More from the Farewell Party

I made it back safe and sound from my little trip to Kyoto. I've got hundreds of photos, so I'm trying to whittle it down to a magageble number so you don't have to sit for hours viewing them :)

Here is another photo from our enkai last week. In this photo you see the people who were honored at the party, and in this particular activity, each person steps to the middle to receive a special, personal cheer. They did this for me when I first arrived at this school, and I remember being a little frightened when all of a sudden I was shuffled on stage (& left alone) and my slightly intoxicated supervisor stood in front of me on the floor and started doing weird hand and body movements accompanied by loud shouting. I was only slightly relieved when everyone else suddenly started chanting and clapping. Now, of course, I know that they were actually welcoming me in their own way, but at the time I was really scared!

Some of our delicious food...(yeah - don't ask me - I'm not really sure what it is!) In typical Japanese enkai style - we had many many little dishes of small portions of curious things. My best guess about these things - (top) kamaboko (steamed fish paste) & sashimi, (middle bowl) seeweed (I actually gave this one away to someone who LOVES it), (bottom) ~escargot(?) & breaded squid. And...umm...The menu sounds much better in Japanese...

LOBSTER???!!! They actually told me this was shrimp. It was filled with a mashed potato-shrimp mixture (think - twice baked potatoes). The embellishment was a grain that tasted like popcorn!

AND...after ALL that eating - the people who were leaving each got cheered and tossed up into the air!

Top o'the Ev'ning to ya!

Have I mentioned how much I love the teachers here? This guy is GREAT. In the special ed music class, he plays guitar like he's in a mariachi group, and I always tease him by telling him he's not really Japanese - he's Mexican! He's always really outgoing, and he's so good with the kids. He always cracks me up with his antics (as you can see in this photo!). Tuesday night we had an enkai (eating and drinking party to celebrate the middle school graduation) and I brought along some festive accessories so everyone had a chance to celebrate properly. It was great fun explaining (in my FABulous Japanese, of course) the concepts of Ireland's patron saint, St. Patrick's Day parades, shamrocks, rainbows, leprechauns, pot o'gold, and green beer???




Since I don't like beer, I ordered ao ringo chuhai (blue/green apple mixer with shochu), a lovely green cocktail. They ran out of green apple chuhai, though, and since the lime chuhai they brought out looked like engine coolant, I added some food coloring to the drink you see me holding in the other photo here. Cheers!

Japanese Mardi Gras

At the end of the Mardi Gras party people looked fat and happy, so I guess it was a success :)

Since I grew up in such a Christian environment, I just assumed that everybody knew about "Fat Tuesday", Ash Wednesday, Lent, Easter, etc... Well, apparently they don't! It was pretty interesting explaining some traditions - such as the concept of abstinence/fasting, putting ashes on your forehead...and eating a King Cake.

Don't let the people in New Orleans know what I tried to pass off as a "King Cake"!

I know what a KC is supposed to look like, but what I ended up serving was a far cry from what they've got down in Lousiana. I just didn't have time (or the warmth) to bake something that required yeast, so I thought I could just buy one of those pre-made angel food cakes they always have at my grocery store. Well, almost always, apparently...So much for that. So I grabbed the ONLY cake mix box that they had (they're not so big on baking here, I guess). Even though it was chocolate, I was sure that I could make it look more festive with using purple/gold/green icing. Then I remembered that purple icing doesn't exist. The pre-made icing is only available in pink, white, and brown (I swear I'm not making this up!). The food coloring is only available in red, yellow, and green. Thinking I had the green already, I just bought these grape-flavored "Pure" brand sour gummy things to stand in for the purple.

Then, for whatever reason, the cake didn't really rise, and so when I inserted the plastic baby Jesus, it kind of stuck up and broke that side of the cake! (yes, I AM laughing as I think about all this). ANYWAY, we still had fun decorating it, and the person who ended up finding the baby made a really beautiful Mardi Gras queen!

