Shortest Day of the Year

Today I was surprised to find out that it was time for winter solstice, the shortest day of the year (I don't always keep myself well-informed on these things. Stay tuned for good stories about me not paying attention to the weather forecast and leaving my house to find 6 inches of snow on my car. That hasn't happened yet, but some things are just a matter of time, friends) . Now, it's been a while since we had the luxury of those summer days when the sun shone in the afternoon and the skies didn't get dark until 6 pm. Recently it has been dark outside when I leave my work building at 4:30 pm. Today, I looked out the window at 2 pm to see a dusky sky. I cried a little, but not enough so that anyone saw.

My co-workers told me that in Japan it is a custom to eat Japanese pumpkin for winter solstice. Also, many people eat lucky foods, such as rice (I had that for lunch!), bread, or mikan- a kind of Japanese mandarin orange. Some people also put some sort of orange in their bath water, which is supposed to be good for the body. My co-workers asked me what we do in America for winter solstice and I said that people look out the window and say, "Oh hey, it's winter solstice today." Then someone else says, "Oh, yeah. Cool." and that is the extent as far as I know.

After leaving my workplace and going home in the dark, dark afternoon, I came home to work on packing and getting ready for my winter travels (within Japan). I briefly left my house at about 8:30 to give my friend a ride to the train station only to find that the weather had turned severely windy and it was raining pretty hard. I pulled out my trusty umbrella only to find that it was not trusty enough. Let's just say that within about 15 seconds, after the merciless wind had hit it from 3 different angles, it was an umbrella no more. Or rather that it is the most bent up of any umbrella I have ever seen. I think even Eeyore gave me a sympathy sigh as I abandoned the umbrella and went on with my evening.

Now, to finish packing and rest a little. I leave pretty soon for some fun holiday plans!

Another TV Commercial

Lately there haven't been any true gems like that onigiri commercial I posted before, but if you like robots, maybe you will enjoy this one:
Nabe is a kind of pot that people use to cook soup-like or soupy foods. This commercial is for curry-flavored nabe fare. I haven't tried it, but I imagine it would be pretty good, though I cannot imagine what the father of this nuclear-looking family is thinking at the end of the commercial. That you will have to imagine on your own.

I realize that the link takes you to a page that is entirely in Japanese, but if you just scroll down to the video-looking thing and hit the button that looks like it would make the video play you should be able to watch without a hitch.

Love!

http://housefoods.jp/products/tvcm/tvcm_onair101101_01_l.html

Christmas in August

August is a popular time for festivals in Japan. In August I went with some friends to one of the most famous firework festivals in Japan, located in Akita Prefecture. As the festival is very famous and this was its 100 year anniversary (not to mention Akita Prefecture is several hours away from where I live), going to the festival required leaving on a Saturday morning at 7:30 am. A very scenic, sometimes slow 7-8 hour car ride later (もちろん the traffic got worse as we got closer to our destination) we arrived at the festival only to discover that though we had arrived over 3 hours early for the main show, there was absolutely no seating available in the main viewing area (aka: a grassy field). However, we did manage to secure a nook in another grassy spot by some trees and eventually moved to sit at the feet of some people standing in front of a fence.
Fortunately, there was a reason it was so crowded and we were sitting on the ground, constantly in danger of being tripped over by passerby who were eagerly making their way toward the yaki-soba, battered octopus ball or fried chicken stands. That reason is that the Akita Firework Festival was a fantastic 2 and 1/2 hour show of fireworks to songs where each song had a finale that was better than the grand finale of any fireworks show I have ever seen. Seriously, I have never seen so many fireworks in my life. We did not even stay for the grand finale because we wanted to have a fighting chance to actually get home that evening (and we did, eventually).

Here are a few videos of my favorite parts of the show. The first video (which should be embedded on this page) is of the finale of one of the songs early on in the show. The second (the link below) was by far my favorite song in the show, a summer favorite everywhere: "Happy Xmas (War is Over)."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4osDJSE6YM0

Japanese CM

Having been in Japan for over a month, I am pretty well set up with things to get around town; a car, (more importantly) car insurance, a Shichinohe town map and an atlas of Aomori prefecture for all the times I try to drive somewhere and end up...somewhere else to say the least, and of course a cell phone in case I get so lost I need to call someone to guide me home.

