of these things was a welcome dinner organized by the Rotary and an international organization dedicated to furthering women's interests all over the world. This time, the tea ceremony was held by Rotary as well as the town's tea ceremony association in their Japanese style tea house on the grounds of the city hall. Also, we were allowed to have a go at making up our own bowls of maccha, and I must say it's a lot more work than I expected to get the froth just right.

After that we were shown a short video about Sukagawa and its ties to the haiku poet Basho. It seems that he stopped over in the town for a week, his longest stay in his cross country travels, inspired by the natural scenery to make up a number of haiku dedicated to the town. I wish I could read them so I could post an example here, but they went by too fast in the video. At least now I know there are still a number of places in the town that still retain their natural characteristics, and could be well worth a look if the opportunity arises.

The tea association then pulled out the big guns and got their master tea maker to show us how a professional does it. We had been asked from the beginning to take off any watches, bracelets and rings to avoid scratching the earthenware bowls the tea was served in. These bowls come from traditional ceramic kilns all over the country as well as overseas, and I've heard that some can be valued well beyond my yearly salary, so it was best to avoid damaging them. Whoever thinks that tea ceremony isn't thrilling most probably hasn't had their life savings on the line this way. O.o

All of us were supposed to sit seiza style, legs folded under our laps, but since we were inexperienced they let us get away with crossed legs. Since I do calligraphy, I have no excuse for not doing the right thing, but I cheat by using my mushroom shaped bum rest, so it wasn't long before that all too familiar numbness set in. The pins and needles afterwards were worth it though, because we were all given a pre-drink sweet, filled with bean paste and flavoured with yuzu, and decorated with a handmade image of an iris. It really was too pretty to eat.

All this was topped off with a dinner at a nearby hotel where we mingled with the heads of the various local Rotary chapters. It wasn't all schmoozing in Japanese though, since the Rotary high school exchange students had been invited as well, and I could hang around with them too.

It was quite an insight into an ancient tradition. The local association specializes in the techniques of the Urasenke school of tea ceremony. For interested Sydneysiders, there's an Australian chapter located in St Leonards, surprisingly enough. Various schools with their own unique variations of the technique exist, and I'd been told by one of the ladies from the English conversation classes that the differences lie in minute things like how the red napkin used to clean and wipe utensils is folded. I think there are also variations in how the utensils are placed, what angle to hold them, and ways of keeping kimono sleeves out of the way in the midst of all of it. Sounds like an OCD sufferer's nightmare if you ask me.

Sometime during the afternoon, I was told that the tea ceremony was one of the traditional outlets for stress relief, since all the slow and deliberate movements could be taken as a form of meditation, and the peace and quiet that the ceremonies are performed in stand in great contrast with the busy lives of most Japanese people. To some people it might seem mind numbingly boring and repetitive, and a whole lot of trouble to go to for a hot cuppa, but I suppose it says a lot about how hard locals push themselves if they need to resort to something so ritualistic to distract themselves from the everyday. My life isn't all that stressful at the moment, so I think I'll be fine with the odd PET bottle out of a vending machine, thanks.

Soba, so good

Now on to the food. You can kill me for the bad pun later. In addition to temari and mixed Japanese pepper, Nagano is famous for soba, especially the fresh handmade stuff. In fact, you probably can't walk 5 minutes without running into a soba store, and occasionally, you can see a master hard at work kneading his dough or cutting up sheets of the stuff with speed and precision.


I tried some of the handmade noodles at a stall just outside Zenkouji's Nakamise-dori, and what can I say, cool soba on a hot day never tasted so good. I liked it so much I had to get a box as a souvenir... for myself. XD

Soba is a big thing here, and shops sell flavoured soba and other products with a buckwheat theme. And because empty calories are my friends, I just had to stop for a soba crepe when I saw the posters and billboards advertising the sweet and sinful treats.

To be honest the crepe didn't taste all that different from regular crepes, but the alcohol soaked chestnuts in mine made up for it. ^^

Now that summer is on its way, soft serve stalls are popping up everywhere. This particular one caught my eye: miso soft serve. I decided to risk busting my calorie limit for the day and have one, since I'd never seen any other place offering the flavour.

