Christmas in Japan

The burning question - what's Christmas like in Japan?

My answer is: compared to Canada, 同じでも、ちがう。In English - the same but different than Canada. Christmas has long been present at Costco, just as in Canada. Christmas music started in Japan on November 1st, right after Halloween. There is no equivalent of Remembrance Day in Japan, thus they don't wait until November 12th to start the season. Starbucks was all decorated for Christmas on November 1st. It felt weird to be in full holiday mode before Remembrance Day. In actual fact, I didn't embrace the holidays until after Remembrance Day.

Christmas in Japan is all about the Christmas cake. That's the big tradition on Christmas Eve - the husband/father brings home a Christmas cake and the family enjoys a meal together. The meal is usually chicken, as turkey is rather hard to come by and to cook here. Ovens are soooooo tiny!!! So, a popular Christmas dinner is KFC... I think this started in the 80's or 90's as the result of a brilliant marketing plan by KFC.

Christmas cake is not at all like our Christmas cakes. In Japan there is stollen, but that isn't what they mean when they say Christmas cake. An ideal Christmas cake is a white cake with strawberries and cream. Aka strawberry shortcake! So weird. They also have buche Noel and Baum kuchen. You have to order your Christmas cake in advance and it is very expensive. They usually start at about $30 for a small cake. You can order your cake from almost anywhere, including 7/11.

The Japanese have adopted our tradition of Christmas trees. They don't have real ones however, just plastic ones. The mall by my apartment has a giant Christmas tree! It's lovely. I have invested in a tiny plastic tree from the 100 yen store. It's a sad, poorly decorated tree, but it's a tree.

Another marker of Christmas, or in actual fact, winter, is the appearance of hot drinks in the vending machines. I love this about Japan. So convenient. There is nothing better on a freezing cold train platform than having a warm drink in your hands.

In the stores, Christmas goodies and omiyage (souvenir) packs appear. It is popular to buy a massive box of お菓子 (sweets or confections) for the office. Gift giving in Japan is very complicated and ceremonious. Christmas candy sells quickly. In stores there are also advent calendars. They haven't quite caught on in Japan. I love my advent calendar from home, it's better than anything I can get here!

The Christmas music played in stores tends to be the modern, non traditional type of music. This is all well and good, but I may have a conniption if I hear Mariah Carey one more time... *shudder* talk about overplaying a song. One thing I like about Starbucks here is that they play the whole nutcracker suite by Tchaikovsky. It's beautiful. No Mariah Carey in Starbucks.

Speaking of Starbucks, there are no eggnog lattes!! It's terrible. There is no eggnog to speak of, anywhere. It's unappreciated and unknown here. The Christmas drinks are slightly different and the baked goods are more decadent in Japan at Starbucks. One drink they have here is the nutty praline latte. It sounds yummy!

The other day I was at my local mall and I was happy to discover Santa Claus was paying Kasukabe a visit. I lined up to get a picture with him, but I needed some sort of special card. I gave up without a fight. I was just tickled to see Santa Claus.

And there you have it, a little bit about Christmas in Japan. It's worth noting that the Japanese don't seem to know the original eight reindeer, mistletoe or some times the real reason for Christmas. Christmas Eve is considered more of a romantic holiday. Hotels are always booked up in the Christmas season by couples celebrating Christmas. Traditionally, the couple goes out for a fancy dinner, with champagne, the man gives the woman an expensive gift, usually jewelry, and then the night is spent in a hotel. For families with children, Santa Claus visits and leaves a present for the child(ren).

As my students would say: finish! The end.

Halloween in Japan

Halloween just feels different in Japan. Sure there is candy and Halloween decorations everywhere, but no one trick or treats nor do they understand Halloween. Also, there few orange pumpkins. So sad! Many of my lessons deal with the historical meaning and significance of Halloween, but not the cultural experience. At my school the other ALT and I have tried to teach a little bit of Halloween culture.

On Monday October 29 we held a Halloween party in one of our classes. First we told them some scary (not really) stories - do you remember "the Girl with the Green Ribbon" and "the Ghostly Hitchhiker" ? They're children's versions of scaryish folk tales. The girls weren't too impressed. I'm not sure they quite understood. We also told them the origin of the Jack o'lantern - Stingy Jack. They didn't seem too thrilled with that either. Any way, with the mandatory lesson out of the way, the girls performed their Halloween skits. I have them on film but I don't think I'm allowed to post it for safety reasons. They were great though. There was a dance from Rocky Horror Picture Show and the other group recited 5 little pumpkins and performed the Trick or Treat sing we taught them. Hahaha. Corrupting young minds. After that we broke out the candy, there was lots of that, the teacher made pumpkin pudding ( sooo delicious) and then we carved pumpkins!!

