Birthday/Christmas/Sorry It's Been A While

It was my birthday earlier this month. I had a good birthday. I got a card from my Grandparents that was waiting on me when I got home. So far its been the only card to arrive, but I’m sure more will come in. It was all in all a good birthday. Samantha got me a Takoyaki maker that we have already used. For those that don’t know what a takoyaki is: it’s a ball of dough with a piece of octopus in it. The takoyaki maker is a special pan that has 20 round holes in it so that you cook and flip the takoyaki to make them round. Then you eat the whole thing topped with mayonnaise, sweet sauce, seaweed, and fish flakes. It’s really good and a very stereotypical Osakan food. You can also make mini muffins in it or what we did for dessert was use pancake batter with a bit of banana and dark chocolate in it. The dessert we made in the thing was heavenly. Earlier in the year my parents sent me bike clothes as a gift and they have been great. Though I rarely bike to school anymore I still bike around town for things. My neighbor Stephanie got me a Guinness, which I believe that James Joyce said, Guinness is the, “wine of Ireland.” I can’t say that I disagree. Samantha also got me the great cake you see below.

Also, its been snowing off and on for three days slowly and steadily. To give you an idea how cold it was the shower room had icicles hanging from the ceiling and window frame. The floor had ice on it and the body wash was frozen. Oh and when I got out of my nice warm shower the mat and towel were frozen. Every morning I open the shower room window to look out side and see the weather. . The toothpaste was frozen solid and the body wash was frozen to the window sill. I had to spray it with hot water to be able to use it and even after that it was like rubbing ice on my body. The answer to the question of can toothpaste freeze, yes it can or at least is so cold you can hardly use it. According to Stephanie her olive oil has started to freeze in the mornings.

We are taking a lot of Japanese steps to stay warm. One, I moved our bed into the room next to the living room so we just live in the two. Two, I insulated the big glass doors and windows in the house with bubble wrap. To do this you get sheets of wrap and moisten the windows and then stick it up there. Three, using the kotatsu, which Samantha already posted about. Four, using Japanese style house coats, which are quilted and very, warm. The thing about them is they are most associated with Japanese old folk so we are dressing like Grandparents. Five, stobu are the kerosene heaters for when its the coldest. They call heaters stobu which is Japanese English for stove. They were shocked that we called them heaters and called gasu renji(gas range) stoves.

Play
The video of our performance of a Christmas Carol didn’t turn out. Here are some pictures of it below. We had a great time doing it for people. My favorite group to perform it for was the church. We mixed in Japanese and two of the Church ladies gave a summery of the plot and story that really helped. The crowd got into it and it was just a lot of fun. They were really appreciative of it. The schools liked it to and want us to do a play next year. We are already bouncing around ideas for it. So email me any ideas for it.

Hank Williams Fish Market

The other day my Principle from Chokai and his wife took Samantha and I to Hachinohe. There is a big mall in Hachinohe that has an import store and several other great stores so they thought we would want to go. It was nice. We were able to get all the Christmas cards we are sending out this year and some Christmas presents. We even go some things to decorate the house. We don’t have a tree but we do have some garland and silver balls around the living room. There is a small pine tree outside the house and we are going to wait till closer to Christmas and decorate it. Samantha has suggested that we saw off the top bit to make it a small tree with out necessarily killing the tree. We also have a cloth wall hanging of Santa’s sleigh going by Mt. Fuji. I even bought a Santa costume in my size for 420 yen or about $4.20. It included hat, beard, pants, shirt and belt. It’s really a pretty good costume for the price. I can’t wait to show it to my kids around Christmas. I think that the Elementary kids will love it and I will even use it at the Kindergarten that we teach at.

After the mall they took us to an amazing fish market. It was full of all kinds or fish in every state from some being still live to just the heads and tails. We walked around the building trying samples of everything from raw Octopus in Kim chi sauce to fresh crab. I mean this stuff was in the ocean that day it was so fresh. The whole time it’s really loud but I keep thinking that I hear Hank Williams. Now, I know that being in Japan can drive some people crazy. I also know that some crazy people here music and voices. So, I’m thinking that there is no way that this fish market full of Japanese people in Iwate is playing Hank Williams. Therefore I must be starting to go crazy. What's more, I asked Samantha if she heard country western music and she couldn’t. Finally we get to a quite place and you know what they were. They played one Hank Williams song after another the whole time we were there. The fish market had a sort of restaurant in it where you could buy fresh fish and then take them and rent a small grill and cook it right there fresh. We did that and it was great. We had chicken, beef, squid, huge scallops, shrimp, and some other fish. It was the best sea food meal I have ever eaten and it was really cheap too. It was one of the most not in Kansas anymore moments. Here I am eating fresh fish in Japan, trying to explain what little I know about Cockney in Japanese, and the whole time Hank Williams is going in the background.

In unrelated news the other ALTs in town and Samantha and I are putting on a Christmas play at all four middle schools in town and the church Samantha, Stephanie, and I go to. It will be a Christmas Carol rendered into very simple English. For example we may well end up changing the ghost of Christmas past, present, and yet to come to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I will be playing Scrooge and am busy making all the props for the play. I’m really looking forward to it. I think that it will give me a great opportunity to talk to my kids about the real meaning of Christmas since they celebrate it here as a sort of Valentines Day. Also, I’m going to video the Christmas play and if it turns out well and the other cast members still agree it’s not to embarrassing post it on the blog. So look forward to maybe seeing me play Scrooge in the simplest English imaginable and then all of us singing silent night. Why Silent Night, because the Christmas lesson of the 8th grade English book is about the writing of the carol Silent Night. It gives no translation of Silent Night and they only hear it sung once but it’s the Christmas carol that our students will most have heard of.

Lastly, the weather. My teachers all say how mild the winter is. Its cold freezing cold but there has not been any snow for a week. They say that normally by the first of December there is usually snow on the ground for good.