The Last Samurai...part deux

I could very well have also titled this post "a weekend of gluttony." It started out on Saturday with Jon and I heading to Bellmart, the Brazilian grocery store where we pick up the acai berry paste for our breakfast concoction. It also happens to have a small restaurant attached to it, which serves some amazing food. After having a late breakfast, I still decided to order the lasagna, as I was actually craving some Italian. Apparently there is a brazilian (or at least just this place) twist on lasagna-namely, no tomato sauce and then a layer or two of deli ham in the middle. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it had loads of cheese, which kept me happy. We also bought ground beef to make tacos that night...but after getting back home I got a message from Ellie (who lives several towns east of us) saying her and Anna would be in town to go to a buffet restaurant and wanted us to come along. A huge warning flag in my head went up as the only buffet restaurant that came to mind was Stamina-taro, and I was not in any shape to thrown down at that place after the massive lunch at Bellmart. I asked Ellie if that was the intended destination, but she didn't know. Jon and I meet Ellie and Anna at Ogaki station to find out that Anna had had a different, apparently healthier buffet place in mind, but after hearing about Stamina-taro, they wanted to go there. I couldn't believe it was happening myself. Stamina-taro twice in the span of 10 days...this is not what a sane person does, especially considering I wasn't anywhere near hungry.

Thankfully, stamina-taro is good 45-50 minute walk from the station, but even after that I wasn't even close to hungry. I tried more sushi this time, but mainly hit up bowl after bowl of Purple, with a little bit of green tea and orange sherbet just to mix it up. I was let down, though, seeing as they weren't putting out the seasoned fries that I gorged on last time. I also noticed that the Purple is seasonal, so it won't be around forever. NOOoOoOOo! I was beyond stuffed...and not exactly proud of my decision making that day, but whatever, Anna and Ellie don't get into town too much and it was fun catching up with them.

That being said, we did end up hanging out with Anna and Ellie again the next day, but this time we all made the trip out to Sekigahara, where my friend Ozzy lives. The "trip" is actually a mere 10-15 minutes on the train going west, but it was my first time heading out there. Sekigahara is the site of one of the most famous battles in Japanese history, and this battle basically sealed the deal in terms of the Tokugawa clan seizing power and being able to set up their shogunate. Once a year, the townsfolk do a re-enactment/dramatization of the events preceding the battle and then the battle itself. So we all went to see that.

It was quite cool in that the garb all the performers wore was rather detailed. We found some of them rehearsing before the real deal in a side area of the park and watched for a bit. We asked for a picture with them, and then one guy let us hold an old fashioned teppo musket/gun. While I was holding the gun, the one guy put his helmet on me, which made for quite the photo opportunity. At the same time, I know it looks ridiculous on me-something that Tom Cruise was apparently blissfully ignorant of when he made The Last Samurai. I have a beef with that movie...and Tom Cruise...and especially Tom Cruise trying to speak Japanese-my ears bleed uncontrollably at his every utterance.

We eventually made our way to the open area where the main event would be going down. They started it off by firing the old fashioned guns off numerous times, and then had an entire play/re-enactment of the battle of Sekigahara. They had the pre-battle strategy meetings and whatnot, too. The actual battle scenes left a bit to be desired, but these are mainly locals, not professionals, so I'll give them pass. Besides Ozzy, who lives in Sekigahara, Anna and Ellie came as well. It turned out Ellie had a friend back from university coming to Nagoya, and so we ended up meeting her and having dinner in Ogaki at Chorky's, the american-style diner, which rounded out my weekend of gluttony.

A most epic weekend

Before I knew it, my birthday was creeping closer and closer, and partially out of laziness and general lack of social coordinating skills, I hadn't really spread out the word and planned anything big. We threw together some dinner plans a couple days beforehand and sent out the info, but ended up not getting a huge turnout, which was fine by me. Another reason for low attendance may also have been, oh...the freakin' typhoon that was scheduled to hit Gifu on my birthday. They were hyping up Typhoon 18 something fierce and said it had the strength of another past typhoon that ended up killing/injuring thousands. I didn't quite believe it, but people at work were concerned and told me I should come to work an hour early so I'd be at work by the time the typhoon's brunt was supposed to hit. I smiled and nodded, telling myself I'd play it by ear. It wasn't looking good, though, as when I left work that day, it was already pouring pretty hard...and I had forgotten to bring my rain gear that day, crap.
Shortly after arriving home I received a call from the apartment building coordinator telling me where the emergency evacuation site was, and that I would need to bring my own food if it came down to going there. A couple of us decided to grab bags of granola just in case, and headed to the nearby grocery store. The bread section was a freakin ghost town. They had some bakery donuts, etc. left, but loaf bread was nowhere to be found-that in and of itself was a bit surreal.

