Last Sunday, due to the courtesy of a friend of mine, I went on a school sponsored trip to what I think was a community center, to learn how to make sushi from some sushi chefs. My friend had signed up and paid the fee, but then something came up so he wasn’t able to go. He asked me if I would be willing to take his place, and he wasn’t able to get his money back, and I, of course, said yes. I had heard about it earlier, but I still didn’t have any money, so I wasn’t planning on going. It wasn’t an all day thing, just morning and early afternoon, and we spent two or three hours actually making the sushi, which was a lot more complex than I remembered it being when I took a class on it Kitchen Window, but I assume the people here know what they are doing. They started off by showing us how to make a Japanese style omelette, which is pretty cool. They use a square pan made out of what looked like brass, and after mixing the eggs with potato paste, poured it in a little bit at a time, cooking a layer and then folding it over on itself and pouring more egg in for another layer. We got to eat it, and it was good, even though the chef said he left the sauce for it at home. Then we split into groups of five and got paired off with a chef, who showed us how to make nigiri, the fish on rice sushi, and some basic roll techniques. for nigiri, there are seven steps that have to be taken, though I’m afraid trying to describe them would not give you a clear picture. After doing that for an hour or two we took the plates with the sushi we had made into another room. They gave us all certificates of completion in the course and then we ate, and I must say it was pretty good. Sushi is one of those foods where preparation is secondary to ingredients, so it’s not hard to make it taste good. All in all it was a pretty good day.
I finally have access to money again, which is nice. I went shopping yesterday, picking up some groceries and a new jacket to replace the one I left by the ocean. It feels good to settle my debts and have money again, so I’m in a pretty good mood. As promised I give you pictures.

In the Mountains

I’ve been keeping busy lately, finished a big paper for my Japanese literature class, and my other classes are starting to pick up. I over slept today and missed Japanese, which I was pretty upset about. I went to bed at midnight last night, which makes me even more confused, as this is the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve slept past 10:30. But I can catch up, I’ll just do some extra studying tomorrow. It’s been raining even more than usual lately, and I think that’s due to the changing weather. It’s gradually getting colder, though it still hasn’t moved into real jacket weather.
Last Saturday I went on a bus trip to Mount Chokai, which is the second largest mountain in the Tohaku region (the northern part of Honshu), as well as a few other stops. We first went to a temple next to the sea, though I didn’t realize that until we left. It was a Shinto temple, so fairly minimalist, though there were a few impressive statues, and a graveyard with a nice view of the hills in the distance. We spent about half an hour there, and I saw most of the area, though I spent most of my time taking pictures of the temple cats. There were four of them, and though they were very skinny and their fur was matted, they looked pretty happy. The courtyard offered a very nice place to sunbathe, and I imagine there are all sorts of little creatures to chase on the temple grounds and the surrounding area, so they were probably pretty content. There were a few trails that led into the hills and then sort of spit you out into a residential district, and I wandered around a couple of those with some friends, which was nice. After that we all climbed back into the buses and went about five minutes up the road to a shopping center with a big outdoor area overlooking the sea. We ate lunch there, which was a Japanese style box lunch, or bento, provided by the school. There wasn’t much to see in the shops, and why the organizers of the trip felt we needed an hour there I have no idea, but it was still pretty fun. After that we spent about 45 minutes on the bus climbing the mountain. The view from the road that winds its way up the mountain is pretty spectacular, and the mountain is about two kilometers tall so it takes awhile. The bus stop is halfway up the mountain, and there is a trail you can take from there to the summit, a hike which I’m told takes about five hours, as the summit is up another kilometer and several kilometers over. When we got there we were told we only had half an hour to stay, which was pretty disappointing. I went with a few friends, and we tried to see as much of the trail as we could, which felt like a lot. The brush on the mountain is low, so you can see a lot, but it’s thick enough to be impassable if you try to wander off the trail. There are a lot of tall rock outcroppings just off the trail along the way, and climbing them offers a pretty amazing view of the mountain and its valleys. None of the people I was with had a watch, so we had to ask people that we passed on the trail periodically so we didn’t overstay by too long. I have to say that it was pretty disheartening to be hiking up the trail, panting from the exertion involved, and have a 70 year old Japanese woman brush by you at a brisk pace. I wouldn’t feel so bad about it, but this happened several times. It felt like every time a crested a ridge and collapsed on a rock for a break I would look ahead a couple hundred yards and see an elderly couple taking pictures. We were about halfway up the section of trail we managed to climb when I started to wonder if we would see any bears. This was partly because I noticed that all the Japanese hikers were wearing bells, but mostly it was the woman that told us to watch out for bears. I asked someone about it later and they told me that the bears here are smaller than most bears in North America, even black bears, but that they are particularly vicious I almost wrote “particularly viscous, which would be much more interesting). They said that the odds of seeing one on the mountain were slim, but if I wanted to see one, I could visit one of AKita’s two bear farms (I know), which definitely sounds worth the trip. We were a little late getting back to the bus, but so was everybody else, so it didn’t really matter. After that we made one more stop, which was a rocky outcropping by the sea. What made this particular pile of rocks special was that there were Buddha statues carved into it, to protect merchants and fisherman. We were there for about 45 minutes, and in addition to the staues, which were extremely weather-worn but still very cool, there were some volcanic rock formations jutting out of the water. My friends and I split off from the main group and climbed up on one of them, and it offered an amazing view of the sea. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day for this trip, clear skies and maybe 70 degrees, it was wonderful. I took a lot of pictures, and I’ll try to post some of them once I get them sorted, and figure out how to put them on here.
Sunday I spent the day being lazy, but I felt justified (for once) as I spent all of Saturday out and about. I’m on the verge of having my money situation figured out, and once that’s done I’ll be in much better shape (not physically, money can only help me get more out of shape with all the wonderful snacks here). I forgot to mention earlier, but Mount Chokai is a semi-active volcano, though it’s hard to tell, it’s not belching smoke and there are no rivers of lava and seismic disturbances, so I wouldn’t have known if our guide hadn’t said anything. Last week, we had the AIU festival, which I don’t feel like getting into right now, but I’ll write up a post about it soon. Anyway, hope you all are doing well. Be sure to leave a comment, I enjoy hearing from you.

