Still in flight flux

We left our Tokyo hotel in teams of 50 for Narita airport yesterday (or is it today in Pacific standard time?). En route, we took a little detour to a Japanese rest stop, which aside from the Asian-style squat toilets, ramen stand, and convience store sushi, pretty much resembled any rest stop in America. The flight was as uneventful as they come and, thankfully, though packed like a sardine in mustard sauce, I was able to sleep the majority of the way through. When we arrived in SanFran, we were herded through customs and agriculture then had to retrieve our bags. I'm of the opinion that they only had 1 baggage handler for the plane of 800, as baggage retrieval took more than an hour. I picked up my bag and proceeded to part 2 of the famous American travel gamegame of American called luggage pickupanddropoff when I was told that all flights to New Jersey were cancelled. I proceeded to 3 different areas upon instruction from officials (?) in United coats and told, at our final place, that, in all likelihood, we might not get to Jersey before Saturday (it's Thursday today)...woweee and, had I not been as terrifically tired and mind numbed before the counter encounter, i might have thrown an airport conniption. I was the first to get a flight out, and thou though this made me feel slightly Macheavellian of the Amazing race variety, I was able to secure a flight for tomorrow, Friday.My NJ counterparts were not so lucky as the other three had standbys all day friday....however, like the fate of those travellers on that terrific show, you never know till you get to your destination which plane will come in first.

Fortunately for me, my cousins live in San Fran. and, after sunbathing (nee, burning) at the outdoor pool and a short nap, my cousins Lila and Donna picked me up and took me to dinner at a German restaurant where we met up with Lila's friend Kim. We ordered massive amounts of food and, after judging that our table was in excess of our bodyweights, we were challenged by a neighboring diner to consume all we had ordered. Surprised slightly awed at our power- plate cleaning, our friendly neighbor bought us a giant boot of bier (as big as, well, a boot!!) and payed for our dinners. Only in America!!

Pack-N-Go

It was our last night together and although we're all excited to be able to read street signs, menus, and newspapers, we're all a little melancholy about our departures. Some things I'll miss:

1. the ubiquitous musak piped into daily existance;


2. free samples galore


3. strange toilets with instructions
   
4. Food on sticks


5. exceptional customer service (particularily in comparison to the "screw you" attitude of New Jersey


6. the perpetual sing-song chatter of customer service people asking if I want help (??? who knows??)


7. some of the great people I've met on the trip and the diversity of our crew


8. Paying for stuff using 1000 yen increments


9. Budget sushi
   

Some of the things I won't miss

1. my illiteracy
   
2. seclusion from actual Japanese people
   
3. hotels


4. perpetual unpacking and repacking
   
5. hotel ballrooms
   
6. budget sushi
7. hotels

Some final images

SampleMania

I spent the last 2 days taking in as many food areas as I could as well as eating as many free samples as possible because, as I have discovered JAPAN IS FREE SAMPLE HEAVEN. Think Costco on steroids, then multiply it by 1,000 wooden toothpicks. As many of you know, my affection/affliction for free samples goes way back to my dear papa-san who, if given the opprotunity to have lunch on a plate or a toothpick, might opt for the latter. So, in search of said samples, I went to the basements of 3 departments stores in the last 24 hours. A word on Japanese department stores: Most are at least 10 floors, many in Tokyo option for 15-20. Generally speaking, the basements of the department stores are the fancy, prepared food s, and grocery areas. By fancy, I mean you can pick up 2 cantalopes for $40 (and up!!!), French obsessed foods, and a crazy array of gelatenized food products, many of which have items suspended with in. These fancy foods carry the fancy prices that everyone talks about when they say Japan is uber-expensive. For the rest of us, there's the prepared food area where one can pick up a bento box, yaki-tori, dumpling, or just about anything else you can think of. After that, there's the grocery store, rather upscale from what we expect, but, along with the prepared items, you can pretty much eat yer way through the area for less that 1 yen.

Open up and say Ansen!!