Yet even after all of this, I woke up the next morning to simply a cloudy sky and barely a drizzle. Thankfully, the typhoon had stayed south of Gifu prefecture (although where it hit, it did hit hard), so I had no problem getting to work, and the weather even cleared up a bit later in the day, so the dinner plans were back on. It ended up being a small group of 5 of us-mainly the Ogaki crew-Rock, Sarah, Jon, myself, and then Ozzy from Sekigahara (who is pretty much part of the Ogaki crew). Rock had told us of a magical all-you-can-eat restaurant called Stamina-taro. And they aren't lying, you NEED that stamina during the 90min. you are given to take full advantage of the grill your own meat (at your table), salad bar, noodle salad, udon, yakisoba, fried chicken, shrimp, fries, fruit, cakes, puddings, sushi, COTTON CANDY, crepes, ice cream...and I know I'm forgetting plenty.

Ozzy was an absolute grilling machine and somehow managed to eat 4 plates of meat, seemingly without slowing down one bit. I had some meat, and tried the potato and noodle salads, which were a taste straight from an American-style backdoor cookout. I also gorged on some of the most amazing seasoned steak fries I've ever had.

I also tried the sushi, which was decent. At this point, though, we were all getting a little loopy from the food/sugar, and, just for the sheer absurdity of it, I decided to pioneer a new culinary delight-grilled sushi. Yeah, it makes no sense-that's the whole point. They also had amazing grape sherbet, which we all just referred as "Purple." I swear Purple tasted just like the old Kool-aid flavor Purplesaurus Rex, anyone else remember that? That stuff was amazing. Eventually we all hit our wall, but not before making Stamina-taro wish they had never let us in. I sincerely doubt they made much, if any, profit off our visit.

That Saturday, we decided to trek up to Gifu castle, which rests atop a somewhat sizeable mountain. We met Rock's friend Duncan, who lives right near the base of the mountain in Gifu city, and headed up.

It was a nice hike with plenty of pretty nature, and it ended up taking about an hour to reach the castle. This was definitely about the journey, not the destination, as Gifu Castle was nothing terribly special. The view from the top of it was pretty spectacular, as you could even see Nagoya. The inside was modernized and consisted of a modest museum. The hike back down went much quicker and we went in search of a restaurant that Rock wanted to visit. After getting slightly lost we arrive at the place only to find out that it is closed in the middle of the afternoon. We decided to screw it and hopped on a bus back to Gifu station, where we randomly met a few other JETs on our way to an Indian curry place.

The next day was absolutely epic, as it was the infamous Jumangoku festival in Ogaki, which basically consists of various groups/organizations carrying portable shinto shrines in a parade, while progressively getting more and more drunk. As fate would have it, the city hall always enlists the help of local area JETs to help carry their shrine. So we all gathered near the city hall, donned our festival happi jackets and proceeded to the parade starting area. Various groups were already getting down to business, and by that, I mean drinking. We also had, quite literally, a cart of alcohol being towed along with our shrine the whole time. We broke into the beverages and did the initial group toast, promising to do (and drink) our best.

The group next to us was taking it to the next level, as they had made a circle, and were one by one entering the circle to drink a bowl of sake. Rock saw this and wanted in, so he approached them and had a go in the middle of the circle. It looked like a lot of fun, so I wandered over and was soon in the middle of a circle of middle-aged Japanese guys, screaming at me to drink. It went down quickly and without a problem (thanks to my time at UW-Madison) and was an excellent experience, not a mention a nice little kickstart toward inebriation. And we had nothing to do while waiting for the parade to start...so we kept drinking. Nothing like being buzzed at one in the afternoon...yikes.

The parade lasted about two hours and was a blast. We rotated in shifts for carrying the shrine, shouting "wasshoi" to help coordinate the constant heave-ho-ing of the shrine. It felt great to actually be a part of the event and be stared for a reason other than being a foreigner (although that was probably still part of it).

After the parade ended, there was the traditional throwing of rice paste chunks from atop an elevated platform. Everyone in the crowd below attempted to catch them and/or scramble to grab the ones that had hit the ground. Despite certain deficiencies in hand-eye coordination, (not sure why that was...) I managed to snag four of them out of the air, and I was relatively pleased with that number.

After that was an enkai (a large group party typically at a restaurant) that, earlier in the day, I had presciently decided to forego, as I figured I wouldn't really need anymore alcohol and didn't feel like dropping $30. Instead we all killed some time back at the apartments and then headed to Chorky's Diner (a 1950s syle american diner that serves proper burger, fries, shakes, and whatnot) for the birthday dinner of our friend Eri. We pretty much took over the place, with some random dancing even breaking out between the booths.

Despite the early onslaught of booze, I stopped after the parade finished and was actually in decent shape when I went to bed. Thankfully, the next day was a holiday and we were all able to properly and fully recover from the day's festivities.

Current Update: I had to work Saturday this weekend for the admissions exam/interviews, and spent today skyping with Maria and the capoeira folk in Madison and then watching UFC with Jon et al. It was great seeing people from capoeira again, but I can't help feeling a bit bummed that I'm not in Madison right now for the batizado. A little capoeira music ought to do the trick...

