Daikon harvest!

Joan has been trying to get to the farm the last few weeks to help our farmer friends with harvesting daikon - a Japanese radish. Every weekday morning, they pull up, clean and prepare about 60 daikon for the local supermarket. Since the weekends are big shopping days, the store wants more, so we got the chance to help with the harvest this Sunday morning.

I took a lot of video and put together this little youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZIcJ0ubYY

The morning after

After a heavy, somewhat American style Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night, we decided to follow through on an earlier plan and try a "traditional" Japanese breakfast at one of our favorite fast food restaurants, Sukiya.

This restaurant was one of the first we tried when we arrived. They are a chain that specializes in gyudon, a bowl of rice with meat served on top. There are many different varieties and flavors. We had seen their breakfast menu and always meant to try it. What perfect timing!

After a few cups of coffee, we shuffled down the street toward the train station. Sukiya is only about two blocks away and open 24 hours a day.

After we sat down, the waiter brought us our glasses of mugi cha (barley tea) and headed back to the kitchen. After we discussed the menu options, we pushed the buzzer, and the waiter came scurrying back. We ordered a basic set for 400 yen (about $4).

A few minutes later, he brought out our trays, and we got to work!

First was the miso soup: lovely, warm, salty broth with seaweed floating in it. Then a piece of

grilled fish (salmon) with a bowl of white rice - all spiced up with a small bowl of pickled vegetables and some pickled ginger from the condiment rack. And don't forget the package of salty, savory dried seaweed strips!

Oh, heavenly! We shall return...

Sweet Potato Harvest

The farmers that Joan helps, Takashi-san and Shee-chan, and their family have been farming in the area for many, many years. Most of the land of Musashisakai used to belong to the family, and many branches of the family are still hear and own many things. Some Takashis own and operate the local sento (bath house) we go to. In fact, our landlord is a Takashi.

One of the long time traditions started by Shee-chan's father is having a group of local school kids and their parents come and harvest sweet potatoes. We helped prepare the field the week before

and went back to watch the event.

I took a bunch of video clips and stitched them together into this youtube video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7auIG13o60

First Thanksgiving in Japan

As we have one of the family apartments in our building and the most clear space, we offered to host a Thanksgiving dinner at our apartment last Friday. We invited the other teachers at CELE (Center for English Language Education), the Japanese staff at KKC (the International Student Affairs office that we work closely with), and handful of non-school friends, both foreign and local.

On Friday, we spent the afternoon cleaning and cooking, getting ready for about 20 guests. It was going to be a pot luck - a vegetarian affair as no one had an oven large enough to cook a turkey. Plus, the cost of a turkey was quite prohibitive. Japan does not celebrate Thanksgiving; they do celebrate many of the same holidays as us but in slightly different ways. Kentucky Fried Chicken is HUGE at Christmas time here...

People started showing up around 7 PM and straggled in as the night went on. The table began to fill with food: salads, jambalaya, green beans and persimmons, squash, Spanish omelet, rolls,

brown rice, couscous salad, brownies, and of course, pumpkin pie.

Food was eaten, and the wine, beer, sake, and hot mulled wine began to flow. It got quite warm and loud in the apartment, and fun was had by all. We had arranged some spillover seating in our bedroom on the tatami mats. It provided a quieter spot for conversation and hanging out.

Someone brought an electronic word game, similar to Taboo but passed from hand to hand. The main living room began a big circular game of boys versus girls, with great shrieking and

laughing.

After five hours and towards the end of the evening, I was standing on the front porch, saying goodbye to some of our guests, when I noticed our downstairs neighbor come home. I glanced at the time and realized it was midnight! Quiet hours start at 10 pm...

I quickly went inside and called a time out on the current round of the word game and suggested that we needed to keep it down as it was so late. Inadvertently, this created a tipping point, and the party promptly came to an end as people realized how late it was and how loud we had been.

With many thanks and about 20 minutes of farewells, everyone drifted or staggered off home. We soon collapsed onto our futons and promptly fell asleep.

We have celebrated many other holidays abroad, and usually they are not very memorable: perhaps a special dish or a gathering with another Peace Corps Volunteer on a school night. This Thanksgiving was very nice. We still missed all our family and friends back home, but this evening of delicious food, many friends, and a great deal of laughter made it much easier.

To see a short video of the set up, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ0RCmuuzcc&feature=channel

It's always shocking to be called back to reality...

We have been here for over six months now. We are starting to feel comfortable and somewhat at home. It is still very interesting and exotic to be here, but a lot of the “gee whiz” has faded. Sometimes when we are walking down the street, we feel that we had adapted to Japan and no longer feel like such a foreigner in a foreign land. “We’re hip,” we tell ourselves, “We live here. We ain’t no dorky tourists…” We might even feel that we are starting to blend in…

Then we see another foreigner, usually a westerner like us. And it is startling, almost shocking, too see that person. They stand out so much among the Japanese, especially if they are dressed in the westerner tourist outfit, as compared to the usually well dressed locals.

