Mochi, with a Pinch of Stardust and Potions

FOR MAUDLIN INTROSPECTION, BEGIN READING HERE.

So this week sucked.  Not because of anything going on here, mind you.  Life here is the same as usual.  But the world lost two great artists, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, within a few days of one another, and that`s a sad thing.  Both of these men were very much ingrained into my teenage years thanks to Labyrinth and the Harry Potter films, and while we still have those, it`s an incredible downer to know that these men will no longer dazzle us in new ways.  As I said to Ros last night (before I vowed never to check my Facebook or Twitter before bed ever again, because upsetting news before you try to sleep just makes it worse), if someone else dies shortly or one of my unwed celebrity crushes gets engaged, no amout of ice cream will fix this.

That comment really made me stop and question myself for a few minutes (well, honestly I`m still questioning).  Normally, I have all the emotional capacity of a Vulcan nearing Kolinahr.  The only emotions I achieve easily are frustration and anger (excitement, if a Disney park is involved).  Most of the time I`m just this five-foot package of almost Zen-level contentment, emotionally neutral.  I laugh easily, sure, but I don`t have ...  Hm.  I don`t have a lot of deep attachments, I guess is the best way to put it?  Either positive or negative.  So when I actually feel really upset about the deaths of these two people whom I was familiar with only because of their work, whom I had never met...  It just seems really weird and out of character for me.  Then I think about all the other times something like this has happened, and how I was affected then, too.  Why am I so hung up on these people who I have never met, will probably never meet (the live ones, more of the celebrity crushes, I mean; obviously I will never meet the dead ones)?  Objectively, I get celebrity culture and the way it works.  It stems from fantasy, escapism, things like that (Woody Allen`s The Purple Rose of Cairo does a great job of demonstrating this).  But to find myself wrapped up in it to the same extent is just... odd.  I mean, I live for fantasy, and I spend more time in my head than I do in the real world, but...  No, maybe that`s exactly it.  Maybe I`m more attached to fantasies, to people I have no real connection to, because I spend more time with them than I do with real people around me in the real world.  Huh.  That`s... somewhat depressing, and perhaps a little scary.  Maybe I should work on that.

TO SKIP THE MAUDLIN INTROSPECTION, BEGIN READING HERE.

Leaving my introspection behind (if I ignore it, it`ll go away), the rest of this week has been pretty awesome.  Saturday was grocery day, nothing particularly exciting there.  On Sunday, I went to Ise because they were doing some New Years-related activities all weekend.  I was interested in seeing the mochi pounding event because mochi is everywhere at New Years in Japan, and I`ve heard many people over the years talk about mochi pounding. 

For anyone who has seen Big Hero 6, this is Mochi:

But the cat is actually named after a traditional Japanese food.  Mochi comes from mochigome, which is a very sticky rice.  So basically the rice is cooked, and congeals, and then is ceremoniously pounded into a paste and then shaped, usually into a small ball or dumpling-type shape.  The texture is probably somewhere between a prepared bowl of instant oatmeal and a balloon.  It also doesn`t taste like much on its own, because it`s just rice, so it`s usually filled with something, coated in something, or served in something to make it palatable.  Most common are mochi filled with bean paste, mochi with kinako (soy flour, with a taste that very much reminds me of butterscotch or peanut butter.  I`m moderately obsessed with it), and mochi in sweet red bean soup. 

So back to Sunday.  I arrived in the folk village in Ise in time to catch the end of a taiko drum performance, which was really cool.  I love listening to these drums. 

After that, I meandered the shops for a while, and headed over to the shrine for a visit, and to pick up the hamaya. Literally, hamaya is "demon-breaking arrow", but basically it`s a charm to ward off misfortune and attract good luck in the shape of an arrow.  It usually also has a charm with the Chinese zodiac animal for that year.  So I did all of that, and made my way back to the village area to see if I couldn`t find this mochi thing.  I hadn`t seen the events schedule when I was there for the drums earlier, which turned out to be because I was standing right in front of it with my back to the stupid thing.  When I got there, I had just missed the last demonstration (they were finishing the line of people for free mochi), but there was another one starting in a bit less than an hour.  So I grabbed a steamed dumpling from a vendor (I think it was pork, but it might have been chicken; all I know for sure is that it was delicious) and took a seat near the front of the pavilion to wait.  My friend Jaclyn kept me company through the wait via Facebook messages.  As the performers/mochi pounders were setting up, one of the men from the group was looking through the audience and choosing children to come up and participate in the mochi pounding.  This was awesome, and adorable, and I was excited to see the tiny children using the giant mallet because that would be even more adorable...  And then he saw me.  Me, the lone, pasty, dark blond/light brown haired foreigner right near the front of the crowd.  And I was chosen.