The pumpkins we carved were Japanese pumpkins, green in color with bright orange insides. Very tough. We had to microwave them first to make it easier to carve. It was so cute, everyone planned a pumpkin face and then we voted on the best two. They were then carved into the pumpkins.

They pumpkins turned out marvelously. We lit them up and then ate our candy and pumpkin pudding. It was a good cultural experience for the girls, perhaps next year they will celebrate Halloween, the proper way. Hahaha.

The pumpkin on the right, with the glasses is modeled after one of the science teachers. Everyone has a crush on him. The other ALT and I can't figure out why... Maybe he's particularly charming in Japanese, but he hardly says a word to us. Too shy I suppose.

I took the pumpkin guts home and saved the seeds. That was what I just finished doing. Cleaning and roasting pumpkin seeds. My apartment now smells like pumpkin seeds and it makes me nostalgic for home (natsukashi in Japanese). *sigh*

Now, I don't have an oven. I have a microwave (no oven function) and a gas stove with a broiler. Not without fear, I cooked the seeds in the microwave! There was no need to worry though, they turned out perfect!

First I cleaned and separated the seeds. Next I seasoned the seeds. I used season salt and pepper for most of them, but I also tried cinnamon and sugar for a few. After that I stuck them in the microwave. I cooked them for 2 minutes at a time. Each plate took about 4 minutes in all. They are delicious, though not as good as mom's. They'll have to do though.

This evening, before I undertook the pumpkin seed roasting, I went to get candy for tomorrow and some groceries, it smelled like jack o'lanterns outside!! That made me really miss home. I hope everyone is having a good Halloween season at home.

Also, yesterday I had another ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) class. It was Halloween themed. This time we didn't do traditional arrangement but we made a festive Halloween decoration instead.

Tomorrow is actual Halloween, we will have trick or treating in the ALT office, it's bound to be fun :)

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Bugs in Japan

One thing I wasn't prepared for when I first moved here is the size and weirdness of the bugs I see.

Mosquitos on the one hand are small but very annoying. Moths are very large and intricate. Butterflies are beautiful. The spiders here are worrying.

I have no pictures of Mosquitos. I should have taken photos of all the bites I got when I went to a park and sat on a bench after a bike ride. I was sweaty, it was hot and the Mosquitos seemed to like that combo. My poor legs were itchy for days. Unfortunately I was too green in Japan. I didn't yet know about Muhi, a miracle cream. It takes the itch away almost instantly. It also can be used on acne.

The next type of bug I encountered was a moth. Moths don't really scare me, except I worry that they'll eat my clothes. I've seen a giant moth and I've also seen a moth whose wings were folded in such a way that it looked like a dead leaf. Pictures are below.

These aren't bugs, but they eat them. One day at practice, I noticed I was being watched... By frogs! Tiny cute green frogs!

The next critter isn't a bug either. Here in the city we have some very noisy birds. There are small birds that migrate en masse to different trees every day around 5 pm. They make quite the noise. There are owls that always spook me while I'm riding or walking at night (bats too!). Then there are the ravens. These guys are huge! They like to make noise in the morning when you're trying to have a sleep-in... There is a picture of a raven I met in Omiya park below. This particular guy looks battle-worn. I think he's had an interesting life, or so his twisted beak would lead me to believe.

The next bug I encountered was the praying mantis! Interestingly enough, I saw two of them right after the typhoon. One was huge and dead, the other was small and alive. I've included a pictures of the dead one. At first I thought it was a stick bug. But then my neighbour told me it was a praying mantis.

The next bug I will mention is the spider. There are some nasty spiders here... Luckily most of them live elsewhere in the country. However I have come into contact with some jumping spiders (so creepy) and a spider that looked like a bee (picture below). I saw the bee spider just the other day. It's really big (small by Japanese standards) and it set up its web right next to a wasp's nest! So scary. It was behind the bench I was going to eat my lunch on... I chose another bench instead.

There have been some beautiful butterflies in Japan too. I like to encounter butterflies. The picture I've included does not give any justice to this butterfly. When it opened its wings, it had indigo patches on the back. Gorgeous.

When I volunteered at the international festival, there was a very large and scary-looking hornet type bug flying around. I'm not sure what they're called but I've heard that people have to go to the hospital if they get stung. Very scary! This particular hornet thing also seemed to like me. Luckily I fought the urge try and kill it and came through the ordeal without being stung or having to visit the hospital.


Other animals that I've seen are cats, dogs, a tanooki and a rabbit on a leash. People here love their daschunds. There are so many people with weiner dogs... I always ask why, but no one seems to know. Japanese people just prefer long dogs. There are lots of dogs and cats, the vast majority of them are not spayed or neutered. There is no stray dog problem but there certainly are a lot of stray or even feral cats around. The tanooki is a raccoon dog. I got to see one when I went to Gunma. It was very special. I have also seen a man carrying his leashed rabbit. It was a little odd and I felt sorry for the rabbit. It didn't look too healthy. I hope I don't see that again.

