Tokyo Food Experiences

Sorry I havent posted in a while, I have been fairly busy lately. The KCP Level 3 mid-term test went well. Perhaps, I got an A-....hopefully. I tried to send an email home from my mobile phone, but I accidently closed it after spending 30 minutes writing it >:( After the test on friday, I went out again with the koreans from my class, this time I was the only non korean. Later that night one of our teachers joined us at a bar, and even after a drink she still refused to tell us her real age. I never ended up going to the museum on saturday. The culture class was about polite fiction, how the japanese wont boast or brag and even go so far as to introduce their wife as my stupid wife when meeting someone. It was the most interesting culture class so far.

I went to harajuku with some friends and I bought two shirts and a bandana. One of the shirts has particularly indecipherable engrish on it. We walked to shibuya and ate at a japanese restaurant. We had fried chicken, fried squid, maguro and ika (squid) sashimi, and japanese style german potatoes. Im not really sure what the potatoes were meant to be, but they had onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, bacon, and katsuo (the dried fish flakes). Afterwards we went to an arcade and then later a bar called ghetto happy dining. There I tried umeshuu (plum wine) sorbet and sherbet, which was fantastic, as well as the panic chicken (which was delicious, although not as spicy as I expected).

On Sunday I went to the graveyard with the whole Suzuki family to honor tomokosans late husband. Along with the picture above, I have a few other pictures of everyone that I uploaded to flickr.. Afterwards we went to a very fancy restaurant. We sat down in a waiting area that had a bar with no bartender. From there we were lead to an extravagent private room which coincidentally was available for us that day. We started off with champagne, and the first dish was a salad of various tubers. Next was some type of fish cooked on the steel grill at the table. (Normally this would be a black surface, a teppan, but there it seemed to be some type of stainless steel.) It had a mushroom and champagne sauce, it was amazing. Next was some type of very tender beef (I dont know what, it had little fat but was so soft) served with two sauces and slices of grilled garlic. After that was two small slices of sirloin. Next came garlic rice with miso soup and a small bowl of pickled vegetables and a cup of tea. I had white wine with the fish and california red wine with the beef. After the meal we were lead upstairs to the desert room where I had coffee and two scoops of different chocolate ice cream. One was brandy and the other Im not sure. The meal itself was fantastic but I was more amazed by the decoration of the place, it was just so extravagant. I took some pictures of the outside on my phone, I will eventually upload those as well.

Oh and last monday I believe I had a private (free) lesson with a calligraphy teacher who came to the house. He was a friend of tomoko-san's friend, so she also met him for the first time. He arrived at 7 30 and I expected maybe 2 or 3 hours, but he wouldnt leave until 12 40. He brought three pieces that he wrote for me, aikido, mu shin, and mu ga. Mu shin is literally no mind (spirit), but its more like having a pure spirit. Mu ga means no self, basically selfless. He is a paid teacher, but he volunteered to do this for me. It was a great experience.

This monday night Hiromi-san made tacos. It wasnt anything more than premade shells and ground beef mixed with salsa and then topped with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, but it was so good since its been a while.

Last night I went to an okonomiyaki restaurant with tomoko-san and three of her friends. They were a crazy bunch. It was very amusing. I also found out that Tomoko-san was born in China and at three years old, how she got into into japan. This weekend Im planning to go to Nikko with some friends. I was going to go out to dinner with another girl from my class today, but she didnt go to class, so we will probably go friday instead.

I guess thats about everything for now. Happy Thanksgiving.

KCP Undoukai (School Sports Day)

Things are going great still. I have had some problems with making it home before midnight which is something very important to my host mother, Tomokosan. I dont really have much more room to screw up with that, but otherwise we are still getting along very well. One of her friends from the chorus group is an expert of calligraphy and he is going to teach me this monday for maybe 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Therefore I bought a new brush since the bristles on my previous brushes are already starting to open up. The brush I bought is the biggest one I have now, hopefully he can show me what to do so it wont happen again.

Im doing really well on the KCP Level 3 kanji tests but I have yet to get an A on the grammar. Oddly enough its not usually the grammar that trips me up, but its when I write the wrong kanji or miss the vocabulary. Im still getting Bs on them though so there is nothing to worry about here.

Ive gone bowling several times now, and not yesterday, but on the previous time I bowled my best score so far, I think it was 104. At the beginning I was bowling with a 7lb ball, but Ive moved up to a 10lb now. Despite all the interesting and friendly Japanese people Ive met I still dont really have any close Japanese friends aside from Tomokosan and maybe her sister Hiromisan. However when I went bowling in Asakusa after the festival a group of 4 japanese joined us at the adjacent lane. The leader of the group (I suppose I can call him that) was a 56 y.o. businessman. He was very friendly with us and gave us two bottles of water and one tea. I asked him why he placed them in front of us and he said they were a gift. Later I decided to go to the konbini to buy some beer. When I said I was leaving he said well then lets go together. When we got there he grabbed about 10 beers off the shelf (four were the 18oz size) as well as toasted raamen snack, beef jerky, potato chips, and dried squid. Altogether it was 3000yen and when I tried to give him 1000 he would not accept it. He bought all that stuff for us maybe simply because we were americans who spoke japanese! That same day in Asakusa I bought some whale jerky at at store that only sold whale products. It was very good.