We left our respective hosts families and headed to the much awaited Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. Our Ryokan is also an “ansen,” or hot springs bath house. As we entered the building, situated on BEAUTIFUL Lake Biwa (think Loch Ness sans the monster) we were greeted with deep bows and instructions. Rule 1. Wear the Yukota (cotton kimono) at all times whilst in Ryokan (after 2 weeks of business attire, we were all ready to lounge around in bathrobes for a day Rule 2. no shoes or slippers, but you may wear toe-socks (photo to follow)
Rule 3. relax! There’s that indistinct (and, seemingly anti-Japanese word again)but his place meant it.
The Ryokan isn’t yer average hotel and 4 of us ladies shared a single room. As we opened the door to our room and entered the living/sleeping room, the four of us could be heard unanimously uttering an overjoyed curse word under our breaths as the space was BREATHTAKING. Photos do the place no justice, as everything was “just right” about the place, from the central living room, to the view, to the toilet (it had a sink on top of it), to the outdoor tub. Immediately, we changed into our yukotas and began to plan how we’d spend the next 18 hours.
First stop: public bath.
A word on public baths in Japan: As was the case with our ansen, baths are typically single sexed and very naked (in a Jerry Seinfeld kind of way)The first area is for disrobing, weighing yourself (not), and using the sink. You enter the bath room in yer birthday suit, an idea that puritanical Americans might find discomfitting.
However, I'll be the first to agree that once everyone else is birthday’ed, the sensation is strangely exhilarating. Once in the bathroom, you must scrub yerself clean whilst sitting on a wooden stool before entererin the bath. After you’ve scrubbed, you may enter the bath. Our bathhouse had 3 tubs, one interior, one exterior (overlooking lake Biwa) and a cold plunge. We stayed until red and pickled then got ready for dinner

Dinner:
Ever imagine what a 13 course Japanese dinner would look like? We filed in to the dining room with our hand-selected yukotas and were seated in front of edible art. You can check out the photo but it does the meal no justice. A train of delicacies were brought to our table, each one more interesting (and even I’ll admit it, weird) than the next. I became the official repository of all uneaten raw fish (give it to Lexie, she'll eat it) and believe that I’ve finally had my fill of raw fish. We drank sake and beer and then some more sake and beer afterwhich the karaoke machine was rolled out. There’s something about singing Engleburt Humperdinck in a Yukota that really makes a girl go wild. We left dinner then headed back to our rooms to prepare for another dip at the bath. When we got back to our rooms, we were pleasantly surprised to see that our living room had been made into a giant slumber party room during our meal. To celebrate, we drank more sake.
Morning:
Feeling the not-so-nice affects of the night before, we reluctantly awoke to Emilie’s alarm clock (let that be a lesson in overinduldgance). We hobbled into the dining room for our morning meal and sat down to a 12 course fish breakfast. Though it was beautiful, sake + fish breakfast makes for some weird indigestion. We left early that morning back to Tokyo, hectic Tokyo.

Hosts with the most(s)

