Seafood Massacre

We went to the Anamizu oyster festival this past weekend.  It was about two and a half hours drive up the Noto peninsula, which we traversed via bumming a ride in one of several cars of foreigners heading up there.  Our driver had to brave blizzard conditions for the first hour or so before it cleared up, and we made it out to snowy Anamizu just before the opening of the festival at 10:00 am.  We left earlier for this than we typically do for work - you can see where our priorities lie.

The weather didn't look too promising to begin with.

We left early to make sure we got a good place to sit and to be sure we got as many bags of oysters as we wanted.  The supply of oysters proved not to be in question (apparently some earlier years they ran out) but the seats were and we got good ones.

Huge oysters for cheap!

Oysters were sold by the grocery bag for roughly US$12, each bag containing 15 or so large oysters.  Lee stood in line to get our two bags of oysters, one for each of us, while I went to find a seat with friends who had arrived not too long before we did.  This festival had a perimeter of tents selling additional seafood, cotton candy, ice cream, chocolate covered fruits for dessert, local wines and other beverages to enjoy with your meal, and sides like various soups, noodles, and grilled corn:

Pretty much all fresh from the local sea, which was less than a football field away.

Inside the ring of vendors was a large tent-covered area filled with wood-fired grills.  Some grilling areas were lined with benches while some were standing room only.  There was a stage at one end, and our friends were able to snag several grills with benches and a good view of the stage.

Cook-your-own-everything - think this would fly in the US? There were a lot of tents like this one and they were full starting at 10AM.

Lee returned after waiting in line for a bit with our two bags of oysters as well as a local rosé wine which was amazingly inexpensive, actually pretty good, and went very well with the oysters.  It was surprisingly sweet, since most rosés are more vinegar-y.  With our oysters and wine, we were nearly ready to go.  We got a quick primer on how to cook them (when they're white, steaming, and/or open, they're ready!  Lee- I knew that) and our utensil pack, which consisted of a glove for your non-dominant hand to handle the hot oysters, a knife for your dominant hand to coax open the shells, a Styrofoam plate to eat off of, and chopsticks to do the eating with.   This was a very well-organized festival!

Barely-cooked oyster - scrumptious!

The people cooking their oysters were not left to their own devices to wreak havoc.  The grills were tended by red-jacketed attendants circulated between them who added wood, showed you when your oysters were done, handed out the proper grilling gear, and dealt with proper spacing and replacement of shell buckets.  One particular attendant not only assisted with our oyster enjoyment, but also recommended a particular brand of sake that was supposed to be especially delicious when juice from cooked oysters was added.  I admit I was skeptical, but we all tested the idea and found it tolerable verging on good.

He may look sketchy, but he was right about the sake!

In addition to oysters, they had nearly anything you could want to grill (or not, as the case may be).  Crab legs (which were a bit more expensive than we wanted to pay for), chicken kebabs (which we got), balls of rice, hot dogs on sticks, seafood with and without tentacles, and things we had no clue about.  Lee got a plate o' sea creatures, including a large shrimp, two small ones, a fish helpfully gutted and butterflied, a squid, and a snail.  I partook of the fish and shrimp, which were really good, and left the snail and squid to him. (Lee - I can't recommend the snail.  We'd had pretty good snails at parties before but this one was awful.  Can't complain too much, was really just doing it to have things to grill.)  So we grilled and drank and grilled some more, and those bags of oysters did not run out quickly at all.

 Our chicken, our neighbors' smorgasbord.

Lee's seafood platter, you can see all of it cooking on Flickr!

Our friend Jamie is also shocked that Lee would eat the squid.  Ew. (Lee - this was also not the best, but once begun had to be finished)

I also picked up a bowl of soba that was handmade on-site.  It was quite delicious and really good earlier in the day before the sun started shining when it was still cold.  We were sitting near the end of one tent, so as it crept closer to noon, the sun, the grills, and the wine warmed us and jackets, scarves, and hats were put away.

 Rolling out the noodles, the tables in the back were for cutting them.

Fresh soba in broth, delicious!

