B-b-b-BACK in Japan!

So I realize that I haven't actually made a proper post in a very long time. Today in school, I was thinking (in Japanese - be so proud of me) about why that might be, and I decided it must be because somewhere, subconsciously, I feel overwhelmed by all that has happened since last time I posted, and I for some reason feel like I can't post again unless it is to post about everything that's happened since November.

Well, I have decided to get over that, and thus today I will start with now, and if later I feel like going in and feeling in the blanks (I took some pretty fun trips around Japan with some pretty fun pictures), it will happen. If not, not.

So anyhow, as most of you know, I have arrived back in Japan!! And the very first thing I did upon my arrival was - SLEEP! I know, I know, that's not very fun.

The next day, though, I went to meet up with my friend Rachael in Nagoya, and we drank soy bubble tea from Osu Kannon and then ended up at Sakae Sound Street, where we saw this really good band, Alfabeto. I attempted to speak to the bassist, and I realized that my Japanese had, for the most part, entirely disappeared. For example, I tried to tell him that they looked very energetic on the stage, and somehow what came out was "Everyone looked really looking forward to." Yeah. (Luckily, it's pretty much returned now, so all good.) :-)

We also some some lolitas with a little boy, who couldn't have been more than 5 years old, dressed up in host clothes. It was HILARIOUS! (For those of you not in the know, a host is basically a male escort, and they are SUPER popular in Japan.) Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, so Rachael took pictures, which I don't have yet. If I get them, I'll be sure to upload them later.

We also saw this motorcycle dude with a poodle on his lap.

My first Friday back, I of course had to go to karaoke. I sang lots of Japanese songs, and it felt so good to be back at karaoke. :-) It's definitely one of the things I'm going to miss most about Japan. Afterward, we met up with my old classmate Cesar, who is no a proper working man in Japan. We got dinner, and it was fabulous to catch up!

The weekend after we went to the grand-opening of H&M in Nagoya. How there wasn't one before, I have no idea. In any case, we waited in a super long line to get in, and then I didn't even buy anything. Nonetheless, good times were had. :-) And Rachael bought stuff.

Then this Sunday was the Kodomo Matsuri (children's festival) by Okazaki-jou (Okazaki Castle). After a delicious banana pancake breakfast with my friend Idit, we hopped on our bikes and headed over there. There were tons of really cool looking activities that I wanted to try, but unfortunately, they were all for kids. :-(

Luckily, though, I was able to try to pound some mochi. I was pretty awful at it, but it was fun nonetheless.

Then we got to make bamboo stilts and try those out.

I was pretty awful at that as well - I think I managed to take about 4 or 5 steps total, and I have to say - I was extremely proud of myself for just that. Even though quite a few of the kids seemed to be managing quite well. I'm convived that the further away from the ground you grow the more difficult it becomes.

Anyhow, that's what I've been up to. Oh, and my first day back, it was a gloomy day, but I was thrilled to discover they were still in bloom! The next day, the rain came and chased them all away. And least I got to see them, though, if only briefly. :-)

This week in Japan is Golden Week, which is a super big celebration in Japan. As such, I've got Thursday and Friday off, and I'm headed to Tokyo to see Martin! Yes! (On a side note, Golden Week is always, naturally, abbreviated as GW, but for some reason every time I see that, I think George Washington, and I have to think a bit before I realize what it means)

郡上祭り (Gujo Festival)

I don't know why I've decided to always write my titles in Japanese and English lately. But I have, and so there it is.

Anyhow, so after our lovely day at Ise Shrine, we slept in and had a lovely lazy day. Abby made okonomiyaki, so I got to try to first real vegan okonomiyaki, and it was delicious beyond belief. It makes me want to move to Gifu just to have them around more often to make me delicious food. (I'm a user, what can I say?)

For those of you that don't know, okonomiyaki is basically a Japanese vegetable stuffed pancake. Usually, it's stuffed with cabbage, but Abby's version had none. It did have this delicious green leafy Chinese vegetable thing, though. Yum!

Then we had the perfect ending to a lazy day (during which I did my best to attempt to study)! Abby's friend Shio came to pick us up to bring us to her house, where her mother put us in yukata. It was SO cool - her mother had TONS of old yukata and a huge box of obis. She seemed quite experienced at obi tying, and she tied a different style bow for all of us - me, Abby, Shio, and Riho.

The boys decided not to wear yukata. :-(

Around 8:00 PMish, we headed over to Gujo for the all-night dancing festival. Gujo's a pretty small but extremely gorgeous town which is famous for it's all night Obon Dancing festivals, during which, instead of dancing Bon Odori, you dance the Gujo Odori, which is really quite similar, but somehow much more difficult. We danced until about midnight (which was long enough to leave me exhausted beyond belief, and I literally fell asleep the second I hit the futon when we returned to Matt and Abby's).

Despite being there for approximately 4 to 5 hours, I think I only managed to pick up on one of the many dances (which I promptly forgot). I did, however, manage to step on the feet of about 10 different people and almost elbow some poor woman in the face. Apparently dancing is not for me. Which I knew beforehand, but what can I say, quite like singing, I love it anyway!

Abby and Shio dancing it up!

Matt and Abby's friends were super great, and we had an absolutely fabulous time just hanging out in Gujo and dancing! Even if I was slightly intimidated by Abby and Shio's mad dancing skills, since Riho and Shio's husbands were in the same lacking the coordination necessary to dance boat as I was.


