random picture

Because my previous blog was about me playing the koto, I thought I would post this picture of me at my lesson.

Koto

The past few days Luke has been here in Japan with me. To be honest, I don't know how I would have handled Christmas by myself without him. It has been really fun having him here, and it will really suck when he leaves.

It also sucks that I have to be in the office today when he is at my house alone. Tonight he will probably come watch my koto lesson, and then we will go to a really cool restaurant where he can try all sorts of wonderful Japanese food. Tonight I am planning on making him try takoyaki, this doughy ball sort of thing with octopus in it. I'll let you know how that goes... ;)

I don't know if I have mentioned that I am taking koto lessons... A koto is a traditional Japanese instrument. It is really difficult!!

My teacher is great, she doesn't speak English, but is so kind and seems really happy to teach me, even though I am not the best student... Especially when it comes to seiza, how I am supposed to sit...

This lady is sitting in seiza, and it might look easy but it is really hard!!! My biggest problem is that my legs fall asleep and become numb, and somehow(most likely by the uncomfortable and pained look on my face) my teacher always knows when. Which then prompts her to say, "Ok, lets take a break and you can fix your legs" about every 15 min in the lesson. Then I stretch my legs, move them around, and try and bring them back to life from the dead, limp state they are in.

You wear these things called "tsume" on your fingers. At first my fingers got so sore from wearing them, but now I don't mind it at all. Just like when you start playing the guitar, your fingers hurt a ton, but then you get callouses and it doesn't hurt anymore. Which I never was able to do... Maybe someday... After I master the koto... Haha, yeah right...

I am going home on January 4th, and I am so excited! I can't wait to see my family, as well as to eat good food. As soon as I get off the plane at Vancouver airport, you will see me sprinting to the nearest Tim Hortons.

Happy Holidays!

Even snowmen are weird here...

Christmas is different here. Obviously.

Children get presents from Santa, maybe their parents, but other than that no one really gets gifts. They are always shocked when I give an estimate of how many presents I usually get on Christmas. They also eat something called "Christmas cake," which is just a normal cake with decorations, as far as I can tell. No Christmas baking for me this Christmas... Generally Christmas just isn't that big of a deal here.

But I knew Christmas was different here. That wasn't a surprise.

What did surprise me is that something as simple as a snowman is different here. Snowmen here only have 2 parts, instead of 3. I found that incredibly weird...

How did that happen?

Christmas at Nakanayoro

I once again have not blogged in a long time, so I apologize. I've been trying to arrange a trip home in January, and I finally have it all settled. I am going back to Canada for 10 days in January, and I couldn't be more excited!

I wanted to plan a special Christmas party for my students at Nakanayoro. They gave me an hour and 50 minutes with the kids, so it gave me tons of time to do pretty much whatever I wanted. In Japan at Christmas time they eat "Christmas cake" and therefore my students have never heard of Christmas cookies, or Christmas baking. So I had the brilliant idea of making cookies with my students. The more I thought it over though, I began to realize it would not be an easy task, especially since the oven in my school is the size of a small microwave(because it actually is a microwave, just with an oven setting). So then I decided that I would just make the cookies myself, because I also have one of those microwave/oven combined things, and mine is just slightly bigger than the one at Nakanayoro. I would then have the kids decorate them. How hard could that be?

Haha.

It all began when I drove around Nayoro looking for Christmas shaped cookie cutters. Well, I should have realized that if they don't make Christmas cookies in Japan, I wasn't going to find Christmas shaped cookie cutters in Nayoro. Ok, well, this wasn't enough to get me down, I had a conference in Sapporo on Monday and Tuesday, and the party wasn't until Thursday, and Sapporo being the largest city in Hokkaido, there had to be Christmas cookie cutters there. I checked out a few stores, and I finally found some, gingerbread people shapes, a star, and a tiny Christmas tree. Success.

I got back on Tuesday night at 8:30, and thought that I better get a start on the cookies. I made 2 batches of sugar cookie dough, and started my cookie making extravaganza. My "oven" caused me a few problems, the first being it is so small I could only cook about 10 cookies at a time. The second was that because it isn't actually a real oven, the heat was very uneven, which made for quite a few burnt cookies.

Another problem, not crappy-oven related, was my love of cookie dough. Your stomach can only tolerate so much, and I am very sure I crossed the line... It didn't help that I also enjoyed eating all the of broken baked cookies too... Anyway, moving on...

So it's a good thing that I started on Tuesday, because I sure as hell didn't finish all of them that night. I continued my cookie making the next day too.

I realized I didn't have anything for the kids to decorate the cookies with, so I thought I would just buy pre-made colored icing in those cans. Haha, forgot I was in Japan, no such luck! Must make the icing myself... crap. Thank god I found tiny packets of icing sugar, each containing only about half a cup. I won't get started on how tiny the food packaging is here, I'll save that for another blog, but seriously... I bought 3 packets and hoped it was enough... Also found candy to put on the cookies, which actually was intended for making Christmas cake.

Made the icing Thursday morning before my class. So I actually did succeed in making enough cookies for my class, about 100 I think, only after 2 days of cookie making hell.

The lesson went well, the kids make a lot of adorable cookies, and I though maybe they would take them home or something, maybe show them off, but instead they ate them right after they finished decorating them. In 2 minutes all of my cookies disappeared. Hours and hours of baking was gone. I guess that was the point... Needless to say, I certainly have a lot more respect for the amount of time my mom puts into Christmas baking.

And to finished of my long, drawn out, cookie-making saga, here are some pictures from my Nakanayoro Christmas party!