In addition to the food and fun at the grills themselves, there was entertainment on the stage.  There were adorable kids playing Taiko, a fairly long bit of karaoke, and this guy, who performed the same song about six times:

Oh, Japan.

We have no idea what to make of him.  There are a couple of videos on Flickr, one with his signature move (towards the end).  We believe that the "field goal" move, done for the lyrics "Mountain Song", are in fact a visual to represent the kanji for mountain, 山.  (Lee - he was better than most of the karaoke and he must also be given points for enthusiasm.  I suspect he waits all year for this event.)

So all in all we must say that this was one of the more entertaining and excellent festivals that we've been to in Japan.  The prices were low and the quality of food and drink was high, it got sunny and warmed up as the day went on, and a good time was had by all.

Check out our Flickr set for additional pictures - this was a great event!

Wintery Conditions and School Happenings

We said we wouldn't have much to say for the next couple of months and we weren't lying!  It has been a colder than usual winter here, coldest in ten years, so we've gotten a lot of fluffy snow instead of heavy, wet slush, sleet, or what passed for snow our first winter here.  We've been doing a lot of work (at least, Lee has), had some winter colds (Ana) and enjoyed the snow and warmth where we can find it.

The main roads and many parking lots are still regularly being cleared with water.  This leads to very treacherous terrain at night, after the sun goes down and the layer of water on the pavement freezes.  I've nearly gotten hit a couple of times from cars being unable to stop when coming down side streets.  One other somewhat odd winter weather norm here is that residential back roads have no snow removal system.  No sprinklers and no regular plows, so unless it's really bad and they send out the tractors (can be days before your street gets done) you're on your own. The residents are expected to shovel the road in front of their house.  You can tell where the likely retired (therefore highly conscientious and free-time-possessing) neighbors are because they have a perfectly clear roadway across the length of their property, with sharp lines between their frontage and that of the next house down.  Non-retired people have to shovel when they can, and for men who leave for work around 7 AM and return at 10 or 11 PM the shoveling can occur at hours that would be unusual in the states. The scraping of shovels has both kept us up and woken us early, including on weekends as the Japanese work Saturdays.

We're pretty sure this is the emergency backup plan.  Plan A involves it not snowing.  Plan B is, just drive over it, wait for a citizen to shovel it, or pour water on it.  Plan C involves people with not much plowing experience manning a not-very-large fleet of tractors, and they only come out when it gets deep enough that cars are becoming unable to drive in it without becoming stuck

See that road on the right? Hand-cleared in the wee hours by people with shovels.  This was taken on a Sunday, which is the one day of the week when most people can shovel during daylight.

Some amusing things in and around the school:

The school is really touting its recent joining of the CDIO Initiative.  Thus far, there has been a lot of talk and boasting of their position as the first Japanese institution to join, including this sign loudly proclaiming their membership in the global group of schools, which incidentally is probably breaking international trademark regulations by using of the logos of the other schools involved without their permission.

The architecture students have displays up every so often in one of the buildings I have a class in.  I found a model of the house from the Miyazaki film My Neighbor Totoro, along with adorable needle felted Totoro and the little soot fairies hanging out in the front yard.

Next month will be the final presentations of the robots in my fourth year class (2009, 2010) and we have one group that is making a Cat Bus robot, also from My Neighbor Totoro.  It's shaping up quite nicely, and I cannot wait to see it run!  This year is one of the better groups of students, and I'll post what they've come up with sometime next month, when they've finally finished them.  Our next post will be up shortly - a festival came up that sounded too interesting to miss (sorry, not the Penis Festival) so we'll end up have one substantial post for January after all.

Monkeys!

Our in-Japan fun-things-to-do list is still pretty long, and so in our final a-bit-more-than-a-year left we're picking and choosing things off of it to do.  One thing that we recently chose was going to see the Snow Monkeys (Japanese Macaques) that hang out in the natural hot springs near Nagano.  This winter break was the perfect opportunity, as we've been running quite a bit for the last few months and wanted, as Lee says, an actual vacation.  We spent most of our week and a half break at home, and went to see the monkeys for a two-night trip.

