Drawing Class

An update on a few things.

A few weeks ago I joined a sort of drawing class/club that one of my friends who is an art major started.  This week we put together an exhibition  in one of the buildings on campus and held a gallery talk at the exhibition place.  

So I guess the news is that my mediocre drawings of floor tiles and a Domino's pizza box are hanging up on campus.

If I had not accidentally stepped on my camera at karaoke a few weeks ago I would post a picture, but as it is I will have to suffice with this somewhat outdated picture of a lunch I ate in Japan and move on to the next point.

The restaurant all that food came from is called Haruki which is apparently the restaurant's  way of Japanizing "Hello Kid."  I wouldn't really call this a typical Japanese meal but it does serve the purpose of showing the lack of vegetables in my life.  In this case we have some soup, a giant plate of rice, some yakisoba noodles, an environmentally unfriendly slab of hamburger (covered in mayonnaise), two potato fries and one tiny piece of broccoli which was added maybe just for the color dynamic.  I think if this were the Land Before Time, Spike would not approve of this meal. 

All I'm really saying is I could go for having some broccoli, maybe some brussels sprouts or a cucumber on my plate every once in a while.  Such is life. I suppose I will just have to go to the grocery store to get my cucumbers.

Lastly for now, Anne finished her program at Nanzan and went home last Sunday so my days of having lunch with her on a random weekday or galavanting around Japan together are over for now.  It's been fun, though.  : )

Refuse

It is common in Japan to have a fairly specific, categorized system for throwing away garbage.  Shortly after coming to Nagoya, I was informed that different cities have different regulations and Nagoya happens to have one of the most complicated and strictly categorized systems in Japan.   The picture is my informational poster (in English) explaining the categories for recyclable and non-recyclable refuse and how to throw it away.   Here are some examples:

Example 1:  Plastic Bottle -

Remove cap and put in designated "pet bottle cap" box. Remove the plastic label which goes in "plastics" bag.  Then crush the bottle, which goes in the designated "pet bottle" box.

Example 2: Yogurt container -

Remove the lid which likely goes in "plastics."  Rinse the carton which goes in "paper."  If you are unable to successfully get food remainders out of a paper carton, instead throw it in the "burnable refuse" bag.  Also remember that the bags labeled for "paper" are not for computer paper or newspapers.  Those go somewhere else.

Example 3:  Random object that no informational poster tells you what to do with -

Let it sit in the corner of your room until you are tired of it being there.  Then ask your Japanese friend who may or may not know how to properly throw it away.   When in doubt, everything is combustible, right?

Because it takes some effort to properly throw things away, I think it is quite common for everyone to have at least a few plastic wrappers and cans and maybe some bento boxes that need to be washed sitting in the corner of their room.  Of course the larger the pile of garbage, the less motivation an individual will typically have to deal with it.  I would post a photo of what can happen to a room when you get particularly lazy, but I don't want to scare the Lifehouse girls away from letting me live with them next year.

Anyway, I never expected one of the things I miss from home to be a garbage bin that you can mindlessly throw all of your trash in.  What a life that would be...   

ABC Cookingu

A few weeks ago Anne and I went to Sakae and ended up eating in the Cat's cafe, a cafe on the top floor of a mall/large department store.   Next to the Cat's cafe is ABC Cooking Studio, a place where people can taking cooking or baking classes.  While waiting for Anne I walked over to the display right outside of the cooking studio, curious to see what kinds of food you could learn to cook.  A diligent ABC Cooking Studio staff member noticed my attention and walked over and asked me something very quickly in Japanese.

What is maybe from a combination of  me being a little overwhelmed by the amount of Japanese I don't understand every day and also not wanting to stand around like I don't know what's going on all the time, I have developed a habit of answering "yes" to questions before my brain actually processes what the question was.  I realize this is not the best idea in the world and could potentially lead me into some sort of sketchy situation, or in the very least cause me some embarrassment when I have to admit that I don't actually know what a particular conversation is about, but such is my life. 

 Fortunately the only consequence of answering yes to the ABC Cooking Studio lady's question was that she gave me a cooking studio brochure and a 10 minute explanation on what kinds of cooking classes I could sign up for if I wanted to learn to bake bread or make desserts.  Anne returned during said explanation and the lady told us about a one day cooking class special we could sign up for.  

  On the train ride home, Anne and I decided to do this one day cooking class special and make Caramel Hazelnut Cheesecake.  So we returned to the cooking studio a few weeks later to bake (in celebration of Jenni Kovalick's  birthday).   Pictured is the result of our hard work using pre-measured ingredients and following the step by step instructions of  the 3 cooking studio workers hovering over our table the whole time we were baking.