Temaki Zushi

Aka, make it yourself-by hand-sushi. Actually a really awesome idea when making sushi at home and you're not so 上手 (jyo-zu[talented]) with rolling everything together. Besides, this way is much more fun!!!

Slicing up the fish. Not as easy as it looks. And that knife is quite sharp too!

Our final spread. The sushi was arranged on the plate kinda weird but it tasted good and that's what we all agreed was the most important part!

Here's a video of our teacher explaining to us how to make the final product. She starts by grabbing a square of Nori (dried seaweed) and puts a shiso leaf on it (Japanese cilantro, I hate the stuff). She then grabs some wasabi and puts a HUGE glob on the shiso. It doesn't look like it but that wasabi was REALLY strong! I was tearing up and I used half of what she did!

After that adds some fish then realizes she forgot to add rice. Rice is the first thing to go on!!!!

She's so 適当(tekito- [haphazard])

Here's the final product. It came out looking really good! Which is funny because the tuna I have here is the stuff I cut myself. I cut it so poorly that it ended up falling apart into little sections. Still yummy!

Food

I haven't done too much these past few weeks, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I have a few interesting food related stories I thought I might share.


About 2 weeks ago I volunteered to teach 6th grade students about America. It was quite similar to my self introduction lesson that I would do back at the high schools in Kochi but this time, it was all in Japanese! I was excited.

Afterward, we all went outside and made Mochi. (Mochi is basically mashed rice. You roll it into a ball and can eat it as part of a meal or a dessert, depending on how you season it. It's a very traditional new years food.)

Here's a video of one of the teachers showing the 6th graders how to make it. Later, they all got to try it out themselves.

The next day I was cold and craving American food so I made Shepherds pie. (AMERICAN Shepherds pie has beef and not lamb [cottage pie in Europe] and usually has cheese :3)

It looks odd because I only added cheese to half the pie. My friend who wanted to try a bit said that he didn't think cheese went well with it. I proved him wrong in the end but it was good both without as well.

Also, I have started Japanese cooking class! This was my group from last week. We made Sukiyaki Kansai style. Sukiyaki is a great winter soup. Very sweet and savory. Kansai style has less broth (if any) and therefore has a much more concentrated flavor.

Lastly, this past Friday I volunteered to teach the elementary school PTA about America (again, in Japanese) only this time I thought I'd make it more interesting so I made S'mores in the microwave. They didn't go over as well as they usually do with my high school kids but it wasn't a complete failure either.

The front middle people are all Yamasa students. Taiwanese, Korean and American.


To see more pictures of everything, check out facebook!
They've been added to the original "Okazaki" folder so you may have to flip through a few old pictures. Enjoy!

AU Cell Phone

Ever since my run in with the jerks over at YahooBB, I have been very wary about addressing issues I have with any kind of service I'm paying for here in Japan.

For example, recently my phone started glitching on. It's 3 years old afterall so it's a little expected. But I didn't want to go into the shop and have to explain the problem just to be given the run around. So I just worked around the glitch (the screen would just shut off randomly)

Finally, while I was in Kochi for winter vacation the display on my phone officially died.

I was phoneless for the first time in years and that 18 hours was such a challenge!!! (only because I was trying to make plans with friends! I'm not TOTALLY dependent on my phone! ...not like I am with my laptop...but that's another story)

So I went over to the AU cell phone shop in Kochi city. And this was basically how the conversation went:

Oh, your phone is broken? Hmmm, well it is 3 years old afterall. Hmmm, alright! Here's what what's going to happen. We'll send your phone in to be analyzed. If it turns out to be a problem with the phone naturally then we'll fix it free of charge. If it was broken because you did something to it (it was dropped quite a few times in the past 3 years...) then we'll have to charge for the repairs. It won't be more than $150 (cheaper than a new phone) but we'll call to confirm with you what you'd like to do. The entire process will take about 10 days. Oh, your leaving to go back to Okazaki in 3 days? That's no problem, we'll send your phone to a shop by your home. Also, here's a phone we can lend you in the mean time. It's free of charge unless you break it of course. And of course we'll put your sim card in the lender phone so you'll still have all your pictures, preferences and address book. Have a nice day!

And that was that. I ended up getting calls from them several times after this. Each time I was convinced they were going to give me some bogus line about how I had done something to my phone that would require me to pay XXX amount of yen and also do something ridiculous like revoke my visa or some such nonsense.

First they called to confirm that it would in fact cost some amount of money to fix my phone. I couldn't understand what the woman was saying on the phone because she spoke so fast, but I assumed that the $15o would be charged and I would just have to bite the bullet and pay up.

Yesterday I got the final call that my phone had come in and I could drop by to pick it up.

Today, I went in and this is how the conversation went:

Good afternoon! Here's your phone, yes it's the same model you had before but it's been replaced by an entirely new phone. We'll just pop your sim card in here and there you go! A brand new (old) phone! That'll just be 5200yen ($50) but since you've been with us for so long, you've collected quite a few points so if you'd like, you can pay for it in full with the credit you've accumulated. You'd like to do that? Thank you very much and have a nice day!

Bottom line, I got a new phone for free :3

AU is the BEST ever!!!!!

First Day of School

That's right! Today was the first day of classes after the winter vacation. I have some new classmates and a few new teachers as well. It's shaping up to be a good term!

However, the winter vacation was all of a whopping 3 weeks. I slept and relaxed so much that I was particularly lethargic today. I could barely keep my eyes open in class. It was horrible! So I went for a bike ride after school and will continue to do so everyday until I get my energy levels back up!

In other news, I joined a Jazz band. Or rather, I was recruited by one. They needed a new English singer and I just happen to be an exhibitionist with a decent voice so I agreed to try it out.

