Tokyo Snow!

I've been relishing in a mild winter, only to wake up today to insistent knocking at my door. My friends were so excited, there was snow! And lots of it!
We threw snowballs, built a snowman, and took lots of pictures in the nearby park. I brought my precious maple syrup with me so we could try snow syrup! So don't worry about us eating the brown snow!

The view from the dorm entrence

walking to the park.

Snow syrup!

Hokkaido Trip

Thanks to my friend's host mother, a small group of K-STEP students was able to book a trip to Hokkaido for a great price! Tokyo is very warm, snowing only once or twice a year. Hokkaido has a ton of snow and celebrates each year with a snow festival in Sapporo! Teams from all over the world come to compete! There were teams from New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, the USA, among others. I saw one team from Portland Oregon and one from Hawaii. I was sure to cheer them both on.

The first day we explored after dropping our luggage off at the Keio Plaza Hotel. Sculptures were still being worked on and many exhibits were roped off. We also checked out a local food fair and tasted samples of dried squid, among other local foods. We shopped for souvenirs and I was tempted to buy canned bear meat, but I didn't, be proud of me. From there, our Host Mother treated us to a Michelin star restaurant! It was a bit intimidating, we all watched our host mother eat before digging in each dish. I was dubious as to how full we would be, because the courses were so small, but there were so many that it was hard to finish! It was my first time eating at a Michelin star restaurant and eating French food, and I would LOVE to do it again some time! The service was amazing the food was delicious! We got to keep the menus, but I have yet to unpack, or I would show you all what we ate.

The next day, we had breakfast at the buffet in the hotel ,which featured local food of Hokkaido as well as western dishes. It was very delicious. We then hopped on the bus to the zoo. On the way, we stopped at a rest stop and I bought melon and lavender twist ice cream. It was delicious! Hokkaido is famous for its melons. I must have contracted some inner ear infection or something, because by the time we arrived, the world was spinning and I had to sit down after a few of the exhibits. I did not miss the penguin march however! They were huge and adorable and I want to take one home!

The last day we explored the snow festival some more. It was snowing quite heavily and I was worried that our flight might be canceled. We ate inside a TV tower and got to glimpse Sapporo from an awesome height! Then we scurried back to the airport and came home. I wish our trip had never ended!

Feeding pigeons. I know NYC family, I shouldn't feed the rats with wings. They were too cute though!

A sculpture of an Ainu man in the train station. Ainu are the native people of northern Japan.

Olympic snow sculpture sculpted by the Japanese Defense force of Hokkaido!

Japan is super excited about hosting the Olympics! The Defence force is so talented!

A sculpture of Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia.

Curling, a bizarre winter Olympic sport.

Snow Festival mascot

Team Malaysia hard at work on their sculpture!

The view from the tv tower!

The view from the highest observation deck!

Sumo and the Stomach bug

This Wednesday, the K-step students were treated to a sumo tournament! Matches would take quite a few minutes to start, with salt being sprinkled in ring and the wrestlers purifying themselves. There was much stamping and belly slapping. I knew that some of the wrestlers were muslim, so I thought the melodic chanting was the call to prayer in respect to the rikishi's religion, but really that was the announcer naming the contestants! The similarity is uncanny! The matches themselves were short. I was amazed by the strength of the wrestlers, some being able to pick to other one up and unbalance him. As an artist, I found the differing musculature of a sumo wrestler fascinating. Despite popular belief, you can be fluffy and fit!
My friend and I left early to get a jump on studying and we saw a few of the rikishi on our way out. Thanks to my much braver friend asking for me(I know, so cowardly!), I was able to get a picture with a pair of sumo wrestlers!

There is a stomach bug going around called the norovirus which sounds really unpleasant. One of the students became ill at school and the staff was quick to clean and sanitize, assuring us that the bathroom had be scoured of the virus. I met the student later and inquired after their health. They had been given a bottle of sanitizer by the dorm manager and told to spray everything they touched. The staff is delivering food to their room and the student is on lock down for 48 hours. Wow! Illness is taken very seriously here!

Christmas in Japan

Spending Christmas away from home was quite the experience! The weather is very mild in Tokyo, the lowest temperatures being around 4 degrees Celsius(40 degrees Fahrenheit). There is still fruit in the trees and flowers. Hail was the closest we came to snow so far!
For Christmas, my family usually eats Ham or pernil (pork shoulder). In Japan, less than 1% of the population is Christian. In fact, a majority of Japanese people don't associate with any religion or consider themselves religious. The commercial aspects of Christmas are celebrated in Japan. A common tradition among Japanese people is to eat chicken, specifically, Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas eve. Another tradition is eating cake with a lover.

Miguel and I organized a Christmas party of our own that was soo much fun! We had Malaysian style chicken, a spaghetti type thing that I made, Dominoes pizza, sushi, and many other things to eat! The International office gifted us with Christmas cake and it was so touching.

the G1 Arima Kinen

Sorry again for the delay! I had internet issues for a month, then a bit of anxiety on what exactly to post, because so much has happened! I give you a short post relevant to this week!

I don't know why I was surprised to see that horse racing seems more popular in Japan than it does in the US. Many retired racehorses horses are bought by Japanese breeders. Like one of my favorite race horses, War Emblem! You always see ads on the train, in the street, the newspaper, there are betting magazines, and tons more computer and video games than in the US. I even found a manga(comic) series that I really need to check out!

You even see huge spaces dedicated to horse racing in the arcade/gambling buildings!
Well, this week the Japanese Racing Association has been advertising a race set to run on the 22nd of December. Its the G1 Arima Kinen run at a little over a mile and half at Nakayama Racecourse. It is the last big race of the season, equivalent to America's Breeder's cup races!They had a huge display in Shibuya Station, with television screens all over as well as a life sized racehorse sculpture! I wanted to take it back to my dorm! A hobby of mine is collecting, customizing, and painting model horses. I want a copy of this one to paint!

I'm debating going to the racetrack next weekend, maybe not on the day of the big race. It is about an hour and a half train ride, and around $10 round trip, even with my student pass...I've never been to a thoroughbred race, although I have been to a standardbred track. If trotting and pacing races are so exciting, I can't imagine how awesome thoroughbred racing must be to witness! So torn! I could always wait until next season I suppose...

And the earth shook...

I was browsing the internet late at night when I saw my friend post a link about Earthquake safety. I clicked the link and saved it for later reading. Sometime late, my bed began to shake. I thought it was the laundry machines, as sometimes back at my house, the walls will shake a bit in the room by the laundry machine. Then it went on for a minute. I clutched my laptop to my chest as another minute passed. Was it an earthquake? What should I do? Stay here or run outside? I didn't hear anyone else moving about in the hallway, but that was probably because it was late. Then, as soon as it started, it was over. Maybe it wasn't an earthquake after all? Browsing the web again, I found the international student group on facebook and saw all the excited posts about the 4 earthquakes that had rattled Japan! For once I was awake during an earthquake! How scary! Yeah, my story was more dramatic than the actual event! Hahaha! I was so scared, but the tremors I felt only lasted about 4 minutes.
 I'm okay family! Thought I would share! I should be all caught up on posts this weekend! Ciao!

Tanbo Gakkō-Rice Cropping

*Sorry for the very late entry everyone. I was having trouble accessing my blog. Apparently verification codes cannot be sent to my cellphone to prove that I am indeed human and own this account. Should be fine now. Expect a lot of posts coming your way to make up for lost time! Excuse any errors or lapses in knowledge, its 2:30am here.*

For religion and culture class, we went on a very special trip. The Kokugakuin specializes in Shinto studies and has ties with this particular shrine. The matsuri(festival) is called Tanbo Gakkō and aims to educate people from the city about farming and bring them closer to to nature. The harvest and planting of rice represents fertility in the Shinto religion. Volunteers from the Kokugakuin Shinto studies department and members of a Japanese cultural preservation society helped run the Tanbo Gakkō and keep operations running smoothly. It was a 2 hour bus drive to the shrine and the fields of rice were beautiful. So was the temple.