Sure looks like a regular vanilla cone, but it really had a slight but distinctive taste of miso. I reckon if I had it more often, the taste could really grow on me. Mmmm, cold, creamy miso.

After the training session (so its not all fun and games), all of us headed off to a place called Cho Bali Bali for dinner. The place is run by Indonesians, but I suppose they had to one down a lot of the cooking to suit local palates. This was my order:

Even though it wasn't the Ayam Goreng I was used to from Kingsford, it was nice to have some kicap manis flavoured fried chicken served up in a wooden lacrosse stick and washed down with mango beer. Yum.

All in all, top marks to the soba. I wish I'd tried the grilled rice cakes with bean paste filling, but I seriously had no time to do it all. I'm not sure if I'll ever pass by Nagano again, but if I do, I'm definitely heading back to all the food joints. And a few more miso soft serves couldn't hurt either. :p

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

A couple of months ago, I was sent an email on the local JET mailing list looking for volunteers for the AJET Peer Support Group, a service run by JETs offering confidential listening and referrals for anyone currently on the JET Programme. It caught my attention mostly because of personal experience with fair weather friends and knowing what it feels like to stare into the depths of a downward spiral, unable to look up. Listening without judgement is an important skill, and one that can save lives; it saved mine a long time ago when I had no one left to turn to. A little voice inside told me I had to do this, because I couldn't let anyone else self-destruct on my watch. If it sounds like I'm full of it, let me say that it takes first hand experience of the grief that survivors of personal tragedy go through to change your outlook on things like this.

As a result of the Recontracting Conference being kindly cancelled due to restructuring in the organizations taking care of the JET Programme, the training I was to have received then was diverted to Nagano, a couple of prefectures west of Tokyo. Yes, this is the same place where they had the 1998 Winter Olympics. Though it's probably best known for that, the city of Nagano is also home to Zenkouji, a very popular Buddhist temple just north of the city centre. I decided to take the opportunity to go there a day early (since AJET was paying for my travel expenses) to have a look around a different city.

Now that I've been to a few cities in Japan, it strikes me that every place has its own vibe. Nagano is certainly more lively and worldly than say Koriyama, but still laid back and relaxed compared to the hive of never-ending activity that is Tokyo. It's also full of bars ^^




Zenkouji is a short bus ride from the station, and seems a little quieter compared to places like Asakusa and the Meiji Shrine, but still has its charms. The Inner Sanctuary holds several impressive bronze statues of various Buddhist divinities, all kept shiny no doubt by the temple attendants, though I can't imagine how they manage to get to the ones high up on the walls.

The highlight of the place was an underground passage at the back of the inner chambers which is pitch black and not for the claustrophobic (or taller than average) tourist. Fun stuff; I went in twice. ^^ The passage is supposedly represents death and rebirth, and along the right wall, somewhere near the end of the tunnel, is a heavy, movable metallic object that some claim to be the key to salvation. Visitors are not supposed to bring any sources of light into the tunnel, but you can get an idea of the shape of the thing from touch. I could draw you a picture, but that would be spoiling the fun, wouldn't it?

No major temple is complete without a shopping street on the way in or out, because in the old days, this was the place devotees would get small tokens of their visit to give to those in their home villages as thanks for helping fund their journey. Souvenir giving is still big here in Japan of course, and the Nakamise-dori or inner shopping street of Zenkouji was filled with shops selling prayer items, trinkets and food. Being a sucker for souvenirs, naturally I found myself lured by all the shiny goodies and ended up wandering the short stretch for quite a while. I'm so weak. I ended up buying a temari, or hand woven ball, one of Nagano prefecture's specialties, and had a nice conversation with the store owner and another Japanese lady who came from Vancouver and spoke really good English. All sorts in this world, I tell ya.

More to come in a bit.

Let's Engrish Conversations!

Every May, it seems that the local UNESCO association runs a series of English conversation classes for the adults in the town, and they ask us JETs to help run the show. Nice to see that there are enough interested people to do this sort of thing annually.