Silver Week Slackin'

First off, thanks Aaron for the advice, I think I'm going to adopt that policy next time I'm asked about Japanese women..."I think they're good." End of subject. Although I fear that might lead to follow up questions. A couple nights ago a guy in my capoeira class asked me that question when he was giving me a ride back to Gifu station. He then of course asked what kind of women I like in general, and I'm pretty sure his head nearly exploded trying to understand my response.

Anywho, the next big event was the so-called "silver week." Japan has an annual string of holiday in April/May called Golden Week. A lot of people go traveling and it's a pretty big deal. Well we had three holidays in the fall line up this year, and so people were dubbing it "silver week." This meant I had a five day weekend (yay government job!). Unfortunately, I didn't have re-entry permit yet, or I might have accompanied Lauren on her trip to Korea and visited Wallin. But I still made a decent time of it. Jon and I decided to take a trip to Nara, which was the capital city a long, long time ago. It's main claims to fame are the giant Buddha which is housed in Todaiji, the largest wooden building in the world. Apparently they had to rebuild it after a fire, and the original building was even larger. This is hard to believe, as the current structure is an incredibly impressive sight to behold.

On our way to Nara we had a couple transfers and it was maybe 3 hours total one way.
At the last transfer, a rather frazzled older foreign lady came up to us and asked us if this was the train to Nara. We assured her it was the correct train and ended up chatting with her all the way to Nara. She was apparently here on some military related program, but she basically is assigned to different countries for 60 days at a time and runs programs/classes/workshops or something of the like for the troops. It sounded like a pretty neat gig and good way to see the world. We parted ways at the station since Jon and I had yet to eat lunch. We were looking for tempura, but ended up bailing once we realized it was going to be $20 for a lunch that had a few pieces of tempura and wasn't going to fill us up. We grabbed lunch at a random place that had some tasty looking fried foods. My lunch consisted of some pork, lotus root, and another random vegetable. The real awesome part of this place was that rather than the standard green tea or genmai tea, they had a pitcher of ice cold rooibos tea, a variety of red tea which I absolutely love. On top of that they even had thousand island dressing, which was an unexpected little taste of America. On that note, though, I am going through ranch dressing withdrawals. Mmm...

After lunch we headed toward Todaiji and Nara park. While wandering the grounds outside of Todaiji, we happened upon some sort of event, as a bunch of chairs were set up with a number of folks already waiting in their seats. We stood around trying to figure out what it was when some dude came up and explained to me that they were doing a demonstration of the yagi, a traditional spear-like weapon that also has a couple small blades perpendicular to the pole. Apparently they only do this demo once a year and it was happening in 10 minutes. Jon and I thought we had hit the jackpot and promptly grabbed seats. The program said they would be demoing the 14 basic techniques, 14 "secret" techniques, and then 7 combination techniques. And this wasn't free sparring in any sense of the word, they a bunch of very rehearsed exchanges, which would be fine, if they were using actual weapons. Instead they were using completely wooden practice weapons, which took away from the excitement. Also, about as complicated as it got was parry, thrust. I'm pretty sure the parry-thrust combo isn't a "secret" technique. Sorry, guys. None of the demos really seem to show off a whole ton of skill, so it was overall rather disappointing. But we did have a bit of sunburn to show for it after an hour in the sun.

We hit up a small museum after that, and then headed into Nara Park proper, where we met up with Nara's other claim to fame, "wild" deer. So there are a ton of deer roaming all over Nara park and at this point they are all extremely domesticated, since the big thing to do there is buy these special crackers and feed them to the deer. Well it seems over the years of domestication the deer have developed a sense of entitlement. The minute you are even in line to buy the crackers, the deer are on your ass like white on rice. And they are aggressive. While just waiting in line I had one biting and pulling on my back pocket flap, and then he started headbutting my leg. And this dude still had little antler nubs that packed a punch. The little bugger even landed a glancing blow to the digital camera in my cargo pocket. Thankfully it still worked fine. Once I obtained the cracker I had an "entourage" of 10-12 deer and had to work quickly and carefully to feed them all without getting my fingers nipped.


I managed to get rid of the crackers without too much incident, but soon after saw a Japanese guy who made the mistake of not holding his ground. It was quite the sight to see this dude throwing crackers while running away from a pack of deer.

We also came upon one deer who had a glazed over eye. It was a little freaky, but the deer also looked kind of badass because of it. I think that deer might be the Highlander...or something. I also respected the older deer who just sat there, not begging or headbutting for food. Their jaded, stoic expressions said "I'm too old for this shit."


We then hit up Todaiji itself, which is an amazing sight from the outside. The sheer scale of it is mind numbing. Upon entering we checked out the main attraction, the giant Buddha. It was definitely very cool, and very big, but I saw a boatload of buddha while in China, a number of which were more impressive. The background behind the buddha was quite intricate and well done and offered more to look at. As we wandered toward the back of the buddha, there was a relatively long line that had formed. One of the pillars in this room has a square shaped hole through the base of it. They say if you can crawl through this small square tunnel you will have good fortune. It looked pretty small, but taking pride in being a scrawny pale guy, I had to give it shot. So I probably waited about 20 minutes for a chance to crawl through a hole. Yeah, sounds enthralling, I know. While waiting I saw a number children make it through, and one adult made it about halfway, but then needed his buddy to pull on his arms to get out. After seeing that I had some worries. But when I got down there I went in on the diagonal and scooted through without a problem. Thanks to Jon for the camerawork on this one.