Mochi Guy:  Please.  Please come. *gestures*
Me: Uh...  *deer in headlights look*
Old Lady Next To Me: Go, go!  *giant smile on her face on my behalf*
Me: O....kay?

So I pounded mochi.  I wish I had some good pictures and video of the professionals, but it was difficult from where I was standing at the side of the stage with the small children (and let me tell you how awkward that felt).  You`ll have to make do with a YouTube video of the process. 

(PS, this is actually the group I saw, just in a different place.  The old guy turning the mochi and handling the water is the one who called me out.)

But because I was obviously alone there, one of the other guys in the group offered to take photos for me when it was my turn.  I`ve heard people say it`s really difficult to do (pound mochi, I mean, not take photos of me).  I didn`t find the actual motion of the pounding difficult.  My problem was trying to keep a proper rhythm up with the song they were singing and the man in the front, whose job is to reach in and turn the mochi between pounds.  On a regular day, I have all the rhythm of a drunk, deaf chicken.  With a heavy mallet in my hands and a hundred unfamiliar eyes staring at me?  Yeah, that clearly wasn`t going to happen.  But no one died, I didn`t send the mallet flying, and I didn`t seem to do worse than any of the small Japanese children, so I`m calling it a win. 

The mochi we pounded was then served as two different flavours.  The first (which I originally thought was bitter green tea, but according to my supervisor is some kind of local seaweed variety) was gross.  I already don`t like mochi very much, and adding to that some nasty kind of water plant?  Not cool.  Plus it was green.  The second piece, though, was kinako, and that was alright (see aforementioned obsession with the stuff).  Overall experience? Pounding mochi is fun, but I still don`t like eating it.

Monday was a holiday already (Coming of Age Day, to celebrate all of the people who have turned 20 in the past year), so I relaxed, did my laundry...  Normal boring weekend-type things.  On Tuesday I was at the hospital, where I taught the kids about New Years in Canada.  Which was extremely underwhelming to them, I think, because we don`t really do anything, you know?  Not like here, with all of the tradition and gravity they have.  I brought pictures I found online from downtown Toronto, showing the rink at Nathan Phillips Square, and the fireworks at midnight, but I had to explain that that`s not really a normal thing outside of big cities, and that my family doesn`t really do much.  I also had to explain that there aren`t traditional New Years foods in Canada (obviously, though, I`m partial to a New Years pizza).  I told the English teacher at the hospital, Itou-sensei, about my adventure in Ise, and she said I should have tried it in the red bean soup!  I nearly threw up a little at the thought of it.  She also said that it`s apparently popular to put in minestrone in place of noodles.  This is a much less disgusting thought, but I`m still going to stick to noodles, thanks.

Wednesday and Thursday were not particularly exciting.  I`m working on a special project that I`m not allowed to talk about yet, but it mostly involved sitting quietly, and being paid to read or knit.

I didn`t have any normal classes today, since it`s my first day here this week, and my lesson for next week is already planned.  The topic is a bit dense (the Great Sphinx, and the damage being caused by the rising salt water table), so I want to wait to see how well they do with this lesson before planning the next part of it.  I had my first lesson for the students going to Australia in the spring today.  We covered what they would need to know to clear Customs and Immigration (my specialty!  Yay!).  We have seven students going, plus the art teacher who doesn`t really speak English (I have extra lessons scheduled with him, starting at the end of the month, so that he can at least read through his introduction speech when he arrives). They seemed to enjoy the lesson, which was good.  It was straight from the traveling-student-textbook, though, so it didn't really require much prep from me.  But having a tiny class like that, where they're all genuinely eager to learn because the need to use it is imminent... Yeah, that was pretty great.