The classes run one weeknight a week in May and June in the town's community centre. All of us were supposed to turn up to the first night to get to know everyone in class in an informal setting without any actual lessons, but due to some miscommunication, we weren't given a schedule of sessions beforehand, and so we all forgot to turn up on the first day. How embarrassment! I made it a point to seriously apologize on the first actual lesson the following week, which was incidentally mine to run. Yeah... I take the fall all too often around this place. *grumble*

That aside, it was nice to meet a few of the townsfolk, which turned out to be a nice cross section of the city, from young women (not so many men in their thirties or below) to housewives and retirees. I was really surprised by some of the old men in the group, who were able to hold a substantial conversation way beyond the level of any of my junior high kids. Just goes to show that you're never too old to pick up something new.

There's something to be said about these classes, being that they are way easier to teach than regular school lessons. It probably has a great deal to do with the fact that anyone who goes to these adult education classes is probably motivated enough to join up in the first place. Education loses its shine once it becomes mandatory, as is the case of English lessons in school. Therein lies the challenge you may say, but it can seriously wear you out when you have to maintain a smile even when the kids completely shut off or worse still, give you shit in class. It was really nice to be able to interact with a class where everyone had a positive attitude for a change.

So are these kinds of classes a possible career option? I'd say I like teaching, but only if the people being taught are interested and open to the course content. It's something to think about though, and hopefully something similar will pop up round the time I have to finish things up here, in about 1-2 years. Meanwhile, my next lesson (after the various forms of the word "be") will be the simple past tense, disguised as a fun diary writing exercise. Maybe I'll tell them that I went to the supermarket one day, bought broccoli and had a good time doing it. Ah, the pleasures of a mundane life.

ようこそ牡丹園 (image intensive)

Mid May is when the Sukagawa Peony Garden, the pride and joy of my town, bursts into full bloom with thousands of peonies after the long winter chill. Entry is free most of the year except around April and May, when you have to pay for the privilege of looking at almost 300 varieties of peonies and over 7000 individual blossoms in all shades of white, pink, red and purple.

Since I live next door to the place, it's not hard to just drop by and take a look, especially if I happen to have a spare 800yen in my purse. Yes, it's a little pricey, but if you're into that sort of thing it's well worth it, because the place is huge, and everywhere you turn there are peony bushes full of showy flowers that are quite impressive to look at.

That's the Peony Fairy, the mascot of the garden. She looks suspiciously Chinese, if you ask me. ^^







The Garden also boasts it's own Inari shrine, complete with guardian fox statues at the end of a line of red torii. So I don't have to go all the way to Kyoto to see something like that; we've got some right here!

For those with green fingers, the people who run the place also sell pots of nursery grown peonies cut from their own collection. I'm pretty crappy at gardening, especially on my tiny balcony which gets sun at the wrong time of day, so as much as I was tempted to buy a bush I had to pass.

Sukagawa calls itself a garden city, and to this end, the plant propagation industry here is huge, with a garden centre just beside the Peony Garden selling seedlings, saplings and shoots for budding gardeners (hah pun!) to enrich their own living spaces. Entering the hothouse area you get to see all kinds of flowers and foliage plants, including some I didn't know existed.





This is where I caved and bought this little cutie, which my dictionary defines as a lily of the valley.

I admit it, I have a weakness for cute things. But it did finally get me off my arse to plant those herbs and flowers I'd bean meaning to. While I was doing that, I discovered to my surprise that the daffodils I'd given up on since last year had actually begun to sprout. Well, I hope now that I've got the seasons on my side that something will come of all this industry. Fingers crossed!

So hungry I could eat a...

"Stop, Revive, Survive" happens here in Japan too, and on my bus trips down to Tokyo, the driver stops at two parking areas on the highway so that he can take a break, and the rest of us can make a run for the bathroom or pick up snacks and drinks. On my last trip, I looked round the shop in the rest area and despaired of finding anything particularly special as a souvenir. No, individually packaged cookies and generic Hello Kitty phone danglies don't count, unless they're the limited edition prefectural themed ones.

Japanese food is quite unique, but some "unique" items, such as specially fermented nattou (yuck) are perhaps a little too noxious to inflict on everyone else in the confines of the highway bus. I somehow didn't feel like pickles or dried noodles either. However, I took a closer look at some of the canned items and came across a pile of little cans of what looked like stewed meat.

If you ever see the kanji that looks like "fish" and "kyo" as in "Kyoto" together, it's pronounced "isa" or more commonly, "kujira". Yes folks, that's a can of ol' Free Willy right there.