After that we headed up an incline path to this shrine that had an incredible view of Nara. We chilled up there for quite awhile soaking in the view. Then we went exploring some of the forest paths, and found a section lined with stone lanterns, which was very cool, if not a bit surreal and eerie. It felt like a bit a time warp and served as another one of those "yup, I'm back in Japan" moments.

At this point we had worked up quite an appetite and decided to grab dinner on the way back to the station. We had initially thought of staying a night, but to be honest, we covered everything we wanted to see there in one day. We grabbed dinner at a random restaurant where I had Mega Omu Rice-flavored rice covered with egg and demiglaze sauce topped off with some fried goodies.

We didn't know the train schedule well, but left early enough where we thought we'd be safe, even with two transfers (one at Kyoto, another at Maibara). The Kyoto transfer was fine, but when we got a Maibara, there were a ton of people waiting on the platform, which is very suspect, given the size of the station. It turns out the trains were running 20-25 minutes late, which pretty much never happens. It was definitely my first time experiencing such a heinous violation of the time schedule in Japan. We looked at the schedule and soon realized that the time delay was actually a godsend, as without it, we would have missed the last train back to Ogaki. I wasn't anticipating the last train back to be 9pm, that's for sure. So we narrowly dodged having to spend the night in po-dunk Maibara, without a place to stay (there is next to nothing at this stop).

Obviously a bit tired due to turning Nara into a day trip, I just chilled on Sunday, but Jon had mentioned how the weather would be perfect for disc golf. And in our handy little region guide it mentions that a nearby country actually has a course although it is, quote, "a little smaller than those in America." I was surprised the concept of disc golf had even made it over here, so we decided to make that our adventure on Monday.

We took a train about a half hour north to the small town of Ikeda. We had hoped that since they have a course, somewhere in the town along the way to the course, there would be a place selling discs, as in America, nearby gas stations often sell them. When we actually arrived in Ikeda and started walking a few minutes, we quickly lost hope. There was next to nothing. It was a good 25 minute walk from the station, and along the way we stumbled upon one of the most ridiculous (yet awesome) things I've ever seen...and egg vending machine. Yeah, you know you've hit the country when you see a freaking EGG VENDING MACHINE. I still can't get over it.

We eventually reached the sign for the disc golf course we had seen in our guide, but were stil sans discs. So we decided to stop at this nearby cafe to get some soft serve ice cream. We were pleasantly surprised since they had green tea ice cream, which was made from the tea grown in Ikeda town itself, and according to the menu, is a variety you can only get at that cafe. And it was definitely some of the best green tea ice cream I have ever had. We then asked the lady running the store about where we could buy discs. She had no clue but suggested we inquire at the nearby sports complex. We did so and found out there really wasn't a place to buy discs, but that they rented out frisbees for free. So although not proper discs, it was still a nice deal.

We get to the park to find that the "course" is 6 holes randomly strewn about a bit of open green space, which is shared by many families and couples tossing baseballs, having a picnic, or just laying around enjoying the weather. That and the "holes" were maybe 70-80ft long whereas a standard hole should be 300+. So it was a bit disappointing, but we still had fun with it, making up our own "super holes." I let one toss get away from me, and wouldn't you know it, it was heading straight for this couple lying on a blanket. My instinct was to yell "fore!" but I quickly aborted realizing they won't have a clue what I'm saying, let alone know it is directed at them. So I just watched in half-horror as the disc nailed the guy right in ribs. 10,000 points! I ran over and apologized profusely, the whole while his girlfriend/wife was laughing her head. She seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the world. I didn't feel quite as bad after seeing her reaction. Later they got up from their blanket and were gone for quite a while, leading Jon and I to posit that was probably getting some sympathy action after getting hit-so I basically did him a favor.

The park itself was top-notch, and the weather was amazing. It's not often you have that much open space in Japan, so it was a nice change of pace. I took the opportunity to practice a little capoeira, complete with music via my iPhone-that thing sure is handy sometimes! We eventually called it a day and headed back to Ogaki. The last two days of silver week were spent chilling and relaxing after we realized our Wednesday plan of heading out east to a waterfall we could jump off of required a car to get to the destination.

Current Update: I attempted to make Ad's peanut butter pie. I couldn't get the cream whipped properly by hand, so the filling wasn't quite as fluffy. I brought into work this Friday (I would've brought it on my actual birthday if it weren't for the typhoon) and a couple of my co-workers mistook the oreo crust for black sesame. Odd.

Internationalize this!