Apparently the monkeys also want to see us

We decided that if we were going to go stay in a Japanese-style hotel it might as well be a nice one to celebrate Christmas, New Year's and the fact that we personally are now in the black.  Counting our (limited) assets and subtracting our (ever-shrinking) debt, we have a positive net worth!  We're quite pleased.

From the train, heading north

In celebration we bought some actual from-France Champagne and luxury-type snack items like real cheese and actual crackers and headed up to our hotel, where we'd booked a room with a private hot spring bath on the private balcony, instead having to use the communal baths in the rest of the hotel.  This was a very good perk; we used the bath a lot and enjoyed the chill of the open-air shower with the heat of the bath.  We've both done communal hot springs several times, but private is for-sure better.

This was walking around in the Naoetsu train station

We spent two nights in the ryokan, named Kokuya, which included breakfast and dinner each night as well.  They chauffeured us from the small but highly English-friendly train station to their very English-friendly hotel.  Our travel agent remarked that foreigners seem to be highly interested in seeing these snow monkeys; the Japanese do not tend to make pilgrimages to seek them out.  They do have a camera focused on the monkeys all the time here, if you'd like to watch.  There were obviously quite a few Japanese tourists as well, but it seems as though they are typically semi-local and taking a break in a very nice hot spring town, which this certainly was.  Shibu Onsen, the town we stayed in, had obviously been re-done in many ways and felt like a Japanese version of Main Street in Disney World.  It's very old-style Japanese, but glamorized, updated, and tourist-y.

And scrupulously clean

Once getting us settled in, after getting us the correctly sized yukata (cotton robes you can wear in the hotel or around town without getting funny looks) and giving us matcha (green tea) and okashi (sweets eaten with green tea), the guide outlined the general rules and procedures of the area and left us to our own devices.  We took a dip in the bath, enjoyed the kotatsu (table with a built-in heater and a blanket attached under the table surface), and wore our yukata down to dinner.  Sadly, we forgot to bring the camera down, but it was delicious!  Very Japanese, but with enough cognizance of the Western audience to make it really shine for us.  The waitstaff didn't always have good English skills, and I was able to use my small amount of Japanese to understand and be understood quite well.  One of the perks of the higher-end room was a private dining room for meals, which is probably a first for us.

Our private balcony bath, very hot, and with zero naked Japanese people in it

The next day, we had our Western-style breakfast (again forgetting the camera) and ventured out to see the monkeys.  It was a fairly nice walk up to the monkey park - the day was clear and brisk, the walk was uphill but only enough to warm the walkers, not enough to be strenuous, though there was a bit of dangerous ice here and there along the road.  We headed out early and met almost exclusively Australians along the way, who were probably on summer break.  Getting to the park was pretty straightforward, and we met two monkeys near the parking area that seemed to be toll monkeys.  One attempted to pick the pocket of a woman walking by, and also jumped at a man trying to get in the picture with it.

  Path leading to monkey park

 

English signs, for the tourists

We expected a fairly large nature park, with various springs that may or may not hold monkeys at any given time.  What we found was a fairly treacherous walkway down a stairway covered in ice to a geyser:

and past that, a short path to one small spring that held nearly all of the monkeys with all the tourists gathered around it:

They are not at all afraid of people, and if you check out the Flickr set, you'll see quite a few pictures of the monkeys looking particularly murderous.  I apparently used up all of my good luck for the weekend in getting this video clip.  The monkey jumped on cue, and those legs right near him are Lee's.  They were, on the whole, pretty cute.

Note the murder in the monkey's eyes

That evening we dined again in a private room.  Dinner was quite good, though there was a trout dish that I wouldn't have minded never having again.  We got pictures of everything this time, and over both nights had to concede that while this hotel definitely served traditional Japanese cuisine, they had, probably through experience, built menus that actually tasted good to foreigners, except that we have a history with the trout.

Note that it also pleaded with us not to eat it - see the expression?