I'm not averse to eating strange foods; heck, I'll try anything once, even if it looks like I'm buying into commercial whaling carried out under the guise of scientific research. The scientist in me bristles at the blatant hijacking of the name of my chosen field in justifying the hunting and killing of species facing extinction to satisfy what is a cottage industry at best. However, I maintain that I need to know what the stuff tastes like to be able to judge if there is any gastronomic merit to eating the poor beasties.

I must say it isn't the most appetizing looking meat around. It might have been the stewing process that stained the surface of the meat, but I suppose this effect was minimal, given that the slice was really dark on the inside as well. Tastewise, the flavour of the meat was rich and slightly gamey, but without the comforting heartiness of beef. Being canned, the flavour of the broth had permeated all of the meat so that the native flavour was all but drowned out, and texture was hard and crumbly. The blubber bit of the meat was unexpectedly firm and chewy, and not as greasy as I'd expected.

All in all, I suppose it's as nutritious as any other meat, but I must say that it's not something I'd prefer over the usual beef, pork or even kangaroo. Given that it doesn't taste as good, it makes me wonder why some people here insist on eating it. And while I'm not saying that we'll never run out of cows and chickens to eat, at least they're easier to count so that we can make sure there'll always be enough, and we don't have to resort to flimsy excuses to send them to the slaughterhouse. So, as much as I like trying exotic cuisine, I think I'll pass on the whale meat next time.

Live from Ikebukuro

You see something interesting in Tokyo every day. While I was in Ikebukuro hunting down stickers to bribe students with, I came across a huge pedestrian bottleneck right in front of the station, where the police had cordoned off a pedestrian crossing. For those who remember the Japanese salute I wrote about in my entry on the Winter Comiket, it was in full swing here with everyone and their dog whipping out their mobile phones and cameras to take photos. Having my SLR with me, I of course brought that out started shooting once I figured out what was going on.


Looks scary, doesn't it? I read in the paper later that the bus was empty and on its way back to the depot when the driver careened into the subway entrance. Three pedestrians were slightly hurt, but other than that there were no casualties.

Thing about carrying a huge-ass camera around, is that you get to meet the most interesting people. While getting my scoop on the crash, I was approached by this guy who had another SLR and got the distinct feeling that he was trying to chat me up. He asked if I could follow him so that he could take a few pictures of me, but that immediately rang a few very loud alarm bells, so I gave him the slip as graciously as I could. On less sinister occasions I've been asked multiple times on the same day if I could help people take photos, simply because it looked like I knew what I was doing. Story of my life. Guys, just because my camera looks impressive doesn't mean I can take a good picture. Meh.

Go Fish!

The Hina Matsuri, or Girls' Day, happens in March. Boys also get their own special day on the 5th of May, when families hang out carp streamers for every boy they've got in the home. Back where I come from we only got one Children's Day in October for both boys and girls, while here they celebrate twice. How lucky is that?

As the first week of May rolled around, I began to see colourful fish-shaped wind socks going up in the gardens of my neighbours. I also saw kindergarten and elementary school kids carrying their own handmade paper carp streamers (sometimes taller than they were) on their way back home from school, but privacy laws here prevented me from taking photographs of other people's kids. Fun to watch though.

In my town, there's an event called the Yosakoi Festival in celebration of both the cherry blossoms and Children's Day, where massive carp streamers are strung over the Shakado River on the edge of the city amongst the cherry trees. Someone at school urged me to go see them, and I didn't really think much of it until I actually got there. This is why:



I know the streamers don't look that big in the pictures, but in reality I think they were each about 10 metres long at least. Watching them billow in the breeze made me go "ooooh" quite a bit. Too bad the evening I was there quickly turned cold and rainy, so I had to take cover in my car within 10 minutes of getting to the river, but not before I got a box of hanami dango (cherry blossom viewing dumplings) to go from the festival stall on the side.

Tasty stuff, those. sweet soy sauce on one side, and bean paste on the other. The real taste of Japan indeed.

As part of the Yosakoi celebrations, there was supposed to be a public dance performance at the river that weekend, however I missed it because I had to go to Tokyo for the Gyakuten Saiban orchestral concert (which was totally awesome... I'm so getting the DVD). Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to report on it next year, when the weather will hopefully be better.