So I left off yesterday lamenting my lack of Japanese friends, so I was pleasantly surprised when one of the graduate students randomly came into the office where I worked and asked if I wanted to grab lunch with him. His name is Furukawa Koichi and he does research regarding using the internet and classroom exchanges with underdeveloped countries to increase international consciousness. He was particular interested when I told him about the distance learning Japanese language courses I took back in high school. Another time when we grabbed lunch he was asking me what I thought about news coverage in the US and what station most people watch, and which one I prefer. I don't have a particular news station I like so I gave a vague answer. Then he asked me what I thought about FOX, and I told him straight up what I thought of their fear mongering, supposedly "fair and balanced" coverage. This was apparently a lead-in question as he pulled out his laptop and started showing me clips from the documentary OUTFOXED, which I guess made it all the way to Japan. I had been meaning to watch it at some point, but this was the first I had seen of it. He was basically asking me if what they were claiming was accurate. He has also seen the documentary Jesus Camp (highly recommended if you haven't seen it already) so we started talking about religion and whatnot. Overall a really interesting guy to talk to, and even if it's only one person, it's that sort of deep conversation across cultural borders that I feel foments international understanding. I feel there is only so much I can do to "coordinate international relations" from my office desk.

Furukawa-san is also a past participant in JICA (Japan's equivalent of the Peace Corps) and spent a couple years in Syria. He was kind enough to invite me to a weekend gathering of JICA alumni for a workshop and a barbecue. I figured it would be other folks his age (i.e. only a couple years older than me) and a good chance to meet Japanese folks who have a broader perspective and some interesting experiences under their belt. I was a little put off when I met Furukawa-san at Gifu station and the other folks waiting were all in their 50s or above. It was a little awkward at first. I rode in Furukawa-san's car up to the cabin we were staying at, which was about an hour north. The cabin itself was amazingly nice, complete with an old school coal/ash cooking pit.

After checking out the place, we all set up some tables and then had a workshop that was supposed to help us examine our experiences abroad and better relay what we had learned to other people. The brunt of the workshop involved taking a picture and making up questions about the pictures to ask the others in our group to get them to imagine what the circumstances of the picture might have been. Then we gave them the answers and what we learned from the situation in the picture, or how it changed our way of thought. Although overall not terribly interesting, it succeeded a bit in getting me thinking about my experiences abroad. One lady in our group came to the realization that her consciousness as a Japanese person was lacking, and that she needed to form her identity as a Japanese person properly in order to bring "Japanese flavor" to the internationalization table. I don't know if I agree completely, but I liked the idea, mainly because I myself certainly don't spend much time, if any, thinking about how I identify as an American. Being abroad, it is extremely easy to lose touch with your home culture/identity. That and I'm not exactly the stereotypical American, either. I don't care much for hamburgers and don't watch a ton of big name movies. In other words, my finger isn't on the pulse of American pop culture. I'm fine with that, but I hadn't exactly thought about how that affects my ability to internationalize. I'd prefer to think it enhances it, as I'd much rather break the stereotypes they get of us through the media than reinforce them.

Anywho, after the workshop finished, there was much FEASTING! There was a barbecue with some high quality Japanese beef and chicken, garlic soaked mussels that were out of this world, along with tons of side dishes and alcohol to boot. Being an international crowd there was a number of treats, including chocolate from Ghana, marzipan from Spain, some funky sweets from China, and dried mango from Burkino Faso. To be honest, I didn't care for the chocolate and the candy from China was super sketchy and robbed my mouth of all saliva. There were a number of half-eaten Chinese candies, so I wasn't the only one. The marzipan was super tasty and the mangoes...well, they were mangoes. I was more excited just because they were from Burkino Faso, which has one of the best named capital cities ever. I don't mean to be name dropping, as I'm going to be complaining about that later on...

Everyone there was extremely kind and one guy I talked with while making a food platter was fun to talk to, and he talked a mile a minute. I appreciated that he didn't slow down or pull any punches just because he was talking to a foreigner. Later on in the evening we all gathered around and folks did their formal introductions and talked a bit about their international experiences on JICA and in general. It was mildly interesting at first, but many of the older guys felt the need to give their whole life story and didn't know when wrap it up. It wouldn't have been that bad, but it seemed to devolve into a pissing contest about who has been to the most places/done the most things.

Later in the night I somehow ended up talking to this random older guy while snacking on leftovers, when he started talking to me about Japanese women. Namely, how although he had been to all these different countries around the world he believes Japanese women are the most appealing. He claimed they were extremely nice and submissive and always tried to "build others up" and serve. Wow, way to completely pigeonhole your country's entire female population into one personality. It also didn't help that most of the reasons or traits he listed as being positives I don't find terribly desirable. So I just smiled and nodded, pretending to agree with everything he said, as I didn't feel like debating with a half drunk old dude.
Much later into the night I talked extensively with a pair of older guys, one of whom was a chemistry major, coincidentally enough. He had been in South America testing the water supply and working on ways to clean it up. That sounds like an amazing experience and an application of chemistry that has meaning behind it and doesn't leave you stuck in a lab everyday. As interesting a conversation as we were having, somehow the topic of Japanese women came up again and they asked what I thought of them. I really didn't want to answer this question since most Japanese women I've met aren't even close to my type and I didn't want to offend them, but also because THERE WERE STILL WOMEN IN THE ROOM. Yeah, let me just sit here at talk about them as if there aren't within earshot. So I hemmed and hawed without giving an answer until they finally gave me a way out with "Oh, so it's a difficult question?" Yeah, that's it. Then they proceeded to tell how there were a number of cute women at the workshop and that I should "find one I like." I'm pretty sure almost all the girls there were over 30, save for one who was about my age. She even spoke English to a certain extent, but she talked to me in a vaguely condescending and deliberately slow manner, possibly due to the fact that's she a teacher, but her tone and manner irked me to no end.