After dinner, a world-famous shakuhachi (flute) player who, they told us, had performed at Carnegie Hall was staying at the ryokan and decided to give an impromptu concert with a local shamisen (3-string guitar) player.  It was a good performance, though I enjoyed the local artist more than the famous one.  Here's one video; there are two more in the Flickr set.  Being an impromtu concert, it was about 40 minutes long, which was about right as it was interesting and enjoyable to a certain extent but nothing I needed two hours of.

This hotel also had a hole in the floor showing off the hot spring that feed the baths.  We couldn't get a great shot of it, but here you go:

We had another Western-style breakfast the next morning, and I've learned that very strong plain yogurt with some sweet blueberry jam is absolutely delicious.  Western does not necessarily mean US, as you can see.  Note the salad is raw undressed cabbage, which is what the Japanese think goes into salad.  You can go to the salad bar at work and not find any lettuce.  Sorry for the blur:

Dinner rolls, fruit, a salad with a tomato, delicious yogurt and jam, scrambled eggs with mustard and ketchup, a bacon-like product, and a wilted spinach.  I traded my grapefruit for Lee's yogurt, and we were both happy.

Three trains and a bus later, we were back home.  Go see Flickr for the rest of the pictures!

Merry Christmas!

Lee celebrated the day in the Japanese tradition, by working.  Yes, on a Saturday.  Due to the Emperor's Birthday and other holidays displacing school days, they had the KIT staff work a Monday class schedule on Saturday, after a normal Friday on Friday.  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We thought we'd finally get a Christmas together...there's always next year, right?  And next year, Christmas is on Sunday, so they'll have to work even harder to louse it up again.

We promised at the end of the last post to show our Christmas setup, which is currently dominating the whole dining room table, so here it is:

Note: The small plastic fish is a gift (to Lee) from a male student who informed him that it is sea bream and that gifts of this particular fish give good luck.  This particular student has also tried to give Lee chocolate and yogurt.  We're not sure if he likes him or, you know, likes him.  (Lee: I only accepted the fish because he asked me twice with passable English and that level of language skill needs to be encouraged around here.  And, it was a less strange gift than the attempted yogurt, so, progress.)

We do wish we could be celebrating at home with family, but that will happen soon enough!  Now we're celebrating with some good food and some appropriately Christmas-themed movies like:

The Long Kiss Goodnight (Lee: I really liked the part where she fast-roped down the Christmas lights, breaking all the bulbs)

Die Hard

MST3K: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Love, Actually

We hope your Christmas was full of food, friends, and that all letters to Santa were answered!  Only one more Japanese Christmas for us...and stay tuned for our next blog post, which should hopefully involve vast quantities of monkeys.  You heard me - monkeys.

Merry Christmas KTC Billboard and Christmas Ikebana

KTC has a sign out front wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and we'd like to share it with you:

You may remember the angel from this lovely piece of propaganda.  They're also reminding people to take the entrance exams and advertising how wonderful KTC graduates are.

The Ikebana Club also does a special Christmas arrangement every year.  I really liked last year's, but am not so much a fan of this one.  Lee is definitely not a fan.  It's a bit too pink, girly, and impractical.  (Lee: and lacking is aesthetic virtue, don't forget that)  Of course, this year it's also not alive, and so is more of a problem for me and my packrat tendencies.  I'm sure Lee will accidentally push it into the trash when the time comes.  (Lee: or before...)  Unless I pack it in with the Christmas decorations first.  The wreath:

We've also got our tree out and fully decorated.  This year our Christmas display it is quite a bit less sad than it's been in the past.  We'll show that picture in the next post.

Enjoy your Christmas Eve!

Bonenkai 2010

Yes, it's that time of the year again.  Get drunk and naked with your coworkers on a school-sponsored trip, and don't even come in feeling awkward about it on Monday!  The Japanese do indeed have some good ideas.

This year we were back at the ryokan we went to for our first Bonenkai, so this post pretty much sums up our weekend.   Re-reading it, except for a different female roommate and not giving the toast (which was not plum wine this time), it was the same, down to the meal courses, karaoke, and snoring.  (Lee: I think there was one new course that was good, sort of a little seafood casserole thing.  But I might have forgotten it from the first time.)