The crew met up with our hosts families early Saturday morning. Mr. Takeuchi (Akira, nee Take-San) and his wife Chieko (also Take-san) greeted me at the city government office and took me to their home. I was surprised by the size of their house (large), the size of my room (really large), and the style of room I was given: traditional Tatami room with straw mats, rice paper panels, and a sunroom. I put down my things then the 3 of us left for the Takeuchi's farm, a 4-row garden in a community garden plat. There, we picked cucumbers, eggplant, shiso, negii (onion), and some kind of chive. We left the garden to go grocery shopping and the Mrs. picked up several things. Returning to the house, Take-san told me to go relax in my room (this is the FIRST TIME anyone has even mentioned the word on this trip; I was beginning to think relaxation a completely foregion concept.) I did as I was told and, while reading, quickly fell asleep in the sun room. Take-san knocked on the door sometime later and told me lunch was ready...What a spread!! Mrs. Take-san had laid out sushi, salad, somen, and so much more. Their daughter Mei arrive and ate with us. The two of us left after lunch and took off to a festival at the local university. There, I got to pound mochi with the traditional motar and big hammer (i was terrified I would break the mochi flipper's hand). Afterwards, I got to make it into a mochi cake with red bean paste inside. The girls seemed really amused by my interest and I was glad to accept their amusement (and mochi goodness). Mei and I left to go shopping at "Value City", another one of Japan's ubiquitious department stores. Genius that I am, I picked up 10 pounds of Shiga rice (famous in Shiga) and have since had to schlep the stuff all over Hikone and Tokyo-Brilliant. We returned home, had another feast and I met with Saki, their other daughter who I mistakenly called Sake, as in rice wine (Little did they know that my parents lifted off my own name off a bottle of wine some 34 years ago). Mr. Take-san and I drank liberal amounts of Sake, then the whole family piled into a car (with Mei driving) to see the "Hotal" which the family was quite excited about though I kept thinking they were saying hotel. The Hotal, as I found out, are fireflies and VERY popular in Japan. VERY. They have festivals for it, sing songs about them, and genuinely get a real kick out of the buggers. By the time we got to the landofthefirefly, they were, as Take-san stated, sleeping, as there weren't that many to see. The best part of the evening was not the sighting of the flies, but the real joy the whole family got out of the event.
I fell asleep in the car and thus avoided the whole "family bath thing" I was kinda dreading; here's the 411 on family bath: baths are typically in the evening and 1 bath is filled once for the whole family. First you scrub, then you soak, then this is repeated by the whole family. Sharing bathwater kinda skeevy's me out so I was not disappointed by the absence of this traditional pastime. I slept long and hard and woke up to another fantastic meal. Take-san, Mei, and Sake left to their respective appointments, then Chieko and I sat around and chatted, well kinda, as she didn't speak much English and my Japanese is non-existent. I showed her photographs of my family and the knifeskills video I had on my borrowed Mac. When Take-san came back, we made Okonomi yaki, my new favorite Japanese street food. I left later that afternoon for the Ansen, an experience you'll read about in the next entry.

Next Stop, the Takeushi's

After having spent 3 days observing an elementary, middle, and middle/high school, we're off to our host families. I was disappointed by our last observation of the high/junior school, as the high school students were in testing, and, for reasons that escape me, save for a 10 minute walk about, they didn't let us observe jr. high classes. So basically, we spent a whole day in a room, talking to one another...As Maureen, fellow Michigander (and camper) observed, "It's like at camp when everyone finally gets sick of one another" -Exactly. Japanese surroundings or not, we were pretty tired of one another's faces, and longing for some external stimulation by 4:00. Probably the best part of the day was seeing how many times we took our shoes on and off. The rooms we were situated in for hours were in another building and it was pouring rain. One of the rooms was a tatami room, which means shoes OR slippers allowed, so most of our day went like this:

1. Enter building-remove shoes-put on slippers


2. Remove slippers (hope you wore socks or have a pedicure) enter tatami room


3. Leave tatami room, put on slippers


4. Put on shoes, leave in pouring rain (BYO slippers), walk 50 yards, remove shoes, put on slippers




5. Go to gym, remove slippers
   
   
6. Leave gym, put on slippers; leave building, put on shoes, carry slippers, change to slippers, then off again in tatami room


7. Leave tatami room, put on slippers; walk to bathroom, take off slippers, put on toilet slippers; pee, leave toilet, change to slippers; back to tatami room and off with yer shoes!
   

Ok, so it's a really poor representation of the shoe/slipper/no-slipper conundrum us Americans are trying to figure out. Though I would never have thought of integrating phys. ed into my follow-on plan, I've decided to create a "shoes-slippers-no slippers-bathroom slippers" obstacle course for my LifeSkills kids with little questions at each shoe exchange place. What a digression...

Another observation: Gangsta' has hit Hikone. I was deeply saddened to see teenaged boys with their pants way below their waists, so much so that I apologized to the principle of the Jr. high school for this (unsightly) trend. We might not import cars to Japan anymore, but boy, we've got prison pants to be proud of...GO AMERICA!!