I crashed on the floor, caught a few zzz's and woke up to fresh fruit being cut in the kitchen. And then we had more grilled meat...yeah, for breakfast-it was awesome. Clean up commenced, I waded briefly in the nearby stream, and by noon-ish we were on our way home. It was quite the interesting weekend, and a marathon of Japanese conversation, which is always a good thing. I came back with the impression that despite having been abroad, a number of them still lacked a certain multicultural awareness or sensitivity that comes with growing up in a nation as diverse as the US (not that Oshkosh is a shining example of diversity, but still...). At the core they remain Japanese. And as much as I feel I've hit the stage of "biculturalism" there are certain aspects in which I remain stubbornly American. That may be a post for another time...

Current Update-For Maria and others wondering, I acquired ring worm on my knee from jujitsu class. I didn't have a gi yet and was wearing shorts to class. I got mat burn on my knee which was then directly exposed to all the lovely nastiness that grows in a sweat soaked jujitsu mat, including, apparently, ringworm. I'm taking a break from jujitsu until it clears up, which is not wholly unrelated to the fact that I've pumped out two updates in two days.

You know you're cool when...

So I had to look back at the pictures I had taken to remember what happened the weekend after Wallin left. That's not good. Not only is that bad for me because my memory stinks, but it's bad for you, the reader, because that means the weekend was so uninteresting it didn't leave an impression. So strap on your seatbelts for one entertaining update! We're hitting the end of August here and AJET had scheduled a "walking tour of Nagoya" for Saturday. I pretty much know the big things to see in that area already, so I wasn't super excited about the prospect, but I figured it'd be a good chance to hang out with JETs I wouldn't normally see. Turns out the walking tour consisted of "Hey! Let's go to XXXXXXXXXXX massive dept. store, split up, and do some shopping" and then repeat. I at least found a brush pen, with which I can at least attempt to write characters with some calligraphic style.

We were supposed to meet up downstairs, but on our way down we stopped at a place that sold little snack sized dessert waffles. I got a pineapple one which was delicious, but the most notable part of the store was the logo/mascot-a golden toddler about to take a leak. If that doesn't sell waffles, I don't know what will. The plan was then to drop $40 on a barbecue/beer garden, and then go to Club ID (THE infamous dance club that tends to have a lot foreigners in it.) I sure as heck didn't want to spend $40 on BBQ and beer, plus there was an amazing ramen shop I wanted to hit up, so I bailed on the rest of the group plans. There was another group bailing on the beer garden as well, but were heading to Outback Steakhouse (just what I want to eat in Japan...).


So Jon and I cut out and headed to Gin no Kura, which serves up the BEST ramen I have ever eaten. The place is a hole in the wall and seats maybe 10-12 people at full capacity...which is how you know it's good. A good rule of thumb is that the quality of the ramen is inversely proportional to the seating capacity. The dish to get is their Spicy Miso Garlic Butter Ramen. I talked this stuff up big time to Jon, and agreed that it lived up to the hype and is the best ramen he's had. He now craves the stuff.

The next day I went sightseeing with two co-workers of mine. Fukumori-san from the office down the hall, and Nishioka-san, who works in the library at the university. We drove up to where there is a waterfall, somewhere near the village of Shiratori. I'm a big fan of waterfalls, and this one didn't disappoint. The scenery around it was beautiful, and there is nothing better than the spraying mist from a waterfall on a hot summer day. A unique feature of this spot was that the cliff jutted in to form a little alcove area you could walk into. There was water just seeping out of the cliff rock in the alcove-it was pretty cool.

After hitting up the waterfall, we went spelunking in an underground cavern. It was a stark contrast from the waterfall, and I think quite possibly my first cave experience. Walking into the cave it felt like there was air conditioning running. It was a good 15-20 degrees cooler, which was much appreciated. The path through the cave was long and winding, and took us through some spots which were small, even by Japan's standards, which led to many inquiries of "Are you okay?" and even more of "Watch your head!"

After making it safely out of the cave, we hopped back in the car and stopped at Gujo to walk around a bit. For those paying attention, this is the same place I went late-night dancing for Obon. It looked quite different during the day, and proved to be a town with a good deal of charm. There were a number of guys jumping off the bridge into a deeper part of the river that runs through the town. Looked like a good deal of fun...maybe next summer. My co-workers really wanted to stop at what they called a "sample shop." I was thinking food samples, and was certainly up for some snacking. Well, I was only partially correct. It is a store that sells food samples...plastics ones. All the plastic food that gets displayed outside of restaurants in Japan has to get made somewhere. I guess that somewhere is here. I'm not sure why, but Japanese people apparently love these things. They had keychains and magnets of all sizes, and even just replica food dishes. While they shopped, being way too excited about molded plastic, I attempted to understand the appeal. Although that endeavor ended in failure, in an effort to not seem ungracious, I bought a mitarashi dango (feel free to look that up) keychain.