Human doppler radar

I’ve been wondering over the last few days if I have the ability to control the weather through my health. Over the last few days, as I have grown progressively sicker (now fighting a headache, general soreness, and a sore throat, my least favorite of ailments), the weather has become more and more volatile. It has been drizzling off and on all week, and all day today. Although this would be interesting, it would be a pretty crappy super power. Also, I hope it’s not the case, since at some point tonight the biggest typhoon since 1994 is supposed to hit and I’m not sure what that would mean for me, though I daresay the phrase “grievous bodily harm” would be apt. Whenever somebody says the biggest X since X, I am inclined to get either frightened or excited. I wasn’t sure if there was something I should be doing to prepare for the storm, memories of watching the news and seeing people boarding their windows up in preparation of the coming storm spring to mind, but nobody else here seems too concerned, so I’m not either. My guess would be that it’s going to be windy, and that it will rain, probably a lot. At first I was upset that it was so crappy outside while I was feeling so crappy myself. It’s like kicking a person while their down. Then I figured I’d probably be even more upset if it was nice out. I mean, how dare nature feel so nice if I don’t get to? I guess the point is there is really no pleasing me, and I say this expecting to surprise no one. Anyway, I haven’t been doing much lately, I’m feeling pretty ill, so I have been sleeping a lot. Classes are going well, and I’ve discovered a mild obsession for Go, but other than that it’s been pretty quiet. If you don’t hear from me soon it’s probably safe to assume that I, along with this entire region of Japan, have been blown away.

When it Rains it Pours

It’s been raining a lot lately, off and on all week, though when it’s not raining it has been really nice. Akita receives more precipitation than almost any other prefecture in Japan, which could make the winter pretty exciting. I’m holding my breath for a lot of snow but we’ll see. It doesn’t rain here like it does in Minnesota. When it rains there, it’s usually a fairly brief affair. In the summer we’ll often see torrential rains that last between five and fifteen minutes, and even when it’s a steady shower, it rarely lasts more than a couple of hours. Here, it tends to rain for hours and hours on end, sometimes days. We had an entire week in which I don’t think it stopped raining once. The ground gets so saturated that puddles form in the grass, and you can sometimes see worms swimming in them. I’m really enjoying the rain, especially after an exceptionally dry spring and summer back home.
I’ve been taking it easy lately, though still keeping busy. I have club activities four nights a week, Go on Tuesdays and Thursdays, badminton on Wednesday, and conversation on Fridays. Between that and studying I stay pretty busy, though not so much so that I feel overwhelmed. This week hasn’t been great though, as I’ve been feeling pretty ill. I don’t know if its a cold or something else. My eyes burn and when I breath through my mouth it’s like I can taste the illness on my breath. I’m sleeping well though, so that’s helping I’m sure. I actually slept through Japanese the other day, but fortunately we didn’t have a quiz that day so there wasn’t really a problem. I blame all this ill feeling on my Japanese Literature class. The professor had said something about a paper before Silver week, last weeks break, though he didn’t give many specifics. The general impression that the other students had was that it was due on Monday, so I stayed up most of Sunday night working on it. As it turns out, it’s due sometime in the second half of October. On the plus side, I have a pretty good head start on the paper, so hopefully I won’t have that much to do later on.
I had my first real test in Japanese class today, and I think I did pretty well. It consisted of three parts, the first being a listening exercise and some fill in the blank, the second some word recognition and dialogue practice, and the third was a self introduction paragraph. All of this was in Japanese, so I had to read and write in Hiragana and Katakana (thankfully no Kanji yet). I had a little trouble with a few sections, but overall I feel like I’m doing pretty well.
Still doing well overall, and I think things will only get better from here. I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend, and I plan to catch up on my sleep.