Both of these are things you're probably NOT supposed to do in a yukata. And my shoes - definitely shoes you're NOT supposed to wear with yukata!

A definite success of a night, and I am looking forward to my next all night dancing festival! :-)

We were all basically dead when we woke up the next morning (and I'm sure Matt and Abby won't appreciate me taking a picture of our deadness, but I'm doing it anyway).

I was feeling kind of sick and headachy, so I headed home fairly earlyish (which was around 4PM, but we woke up late, so it felt early), and when I got home, I had some delicious vegan Doughnut Plant doughnuts waiting for me that Alexis had brought back from Tokyo. There were three, and I ate two and immediately felt better. Then I made peanut butter cookies and ate about 12 of them. I think I might have been in overly hot Gifu sugar (and maybe protein) withdrawal.

As is becoming usual when I do things with Abby and Matt, Abby's blogging of the event is way more interesting and comprehensible with better pictures. SO check it out!

And with that, お盆休み、以上です。

Miso and Punk Rock and Matsuri

So, this weekend was really the most fabulous of fabulous weekends. Seriously.

I woke up leisurely on Saturday morning and read in bed for a couple hours, until about 10. And then I made myself a DELICIOUS pancake breakfast.

I ate them with strawberries and tons of maple syrup and black-strap molasses, and really, they were absolutely HEAVENLY! It was nice to have a reminder of some of the scrumptious vegan food I have been missing, even if this particular example of that had to be similar to intestinal glue.

Afterward, I headed over to the French/Japanese exchange, and once again it was absolutely wonderful. The Japanese people wanting to learn French are absolutely fabulous. When it was over, I went grocery shopping with a Japanese woman I had met, and it was very awkward, since I don't really speak Japanese, and she doesn't really speak French or English. And of course I had to lose not one, but TWO avocados under the fruit counter, which had her crawling around on her hands and knees while I stood aside feeling awkward and trying to hide how red my face was. It was maybe a "you had to be there" sitch.

On Saturday night, Matan, Alexis, and I went to see "Clash of the Titans." Lucky for us, it was in English with Japanese subtitles. It was a terrible, terrible movie, and I absolutely loved it! I thought the plot, which was lacking, I am sure, was wonderful, and all of the gods and everything were just so beautiful. What can I say - I'm attracted to pretty things. I was certainly never once bored, and to me, that's what makes a movie. So even though Alexis and Matan didn't really like it, well, I loved it.

On Sunday, I got to talk to my Dad and Tina in the morning, for the first time since arriving in Japan. So that was wonderful.

Then I hopped on my bike and rode up to Libra, the HUGE public library and community center, where I met up with my friend Carla and the nice folks from the library to go on a tour of the Hacho miso factory.



It was amazingly awesome, and I learned some very interesting things. First of all, you can buy Hacho Miso in the US, and it as advertised as having "100% US Grown soy beans." This sort of tricks people into thinking something that might not be true. Yes, the soy beans are grown in the US, but they are then sent over to Japan, where the miso is made and packaged and then shipped BACK to the US. Wouldn't it just be better if the soy beans were Japanese grown?



In those three barrels, underneath those stones, there is miso being fermented and created from organic soy beans that were grown in St. Paul, Minnesota. SIX TONS of miso to be precise. That's a heck of a lot of miso. And then the stones - yeah, there are TWO TONS of stones. Those are some HEAVY barrels!


Look at all that bacteria left over from miso making! They don't wash them too much, because this adds to the flavor!

You can also see that the barrels are held together by these sort of bamboo braided things. These stop the miso from exploding out and also cause the weight to go to the center so that the miso will not be lost even in the event of an earthquake. Unfortunately, no one in Japan knows how to make these things anymore, so they've started using iron ones in the place. As for the barrels, there are apparently only 3 people left in Japan that know how to make them, and when these barrels get too old to use, they will start using steel barrels, which will, inevitably, change the taste of the miso.

Okay, that was a lot about miso, I know, but I found it incredibly interesting.

After the tour, Carla and I hopped on our bikes to head over to the matsuri (festival) that was going on. On our way, we stumbled across a punk rock band playing in the street.


The picture that I attempted (and failed - grrr camera)to take. If you look really close, you can see some red and green in the top right. These are the colors of the mohawks of the guys in the band.

We didn't stop for very long, as we wanted to make it to the festival, but I thought it was so cool to see Japanese punk rockers. And I personally thought the music was quite good. I hope that in the future I will be able to find more things like that.

So then, on to the festival, which was absolutely AWESOME! There were these groups of Japanese drummers doing this really cool dance while beating on the drums.



At one point, some of them put their drums down and did this very martial arts esque dance that reminded me of the quen I was learning when I left France, which made me miss Viet Vo Dao. I am so sad that I can't be doing it here.



At the end, band started playing, and we all got up and did this weird dance where we flailed are arms around bizarrely and clapped and occasionally started jumping up and down, as if we were pogoing. It was super fun, and we met some interesting Japanese people and a very nice British guy.

Now that the weekend is over, though, I've got to get back to studying. We have a HUGE test on Wednesday containing everything that we have done so far. We "reviewed" today, which basically means we went over the things that will be on the test that the teacher hadn't told us yet. I'm sure it will be find, but I'm afraid that, because I am nervous about it, I will mess up simple things.

Sooooo, on that note, off to study