Last observation: As you all have read, i'm slightly obsessed with toilets here...it's hard not to be, as the Japanese are also REALLY obsessed with their toilets. Although many of Tokyo's toilets were "Western" (i.e. have a seat), all the school's we've gone to have traditiona (i.e. squat to pee) toilets. It's hard to get my head around the dichotomy of a place that has heated toilet seats with warm water spray, the sound of rushing water, and butt dryer (no, really, I couldn't make that up), and in the next stall, a hole (albeit, pretty and clean hole) in the floor. THANKFULLY, they've provided instructions

(not for the squat to pee, althoughugh many of us American Women might be glad for that) on how to operate the toilet and I LOVE THIS. Here are some images from the toilet in my hotel room. Also, the toilet paper cosy is from the hotel's downstairs bathroom.

I'm (almost) all packed up and ready to head to the Takeushi's, my host family. I've always had issues with staying overnight at someone's house (I have a fear of overstaying my welcome). As communication issues will be inevitable, this exchange is really pushing my boundaries so I'm a little stressed out about it. After leaving the Takeushi's, our gang will head off to a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese Inn where we'll stay for a night, bath in the place's hot springs and eat a traditional Inn's food, then leave on the following day back to Tokyo. I wish that I could say that I've SEEN Hikone, but save for our day trip to the castle/gardens, our schedule has been really sight-prohibitive, thus yesterday's experience of sitting in a room for hours with the likes of our ilk was really frustrating. I'm assuming this is the last of the Internet connections I'll have for the next 3 days, so don't worry mom, pop, and albino, I'm not dead, just in transit.

Flickr Photos

I figured out how to link up my flickr account to this blog...From here, you can see A WHOLELOTTA photos...here's the address (also posted under relevant links)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexisgoebel/

Welcome ANNNN ABAHHHHH!

We traveled to Hikone, Shiga, our prefecture city on Sunday via Kyoto bullet train. Although only in Kyoto a mere 3 ½ hours, I was able to sample some of its more famous foods including pickled EVERYTHING and yuba, the skin that forms when you cook soymilk. Here's an image:

Most interesting is Hikone’s relationship with Michigan, and in particular, Ann Arbor, or, colloquially, Annnn Abahhhhhh. For the first time, being from Michigan is WAYYY COOL and, as one of our group has found, being a resident of Annnabahh puts you in a special celebrity status in and of itself. Hikone’s mayor, whose name escapes, eyes literally lit up when Maureen stated she was from Annabahh. She (and I through my Michigan heritage) will be dining with Hiko, special assistant to the mayor, and a crew this evening. Yeah Michiganders!!!

Yesterday, the group visited a K-6 elementary school and Buddhist altar factory. The school was out of this world and nothing like I imagined elementary school in Japan to be like. The kids, for one, were more than friendly, leading us like we were children through different activities throughout the day. They really tried to communicate with us, with some using picture dictionaries, others pantomiming their intentions.

1. Several other elements particular struck me and my fellow American teachers:
   Open classrooms: The entire school was an open classroom, as each individual room had only 3 walls and was open to a giant central area. As you might expect, it was quite loud, as teachers had to speak over other teachers and children to be heard.
   
   The amount of freedom students had throughout the day: Students were able to roam freely, even during class time, needing no “pass” to use the restroom and such
   
   The amount of unsupervised time: As they have no breaks or preparation (prep) periods in the course of the school day, teachers leave their classrooms throughout the day, sometimes up to 15-20 minutes, to do whatever it is they need to do. The playground had no “monitors” and recess meant un-adulterated free-play.
   
   Student cleaning and responsibilities: After our lunch, which I’ll post images of later, students cleaned their class area top to bottom, sometimes using chopsticks to get into tight places, other times on their hands and knees wiping down the floor (I think NVD parents would sue me for “child labor” practices if I introduced this VERY awesome idea to my classes.
   
   Hands-on activities: Almost everything I saw kids working on was a hands-on project. As another American teacher noted, we did not see one textbook.
   