In Nikko park there are wild monkeys. They are dangerous because they could attack you... Scary. For this reason and for the reason that all of the worst transmissible diseases seem to start with monkeys, I don't like monkeys and I am afraid of them. Apparently black bears also live in Nikko. The day before I went to Nikko there was a bear attack and an unfortunate hiker ended up with a bear bite on his head. The hiker survived and the bear took off. I believe the Japanese police are still looking for it. Seriously. Good luck. Hahahaha.

Of course I cannot neglect to mention cockroaches. Ugh. I'm afraid of these disgusting creatures, and allergic too. Whenever I saw them running around, I would experience allergy symptoms the next morning. Ugh. Luckily I haven't seen any inside my apartment for awhile. I have seen them outside though. Yuck.

Of worthy mention is the famous mukade. I haven't seen this centipede like bug in person. I think you have to go south for that. Many people seem to be scared of this bug. I think bites from the mukade are quite severe as it is poisonous. If you are brave enough, you can look it up... It looks quite threatening.

So there you have it. Those are my experiences with bugs and animals in Japan. One of these days I will go to the zoo and I'll have a lot more animals to talk about.

Nikko

One of Japan's national treasures is Nikko National Park. This park is beautiful and it contains world heritage sites as well as historically and culturally significant sites as well. Nikko is famous for its red bridge, koyo (autumn foliage) and the tomb of the third shogun samurai.

Nikko also has Kegon waterfall, one of the three largest in Japan and chuzenji (chuzenjiko) lake. To get to chuzenji, it's a drive up a very windy (kunekune) mountain road. Chuzenjiko was formed by a volcanic eruption and sits about 1200 m above sea level.

The tomb of the third shogun samurai and accompanying shrine (Tosho-gu shrine) is very ornate and richly decorated with color, gold and carvings. This is unusual for Japanese tombs and shrines. Usually they are not so garish. Not to say that Nikko is garish, it's just decorated in more of a Chinese way than Japanese. In the shrine and courtyard dedicated to the third shogun, you can find the famous three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It is said that there are wild monkeys in nikko, I didn't see any, thank goodness. Another memorable animal carving is the sleeping cat (nemuri neko). It's a famous symbol of the Tosho-gu shrine and it was believed to be the incarnate form of the Buddha of healing.

I love Nikko. It's gorgeous and full of nature. It's a nice change from the city. I'll be back for sure, especially to get my fill of snow in the winter...

Japan...

Japan keeps me on my feet. There's always something that surprises me and I'm constantly on my toes.

Today I ran out of toilet paper. Instead of stealing some from school, I did the grown up thing and went and bought my own. In the stores there is usually not too much toilet paper selection. The other day I contemplated buying some Hello Kitty toilet paper, but chickened out because it seemed wrong. Well... Today I ended up with Tom and Jerry TP.

Not only is it Tom and Jerry, it's special for Halloween. Yes. Japan has special Halloween toilet paper. What better way to celebrate than with Halloween TP. I know what I'm going to be doing on Halloween. ;p

I wish I could say that the toilet paper was amazing just because it's Halloween themed... It's not the only thing going on. This toilet paper is also scented. It has a lovely scent that is supposed to be melon... How does that relate to Halloween you ask? Not sure. As with most things in Japan, you just have to accept it.

I know I said I did the grown up thing, but I'm not so sure any more... Oh well, at least by the time I need toilet paper it will be Christmas and I can indulge the season with some more themed toilet paper. Perhaps I could even make garlands out of it!

It's been awhile.

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in so long. Truly nothing much is happening. Just regular life. I do continue to be amazed by Japan though. My students make me laugh and you can't help but be happy around them.

They always seem to come up with gems of statements like, "we would like to travel to Seoul. At 10:00 in the morning we will get breast enlargement surgery. After we will have lunch. Then at 1 pm we will go shopping. At 5 pm we will have dinner ..." Hmmm. I really don't think you'll be in any shape to go shopping or eat after surgery... I tried to explain this to them. Alas, the point was lost on them. I settled for telling them that they don't need to change at all. That was lost too, I fear.

In other news my supervisor is trying to make it so that I never taste again. It started with an innocent challenge to try some spicy yakisoba. I accepted the challenge and ate it, spice and all. It was quite spicy, almost uncomfortably so. A few days ago he brought in the next challenge... See the picture below. He wants me to eat this very spicy curry. It's 30 x or 45 x if you add the extra stuff, spicier than something. It looks worryingly spicy. Luckily I can't eat this at school. It requires actual preparation. I'm a little worried.

