Last weekend we played park-golf with an international-exchange group. Park golf is somewhere between regular golf and minigolf. There were three Americans (Don, me, and Jim), one Canadian (Dave), one Nepalese man (Raju), three Chinese girls who work at a factory in town, and a bunch of Japanese people. We had a feast afterward and played a game that involved ripping a newspaper. A picture of me golfing ended up in the town newspaper. That night we hung out with 2 coworkers of Don's and went to dinner, then to see some live music. There was an opening funk band whose name sounded like "Brown Panties," but I'm hoping we heard wrong. The main act was Madame Guitar. She was really fun to watch. For both, though, it was better when they were singing in Japanese because when they sang in English their accents were so thick that the funny-sounding lyrics were distracting from the music. It was still a really fun night, and it's always good to hear live music.
Monday night we headed up to Horonobe, about 3 hours north, through hilly farmland. It was a beautiful drive along the coast and through the countryside. Horonobe is a very cute town. It has a nature museum, a reindeer farm, a calligraphy museum, and a nuclear disposal research facility! They're drilling 500 meters into the Earth to see if they can safely dispose of nuclear waste there. Don't worry, we're not growing extra limbs yet. I met a woman here at the park and she took me around town for a little tour and brought me into the elementary school to see an art exhibit. She even came back to the junior high, where I was waiting for Don, to give me a present. I stayed for lunch at the junior high and ate with Don and students in one of the homerooms.
That afternoon we headed south for Teshio. This was a much smaller town with less to do. Luckily the teachers invited me to come for the whole day with Don, and I got to see him teach and arm wrestle. The students were very shy and there was near-constant giggling as we walked through the hallway.
Afterwards we headed further south for Enbetsu, where we stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese guesthouse. We slept in a small tatami room. There was one squat toilet on our floor. The showers and giant bath were on the ground floor. Now, the way the ryokan works is this: you arrive a the hotel and you shower and clean yourself, then you take a dip in the huge scalding-hot bath tub, then throw on your yukata robe and head to a homemade dinner in the giant dining room. Same sexes commonly bathe together, and the water in the bath is only drained at the end of the night. This may sound gross, but you are supposed to clean yourself before going in, and that water was so freaking hot I'd congratulate any microbe that could stay alive in it. Dinner here was amazing - crab, sushi, fish, porkchop, soup, salad, pickles. . . By the way, we are eating meat like it's our job here. #1 it is delicious, #2 it's everywhere, #3 it's hard to explain the vegetarian-but-fish-is-okay thing, #4 it's DELICIOUS! Back to Enbetsu, the high school here is an agricultural highschool so the kids are under less pressure and generally more fun and outgoing. Don played soccer with some boys and did a great job as goalkeeper. He also taught the staff what TGIF meant. The school here was gigantic and new and beautiful.
We headed home that night and collapsed after the long week, that wasn't over yet.
The next day we had a cooking club in the morning with Alaina, a woman from Washington that married a man here and now has 3 kids. She does a lot with the community, including this cooking thing where she connects farmers with people in the town and introduces new foods and recipes. We made tacos from all-fresh ingredients except for the Kraft shredded cheese. They took pictures of my taco and said it would be in the next newsletter. I knew I would be famous in this town! That night we went to a BBQ with the man selling us a car and a younger kid we met at a sushi restaurant. This was a real meat-fest, beer-fest, sake-fest. It was awesome. We had some really great conversations with the people there and then I convinced them all to come to karaoke afterwards. Don must have really had a lot to drink because he sang more than me! And he did a great job! I was very proud. They sent us home with a bag full of vegetables and two watermelons.
Sunday, Don hung out with Dave at a open-air market in town while I hung out with two women from the chat club, Kayoko and Ikuko. We made tempura, ate it, drank coffee and talked. I can't wait to make it again. Our little informal cooking club will meet again in October and I will show them how to make hamburgers.
This week should be a little more relaxing. We don't have to travel anywhere! We'll be far from bored though, with volleyball games, dinner invitiations, dance recitals . . .
I recommend clicking on these and going to website b/c there are quite a few videos and a panoramic picture at the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment