Oshiro-yama All Covered in Snow

I love the little yama near my apartment.  Yama = mountain, but it’s not really a Rocky-sized mountain, nor is it a hill.  There’s really no other way to describe it than ‘yama.’  I took a photo of a torii (Shinto shrine archway) in the summer and fall, and knew that I’d have to trek up after the next big snowfall to get a winter shot.  We got loads of snow dumped on us this week, and in fact, it’s still snowing.  Tuesday was a pretty nice day but the snow wasn’t quite powder and I messed the shot up a little.  On Wednesday there was much more powder but the sky was all grey.  On the way up yesterday evening, I met a grandpa-aged man who became very interested in me when he heard my accent.  We climbed to the top together, and as it turns out is yet another Murakamian who noticed my article in the paper.  What a funny man he was, stopping in his tracks every time he learned something new about me.  ‘Whhhhaaaat?? You’re from Chicago??  Do you know Mr. Obama??’  ‘WOW you’re only 23 years old and in Japan all alone???’  ‘Oh My!!  You’re mother is from Niigata??’  ‘You like sushi??’  With all these stops, it took a little longer than usual to get to the top.  Once I started taking my pictures, he ditched me to climb back down.  I caught up with him at the bottom, we exchanged phone numbers, and he said he would take me to a really good restaurant in Murakami (^.^)V

Skating, Singing, Snowboarding

Aimee and I officially sold our souls to join a Friday night Hip Hop dance class in Nakajo.  From the inspiration of MTV’s ABDC, and the desire to one day be a backup dancer for JT, I hope to get my money’s worth and get a lot better at dancing than I am right now.  Time has yet to tell how many Friday nights I’m willing to sacrifice, but after two classes I’m not yet bored and looking forward to tomorrow J

Saturday’s musical performance was scheduled for a pretty big venue in Joetsu.  The building not only housed a concert hall, but also a swimming pool and ice skating rink.  Jenelle had the brilliant idea of showing up early to go skating for a couple hours before the show, and that is exactly what we did.  Being from Canada, ice-skating runs through her blood.  I tried to mimic her ‘shoot the duck’ and spiral moves, and actually almost landed a triple salchow – NOT!!

After the musical, we celebrated Holly’s last performance with, duh, karaoke!  A few of us who had our hearts set on snowboarding at Ikenotaira the next day called it a relatively early night. 

The city of Myoko boasts loads of ski-jos that are pretty well known through Japan.  Last weekend we went to Suginohara, and this weekend Marshall, Dave, Lauren, Courtney, Jenelle, and I tried out Ikenotaira.  Though not quite 8.5km long, Ikenotaira had the same wicked view of snow white mountains and a pristine lake from the top.  The slopes weren’t ridiculously steep so everyone could enjoy going and getting better.  There were some ‘bump jumps’ toward the bottom – I looked up to see Courtney bite it pretty hard. At one point one of the screws in my bindings came out, but luckily Marshall found it before I could give myself a heart attack.  The weather was beautiful and warm, though a little less than ideal for snowboarding and skiing.  We haven’t gotten much snow in the past couple of weeks, so the snow was a little slushy during the day and turned to heavy mush right before we left.  Jenelle’s temporary ‘box car’ struggled slowly through the slushy parking lot.  Once it successfully made it to the road and started to pick up speed, she looked in her rearview mirror and saw the car behind her swerve.  “Naomi, do you have your huge black mittens?” pause … think …  pause “OH NO!!!  I left them on top of your car!!!!”  So she turned the box around to find two huge black mittens lying in the middle of the road.  You know you’re in Japan when the passing cars go out of their way to avoid running over random lost gear.

Celebrity Status

A month or so ago, while joining the Kudou family for dinner, a man from the Murakami Newspaper stopped by.  I shouldn’t have thought it was a coincidence because it ended up being planned by both the newspaperman and Kudou, but we talked a bit, and now I have a monthly column in the Murakami section of the Niigata Nippo.  My first article was due over the weekend, and came out on Tuesday.  It never crossed my mind that EVERYONE in this town reads the paper, and from Tuesday morning through this very moment, people I know and don’t know keep saying ‘OH!!  Naomi-sensei, you were in the newspaper!!!’  One of the first graders at Senami brought a copy of the article into school and asked for an autograph, leading to EVERYONE demanding a ‘sign.’  It’s so cute and I must say, I LOVE the attention and just laugh every time someone mentions it.  Hahahahahahahaha!!!

