Showing posts with label typhoon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label typhoon. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2008
Monday, October 29, 2007
Typhoons Bring New Adventures (In Food)
I went to my first cooking lesson during the season’s first typhoon. The second typhoon rolled in this past weekend. It started to rain before I woke up on Friday and didn’t cease until after I went to sleep on Saturday. The food associated with this storm is an unpleasant one. I had my first encounter with natto.
I had heard of natto during my JET orientation in Tokyo. It’s infamous. And disgusting. Picture if you will a spider web. Connected to beans. Fermented beans. Beans that smell like cheese and mold. You’re getting close. Now look at these pictures and think of all of this fermented, chunky, webbed, smelly stuff in your mouth.
It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Anyone not including the millions of Japanese who love natto and eat it for breakfast and lunch and dinner, and who love to get foreigners to taste it.
I’m not accusing my dinner hosts on Saturday night of any such nefarious designs. They didn’t know I’d been avoiding natto. When a teacher at my elementary school invited me to her house for dinner she even asked me about my food dislikes. I mentioned my normal list, completely forgetting to add natto.
Saturday evening rolled around. She drove me to her house where I met her husband and young daughter. Chizuru, another teacher from school, was also there. The table, low to the ground, surrounded by pillows, was covered in small plates, store-bought sushi platters, soup bowls, and salads. The salad was lettuce, cucumber, octopus, and mayonnaise. Cautious, I nibbled. There was no need, it was delicious. After salad, our attention turned to the sushi. One set looked particularly interesting. Large rolls with cubed brown stuff to one side, a raw quail egg still in its shell to the other. I watched my host pour the egg into the roll and eat it all in one bite. I must have looked intrigued since before she had even finished her husband had placed one on my plate. “Natto,” he said, smiling earnestly. I couldn’t say no. I dropped the egg in, and slowly lifted the sushi. One last glance around the table and I plopped the whole thing in my mouth. My immediate reaction was that it wasn’t so bad, but as soon as I began to chew the thing and the webbiness became apparent I quickly changed my mind. I wanted to vomit. The room felt hotter. My hosts’ faces quickly changed from bemusement to concern as they questioned if I was all right. I nodded weakly. It took me far too long, but I managed to finish the sushi. Swigging my iced tea, I felt desperate for the meal to return to a normal pace and focus. I apologized for how much the natto took me by surprise and ventured that the food she made herself was delicious. She graciously accepted my change of topic and the meal resumed its course. Conversation ranged from Halloween, to rugby, to school life, to Dickens. After the meal we enjoyed cheese cake, pears, and clementines, and played various card games popular with her daughter.
It was a wonderful evening marred only by the evil, evil natto. I can only hope that I will never meet with it again.
I had heard of natto during my JET orientation in Tokyo. It’s infamous. And disgusting. Picture if you will a spider web. Connected to beans. Fermented beans. Beans that smell like cheese and mold. You’re getting close. Now look at these pictures and think of all of this fermented, chunky, webbed, smelly stuff in your mouth.
It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Anyone not including the millions of Japanese who love natto and eat it for breakfast and lunch and dinner, and who love to get foreigners to taste it.
I’m not accusing my dinner hosts on Saturday night of any such nefarious designs. They didn’t know I’d been avoiding natto. When a teacher at my elementary school invited me to her house for dinner she even asked me about my food dislikes. I mentioned my normal list, completely forgetting to add natto.
Saturday evening rolled around. She drove me to her house where I met her husband and young daughter. Chizuru, another teacher from school, was also there. The table, low to the ground, surrounded by pillows, was covered in small plates, store-bought sushi platters, soup bowls, and salads. The salad was lettuce, cucumber, octopus, and mayonnaise. Cautious, I nibbled. There was no need, it was delicious. After salad, our attention turned to the sushi. One set looked particularly interesting. Large rolls with cubed brown stuff to one side, a raw quail egg still in its shell to the other. I watched my host pour the egg into the roll and eat it all in one bite. I must have looked intrigued since before she had even finished her husband had placed one on my plate. “Natto,” he said, smiling earnestly. I couldn’t say no. I dropped the egg in, and slowly lifted the sushi. One last glance around the table and I plopped the whole thing in my mouth. My immediate reaction was that it wasn’t so bad, but as soon as I began to chew the thing and the webbiness became apparent I quickly changed my mind. I wanted to vomit. The room felt hotter. My hosts’ faces quickly changed from bemusement to concern as they questioned if I was all right. I nodded weakly. It took me far too long, but I managed to finish the sushi. Swigging my iced tea, I felt desperate for the meal to return to a normal pace and focus. I apologized for how much the natto took me by surprise and ventured that the food she made herself was delicious. She graciously accepted my change of topic and the meal resumed its course. Conversation ranged from Halloween, to rugby, to school life, to Dickens. After the meal we enjoyed cheese cake, pears, and clementines, and played various card games popular with her daughter.
It was a wonderful evening marred only by the evil, evil natto. I can only hope that I will never meet with it again.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Pic-Spam
My first week of teaching is over. I survived, the kids survived, the school came away with minimal damage. Totally not my fault though. On Thursday the typhoon landed in Gunma. Around eleven at night the winds picked up. Small tree branches were stripped from some of the trees at the school, and the tar paper on the roof was blown off. The damage to the roof was the worst since it caused a series of small leaks in the building, and some of the debris hit the school clock, breaking it.
