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| OIA Cooking Class |
First, there was a Mochitsuki on Saturday late morning organized by the OIA. I`ve had a fair bit of experience with mochitsuki`s back home but I thought it would be a good socializing opportunity and a chance to reacquaint myself to some people I met at the welcoming party back in December. Turns out there is quite a large social hall and kitchen beside the school. Quite a few Yamasa students showed up for it despite the weather which didn`t help since the actual mochi pounding was done outside.
Since the event was scheduled between 11:00 and 15:00, I was wondering if mochi pounding was all we would be doing but the OIA did a nice job of organizing to keep things interesting for the time. A lot of it had to do with the toys they put out for us to try. I brought my balloons too which helped entertain the kids (big and small).
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| OIA Mochitsuki | Playing with toys at OIA Mochitsuki |
I entertained the thought of going to a free discussion class in the afternoon but getting there was a problem, especially with the weather, and the fact I was on foot, so I decided to walk to the local main library by the Jusco. It's fairly big with the wide selection of books and publications you would expect but, of course, almost all in Japanese. Still, it was a good place to browse through the magazines and publications as well as looking for information about local events.
Next door to the library was a civic hall that seemed to be a bit busy that afternoon. It turns out local families were there to see a large display of calligraphy done by local elementary and high school students. I remember recently hearing about how in the U.S., the purpose of having school children pledge allegiance to the flag every morning is to instill a sense of patriotism in them. I'd say that in Japan, it looks like important values are instilled into the school children by having them practice writing them in calligraphy. There were hundreds of pieces of calligraphy displayed on the walls across several rooms on two floors, each with one of seven basic values written on them: shinsetsu (kindness), utsukushii sora (beautiful sky), taisetsuna inochi (important life), kokorozashi wo takaku (higher will?), shoukimantenchi (sense through heaven and earth?), and midori no daichi (green earth?). I'd say it's a good practice. Just wish I took some photographs of it.
The rest of the afternoon and a good chunk of the evening was spent window shopping. After the trip to the Sakae Ukiyoe museum last weekend, I wanted to look for a book on Ukiyoe art. A used bookstore actually gave me a couple of ukiyoe catalogues for free (I bought a couple of manga from them as thanks). I was mainly looking for books, music, movies, and entertained the thought of buying a CD player since mine was beginning to break down.
I also wanted to rent a movie which I had not got around to doing here yet. Tsukaya seems to be the most popular for movies, music and rentals but the clerk there wouldn't give me a rental membership without a document showing where I was living in Okazaki. Another student I ran into there said showing his Yamasa card was good enough but I couldn't get around the problem so I went next door to the Fukuya store which charged me 200 yen but showing my passport was sufficient for them. I rented the original 'Ring', which I wanted to see before looking at the recent U.S. remake starring Naomi Watts. Besides, I want to see Japanese movies while I am here. I was hoping, though, that the DVD's here would come with english subtitles (no such luck).
Sunday morning was somewhat frustrating. Amazingly, I had my first real culture clash in this trip. Funny thing was, it was at the village between me and an American staying there. It was over the computer use and it was generally a case of miscommunication. I was being indirect about needing the computer for just a couple of minutes to check e-mail but I upset him because he thought I was harassing him. He and I also had a different understanding of computers and the rules about sharing a common one in a place like the village. He's a bright person so I thought he knew them already. We eventually talked it out and sorted out the problem.
After missing the Saturday afternoon discussion session, I was hoping to attend the one on Sunday morning. Unfortunately I had a problem finding the location listed on the OIA newsletter, even after asking a number of people and when I finally found it, no one was there. It turned out they had moved it. I'll have to tell them to update the newsletter information.
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| Okazaki Ekiden |
I found out also that the Lawson stores here have a couple of extra conveniences beyond the usual conbini fare. One of my ex-classmates had been saying the Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo is great but believed that the place was so popular that I would need to have someone back home buy an admission ticket there and send it to me. The museum has a reservation system and alots a number of tickets to travel agencies overseas for visitors to Tokyo but you need to reserve your time beforehand which is why I didn't pursue this much beforehand. I figured out, though, that I could stop by the Lawson store by the station and buy the ticket there. They can also reserve and print movie tickets and those for other events.
I also picked up some oden there, which I had not had yet on this trip. I'd call this is ultimate Japanese fast food. Just pick out what you want from the selection of oden items there, from meat skewers, to fish cakes, egg, even age stuffed with mochi, and it'll be served with a little soup for a pretty good price (charged by item). Nice to see the morning wasn't a complete waste of time.
The afternoon shaped up to be better with the Japanese cooking class I signed up for back in December. The Civic Center near the school was only opened a couple of years ago and has a nice cooking classroom. I was surprised to see the number of participants and even more so when I found out probably half of them are Brazilians, many of whom work for the local Sony plant. According to them, Brazil has the biggest ex-patriate Japanese population in the world which is also surprising considering it takes at least a day to fly there from here.
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| Sushi making demo at OIA Cooking Class | Trying a dashimaki tamago flip at OIA Cooking Class | Feast at OIA Cooking Class |
The classroom was nicely set up for the class to organize into groups of five around cooking islands to learn how to make some Japanese standards: miso soup, dashimaki tamago, and sushi. It was led by a chef who runs an izakaya in Okazaki. Making the amaage was the interesting part since it was like creating multi-layered crepe egg roll. After about an hour-and-a-half, we had quite a feast to eat.
I was surprised to find the computers available at the Aoi Hall since I thought they were supposed to be closed on Sundays. Since dinner was taken of, I spent a couple of hours working on e-mail. When I got back to the village, I put on 'Ringu'. I told others in the village that I was putting it on but many had already seen it and were a little reluctant about seeing it again ("Kowaii!" was the standard response). A couple of people, who had not yet seen it, did join me partway. I didn't find it that scary, but definitely creepy at the end. It was still pretty good and I understood a fair bit though I did need some help understanding the ending.
Mind you, the ending had me thinking whether certain images from the movie were going to show up in my dreams that night. Not the most comforting thought to end the weekend with.