I HEART Niigata Winter After All

Due to National Foundation Day, Wednesday was a holiday… which means SNOWBOARDING!!!  During our Saturday adventures we invited the whole bar and then some to join us on the slopes of Tainai. 

Since we would all be getting up early on Wednesday morning, Ru and Futoshi invited me to a sushi event at one of their favorite sushi restaurants in the city.  I had to book it after school, but was still late due to rush hour.  I got to their place, threw my stuff down, and we left on three of their 5 ‘mama-cherries,’ or bicycles to the other side of the station where the event was happening.  So what exactly was this event you ask??  Well, every now and again, the restaurant gets a huge TUNA, and cuts it up on the sushi bar in front of everyone and serves it immediately after.  We had the cheapest, middle, most expensive fatty tuna (maguro), the part behind its gills, liver, salmon, buri, raw Murakami cow meat, and other fish that I tried to learn the names of but can’t remember right now.  Since I’ve been born, I’ve never tasted sushi THIS DELICIOUS.  The sashimi melted in my mouth, and the maki (rolls) combined the most amazing sushi rice with the most mouth-watering raw fish, UGH words can’t even begin to explain how happy my mouth was!!  They had janken (rock paper scissors) tournaments for a giant slab of tuna, and then by the request of Ru, another tournament for a slab of Murakami beef.  Unfortunately our group lost both BUT fortunately, Ru fussed enough to get us a secret piece of the raw beef :p  Of course Ru and Futoshi are friends with all of the sushi chefs and were able to get dishes that aren’t even on the menu!! 

  We met us with Jenelle who would also be snowboarding at Tainai the next day, and had to run away when she tried to kill an octopus on the walk back to Ru and Futoshi’s apartment ~ HILARIOUS!!

Futoshi not only brewed us Weasel Coffee in the morning, but also cooked us a gourmet western breakfast including eggs, sausages, bread, lettuce, jam, and mayo.  It hasn’t snowed much in the past week or so, so Tainai’s snow was icy in the morning.  The more I go, the more courage I build to go faster, but I fell pretty bad on a narrow part, bounced, and nearly fell off of the mountain.  Luckily the sun rose, and the snow turned to slush by the afternoon, becoming faux powder.  A group of nearly 20 of us showed up on Wednesday to ski/snowboard and then take over the onsens to make me LOVE winter in Niigata finally!!

It's Getting Warmer ... but it's STILL Winter (Monday, February 9, 2009)

This past weekend had to have been one of the greatest all Niigata weekends of the winter.  It all started with having plans, then cancelling those plans for different plans, then those plans being canceled, and then maybe plans turning into AWESOME plans!! 

Becoming friends with Ru and Futoshi, has been like hitting the jackpot.  They live in Niigata city and are so open and welcoming to meeting new people that they’ve accumulated quite an array of friends.  They know the manager of a Niigata pop band, a Ramen Shop owner has them taste test new flavors at their house, bar tenders down the street, and on and on.  Timing doesn’t always work out, but I try to go to as many of the events they invite me to because I know it’s going to be a good time. 

Saturday and Sunday in Niigata City was an event called Shokunojin.  It’s similar to the Taste of Chicago in that prominent restaurants around the area set up tents with their most delicious foods.  Ru and Futoshi warned me not to pay for anything.  They know from past years that if you hang around a tent and talk about how tasty the food looks, the workers are bound to offer up some free samples.  We sampled cake, salmon, Japanese sweets, sake, rice crackers, squid, and much much more.  For dinner and more drinks, we went to The Local, a Kiwi bar, where a pretty big group of JET friends gathered.  It was a great mix of Japanese and English conversation, jokes, and good times.  Ru, Futoshi, and I skipped out on karaoke so that we could get back to their apartment at a decent hour and get up early to go to Myoko’s Suginohara Slopes!!  (well, Ru and I … Futoshi had to work)