We seem to have neglected to mention the entertainment the first time.  Every year we get three performances, either a traditional Japanese stringed instrument or that Taiwanese troupe from last year, the same couple singing the same Spanish songs, and a third one that actually changes.  The first year, it was Taiko, which is probably my favorite thing about Japan, and it hasn't been seen since.  Last year, it was karaoke.  This year, we had a group of three traditional stringed instruments played for us.

Another change was the karaoke venue.  Last year, we found that the preferred venue had closed, and I headed back to the hotel before a new venue was found.  This year, we went to the place they found last year, and let me tell you, it is the trashiest karaoke place I've ever been to and was totally awesome.  It looks like it's a motel that charges by the hour, except that it's for karaoke (and charges by the hour).  The price is also about on par with the atmosphere, so it works out well.  I certainly had a lot of fun.  Lee tried to sleep but was largely thwarted by ambient noise and various other people sleeping in that room coming and going.

The bus ride to the ryokan makes one rest stop along the way.  I got a couple of nice pictures of the beach at the rest stop; the day was overcast and the waves were appropriately waving:

So, Bonenkai proceeded very much as previous ones have but gets a little less exciting each year.  It wasn't a bad time, and we enjoyed hanging out with coworkers, but we might throw our own (better) party next year and sit it out.  If only there was a way to get back our portion of the faculty dues that fund it...as always, check out Flickr for some more pictures.

RoboCon: Nationals

In late November I went with many other students and faculty to support our Robocon team in Tokyo for the RoboCon Championship tournament.  The school was very happy that the team got in and spent some money publicizing this fact.  If you're unfamiliar with RoboCon, please read the Regionals post, so I can skip over describing the game rules and spend more time discussing this particular event and the food.

Billboard celebrating our design win at the regional competition

RoboCon was in Tokyo on a Sunday afternoon.  In order to be there for the afternoon games, our school rented a bus that left school at 10 pm on Saturday.  The drive is only about six hours long, so this schedule was kind of confusing.  This was not a special sleeper bus, but a typical coach bus with a bathroom.  It was also just barely large enough for all of us, so that everyone had a partner sitting next to them. To recap, this bus left at least six hours earlier than necessary to make a six hour trip and it was crowded.  We're not sure why they didn't just, you know, get a hotel in Tokyo and bus us over the day before, or alternatively, just let everybody sleep at home and then leave early on Sunday morning, but such is life. 

Rental coach bus

Sleeping for any length of time was difficult because the bus drivers (there were two) blasted cold air to wake everyone up before each of the three rest stops we made, cold air came in through the open doors during each rest stop, and sleeping in a chair isn't the easiest.  The Japanese feel that rest stops are crucial even when the bus is equipped with a bathroom and everyone is trying to sleep.  We arrived before 6 AM.  Our final rest stop involved "breakfast", consisting of a cold bento box.

I hate Japanese-style breakfasts, especially cold store-bought ones

Not tasty at any time of day, particularly bad in the morning.  Cold fish and rice and other things best not considered...fortunately I brought some of my own food.

This rest stop was also apparently a gathering point for a group of Impala owners.  There were about ten of them there.  Some had hydraulics.  I tried to get some footage, but didn't really get any good photos or video.  There weren't any other cars of that style or era, just the Chevys.  The things you'll see in Tokyo...I don't get it either, but when 100 million people gather in a reasonably small area, I guess you can have very specific clubs...that meet at 6am Sunday morning.

Bouncing American cars...not bouncing in this picture

We then drove through Tokyo and everyone was very excited about and trying to get shots of the New Tokyo Tower, an antenna that is under construction.  Apparently, you must specify new or old when talking to any Japanese person about Tokyo Tower, even though the new one is the Tokyo Skytree Tower and so should be the Skytree, but whatever.  We stopped near a famous shrine and let everyone off the bus in a back alley.  I stayed with someone who had GPS on his iPhone; I have no idea how everyone else managed to wander about Tokyo for a couple of hours and find their way back to the bus.  We've gotten lost WITH GPS on some other trips.