Our final stop on the way back to Ogaki was Mino village, a rather traditional little place with a claim or two to fame. One of which is that Mino is one of the last places (if not THE last) you can see residences with Udatsu roof flourishes (as seen in photo). Udatsu were completely ostentatious, but that was the point. If your house had an udatsu on it, it signaled to everyone that you had made it. It also significantly upped your chances with the ladies, since most females shied away from the uncertain life of living with a man too poor to afford an udatsu. You know what they about the size of a man's roof...
Anyway, Mino is also famous for making paper lanterns, and we even got a watch one shopkeeper make one by hand the old fashioned way. There is a somewhat elaborate interlocking wooden frame that the paper is glued together on. The genius is in that the wooden frame is collapsible, so after drying you collapse the frame to yield hollow lantern shade. I wouldn't mind a couple for my place, so I might go back at some point.

Fukumori-san, being the trooper she is, also invited me (and Jon and Sarah) to go along with her the very next day to visit a shrine. This particular shrine has a festival on the last day of every month, and is good for business. Given the economic climate, it was quite crowded. There are a number of different stations in what ends up being a veritable relay race a rituals for good luck. We also got our fortunes (via shaking a stick out a can) and unfortunately, all of ours were to the effect of "less than stellar...but you can turn things around if you work hard." After lighting a candle and throwing chunks of dried fat tied with straw, we got to lift a rock, make a wish, and then lift it again. If it feels heavier (or lighter? I was getting conflicting stories) the wish is supposed to come true.

Bringing things back full circle to the title. It was shortly after this night to the shrine that I had the sad realization that, since arriving in Japan, the Japanese person I had spent the most time hanging out with outside of work was my 40 year old co-worker. You know you're cool when...

Current update: My internet is pretty solid. I just downloaded Only the Strong at around 400kbps. "Now we'll see who the real capoeira MAESTRE is!" Also, I have what is now a confirmed case of ringworm on my knee. I picked up some cream from the store and have been applying it for almost a week. Thankfully there are signs of improvement. I'm hoping it will be cleared up in one more week.

Dancing, Fireworks, and Wallin!

First off, thanks to Aaron for mentioning that the song I’m hearing at the grocery isn’t actually Eye of the Tiger, but rather “Gonna Fly Now.” Anywho, getting back to random stories… One of the first major cultural experiences I had was heading up to northern Gifu prefecture to Gujo-hachiman for the Bon-odori. Obon is a very important period/festival in the Japanese year because it is the time they believe their ancestor’s spirits return home. One of the ways they welcome the spirits back is with the Bon-odori (The Bon dance). The dances performed and customs change depending on the region of Japan, and this particular city is famous because for 3 nights in a row they literally dance all night long. A group of us JETs made the trip up by train (a good 2.5 hours). The train ride was made a bit more interesting since my friend Rock (also lives in Ogaki, two buildings down from mine) brought what he calls “jungle juice,” which is essentially juice and vodka, but I like the name. Since it is kosher to drink in public, it wasn’t a problem to be passing it around on the train. We were all sitting on the floor anyway since it was crowded. Sitting on a ledge near all of us was some random Japanese girl, who was literally touching up her make-up and fixing her hair for almost the entire train ride. We were in awe (or maybe disgust) that she was able to stare into her compact that long. I’m pretty sure after the first 15 min, you are just pushing your hair back to its original place. Finally, we arrived at the station.

In the summer, Japanese people often wear a yukata (a thin, summer version of the kimono, generally made of cotton) if going to a festival. Thus, a number of JETs in our group were also donning yukata. I had gone shopping for one, but it is hard to find one my size, and the few they had were rather plain and boring, so I decided to wait until next summer to buy one. Once everyone had their yukata on, we headed downtown. When we got there the dancing was in full swing. Everyone danced around a central intersection where a group of people were performing traditional folk songs. Every time they switched song, everyone changed directions (counter-clockwise vs. clockwise around the intersection) and the dance changed as well. This rotating line of people snaked down a few different city blocks. The problem was we needed to get to the other side. Breaking through was a bit different, but we got “inside” the ring of people, which ended up being rather disorienting. It was a “deer in headlights” moment for sure, but it was also very surreal to be at the center with every dancing around you.

After navigating the throng, we perused the food. There was much feasting on festival food-yakisoba (pan fried buckwheat noodles, with meat and veggies) was my choice this time. While waiting for others in our group to hit the bathroom, we ran into a random group of Japanese guys (who were drunk) that decided to try speaking English to us. We humored them and had a nice little conversation. We got group pictures after, and looking back at my photo, I now see that the one dude was flipping the bird…classy. After watching the dancing for a bit, we decided to give it a shot ourselves. The dances were relatively simple, and we caught on after a few minutes of struggling. It was rather fun to and get involved a be a part of the action, although I felt a bit out of place with my lack of a yukata. After we grew tired of dancing, we just found a side street, popped a squat, and chilled for a while. There was a special super early train heading back to civilization at 3:30am, and we were all getting tired, so we decided to grab that. We ran into some other foreigners on the train and ended up telling jokes to pass the time. Eventually I got back around 6:30am or so, and fell soundly asleep.