And that`s about it.  I might go back to Ise again this weekend, because they`re doing lion dances in the folk village, but I probably won`t.  I`ll probably just end up being lazy and staying home.  Maybe I`ll watch Labyrinth and Harry Potter...

Holidays in Japan

I meant to write this during  the holidays, just after New Years, to encompass both of the holidays.  I got distracted.  Frankly, everyone should be used to that by now.  It`s ingrained into my nature as much as the sarcasm and tea-drinking.

Please be advised that the following post is mostly going to be about food.  You might want to grab a snack before continuing.

So rather than being a lonely hermit for Christmas (we`ll get to that later), I decided to play tagalong with Ros, helping her to invade our friends Lina and Roland up in Hokkaido.  Classes for me ended on the 22nd, and the 23rd is a national holiday (Emperor`s birthday), so we flew out on the 23rd and met up at the airport in Sapporo.  After lunch at one of the airport restaurants (PIZZA! 100% legit wood fire pizza!) we made our way out to Lina and Roland`s place on the outskirts of Sapporo.  We had some time to veg and catch up (Ros was there for Halloween, but I haven`t seen them since 2013), and then we went to their part-time job location for a Christmas potluck. 

Things you need to know (or remember, if I`ve already told you) about Japanese Christmas before we continue:
1. In Japan, Christmas and New Years importance/traditions are basically the opposite of Western culture.  Christmas is the day you go out and party or just hang with family/friends, and New Years is the important time for family and fancy foods and gifts (monetary).  Businesses are all open and do a good turn on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Wikipedia says that 84-96% of  the population are Buddhist or Shinto, so being closed on those days would help pretty much no one.

2. Turkey is rare in Japan in general, and turkey for Christmas is relatively unheard of unless you know a Western person, or really like Western films.  Chicken is the name of the game in Japan, particularly of the fried variety.  KFC takes pre-orders for Christmas, and if you`re not wise enough to do this, you might be waiting around for two to three hours for a bucket of original recipe.  Good luck with that.

Lina and Roland work part-time at a farm/stable-type place that runs English camps as well (guys, feel free to correct me if I`m wrong about this), owned and operated by a dude named Steven and his Japanese wife, Aya.  There were about 20 of us in this big, wooden farmhouse dining room around a couple tables pushed together that were pretty much covered with food.  Most of the people in attendance were Japanese, but almost all of them spoke great English, and they were all extremely welcoming and friendly.  It felt really home-y.  Roland and Lina brought (and Ros and I helped carry) some traditional Western food to throw into the mix (Japanese contributions included rice balls, sushi, and chicken wings), including a full turkey.  The Japanese people went nuts.  I`m reasonably sure that most of them had never seen a full cooked turkey in real life before.  They all whipped their phones out and were clamoring around, taking pictures.  It was great, if a bit bizarre from the viewpoint of someone who has turkey dinner upwards of three times per year.  After dinner we played bingo, and I won a candle!  (More importantly: a candle wrapped in bubble wrap.)  Definitely a great way to start off the holidays.

 Adorable Christmas rice ball brought by one of the potluck guests.

On Christmas Eve Lina had to work, so when we finished watching Gremlins, Ros, Roland and I went to do some shopping in downtown Sapporo before meeting up with Lina at the station.  We also had ramen, because Hokkaido is famous for it or something.  I don`t know.  Whatever. 

Photo of Ros's ramen, lovingly stolen from Ros.
 


Once Lina had joined the party, I was subjected to two hours of karaoke (not my favourite thing to participate in, but watching them is entertaining).  Dessert was involved in this karaoke adventure, so my caramel nut parfait (Ros and I are still trying to figure out where exactly the "nut" part came in, because we couldn`t find any) made up for any trauma my off-key singing may have caused to my ego.  We left karaoke as the sun was setting (aka, just after 4PM) and made our way towards the TV tower, where the big light display and German Christmas market was set up.  This was so much fun!  We walked around and enjoyed the lights, window-shopped at all the little booths selling Christmas decorations, and drank hot chocolate (or hot spiced wine, but I`m not really a fan of hot wine, so chocolate for me). 