I have also attached a picture of some of the guys I've been dancing with. These guys are hilarious. It's very interesting to see how they interact with each other. It's never a dull moment.

That's all for now. :)

Love you and miss you all!

Life after Tokyo

Instead of giving a painful detailed account of my first moments in kasukabe, I will show you these pictures.

Below is the first meal I cooked in my apartment. Broccoli and cauliflour of course! Broccoli is very common here but cauliflour is rather hard to find. I've only even seen it at one store. It comes in very small heads and I find it is not really worth it the money to buy it.

I think my apartment had been cleaned before I arrived however, it was still really dirty. One of my first orders of business was to buy whatever cleaning implements I could and scrub everything. For example, the picture below is the sponge I used to scrub the kitchen shelf. It was covered in a stick grime, as if it hadn't been cleaned in 20 years... Ugh.

I did the deep cleaning in stages. The next thing I attacked was the shower/bathroom. Luckily scrubbing bubbles is available and relatively cheap in Japan. That's what I used to clean my shower. It was not completely effective though because there was tonnes of mildew remaining on the wall. To clean that I needed kabikiller. In other words... Bleach. I bought some kabikiller (bleach) and it very effectively removed the mildew but I also got some burns around my nose from inhaling all the bleach... Not fun. Hopefully it will never be that again. Japanese cleaners are very strong. One of the other ALTs that arrived with me got burns on her hands from cleaners... That's why you see in the picture I'm wearing gloves.

These pictures are from the funagawa fireworks in Tokyo. They were the last fireworks of summer. There were actually two sites where they were setting off fireworks. The whole thing lasted for about 1 hour. It was gorgeous!!

I went to the fireworks after going to BBoy Park, a big break dance jam that was held in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. My friend Natsumi and I went with one of the tokyo Bboys I met when I first arrived in Tokyo.

More later :)

Japanese flower arrangement

Recently (yesterday) I joined a club at school. On Monday afternoons I now learn how to do Japanese flower arranging. Today was my first day. Each time we will work with different kinds of flowers. Unfortunately there is only 4 classes in this term because of the messed schedule.

The basic premise of flower arranging is to form a triangle with three branches or flowers. Each point must have a certain length. The art of the arrangement is in how you fill in the space between the three main points.

Today's flower arrangement was in honour of fall, so the flowers and branches were oranges and reds. Below is a picture of my finished product. It didn't take very long to complete. I think I will read up on flower arranging before the next class to have more of an idea of what I'm doing.

Worst morning

I've got a bad case of the Monday's today however, it is actually Tuesday.

This day has started off so badly I feel I must record it so I never forget. For those not in the know, I had a 3 day weekend because Monday was a national holiday. The last thing I expected was to have a case of the Monday's today, especially since I never suffer from them.

This morning started off wrong when I began waking up throughout the night. It was the worst in the hour before my scheduled wake up time, from 6 am on. I just kept waking up. When it was finally 7 am, I got out of bed and began to make breakfast.

All of the sudden, a rapid flurry of movement confused my tired and unawake eyes. A cockroach. Noooo! Ugh! Disgusting! Luckily I had the wherewithal to spray it with poison, lucky for me it stayed in the sink. I thought those things only came out in the night! *shudder*

The morning wasn't ruined by this point because I won the battle with the cockroach. The next thing to go wrong - allergy attack! Probably caused by the damn cockroach. After dealing with my dripping faucet of a nose, I looked at the time and realized that I should be leaving for work pretty soon.

I rushed around dressing and packing. I have no fresh veggies for my lunch. So today lunch will be terrible.

I finally got out of the door when I realized I forgot my wifi. Now I have no Internet at school. :( it was too late to go back so I left it. This morning I elected to take the train crossing instead of the overpass on my way to school.

Terrible choice. The train crossing was blocked for 20 minutes with crossing trains and I was late for work. Ugh. To go back and take the overpass would have probably been quicker, but when you're waiting for the trains, you always figure that as soon as you leave, the crossing will be clear. Not so today.

So that brings me to this moment. Late for work, and really really sweaty. Surely things can only get better... I hope.

Nostalgic for home

I'm starting to miss home a lot!! Maybe it's the The Starbucks on a Wednesday night or fall clothing or being slightly afraid to stay home... But I miss home where there is no cockroaches, and lots of delicious and cheap fruits and vegetables, yogurt, frozen yogurt, family, friends, smarties, dance, etc.

The pictures in no particular order are of me and my bike, my strawberry and broccoli toys from Ikea and the coffee that started this whole post.

Tomorrow is the school's sports festival. That should be interesting. Will post more later.

Love you and miss you all!!