The people in the green jackets were volunteers

Temple gates

the shrine

There were a ton of families there as well as college students. The we were gathered round and warned about the giant wasps in the forest behind the temple. Our teacher told us that stings from those guys can be lethal. Yikes! Needless to say, I stayed far away! Because it had rained previously, we could not harvest the rice in the morning as scheduled. They wanted it to dry out more, as rice should be dry when cut. Instead, we husked rice that had been previously harvested.There was a large tent erected to cover us and a tarp below for families to sit on. The tools for husking the rice are not what farmers use, but they were very effective for such a large group of amateurs such as ourselves =P

Tools of the trade: a bowl, a baseball, a glass bottle, a wooden rod, and chopsticks.

Separate the grains from the stalk

Roll the baseball over the grains to separate the hull from the bran, afterword, blow gently to get ride of the chaff.

the grains so far. Needs further extraction.

Use a funnel and pour grains into the glass bottle. Gently pound on the rice to remove the bran.

Rice afterward.

Rice free from tyranny.

Our rice was collected and then it was time to make mochi! Mochi is a sticky, pounded rice sweet. They used a very old style rice cooker, using wood to fuel the fire and boil the water. When the rice was cooked, it was dumped into a hollowed out stump. The stump was regularly doused with water so that the mochi wouldn't stick. Then, everyone took turns hammering the rice, even the kids! It was a real team effort! One person would hammer, another would dart in on the upswing the turn the rice over. Then, a pair of people would hammer the rice.

rice cooker.

Striking the mochi rice

Mochi mallet and the tree stump.

my brave partner flipping rice before I swing down. The crowd chants with each strike to help keep a rhythm going.

downswing!

There was also a station for traditional firestarting using a firestarting bow. I forget the name, but I remember trying to do this as a kid. It takes a long time to get an ember! The ember is cradled in a sling of paper and the person wheels it around swiftly to feed the ember oxygen and make it grow. It looked like the kids were winding up at a softball game!

The finished mochi with sweet beans and other seasoning!!

The provided bento. Oishikattadesu!

More mochi was made and then we were off to the fields! We followed the priest, who chanted and shrill flutes played along the way made it seem like we were in a documentary. The fields were breath takingly beautiful. I never knew rice could look so good. The fields were a little muddy, but not bad. The water had dried up by then in paddies. There were little frogs hopping around, and after cutting the rice, I joined the kids in catching frogs. They helped me catch all the colors, even giving me their own because I was a bit too slow to catch more than one. I decided to go barefoot and sadly no one else wanted to brave the mud. If I could get away with it, I wouldn't wear shoes at all. Sensei told us stories of poisonous snakes in the fields to scare us a little. Those scythes sheared through the stalks like they were tissue. It was amazing! Sensei told us that the rack holding a drying bundle of rice was a bed for kami to rest on. I found it adorable.

The priest.

Frog! The field was full of them!

Makes me want to break out the paint.

cropping rice

The bed for the kami

We then walked back, stopping at a little school along the way so that everyone could wash their boots and I washed my feet. When we returned, it was time for the ceremony. A few kids were chosen to present offerings to the kami and they were so proud of their duty. Students from kokugakuin played gagaku, traditional Japanese music, during the ceremony. I have a video below and hopefully you can hear it. The music is very unique. I find it haunting and a bit scary.

Offering for the kami.

The band. I can see sho(mouth organ) and ryuteki(flute).

purification before the ceremony.

The priest.

children bringing the offering to the alter.

Music clip as well as a clip of the offerings.

Afterward, the staff handed out turtles made from rice stalks! They are gorgeous! All the kids and the international students received them. Then, we said our thank yous and goodbyes and took the bus home.

Nicer pictures by my teacher over here ---> http://s27.photobucket.com/user/Peregrinor/library/tanbo_gakko/131006_tanbo_gakko?sort=2&page=1

NEXT UP:

• The Kokugakuin Welcome Party
• Kendo
• Chado
• Oeshiki Festival at Ikegami Honmonji Temple
• Ramen
• Akihabra revisited
•  Moon Viewing Festival
• Traditional Pottery