One Hundred Yen

I swim in the local swimming centre at least twice a week, it’s a great laugh nattering with the grannies in the changing room. They refuse to believe I speak no Japanese and I refuse to stop trying to teach them English. So it’s general a complete fumble of sentences where nobody understand anyone but themselves, but it’s great fun, the old ones are always the most entertaining! They usually come in pairs and you can tell by the intensity of their conversations that they are doing some serious gossiping. Sometimes I get the joy of catching the aerobics class in one half of the pool, it’s very tricky to concentrate on my lengths when there 10 or so Obachans (grannies) rocking out to Katy Perry. Dang they got moves!
Last Thursday I headed to the pool after work and arrived up to the counter to stamp my ticket. From when I step into the building they usually welcome me very enthusiastically but this time they were congregating a bit more, strange I thought, but I just kept smiling and saying hello. So one of them hands an envelope to me (I’m really confused here) it had ALT (stands for Assistant Language Teacher) on the front of it, the man keeps saying “locker”, then he opened it and produced a small note with a 100yen coin celotaped to it. So I think they are trying to lend me 100yen for my locker, I keep refusing saying I have loads thanks, I even showed him my wallet. Turns out some cute little Obachan had handed it in last week after I forgot to take it after my swim. They had kept it for at least four days, watching for me to come back. How can this not make you smile, I could not believe it, I was genuinely so shocked at the care and effort that had gone into trying to get me back my 100yen, which is the equivalent of one euro. The guilt of all the euro’s I had ever found in lockers and pocketed washed over me within an instant. Damn these grannies have got some seriously A+ levels of honesty, as well as kick ass hiphop moves.

When I grow up I want to be a Japanese Obachan.

Obachans are like the sun, they brighten up the world with their wisdom!

Ham San Pan Class

Last week was the first of our bread classes. We have set up a group of four (Sonomi, Jacki, Mio and I) and joined the ‘Japan Home Baking school’.


After school we pack our bread baskets and head to Pan Sensei’s house to roll, kneed, fold and tuck!

We baked Ham rolls in heart shapes, Mayo rolls (obviously we made Mayo rolls, Japan is obsessed with Mayonaisse), and bread buns. It’s great being able to bake the bread together with friends, then we have dinner that the sensei cooks for us and we eat it all! Well not all of it, but we pack in a good amount, expanding our bread bellys to prepare for hibernating on snowy days (the first srpinkle of snow fell on tuesday). The rest I brought to the staff room the next day and earned some serious browny points from my co-workers!

It was very interesting to learn about managing the temperature of the water when you are making the dough. It is essential to get the calculations correct so that the yeast can become active. We were pretty horrid at rolling the dough into little balls, it was very hard not to squash them with our clumsy hands, but she said we have weak hands and she will make bread bakers out of us soon! She taught us how to make pretty heart shapes out of the bread so if all else fails and they taste nasty at least they look good! Hannah San got called Ham San by accident and the name stuck for the class, the sensei could not have enjoyed the joke more!

Mio and Jackie with raw and cooked bread!YUM

Learning to shape and cut the dough was tricky

Ham Rolls

The outcome with salad and soup!

Shimokita Penninsula

Another weekend, another fantastic adventure. After work last Friday myself and Jaqueline headed North to visit an ALT (Allie) who lives a 3hour drive away in Kazamaura, (or its easier to remember cuz-yo-mama) She lives in a tiny tiny village along the coast of the Shimokita peninsula of Aomori. She is truly as rural as you can get. We saw monkeys chilling out on the roadside, many many bear warning signs, some crazy deer/goat/wolf things and a few large ferret kind of animal, who knows! Saturday we were up early, it was a glorious Autumn day, the sun was floating in a blue sky but the air was crisp, we headed off from Allie's at about 9.30am and went on a fantastic hike to a waterfall. When we arrived to the start point we headed for a pee stop in the cultural centre which turned out to be a valuable stop. They kitted us out with welly boots (we were unaware that most of the walk is infact wading through a river), we were given several bells to attach to ourselves to scare away the bears, then a spray so if the bears attacked us we had a defense. Although the thought of unscrewing two lids and unhinging the can in enough time to aim and spray in the bears eyes I thought was quite ambitious. They also gave us a walky talky and attempted to give us helmets, but we assured them we would be careful climbers. We hiked to the mountain and back in about 3-4hours, I would be surprised if the whole city couldn’t hear the obnoxious bells ringing all the way with us! The sun crept through the leaves, we skipped around jingling like crazy elves and basked in the beauty of Aomori ‘The Blue Forest’. No bears though.

The bear bells

Most of the hike consisted of hanging onto these ropes!

And wading through the river

Allie climbing through the forest.