Now I am going to jump to the night of the fireworks, which after having been cancelled due to rain the first time, got rescheduled for Aug. 16th. A huge group of JETs was going and this was purportedly a pretty massive show. And indeed it was. The show was along the Nagaragawa (a river) in Gifu city and they had fireworks going off from 3 different spots simultaneously at certain times. The beauty in the design of the show is that different technicians were given “time slots” so to speak, so there was incentive for them to try and show off and outdo the other technicians. This also meant the show lasted about 1.5-2 hours, and was amazing the whole way through. They also busted out a green laser light show which looked especially cool as it swept through and reflected off of the lingering smoke from the fireworks. An especially awe-inspiring feat they pulled off was creating a veritable waterfall of sparks. They had a rope strung over the river that was rigged with fireworks. They lit both the ends which set off a daisy chain toward the middle. Eventually all the hanging fireworks were going, creating this wall of showering sparks. This was easily the most impressive fireworks show I’ve ever seen. Fourth of July, eat your heart out.

This was also the first time I had seen my friend Lauren from UW-Madison since I’ve been in Japan. She started JET one year ago and is in Aichi-ken, one of the prefectures neighboring Gifu-ken. She made the trip up to Gifu and so I got to meet a couple of her JET friends as well, Maria (#2) and Matt. It was a ton of fun to see her again and we all gorged ourselves on festival food during the show. I had okonomiyaki (a Japanese style savory griddle cake) and what is essentially a sno-cone. I may have had more, but at this point I was still trying to be relatively frugal and hold out until the first paycheck. The picture just above is, according to Lauren, supposed to show Maria how much fun we're having, and make her jealous. Wow Maria, it must be nice to have such caring friends, eh? On the long walk back to the station, I chatted with Colin (note only one “L”), a fellow CIR working in West Gifu, who is from Ireland. (So is Maria #2, so I was introduced to some Irish slang, such as “What’s the craic?” which basically means “what’s up?” or “how’s it going?”) We talked a bit about work and other random stuff, and he seems like a pretty cool guy (must be something about the name, huh?).

Then that week Wallin visited from Korea (after having just previously been in the Phillipines). At this point, I had been in Ogaki for a whopping 2-3 weeks and didn’t know the area that well. I was still waiting on my first paycheck and Wallin seemed relatively content to explore Ogaki itself in lieu of more touristy stuff, so we just chilled most of the time he was here. We managed to play a little capoeira, which was refreshing, but reminded me it had been a good month and I was getting out of shape. We went bowling one night and hit up our favorite Indian restaurant, Masala Master. Wallin hung out with Lauren on Friday while I was at work. I met up with them later after dinner. For dinner, though, a group of us Seino area (west Gifu Prefecture) JETs went to Coco Ichiban Curry House, which is a massive chain in Japan, to watch our friend Jon, who takes pride in downing the spiciest of spicy foods, try and take down their level 10 spicy curry. We built it up to be this epic event, and pretty much took over the store with our group of 15 or so foreigners. And although it was hot, Jon was pretty much able to take down the whole thing by himself. A few of us, including myself, took a test bite to see just how hot it was. It didn’t completely sear my tongue off, and I was fine after a drink of water, but I wouldn’t want to eat a whole plate of the stuff. After that, I hopped a train to Kanayama (in Nagoya proper) where I was supposed to be meeting Lauren and Wallin who were out for dinner. Well, I ended up waiting over an hour (it was raining, to boot) for their arses to arrive. Apparently they were out with a group, including a couple Japanese people who just wouldn’t shut up/finish their meal. So the night didn’t start off well, and it continued down that path as once they did arrive, we couldn’t get into the bar we wanted because it was at capacity.

Being the resourceful folks we are, and this being Japan we it’s completely fine to drink in public, we headed to the nearest konbini (convenience store) and procured some alcohol. It could’ve been straight from a Jay and Silent Bob film, seeing as we were leaning against the wall drinking outside the MiniStop. Classy, I know. Lauren had a meaningless argument on the phone with her friend who was responsible for the slow eating, and apparently all around unfriendly Japanese folks at dinner, while Wallin and I just laughed at the “drama,” as we could care less. Anyway, we met up with a couple of Lauren’s friends, and finally managed to make it into that bar. It was a British pub theme, and I had some Guiness, which I guess made me feel slightly better about the overall failure of a night. We eventually called it quits and headed back. Wallin left on Sunday around noon, and I killed the rest of the day…somehow. It’s too far back, can’t remember.

In recent news (i.e. today), I now have the internet at my apartment, so updates should be coming more regularly. On the downside, I may very well have ringworm on my knee…might have to get that looked at.