However, this blog post looks back before this time of bliss, when I was still phone-less, lacking car insurance and afraid that if I left my apartment after 6 I wouldn't be able to find my way back and would end up sleeping in a Jusco shopping cart outside of the Circle K convenience store.
All this to say that the first few weeks of August, when I wasn't out with other people, I spent many an evening hour inside my apartment watching Japanese television and consequently viewing a lot of commercials that tried to convince me to purchase various products and travel to Jamaica and so forth.

This is a link to what was probably the strangest kind of cute television commercial I've seen in quite a while. There are two different versions of the commercial, and I am not sure which one is more endearing/creepy. Feel free to pass along your thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__aiyy-W4wg

Ookina ookina yaki onigiri means something like "big big grilled (or fried? I'm not sure) onigiri." Onigiri is a ball of rice that often is filled with something like fish, mayo or other such things. It is usually delicious, and though I have not tried the ookina ookina yaki onigiri I imagine it is probably pretty great and would make almost as good of an after school snack as cheese sticks and pizza bagels. Almost.

Umbrella

That last blog post was kind of a long one so I'll keep this one short.

A little less than a week ago, I went to see another JET ALT (Assistant Language Teacher- that's my job) perform at a nearby bar. She did a great job and was very well-received by the audience. The audience included other JETs but I think was primarily made up of local people, ranging from people in their 20s to middle-aged.

I think my favorite moment of the night was during her cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella," when several of the big Japanese men in the back of the room, including the bar owner, really enthusiastically sang along with the "ella ella ella eh eh eh" chorus while pumping their fists into the air. The audience also enjoyed her rendition of Justin Bieber's "Baby," an original song she wrote and a Japanese song I do not know the name of.
It was a great night.

Peach-Picking Tour

Dear Friends,
Sorry for the lack of info on my first few weeks in Japan. To be honest, though a lot has been happening, it hasn't all been blog-worthy material- unless you wanted to hear all my whining about being jet-lagged and getting lost on the way to the grocery store, ect. If that is the case, I apologize. Hopefully you were able to find some sort of semi-equivalent substitute like watching clips of Jan Brady complaining about her adolescent life or listening to just about anyone talk about their country's economy.
That being said, I'll try to give a few details about my life so far in Japan. I arrived on August 2nd, and the first 3 days were spent with other new JETs* inside a really nice hotel in Tokyo (and I say inside because -not exaggerating- I only left the hotel twice). I would describe the conference-like orientation time as being divided like this:

25% teaching suggestions and example lessons
25% culture shock information and information on working and living in Japan
20% socializing with other new JET Program participants
30% someone saying "Don't do drugs in Japan" or some equivalent

Overall it was really fun and there was some good and helpful info presented. After orientation I flew from Tokyo to my new home in Aomori Prefecture (a town called Shichinohe. If you are interested to know where it is you can Wikipedia "Shichinohe, Aomori"). Since coming to Aomori, I've been spending a lot of my time getting settled in and meeting the people I'm living around and working with.

Here are some highlights:
1. KARAOKE : Karaoke is always a good idea. To Lo lo Conozo, who I think agrees with me on this, I would say it is almost always as good an idea as TB (or Taco Bell, if you will).
2. KAITENZUSHI : A sushi restaurant that sends sushi your way via a conveyor belt that passes next to your table. I'll explain later if you don't know what I'm talking about.
3. PEACH-PICKING TOUR : Maybe you have seen my new facebook profile picture? Deceiving as it is, the fruit I am eating in the photo is not an apple (Aomori is famous for its apples), but actually a peach. Aomori has an abundance of many kinds of delicious fruit. Last Sunday I went on a peach-picking tour in southern Aomori, which consisted of a visit to a local temple, lunch, 30 minutes at a peach farm of being able to eat as many peaches as we wanted, and lastly the making and eating of peach parfaits. It was a lot of eating and it was great.

So it has been a good time, and though it's been a time of adjustment and もちろん　I have missed the wonderful family and friends I have at home, in Minnesota, and various other places, it has been a great first month.
Thanks to my absolutely wonderful predecessor, the very kind people I'm working with at my office, and some other great people I have met, the transition has been quite smooth and I'm really excited about this year in Japan.

All for now.
Love!

*I came to Japan through the JET Programme. It stands for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme.

More to Come

I just graduated and will be leaving the good old mid-west again to return to Japan and teach English for a year. More to come on this at the end of July.