This previous thursday was the undoukai (school sports day). This is a tradition among Japanese education, so it was pretty cool to participate in one. My flickr site includes many pictures from the costume part of it. There were several events including the rope relay, leap frog, skip race, sit-up contest, tug-o-war, cosplay contest, and a 4 person 400m relay (so each person ran 100m). I signed up for the relay and since I didnt really have the right shoes I bought some pumas for 3900yen (from what Ive seen so far a very good deal, the cheapest running shoes Ive seen so far). Who knows if I really needed the shoes or not, because my team won the first round as well as the final, it was no contest. I think everyone was amazed by my explosive speed (which fortunately still remains after my three year gap of not much running) from all those years of competitive soccer. Of course if my teammates werent fast as well we could have lost. Additionally the yellow team (all level 3 classes) was the yusho (first place) of the whole undoukai. Afterwards I went out to drink with several of my classmates (The group was all koreans except for one of my american friends. It was a great bonding experience with them.

One of my friends who I will refer to as beatk (his nickname) I had never even spoke to before thursday night, but we really hit it off. He is now my korean brother. He asked me who I like the most in the class. When I talked to beatk about this he said that she thinks I am very young, almost as if she sees me as a child. He told me in order to get past that I have to make my heart/spirit wider. I think what he meant to say is I need to be more of a gentleman and to act older than I actually am. So friday I invited her to go with me to Hiromi-sans koten (private exhibition) and she said yes. So we will go on sunday after she is done with church.

This week I started the tea ceremony class. It is every monday and friday from 11-1pm. I really enjoy the class. Its amazing how exact everything is. There is a precise method for everything, but its nothing too complicated, with practice it becomes second nature. By far the hardest part is sitting seiza for so long. We get about 3 breaks where we walk out of tghe room and stand, and it extremely difficult to make it through the class. Hopefully by the end it wont be so tough. I guess thats about it for now. Im drinking an extremely bitter cup of tea at the moment. Since tomoko-san went out today I made the tea myself for the first time, I suppose I put too many leaves in.

Oh and one last thing, last week I found some 18month aged cheddar at a liquor store. It was about 770 yen for a peice slightly larger than what you get from bravo farms. Such a terrible price to pay for only average quality cheddar, but I needed to buy it. The japanese dont really eat cheese unless its on a hamburger or pizza. And Ive had pizza at three different places now, the best one remains the first one I went to in harajuku. It was so good! Just about what you would get in Italy.

Week 3 at KCP

School is going great, my classmates are an enjoyable bunch, and my three teachers are great. They all make class very interesting and have plenty of jokes. One in particular is very funny, yet at the same time she is the most serious of them all. At the KCP entrance ceremony she was introduced as the most beautiful teacher at school. She is in fact very pretty, but she is not yet married and this seems to bothers her. One of the korean males in a class has what appears to be a wedding ring on his finger but he won't admit to being married. This teacher (Konno sensei) is always giving him a hard time. Today she said his ring is minikui which has two seperate, yet interestingly linked meanings: ugly or hard to look at.

My commute takes about an hour or more, and if I leave in the morning the train is packed. Coming home at just about any time its the same case. Once it was so crowded I could not even read my book as I was standing. I was so close to the japanese businessman I would believe I would have felt his heartbeat were I on the left side of his chest. Im always so tired by the time I get home, its always a big relief stepping through the door and even more so getting in the bath at the end of the day. A couple nights ago after drinking maybe a little too much I was so tired on the train I actually fell asleep standing. The train attendant had to wake me up at the last stop but it wasn't a big deal since my stop is adjacent. According to tomoko-san my route is the most crowded in all of Japan, I believe her. Oh and I dont normally stop here but I have been to Shinjuku station a few times and it is absolutely enormous. It is by far the largest train station I have ever seen.

I recieved my gaikokujintorokusho (foreigner identification) this morning and also applied for the national health insurance at the same time. It should be coming at some point in the near future by post. I also received my student id two days ago, and I bought a cell phone 3 days ago.

I have a 2 year plan, that way the phone was free. Even though I said I would have to cancel before the contract is up, they said that is the cheapest way. The cancellation penalty is 20,000 yen. I also am paying for email and internet service for 400 yen/month, as well as 500yen/month for full coverage insurance. My plan right now is 1950 yen/month for 20 yen/min, but i can downgrade to 950/month for 40 yen/min. These figures are approximate, If did the math correctly, and unless i talk for over 45 min a month, the cheaper plan is the way to go.

Im doing a little better with my money now. I'm approaching the final 5000 yen from the 60,000 I originally withdrew from my account. Tomorrow, I will make another 30,000 withdrawal. My goal is to be spending less than 50,000 a month.

Tanaka-san (from KCP) is a second degree black belt in enmei ryuu kendo. I asked him about obtaining an iato and he said the best way is through a mail order. They custom make every sword and he said they are very good quality. The prices start at 40,000 yen and scale upwards; I was interested in the midrange of 50,000. This is the one big purchase I want to make in japan, and if I take good care of the sword, it will last my lifetime and even longer.

Last night a group of 16 American students (although one wasn't a student, as he works for honda racing development and is from los angeles and my friend met him skateboarding) went out for karaoke in honor of one students birthday. It was a lot of fun.

This week I got an 82 on a grammar test and 100 on a kanji test. Next thursday is the undoukai (sports meet). I signed up for the relay.