   Home Economics and teacher instruction: Teachers teach EVERYTHING, from mathematics to music to cooking to ikebana to sewing. I witnessed a male teacher-led class sewing knapsacks. Pretty cool.
   
   Kids serve lunch: Around 12:30, all these kids popped out with little chefs hats, gloves, and faces masks and serve lunch to their classmates. When finished, the little chefs are expected to take all dishes and supplies back to central kitchen.

Today we’re visiting a middle school and high school and I’m interested in seeing the difference in teaching styles and philosophies.

Getting Paddled

I've been internet-less for the last 3 days, but I'm safe and in Hikone now...here are some write ups I made whillst internet-free during that time...little confusing, as some is in Tokyo, while other stuff in in Hikone...fear not, dear readers, I'll key you in...
Our last night in tokyo:
I met up with a 3 other JFMF’ers later that evening for a night at Inayaka, a Robata-yaki restaurant.Robata-yaki is a a particularily Japanese style of eating that I imagine would send any New York chef into a state of envy and dreaming of entrepreneurial mimicry. Here’s the general concept: 2 chefs’ sit on stools in the front of the restaurant, almost like on stage. In front of them each is a cutting board, a grill, then a large display of food items ranging from whole fish to still-alive giant prawns. Diners (about 28-30) are seated around this square stage and here’s where the fun begins. As he takes your order, your waiter places it with the chef kabuki-style (i.e. in a VERY loud, very guttural voice that sounds like its coming from the gut, not the chest). The chef confirms the order, ala kabuki-style, until the whole restaurant is buzzing with near theatrical intensity and one so loud that you must shout into the ear of you’re your dining comp

anions. Now here comes the good part: the food. The chef crawls over his grill towards the baskets of food, picks up what he needs then re-seats himself (no leg fatigue from standing for 12 hours/day?? Brilliant concept!!) Items like tiny river crab, whole fish, kobe beef, and fresh vegetables are grilled to perfection, then placed upon long, wooden, flat-sided paddles and passed to diners. The balancing act done by the chef’s is a feat in and of itself, as even 22 oz. bottles of beer are passed to diners in this manner. With all the hubbub surrounding the presentation of the meal, the food itself was quite simple, many dishes coming with just a subtle sprinkle of salt and a garnish oflemon. Pefection.

Not that kinda gal...

After leaving the children’s parade, I headed for the Ameyokocho district of Uena, an outdoor market area home to scads of produce, seafood and dried fish, seaweed, and the like. The most exciting find of this part of my journey was locating the katsuo man (the dude who sells dried bonito fish (I know what yer thinking –how exciting, a guy who peddles dried fish...whooo whoo!!) But wait, this is no ORDINARY dried fish. Along with Kombu (dried seaweed), bonito is what makes Japanese food Japanese food. It’s in just about everything –miso soup, the majority of Japanese sauces and stews, atop pancakes, you name it- and is as delicate as it is kinda weird. To explain: the fish is air dried and pressed for a really long time until it takes on the appearance of hardwood (yum!). Once it’s cured, it is shaved super super thin with a wooden mandoline-like device until it resembles something like fish food (time to feed the fish, Mr. Rogers). It’s in this stage that it’s added to the seaweed stock or used in any way you see fit. Although I’ve been looking for the said item since I read “Japanese Cooking: A simple art,” this is the first I’ve ever seen it. In the states, most people buy the bonito, pre-shaved and in plastic packages or, worse yet, use MSG-laden dried powder mixes which are the equivalent of a bouillon cube to chicken stock. Regardless of the fear that my $15 dried fish log will face an early demise at US customs, I bought the bonito along with a requisite fish shaver for a grand total of a well-spent $70 (I wonder if petty cash will cover it…). Loaded down with my fish and box, I ate more “shave ice” and street food, went to a supermarket and watched an in-house demonstration of tamago-yaki (the egg omelety thing seen atop sushi). The demo was amazing and I recorded the man making it. Unfortunately, in my plight of being a “savvy” (i.e. discreet) documentarian, I taped more of the guy’s head than of his omelets making…oh well.