At the same time however, this is not a small band. There are about 18 members total. Also, have I ever mentioned that I'm not a big fan of jazz? In fact, I usually hate it. It just doesn't do it for me. But I decided that this was too awesome of an experience to turn down and it's also an awesome way to use my Japanese in a very real way. I mean, why else would I be in Japan unless I wanted to sing English for a Japanese Jazz Band?

So I've started practicing some of these songs at home (my neighbors must love me) and for the most part, I just really don't like these songs. Some more than others. And then the icing on the cake is, the band director has decided to throw in Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" just for giggles. I'll admit, it's fun to sing and it's one of my favorites from the list just because it's NOT jazz at all. But at the same time, I feel like an idiot singing such a cheesy song.

I mean I cringe every time I have to take a deep breath to belt out, "AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE-AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always LOOOOOVE yooooOUUUUUUUUUAAAAIIIIII will alWAYs love..."

You get the idea

Ah well, if I sing it well, that's all the matters. But this isn't a Karaoke box either. I'll be in front of an audience (O.O) something tells me I'm gonna probably regret this :P

Winter

Uh... Here's the past month or so....

m(_ _)m

Kyoto

Check out the photos here

I took a break from basically constant study and took a trip to Kyoto. A classmate invited me and I thought it might be good to get out.

And it was! So far, it's the second best vacation I've ever taken in Japan...Well, in Asia as well!

We (6 of us) got up before dawn and walked to the train in the POURING RAIN!!! 3 hours later, the sun was up, we were still wet but we made it to Kyoto.

We saw tons of colored leaves which were beautiful. Kyoto really is an amazing place. On Sunday we lucked out in more than one instance!

My Swiss friend's "family" in Kyoto owns a very famous green tea shop. When we went to visit, the father gave us a tour of the shop and museum, gave us a lesson on how to make green tea (blew my mind) and let us try out a few famous drinks and desserts all for the low low price of "サービス" (<--free)

THEN, we found out that right at the moment, for one day only, the city office was putting on a special Kimono event. Anyone who wanted to could go to and get themselves robed in a Kimono (the real thing) and walk around the city.

Usually something that is quite expensive, again, received for free. I do believe it was mostly open only to people who lived there. In that, only local residents would have known about it in the first place!

While still in Kimono, we went back to the shop and checked out the park near by. I later found out it's the same park/temple that is featured on the 10yen coin.

Wow

After that we checked out some more temples and by the time we made our way home on Sunday night, I was ready to pass out. BUT WAIT!!! I still had homework I had to do before Monday (TuT) yeah!

Check out the photos here

My Classmates

Hey guys. Sorry I haven't blogged for a while but trust me when I tell you I have never been so inactive in my life. My days consist of waking up, eating breakfast (new for me) going to class, coming home, studying and then making dinner. I honestly don't do anything else. And the weekend? Yeah, they're maxed out with study too. My brain is so fried!!!!

As for friends, there are a few really interesting characters at this school that I've met. There are of course the normal geeks and otaku who love Japan because they're weird (that kettle is black I say!) but there are also a few people who are just so much cooler than that.

One in particular is my friend Derek. He's actually kinda sorta famous! The first thing we did in class was give our self introductions in Japanese.

Hi, my name is Nina. I'm from America. My hobby is reading books.

BORING

And then Derek speaks up.

Hi, my name is Derek. I'm from America. My hobby is playing the drums.

Equally as boring if you think about it.

Then a Filipino girl looked up and asked, do you play in a band?

Turns out, Derek was in a band called The Speaks who never made it big in the states but went on to huge fame in the Philippines.

And then, the other day, a Brazilian student came into class and says "Hey guys, check out what I found". And we spent the next 10 minutes watching and rewatching Derek's bands music video and laughing at him whenever we caught a shot of him playing the drums.

HILIARIOUS!

Ok, maybe just for me.

AAAAAAAANYWAY

My other friend...

So every week I have to write two journal entries in Japanese. I try to make them interesting to read but honestly, when I do nothing but study all day ever day, I'm seriously lacking in material.

But this one journal caught my teachers eye. I wrote it about my friend Olivier. (Oh-lih-vee-eh) [half French/Taiwanese American] She mentioned to me that it was kinda cute. But what I didn't know until about a week later is that she had Olivier's teacher read it too. And she commented to him about it. Kinda funny...since I sorta embellished the story a little ;)

Here's what I wrote in English. Keep in mind that I had to write this all in Japanese which is kind of a pain in the ass so I usually keep it kinda simple.

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Cockroaches

I live on the second floor of Villa 4. My American friend, Olivier, lives on the first floor. I keep my apartment clean. Sometimes my clothes are on the floor. Usually dishes are in the sink. But my apartment isn’t dirty!!!

Olivier’s apartment is VERY clean. He never has anything on the desk except a computer. His bed is always made. He enjoys doing his dishes. He gets excited thinking about it.

Recently, Olivier has been finding cockroaches in his apartment. He said, “Nina, I just don’t understand it. Why are there cockroaches in my apartment? In 3 weeks, I’ve found 2. But my apartment is so clean!”

Last night, at around 10:30, I heard a soft knock on my door. “Nina. Are you awake?” “Who is it?”, I asked. “It’s me!”, Olivier’s voice replied.

I opened the door and there stood Olivier holding a giant bag of rice. “I found the cockroaches! They’ve been living in my precious rice” (He really said that) “Now what do I do!? Do you think I can still eat it? I don’t want to waste this rice!”

Poor Olivier. Such a clean freak.

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I think I had the most fun learning how to say "clean freak" in Japanese.