Then, with a sinking feeling, we realize that’s us. That’s how we look. There’s no blending in.

The Japanese are very polite. You will rarely see them checking you out. You might catch a pair of eyes glancing away if you turn that way. The illusion that you are just cruising along, blending in as a “foreign local” is just that – an illusion.

Trying to be a better blogger...

Mom berated me yesterday to write more on our blogs. We had started out strong, but we both have faded. I have been focusing more and more time on seriously studying Japanese, and Joan has been learning how to be a teaching at our university. Also, this summer was incredibly busy with traveling, hosting many guests and escorting them around. It has been too easy to just say, “Oh, I’ll write about it later…” The problem is that something just as interesting happens, and writing about the earlier thing gets pushed further down the list.

Also, Facebook comes into to play. It is easy to post a quick status update, comment or upload a photo in the immediacy of the moment and leave it at that. The problem is that not everyone is on Facebook, nor does it lend itself to longer and more thoughtful commentary (most of the time).

Today was a good example. We had the big excitement of Typhoon Melor coming to visit. I wrote a few comments on Facebook about what was going on, but that might have been all I wrote…

So, back in the saddle!

Asia is regularly hammered by the powerful storms; the Philippines just got hit by two back to back and are experiencing horrible flooding. Japan gets them, too, but it has been two years since one actually has made landfall. We had bad typhoon related weather earlier this summer which caused some damage from flooding and landslides in the south, and a small number of people were killed. Today was supposed to be a big one.

Yesterday, many of the students said they were going to stay home. Our farmer friends were worried about their crops. The streets were strangely quiet and empty last night; many shops and restaurants were shuttered. It had been raining steadily but not too heavily for the last day or so, but in the night, the intensity picked up. We could hear it drumming on the roof above it, yet the wind did not seem too bad. By the morning, the intensity of the rain had slackened, but it was still coming down. It did not look too bad outside, and the sky was lightening.

However, we soon received a text message from our boss saying that morning classes were canceled. Hurrah! Typhoon day! (It doesn’t have the same effect as “Snow day!” does it?)

So I stayed home to continue studying kanji, and eventually Joan headed into to school to do some preparation for classes. We have a friend from Michigan visiting us for a week, and later that morning, we headed down to the station to send her on her way for some sightseeing.

As we stood outside the station, and I explained to her the train system and what she would need to do, we suddenly r that the train full of commuters we could see at the platform had not moved in well over five minutes. Usually, the morning trains are fast, furious, and frequent. What’s going on?

With a sinking feeling, we headed up the stairs into the station and saw something I have never seen before. Chaos! A broken down system! There was a milling crowd at the turnstiles, not being let through by the station staff. A uniformed man on a megaphone was talking to the crowd, which swelled and ebbed as more and more people came up the stairs and then left when they realized the world famously punctual trains were not running… There were some staff handing out slips of white paper, which commuters took in hand and left: a “the trains were shut down” note to give to the boss? Another staffer had a map booklet in hand and was offering alternative routes.

I went up the ticket window by the turnstile gates to check that no trains were running. He confirmed it and said he did not know when they would be running again. Behind him was the computer monitor that normally shows the train system with all the routes in their colors: orange, blue, green, etc. Today they were all outlined in angry, pulsing red. Well, well…

Back at the apartment, I checked in with Joan by email and found out that the afternoon classes had been canceled, as well, because the Chuo train line, the main one that students use to come to school, had been shut down due to flooding and high winds.

I read later on the Internets that about 9,000 people had to be evacuated due to flooding, some roofs were torn off and that one bridge had been washed away. The only fatality I have heard of was a newspaper delivery guy on his motorcycle was killed by a falling tree.

The weird thing was that by mid-morning, it was very warm and sunny, although windy. You wouldn’t know there had been a typhoon except for all the leaves and branches in the street, as well as the rows and rows of bicycles that had been blown over.

So, this afternoon, we rode bikes over to Kichijoji to show our friend some local sights. Also, I had to drop my badminton racquet off at Racquet Shop Fuji. I snapped the strings last night at practice. It cost 2,205 yen to get it restrung (about $24). On the way back, we stopped by the tallest building in Musashinosakai to go up to the 11^th floor and look to the west. On a clear day after the rains, if the visibility is good enough… Yep, we were able to see Mt. Fuji outlined by the sunset. All in all, a pretty good day.

Hokkaido Trip 2009 (part two)

The Hamanasu night express train from Aomori to Sapporo, while an efficient way to save some time on our trip, was definitely not the most comfortable. I truly considered getting out one of our new ThermaRest sleeping pads and finding a space to stretch out in the aisle with all the other unlucky (lucky, perhaps?) souls.