 We also met Santa, because these things are necessary.  Once we were finished there we headed to Nuts, a popular cafe, for some nachos, fries, and wraps, and to work some feeling back into our fingers. 

As per Lina and Roland`s tradition, we stayed up until midnight on Christmas Eve, and then opened gifts before heading to bed.  In theory, this is so that you can relax and sleep in on Christmas morning and then have all day with your new stuff, but Lina had to work again, so that really didn`t work out for her.  But we did wake up to snow on Christmas!  There was already some on the ground, but it snowed pretty much all day on Christmas Day.  Mid-morning, we headed to the car to pick up Lina, along with another friend, Miki.  It started snowing harder while we were waiting for Lina to get out of work.  Once our raiding party was complete, we moved on to conquer Costco!  Yes, you read that right.  Costco.  Japan has Costco.  It is glorious.  First of all: PIZZA.  Available at the Costco cafeteria thing is honest-to-god, greasy, cheesy, fast food pepperoni pizza.  (Do I have a pizza problem?  Yes.  Deal with it.)  Also available at Costco: basically everything you can get at Costco in North America.  It was fantastic.  And apparently you can have things shipped as well, so I`m debating the merits of getting a membership.  I`m pretty sure the closest location is at least a two hour trip away.  Anyway, not the point.  So we grabbed some lunch, and then shopped for Christmas dinner, as well as some other necessities, and then grabbed a takeout pizza from the cafeteria on our way out.  It was really snowing by the time we got out, to the point where it was sometimes hard to see the road.  But we made it (obviously).  Another of their friends joined us at the apartment for dinner, and we had an evening of Die Hard, Wii games, pizza, BLT pinwheels, chicken wings, and canasta (with me playing over Miki`s shoulder while knitting, because while I don`t enjoy the game, I understand it).  Not even remotely a normal Christmas by my standards, but still a lot of fun.

Roland had work and Lina had a party to go to the next day, so after chatting with my family, Ros put the two of us on a train to Otaru.  It`s a town that re-invented itself as a tourist location, apparently, famous for music boxes and glassware.  It was super weird, because I`ve never been in a place before that was such a juxtaposition.  Standing in Otaru, you feel that you are simultaneously in a traditional Japanese town and a quaint European craft village. 

It`s insane.  The music box shop is absolutely glorious, and I could probably spend at least half a day in there alone (not to mention, a lot of money).  We stopped in a sushi place Ros recommended for lunch, and then continued on to the vast number of glass shops in downtown Otaru. 

Photo lovingly stolen from Ros.

 

We also got samples at the chocolate shop(s) along the way - the same chocolate shop has, like, four locations in a three-block radius, I swear.  In one of the glass shops, I found a product that was screaming my name so loud it`s a wonder I didn`t hear it from outside.  ...Not literally, obviously; that would be weird.  But it was perfect.  It`s a steel bookmark, and dangling from the top is a metal-and-glass charm in the shape of a streetlamp.  I`m reasonably certain the only way you could ever make a product more perfect for me is if there was a hidden Mickey somewhere on it.  When we could no longer feel our fingers (a running theme for our time in Hokkaido), we stopped into a dark, barn-like cafe for a hot chocolate. 

After that, more shopping, and then a warm-up in the cafe above the chocolate shop for tea and cheesecake. 

Some final bits of shopping, a trip to the canal to see it lit up with Christmas lights, and then back on the train to Sapporo to meet with Miki for another Hokkaido specialty, soup curry.  Apparently the place we went to is the best place ever and has already ruined me for having soup curry anywhere else, ever, according to Ros and Miki.  I can believe it, because it was delicious.

Also lovingly stolen from Ros.

We were lazy on the 27th, just kicking around and watching anime and strange Japanese game shows with Lina and Roland until the early afternoon.  It was their anniversary, so they were going to the movies in the evening.  We all headed out for burgers and fries, and then to the Sapporo Factory (mall) so that they could get their movie tickets and we could kill some time at the arcade before Ros and I headed to the airport.  I`m pretty much useless at an arcade, outside of basic-level DDR and the occasional shooting game, but Roland has some scary skills with a claw machine.  On his first try, he managed to hook the ewok that Ros and I had tried for earlier (Ros actually doing things, and me backseat-clawing).  I am now the proud owner of a fluffy, fluffy ewok to cuddle during times when I miss my fluffy, fluffy dog named after an ewok (or the other fluffy, fluffy dog named after a Gremlin, but he doesn`t usually stay still long enough to be cuddled).