We named him 'Wakarimasita'

The Blue Forest

The waterfall

Allie and The Blue Forest

We then ventured to a natural sulphur onsen, which was amazing despite the god awful foul smell. We came out feeling fabulous with silky smooth skin but smelling a little eggy, we then headed to Oma to try and catch the Tuna festival. Unfortunately we spent too long in the egg baths and missed the festival but instead we headed for a drive around the coast. The scenery around the coast was breathtakingly beautiful, vertical rocks pop out of the sea everywhere and pierce the pancake flat calm water. We caught the sunset just in time before heading back to Mutsu for dinner. We finished the day in a rustic little pizza restaurant, resting our legs on the huge oak chairs, we ate ice cream from china cups and reminisced over one of our favourite days in Japan so far.

Flags at the Oma tuna Festival

Oma

A Gay Bear

Sunset over Hokkaido

Little Allie and Large rocks

Dusk

Italian Ikebana

  My third class of Ikebana flower arranging I completed an Italian style display. The sensei is brilliant, she explains everything, I manage to just watch her and copy her moves (as well as trying to study the diagrams on the board). Then once we have all watched and copied she comes around to each student's seperately and pretty much re-vamps the whole arrangement. Mumbling away to me in Japanese I have no idea what is going on because as far as I can tell she just ignores all the rules she just taught us. I obviously just nod and smile.

The trickiest part is arriving home and having to re-arrange it again. I never know whether to re-create the original or the one she magically put together, I usually just try and make it pretty!

The prep work

The diagrams that must be scrutinized before being followed

The final outcome

Sensei cracking jokes in the backgroud!

Extreme Fire Drill

So for a week or so I had been hearing of a fire drill that would be happening on Wednesday 20^th October. A normal enough occurence for a school to have a fire drill but this fire drill was like no other I have ever imagined. It was the A+ of fire drills.  So Wednesday comes around and the classes are shortened to 45minute periods, a bit odd I thought as you would hardly do such a thing when a real fire hit. Throughout the day firemen where scaling the building, running on the roof and in the corridors, several firetrucks where constantly outside, they tested their hoses on the soccer field and enjoyed playing the sirens a lot. At 3.15pm the fire alarm rings followed by a short announcement to ‘stay put that the fire was being checked’ again a bit odd but I just do what I’m told. The school is suddenly invaded by firemen in an absolute panic (seriously good actors), then a second bell rings and we are rushed outside. I love the way they still changed into their outdoor shoes while running out the door in a fluster. They all start whipping out face towels to cover themselves from the smoke and I’m left there like an idiot with nothing, where did they hide those damn towels?  We run, yes run, outside, no walking calmly in this drill, to an entourage of camera and film crew. I am seriously confused and have to try to hide my awkward laughing and act very serious. Once the school is emptied several mega phones make several announcement and then sure what do you know a helicopter arrives. It rescues two students from the roof of the school (those kids are so lucky, I would have paid to have a go in that thing). Then more fire engines arrive. Smoke flares are lit all around the school. The firemen absail down with five students then use the truck to save an ‘unconscious’ student in a stretcher, who is then whisked into an ambulance. After all this the entire outside of the school is drenched with the fire hoses then students are chosen to practice using a fire extinguisher. I am left standing in awe at this theatre performance I just watched and cannot begin to imagine the cost of it all. How extremely strange.

Hirosaki Castle

Aomori's famous Apples

Jaqueline and I took a road trip to Hirosaki city on saturday, it is only an hour's drive away from Aomori so we headed for the afternoon and enjoyed some amazing evening light over Hakkoda mountain from Hirosaki castle. The castle is located in the centre of the city and has some fantastic view points. It was such a peaceful afternoon, with the leaves begining to turn on the trees we could feel autumn was here and winter is only waiting around the corner.



Gateway to Hirosaki Castle





 

View from roof of Castle




 




Afternoon light at Hirosaki Castle



I live in Aomori, Japan's Blue Forest.

Weiner Coffees and Cakes


Most Japanese people I meet (outside of Aomori) tend to either laugh or give a slightly pitied look to you when you say you live here. It is so beautiful though, I wonder if they are jealous sometimes! People who have laughed often have not even travelled north but the fact it is the very tip of the country makes them believe it is just for hill billies. If I was to be given a choice today, of where to live in Japan for a year, I’d pick right here. If you look, or even just keep your eyes open you will see this city has some people and places that are one in a million.

The blue forest is a magic place.

On Sunday myself and Christy adventured around the city looking at galleries, well our plan was gallerieSSS but we made it to one at least. The strangest of down pour rain storms stopped us from visiting many, but one was great and it meant lots of food stops with weiner coffee and cakes.

Japan is not generous with their water cups

Dessert Menu








Christy San

Without someone wise like Christy I would never see the beauty hidden in this city so thank you Chirsty for your guidance (she also teaches me Japanese). A Christy I need, she’s a friend indeed.