 

We saw the shrine, and I got a chocolate covered banana to go along with the granola bar and mikan (Clementine orange) I brought from home in lieu of the cold fish, pickled vegetables, and rice I was served.  We met up with some Japanese teachers and of course, they had to go see the New Tokyo Tower construction site up close and personal.  I had wanted to go find some more letterboxes, but also wanted to not get lost in Tokyo with no GPS.  Navigation took precedence, as we were a long way from the starting point and I had no idea how to get back.

Apparently this under-construction antenna is, like, a huge deal in Japan

I therefore got quite a few pictures of the New Tokyo Tower.  We stopped whenever there was a good view to photograph it.  It will be the tallest structure in the world when it's done.  It is not close to being done.  I don't see the point of going ga-ga over it quite yet.  Also, it isn't a building, so the bragging rights are lower at any rate.  There's nothing in this country going up that will be close to the size of the Burj Khalifa, no matter how big a cell tower they erect.

 

We weren't the only ones taking photographs of this half-finished antenna everywhere there was an opportunity.  It is currently a cultural meme, and apparently quite the thing; I think it's the only aspect of my trip I was asked about upon my return.

 

Once everyone was back on the bus, we went to the sumo stadium where the competition would take place and ate lunch at a hotel across the street.  This dish is "hamburg", ground beef prepared similar to meatloaf, in a hamburger-like shape, with cold sauce on it.  Why cold sauce?  I don't know.  Also note - we spent all the time between breakfast and lunch in Tokyo rather than driving to Tokyo.  Why?  I don't know.

After wishing our teammates good luck, we were given Santa hats, red cheering jackets, and crossed the street to wait until our team was called into the sumo stadium.

I had brought my travel pillow to try to sleep on the bus.  I left it on the bus, thinking it would be unnecessary weight inside the stadium.  This was a bit of a mistake.  The seating in the sumo stadium is on the floor.  Carpeted, yes, and small boxes for your family or friends to join you in, but on the thinly carpeted concrete floor.

 

The playing field was the same as at the Regional competition.  Here, Asimo, the Honda bipedal robot, was one of the emcees and opened the competition.  It was a pretty cool opening (sorry, no subtitles):

Also no video, as Blogger won't upload it.  Click here.

After the emcees opened the competition, the teams were paraded out.  The teams promised to do their best, and the representative for all of the teams was one of our guys in his Santa suit:

Our guys were in the first match, and boy, we really hoped they didn't lose in the first match of the single-elimination tournament!  They didn't, thankfully.  They did lose their second match, and given the speeds we were seeing, that wasn't surprising.  They really only won their first match because the other team wasn't on top of their game.

Again no video, as Blogger won't upload it.  Click here.

Most of the teams were quite good and I think all teams finished the course this time.  Many teams lost because they were rushing, just like our A team at Regionals.  If I were a coach, I'd take footage of the last few matches of this competition and show it to my team with the warning that if they fumbled around the way these kids did instead of breathing and calmly, correctly, and as slow as necessary, doing what they had to do, they would have no excuses but their own incompetence.  I'd say it a bit nicer, but use the teams here as a deterrent to going too quickly and failing.

The one thing that I was really annoyed with was the fact that the cameras would zoom in if a student cried.  I know this is for television, but come on!  You've got some minors who feel as though they just blew it for their school on TV, and now you're zooming in on their shame?  That's really not right in my book.  I thought the "Hey, you just lost, how does that make you feel?" interview was a bit painful, but for the last few matches, these kids were really, really heartbroken and I would have hated to be in their shoes.

 
We didn't get any additional prizes, so went home happy to have gotten to go to Nationals.  We were given more bento boxes for dinner on the bus.  Cold fish and rice again!

We arrived back at the school after 1 AM Sunday night.  I was able to get a ride home from a friend who went on the trip as well.  Luckily I'd been able to sleep a bit on the bus, but it still didn't make getting to work Monday morning pleasant in the slightest.  The student who competed got to skip, but the cheering section was expected in class about 8 hours after getting home from the trip along with the teachers.  So, I was glad to go see the competition but the trip as a whole was kind of a drag. 

As always, Flickr for the full set (and one or two more of the Skytree Tower!)