Overall, the storm was no worse than a severe thunderstorm. By Friday morning the wind was gone, and the rain was slight. I spent most of the evening of my first typhoon in downtown Ota at a cooking class. Odelia, another JET, and I have signed up for a weekly lesson. It was a lot of fun. The class is about 10-12 people. Last week we made this:
The thing on the left is my favorite. It is thinly sliced chicken with a layer of seaweed spooned on top, covered in yellow, red, and green peppers, hot green pepper, and cheese. I think I might even be able to reproduce this one. The small bowl at top has pickled vegetables. I won't be making that at home since it takes three days to pickle. The soup in the other bowl was delicious, but requires equipment I don't have.
You might think this post has a lot of images in it. You'd be right, but we are no where close to being done. Today's activity was a walk through my neighborhood with my camera. The walk was delightful. A full two hours of discovering unseen gardens, houses, temples, and staircases. A walking guide to my neighborhood:
Overall, the storm was no worse than a severe thunderstorm. By Friday morning the wind was gone, and the rain was slight. I spent most of the evening of my first typhoon in downtown Ota at a cooking class. Odelia, another JET, and I have signed up for a weekly lesson. It was a lot of fun. The class is about 10-12 people. Last week we made this:
The thing on the left is my favorite. It is thinly sliced chicken with a layer of seaweed spooned on top, covered in yellow, red, and green peppers, hot green pepper, and cheese. I think I might even be able to reproduce this one. The small bowl at top has pickled vegetables. I won't be making that at home since it takes three days to pickle. The soup in the other bowl was delicious, but requires equipment I don't have.
You might think this post has a lot of images in it. You'd be right, but we are no where close to being done. Today's activity was a walk through my neighborhood with my camera. The walk was delightful. A full two hours of discovering unseen gardens, houses, temples, and staircases. A walking guide to my neighborhood:
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Life in a whirl-wind (and driving rains)
Good morning everybody! Let's learn all about MEEEEE!
Thus began my teaching life in Japan. For this first day, I managed to arrive on time and not be so stressed. After all, the topic is innately familiar. The first lesson was with the third years. I really enjoyed my teacher in class. He helped me out seamlessly when I was in trouble with my timing, and it seems the kids really like him. The first class was a little intimidating because another teacher stood in the back with a clipboard and evaluated me (for what purpose I can't say). Second period was the same as the first. For the third period I had my first sleeper in class. However, overall, that class was the best. They displayed auditory excitement over my presentation, they got into the game. This was in contrast to my fourth class who was sleepy and hungry, and didn't want to do much. Although, I think a small percentage is coloring my view, because now that I think about it several kids were happy and engaged.
There were some small "oh no's!" like the time the laptop ran out of battery power even though five minutes previous it had almost 40%, and the time where I declared a winner in the game only to remember that I had left my stickers (the prizes) downstairs.
After the four classes, it was lunch time. Japanese school lunch is the best, if a little under-warm. For under 2$ I ate a cheese and ham sandwich, noodle and cabbage soup, corn and bean salad, milk, tea, and grapefruit. All of it was real food too, not the odd interpretations you'd expect to come from a school cafeteria.
In the remaining hours of school I hung around the teacher's room where I learned that a weather warning had been issued. A typhoon is upon us.
Technically, school could be canceled for this, but in my amateur opinion it's nothing but a thunderstorm and why would schools shut down for rain. I fully expect to go to school tomorrow and deliver my self-introduction to four more classes.
Additional notes:
I had a breakthrough today with the speech competition kids. They weren't pronouncing "war" correctly, and I couldn't figure out how to explain the way that I was saying it. But today, I got it. We say war like woar! Brilliant. I really hope one of them wins something at the competition. They try so hard and are really quite good.
Also, comments make my world glow brighter.
Thus began my teaching life in Japan. For this first day, I managed to arrive on time and not be so stressed. After all, the topic is innately familiar. The first lesson was with the third years. I really enjoyed my teacher in class. He helped me out seamlessly when I was in trouble with my timing, and it seems the kids really like him. The first class was a little intimidating because another teacher stood in the back with a clipboard and evaluated me (for what purpose I can't say). Second period was the same as the first. For the third period I had my first sleeper in class. However, overall, that class was the best. They displayed auditory excitement over my presentation, they got into the game. This was in contrast to my fourth class who was sleepy and hungry, and didn't want to do much. Although, I think a small percentage is coloring my view, because now that I think about it several kids were happy and engaged.
There were some small "oh no's!" like the time the laptop ran out of battery power even though five minutes previous it had almost 40%, and the time where I declared a winner in the game only to remember that I had left my stickers (the prizes) downstairs.
After the four classes, it was lunch time. Japanese school lunch is the best, if a little under-warm. For under 2$ I ate a cheese and ham sandwich, noodle and cabbage soup, corn and bean salad, milk, tea, and grapefruit. All of it was real food too, not the odd interpretations you'd expect to come from a school cafeteria.
In the remaining hours of school I hung around the teacher's room where I learned that a weather warning had been issued. A typhoon is upon us.
Technically, school could be canceled for this, but in my amateur opinion it's nothing but a thunderstorm and why would schools shut down for rain. I fully expect to go to school tomorrow and deliver my self-introduction to four more classes.
Additional notes:
I had a breakthrough today with the speech competition kids. They weren't pronouncing "war" correctly, and I couldn't figure out how to explain the way that I was saying it. But today, I got it. We say war like woar! Brilliant. I really hope one of them wins something at the competition. They try so hard and are really quite good.
Also, comments make my world glow brighter.