I didn`t get back into Osaka airport until after 10PM, at which point it was too late to get trains all the way home, so I had booked myself into a capsule hotel at a spa/bath place in downtown Osaka.  Capsule hotels are...  I think the easiest way to describe them, generally, is a cross between bunk beds and a piece of honeycomb.  For me, it`s really no different than most of the dorm-style hostels I stay in, because I usually just sleep with my backpack at my feet in my bunk anyway.  The capsule areas are divided for men and women, just like the baths, and mine in particular had multiple rooms for the capsules (my room had only four capsules in it).  If you`re familiar enough with me and my physical capabilities, you`ll know that I`m utterly lacking in grace/co-ordination and a total klutz.  In my first experience with Japanese bunk beds, back in 2010, I slipped on the ladder and twisted my ankle.  I haven`t gotten much better since then.  Japanese bunk bed ladders are completely vertical, either part of the frame or flush against the frame rather than angled against the frame, and usually have a gargantuan gap between the last step and the floor.  Capsules are, like, the next level up in difficulty.  There were three steps sticking out, like that tree fungus stuff, with grip bars at the top, and then about a four-inch-wide ledge along the bottom of the capsule opening, with a grip bar over the top as well.  So it`s after midnight when I arrive at the hotel, the lights are off in the main room area because people are sleeping, I`m using my cell phone as a flashlight to figure out which capsule is mine, and then when I figure it out, I have to Lara Croft my way into it.  Somehow I managed to do this more than once without injury.  I had planned to check out the baths in the morning before I left, since it was included in my hotel fee, but I barely got any sleep that night, so I just packed up and headed home as soon as I got up and moving.

I did a grocery run the day after I got home, and then didn`t leave my house again for three days.  To all of my Japanese acquaintances (and likely some of my Western friends as well), this is extremely odd, since it means I spent New Years alone.  There are many traditions involved in Japanese New Year`s celebrations, too many to list, but one of the most popular is the first visit of the year to your local (or preferred) shrine for charm burning, charm aquisition, and a prayer for the coming year.  So not only was I not with other people on this important people-holiday, I didn`t go anywhere.  To the Japanese, that`s basically like saying you spent Christmas alone in your apartment, eating leftovers; odd, and kind of sad.  But I enjoyed the quiet.  I could sleep in, read, and knit to my heart`s content.  I could also drink copious amounts of tea, including the peanut butter cup tea from David`s Tea that I got for Christmas and is really, really nice.  No one expected me to show up to something, to put on socially acceptable clothing, or to even speak.  For a socially awkward introvert like myself, it`s exactly the kind of recharge I needed after enjoying a more social Christmas holiday.  In a nod to some of the Japanese traditional New Years foods, I made a Thai coconut curry soup that included shrimp.  I also had a glass of wine in deference to Western traditions.  Yay.  (I basically stopped caring about New Years as a holiday when staying up until midnight became a regular thing, and not something to be excited about.  For me, it`s often a time to be lazy, and to either lose marginally at Solitaire Frenzy to the majority of my family, or lose spectacularly to my sister and brother-in-law at Settlers of Catan.)

After that, I alternated between relaxing and getting all of my necessary adult errands I`d been putting off taken care of (stupid bills).  I also went out to lunch with the science teacher who speaks English.  We went to the Nepalese curry place up the street and around the corner from where I live, and he showed me pictures from the trip he and his wife took to Bali.  I now want to go to Bali (but not in the cave temple that looks like a very literal Hellmouth).  Nepalese curry place had soup curry.  Ros and Miki were right; I`ve been spoiled for any place other than that restaurant in Sapporo.  I also had a good laugh when he was so excited that they saw squirrels on their trip!  He had pictures and video and everything.  Squirrels are a rarity in Japan, rather than the plague that they are back home.

January is going to be a very busy work month for me, with a number of meetings booked and extra language classes beginning for our students going to Australia at the end of term.