Now here’s when it gets weird: Word to underage people and those of sensitive dispositions, skip to tomorrow’s entry.
Exhausted from a long day, I walked to Ueno Park and had a seat on the “sit on the bench and rest ride” right inside the park’s front gate. While pursuing through my digitized images, I noticed that these 2 older (i.e. 70+) men were staring at me. I tried to ignore them but it was weird enough to make me think that I had inadvertently taken their seat or I was about to be robbed. Finally standing man left, though sitting man tried to make conversation. He spoke no English, but somehow was able to communicate “do you want to get a drink” (at least that’s what I thought he said). So, as the blog says, "When in Japan..."After a lot of nodding and smiling (boy, am I a good communicator), I went with him to a nearby coffee shop, althewhile thinking the situation odd, though, in the back of my mind hoping it was some sort of cultural exchange. hmmm…As we drunk our coffee, through his hand signals and such, it became somewhat apparent/not-so apparent-(as it wasn’t in English) that he thought I was a prostitute...no really....I think...Mind you, I’m tourist-ed out, with khaki shorts, ugly shoes, maps and the like…hmm...After figuring out his intentions (I think) I sayanara-ed him and left for the station. Like all good lost in translation stories, I’m still not sure what just happened there…I just know the coffee was good.

Free day mayham

Our highly regulated schedule got a bit of a breather yesterday, as it was our free day, a gap of time appreciated by all. I wish the program had done this earlier, or more often, as for the first time since I got here, I felt like I was in Japan, not a teacher convention. While other teachers went to far-off cities, I opted to get lost in Tokyo while trying to hit a couple ambiguous destinations in the mean time.
Using the “force,” I navigated myself through the Tokyo subway system that, even in another language, is far easier to explore than NYC’s. First Stop: Kappabashi Tool Street, land of the Japanese restaurant supply shop and home to Tokyo’s waxen food empire. Be in toro, tamago, a bowl of ramen or a giant side of beef, the sample stores of Kappabashi meticulously recreate anything a restaurant might want to display without legions of swarming flies above. Even with the unbelievable price tags (1 piece of toro nigiri for 1500¥, something that works out to about $13!) my lust for fake sushi negated my concept of thrifty shopping, walking out the door spending more money on fake sushi than I’ve ever spent on the real stuff.

I wandered a bit and found a street festival that, through the powers of deduction, I believe was a Buddhist celebration of small children day (???). Fascinated by Japanese street food and tediously (ahemmm) at work in my study of Japanese cuisine, I attempted to eat EVERYTHING in the market, though found my belly unaccommodating. One of my favorite dishes there was a sort of Japanese pancake (Okonomiyaki) with cabbage, dried fish shavings, dried shrimp, topped with an egg then flipped. The final product resembled a giant omelet and was quartered, slathered with a soy-based sauce, then liberally mayonnaise. Another dish I sampled was chicken yaki-tori (chicks on sticks) which, surprisingly, was kinda raw in the middle. As you kids know, I treat salmonella like nuclear fallout and kindly, after taking a couple bites, disposed of in the nearest trash can. Probably the most interesting thing I saw was this woman who dipped pickled fruit on a stick into this glucose-strong concoction (think REALLY thick corn syrup in clear, blue, red or brown) then placed the candied (?) covered fruit on a slab of ice. Many kids got sprinkles on theirs, and, much to my regret, I was overstuffed by this time (and just looking at it kinda hurt my teeth).

I heard the sound of drums and walked to the near-by temple which was teaming with kids and men all dressed up in traditional attire and 2 portable temples. After some fanfare from the drums, the kids, lead by the men, hoisted the temple on the shoulders and began to parade through the streets. They came to a stop and received bagged goodies from some ladies at a shop. Not dissimilar to Halloween, the kids and their giant temples preceded through the streets collecting bagged goodies wherever the old ladies were.
Off to Hikone today and will post the best part of yesterday later...no really, it's a keeper..