The chocolate cookies and coconut milk ice cream we made last night were popular as well...and after writing down their "Lenten Promise" on the little board on my fridge, my friends entertained each other with sporadic dancing, card games, and watching Seinfeld in Japanese - so all in all, I think we did a good job living it up for "Fat Tuesday" in Japan!

Mardi Gras

I'm once again trying to do my part to help promote grassroots internationalization...I'm hosting a "Fat Tuesday" party tonight. Should be really interesting since it's really difficult finding beads and a King Cake (New Orleans would faint at what I'm calling a "King Cake"!)...and I can't seem to find PURPLE anything for that matter. Huh. The things we take for granted in our home countries. This whole party thing started because my friend, as soon as heard that I had an ice cream maker, wouldn't let me rest till we had an ice cream party. Well, just so happens I'm off today (have to work on Saturday), and it's FAT Tuesday. So, by having a "party" I can make homemade chocolate chip cookies & ice cream and won't be able to eat ALL of it!
Alright - I'm off to go find the rest of the ingredients for some jambalaya and mochi fried ice cream...

Would you believe I just made sugar cookies from scratch for the first time ever? Now chocolate chip cookies - that's another matter - I'm a pro at those. But little shaped cookies like these - yep I always just got those pre-made roll doughy things from the store. Of course they don't have such confections here, so I had to make them. It was the perfect activity for my little neighbors here when they came over to my house for a kids' Christmas party last week.











Here they are getting ready to roll out the dough so they could start cutting out the star shapes - wow what a mess! But they did a good clean up job afterwards :)














While the cookies were baking, we sang some Christmas songs. As you can see, they seemed to enjoy singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with the appropriate props :)

You know it's a
good party
when you can barely set foot in the genkan...

(for those of you unfamiliar with a "genkan" - it's the entry way in a Japanese house or building where you leave your shoes.)
Thanks for the pic, B!

omochi yori/kaeri pa-ty!

So it looks like the winner is...Bernie! Yeah - out of all you who SAID you were going to come visit me here in Japan, this guy is the only one of you lot to actually follow through, yo. ;o I had a really good time showing off my little corner of the world to my American friend here. The night he came down to my place I hosted an "omochi yori" (pot luck) party so B could taste all sorts of Japanese food (and so I wouldn't have to cook ;) ).
OHMIGOODNESS did we ever have lots of food!

And people! I think there were 28 people in the apartment at one point!
I didn't know that I knew that many people!
And, 15 minutes before the end of the party, those amazing creatures - otherwise known as Japanese ladies - were a whirlwind in my kitchen and suddenly everyone had a take home plate, all the rooms were clean, and my kitchen was spotless. They're just brilliant those J-ladies!

Happy Wedding Day!

One of my former eikaiwa (English conversation) students, Mihoko, got married last weekend. Though I was honored to be invited, I've heard (and seen) that Japanese weddings are extremely formal, stiff (read UNfun) affairs. Beautiful, but really formal. I was nervous about what to wear, how to act, since I feel like I never really know what is expected of me around here. Fortunately, I can usually play the "gaijin" (foreigner) card and beg forgiveness on account of ignorance. I was also lucky to be able to join some of my other Japanese girlfriends for both the wedding ceremony and the ensuing party, and therefore didn't feel so lost :) In this first photo, Mihoko's wearing a traditional white kimono, and the family is standing in front of the special gold screen to receive guests into the reception.

Here's what was waiting for us at the table! Actually, this fish, "tai" is probably my favorite kind of sashimi. I think it might also be considered "lucky" (I guess for those who eat it - not the fish itself!) I could be making that up though -

Next is the appetizer course - it was delicious, but don't ask me what the things were. I think the pink thing was "sakura mochi", though - made from sakura blossoms and leaves (but I could be making that up, too!)

Ahhh... the wedding cake. If it looks a little unprofessional, it was! It was just a frosted cake and the guests got to decorate it! What an idea! They had bowls of goodies set out beside the cake, and at the beginning of the reception, guests got to add their own touches.

Finally, here's Mihoko in her second wedding dress (she went through several costume changes throughout the whole affair!) and me & "the girls."