We rolled into Sapporo with most of day to spend because Ryan would not be free till later in the day. So, groggy and grimy, we found a "manga kissa" - (comic book cafe). These are places where, for about 300-400 yen an hour, you can read all the comic books (manga) you want, as well as surf the Internet, sleep/relax in comfy arms chairs/sofas, take a shower, and drink all the free drinks (soda, coffee, juices). Pretty sweet deal if you are traveling and need a break.

So, for about $2.50, we both got a shower and loaded up on coffee and juice to start the day. Sapporo reminded us a great deal of Kazakhstan cities with the layout and wide, open avenues and green spaces. We did a quick tour of the fish market and declined to have sushi and raw sea urchin for breakfast. A botanical garden tour was followed by a failed attempt to walk to a shrine/park area that was too far away. With time to spare and a day of unlimited local train rides, we headed back out of town to Otaru, a seaside town, to see the sights. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to do it right and ended up just eating black squid ink and wasabi flavored ice cream - actually pretty tasty!

Another pretty long train ride, we got to Asahikawa and were picked up by Ryan and friend who had a car. We whisked over to a really nice onsen (hot springs bath) for a cleansing soak, followed by an all you can eat salad bar restaurant, a nice change from three days of travel food.

We gratefully fell asleep at Ryan's apartment, glad to be not traveling for awhile.

The next day was full of helping Ryan's friend, Toby, build his rice straw bale house. The weekend had been a workshop for those wanting to learn how to build with straw bales. Quite a project! The carefully crafted wooden internal structure was finished, so we measured, cut and stacked hay bales all day with people from all over Hokkaido and Japan. Joan will blog about it later in great detail...

That night, we did some hurried food planning, shopping and pacing for our seven camping trip, following Ryan's advice on what to bring: mostly soba and ramen noodles with lots of dehydrated tofu and shitake mushrooms.

In the morning, we were picked up by anther friend of Ryan's, Mark, who had access to an SUV, which cut out a lot of travel time spent on train, bus and hiking/hitch hiking to the trail head. Once there, Ryan and Yuka stashed an extra week's worth of food for their second week in a hut shelter, and then the five of us shouldered our packs and started heading up the trail.

Wow, it was tough. We had done some conditioning and hiking in Tokyo, but it is no replacement for a rough, steep trail and a fully loaded pack. Luckily, the first days was only three hours up to the lake where we set up base camp for days hikes. Obviously, one of the best things about the park is the visual beauty, so I will let the photos and videos do most of the talking (park photos start about half way):

http://picasaweb.google.com/richbailey911/Hokkaido2009#

The second day was a long day hike to determine the condition of a trail and the location of a water source on the trail. One idea was to hike this long trail to another mountain series and do some exploring on the second half of the trip. Well, the trail was almost completely overgrown by "sasa" - a type of bamboo grass - and pretty much shredded us and our clothes. We also did not find any water. Scratch that plan.

On the third day, Mark headed back to civilization and work, while we did a long hike down the other side of the plateau we were camping to an onsen and mountain hut. Ryan had not been there yet, and the idea of a hot bath and sleeping in a hut sounded pretty good to us. It started out fine, but we got to really steep stuff, it started to rain. Then the trail started following a stream. The the trail became the stream, full of slippery rocks and flowing water. It, quite frankly, became rather miserable and unpleasant. Joan took a fall crossing the water and ended up on her back in the stream. She had been less than happy in general, and this was a bit too much. We took a break, and Joan took a little alone time to sort herself out.

However, we finally made it down to the onsen and hut. A good, long, hot soak in the onsen and a dry change of clothes in the warm and snug mountain hut did wonders for everyone's outlook. We had planned for staying over and so had our sleeping bags, pads, stove, and food. It was a good thing because there was no way Joan (or the rest of us, except maybe for Ryan) was going to hike back up that watery trail in the rain and gathering dusk.

We slept really well and awoke to a sunny day four. More soaking, some quick laundry (clean socks, anyone?) and relaxing in the sun got us ready to hike back up the trail. It was much nicer and more enjoyable, especially now that we could see the spectacular views of all the mountains around us. We made it back to the lake campsite and were glad to see our tents full of food undisturbed by the fox we had seen the second day and by the bears we had imagined would be ravaging our tents while we were gone.

Ryan and Yuka decided to keep on hiking and head back down to the trail head and the hut to get their extra food. With a change in the original plan of where we were heading, they decided it was better to lug all the extra food (with our help) with them so they would be able to go where they wanted for their second week in the park. They took their sleeping gear and the only stove to stay in the hut and took off. We ate our dinner that we had quickly cooked and took a walk around the lake, seeing another fox. Luckily, some other hikers had showed up earlier that day and set up camp, so we did not feel all alone. However, it was a cold, windy, and rainy evening, so we were in the tent before seven and soon asleep. In fact, we all quickly adopted the pattern of going to be before 8 pm and getting up around 4 or 5 am. Nothing much else to do when it gets dark...

Continued...