Aya-sensei and I have been trying to find a time to go snowboarding for quite some time now.  Since she’s a teacher and I’m doing the musical thing, it’s been difficult to find a good weekend until THIS weekend!!  She BRILLIANTLY suggested Myoko City’s Suginohara, a place 2 hours south of the city with a 8.5 km (5.28 mile) long run!!!!!!!  Aya-sensei picked Ru and I up, we drove a bit south on the expressway, and picked Aya-sensei’s friend, Hiromi up ON the expressway!!  Our area’s snow has mostly melted, but the further south and into the mountains we went, the more snow on the roads appeared.  Suginohara has got to be one of my favorite ski parks so far.  You have to take your gear off, and get into a moving gondola in order to get all the way to the top.  The run feels like it’ll never end and I couldn’t help but smile the whole way down!! 

To split the journey from the south of Myoko to the north of Murakami up a bit, I had another delicious dinner at the Aoki’s (Ru and Futoshi): salmon, vegetables, and potatoes.  MMmmmmmmmm J

Since I've Been Gone

Since I’ve been gone, we had our first set of musical performances; there was the midyear seminar; I got the influenza, went snowboarding at Fukushima’s Alts Bandai, and got peanuts thrown at and around me!!

I’ll admit, I was a little tiny bit worried about how our musical was going to fit all together.  All the other roles had their scenes clean and ready to go except the ninjas!!  With some people absent for the weekend, others had to pick up their lines and dances.  When the curtains were closed, we scrambled frantically trying to remember what scene was what, but when the curtains opened, all went WELL.  Put the whole musical together, and I think we have a pretty good production.  It’s difficult to tell with a Japanese audience and a mostly English script though.  The story is a bit ridiculous, our jokes are clever, and the lyrics to the songs might be a bit tricky to hear.  Unfortunately, the audiences that we’ve so far encountered have lacked the big obnoxious laughing and clapping uncle sitting in the front row.  At the end of the show though, everyone tells us that we were spectacular spectacular.  We make money for Papua New Guinea and all is WELL.

Monday and Tuesday of last week was the mid-year seminar in Niigata City.  After sitting through seminars on how to teach and live in Japan, we PARTIED!!  Those two days were pretty fun, but then led to the 3 most horrible days.  All of us teach at multiple schools with hundreds of coughing kids.  Get all of us together in the same auditorium, dance floor, and hotel rooms, and we are bound to come out infected with the influenza. 

I felt really bad missing school, but for the next three days, I couldn’t do anything besides sleep and drink juice.  At one point, Hiki-sensei even dropped by to bring me juice and help me clear the snow from my car!!  What a sweetheart!!

That weekend Jenelle had a get together at her place followed by snowboarding at Alts Bandai.  It was weird to get out of my tiny apartment and then back in with society after 3 days of seclusion.  Alts Bandai, in Fukushima is HUGE.  The amount of powder there, and come to think of it, everywhere else I’ve been so far is making me think that I’ll never see a smooth slope while in this country… and I think I’m OK with that. 

Yesterday was February 5^th.  I guess it’s another one of those traditional Japanese days.  In the old days, this day was seen as one of the transition days from Winter to Spring.  Townspeople got together to ward off the devils.  How did they do this?  By throwing beans at them!!  So the kids of Iwafune got together in the gym during their midday recess.  4 or so teachers and students stood on the stage and threw peanuts down at everyone.  The kids scrambles to collect the peanuts.  One 6^th grade boy let me help him gather peanuts.  When the bean-ing was over, we sat in circles and ate the number of peanuts that matched our age.  For some reason I get so amazed by all of these traditions that Japan has.  The 6^th grade boy noticed my especial amazement and gave me the rest of his peanuts!!  So nice J

OH, AND I started an Eikaiwa (English Conversation) class on Wednesday nights.  I was a bit nervous at first because of the number of students, 18, and varying English levels, but so far so good!!  Cookies probably help ;)