Baking in Japan

Ah the Holiday season is upon us all. And that means its time for baking.
In Japan, its often hard to find the right ingredients for all those baking recipes from home. So its tends to be a lot of experimenting. :)

This Holiday season I have been baking like crazy. First I made apple spice cookies for a Christmas party I went to. Luckily I didn't need to replace any of the ingredients for this one. Though I did use less sugar, and didn't add the sugar topping..because Japanese people don't really like super sweet things.



Than after that I also baked Gingerbread cookies. The gingerbread cookies taste a bit different, but they seem to be OK. I had to replace the Molasses, which I couldn't find which a product that looked like it would fit called kuromisu (black honey). It seems to have done the job.


Hopefully, I will be able to make fudge next, but it sounds like it might be difficult as I cannot seem to find evaporated milk. I hear that I can use unsweetened condensed milk, but I am not sure. Anybody??




Anyways Happy Holidays!!

Fuji: The climb of a life time

This weekend I climbed Fuji. It was exhausting, and totally worth it.
Seeing the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji is differently something I will never forget. It was all a once an wow nature is amazing, I love the world and at the same time terrifying. Suddenly I seemed very small, and the world just seemed like it was too much. But Fuji is differently something I will never forget.



The hike up is over tons of huge rocks, and if you want to bypass the TONS of group tourists its best to go over the really big ones and skip ahead in the lines. This resulted in me bagging every part of my body everywhere. Also, by the time you reach the top your legs are killing you. But again, WORTH IT!



Hiking down was also difficult. It was more like sliding than actually walking. The ash and gravel from the mountain results in sliding and dust/ash blowing everywhere. Needless to say by the end of the hike I looked like I had taken a dusty bath. Everything felt gross, and my legs where gone.



But again, BEST thing every and something I think everybody should do once. You don't even have to do Fuji, just climb a HUGE mountain at night and watch the sunrise. Best thing you will ever do.



Small video: http://www.youtube.com/user/skateanime?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/YwfMMdDCzd4

Japanese Baseball

This weekend I went to my first Japanese baseball game. The atmosphere was very different from an American game. But in the end baseball is baseball. So on to the differences.

1) First off there was two cheering sections, one for the home team and one for the opposing team. Really only these two sections cheered, everybody else at the game did a bit of "you can do it!" shouting and calling out players name when they were batting. There was no cat calling or anything. The crowd really only seemed to cheers using these plastic tubes that they bang together.


2) There was cheerleaders, and they looked like they were 12 from our seats.




3) At the 7th inning stretch everybody in the crowd blew up a blue balloon and let it fly. They do this only if the home team is winning.

4) At the end of the game because the Fighters (home team) were winning they let fly white balloons.



5) The mascots weren't there, I think. There was a chick and a fox, but I thought the Fighters was B & B which is neither of those. Confusing.





But it was differently an experience.

JUNGLE BOOK !

Hello,

So the ALT's in Hokkaido do a musical performance every year. It's been going on for quite a while and is supposed to be a way to show the kids that English can be fun.
It's also great for internationalizing.




This years production was the Jungle Book, complete with Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, wolves, Mowgli and other favorite characters. They ALT's also got the kids from the audience to dance with them on stage, making it fun for all ages.



If you live in Hokkaido, and can stop by to see the show please do so. It's wonderfully done and all profits go to the Red Cross to help victims of the Earthquake.


MAY 28th - Takinoue 5pm

June 4th - Kutchan 5pm

Old Toys Theatre

Last weekend I was fortune enough to see a children's theatre performance with my Japanese family. The show was very cute, and introduced a Japanese folk tale about the zodiac and old Japanese toys. It was a very engaging performance.




The toys they forced on was Kendama. Kendama is a ball and stick game were the object is to get the ball onto the stick. Another one was a Koma. Koma is the Japanese form of a spinning top, but instead of spinning it with your finger you have to whine it up with a string and than let it fly. Just getting the string to whine properly was difficult, getting it to spin was a whole other story. They also did lots of juggling tricks. After that they introduced a batabata, which is a line of picture boards that have two sides to them and make a banging sound as you change them to the other side. Its really cute.




After the show we all got to play with the Japanese toys. Surprisingly they were a lot harder than they looked. I kind of want some of them now.

Hinamatsuri

Hinamatsuri or doll festival in English, is a day to celebrate girls. Its a day all for the ladies of the family. Boys also have a day for celebrating them but, its in summer.

There are certain things that you do to celebrate this day. One of which is setting up a display of dolls. Some displays are huge and other displays are small. These displays are handed down generation to generation so they tend to be quite old.



Another thing is the eating of certain foods, such as sakura mochi and chirashisushi. Both of which are SUPER tasty. The leaf on the sakura mochi is from actually sakura trees, and it tasty a bit salty. The combination of salt, and sweet make it prefect to celebrate girl's day. Sakura mochi, I was told started in the Edo period and has been made ever since. Its made from the past years leaves that they freeze and hold onto until the next spring.





Some times in school lunches they even give sakura mochi, or cake or something special to celebrate the day. In the end its like most Japanese holidays, it has lost it original meaning and has become more about the food. Its still a very fun holiday though, and I think it would be great to celebrate it in the states too. :)

Come April

This time I wanted to explain a bit about the changes that start up in April, in Japan.
The start of April for schools means the start of the new year. Which in America happens in August. Its also when the Cherry blossoms come out and everything starts a fresh and new, the long winter is finally over.



In April, all the teachers change around. Some move to a different town, and others just move schools (within town), or positions. So March and April are very busy for teachers.


They do this so that nobody gets stuck in a cycle, and so that the town and kids can benefit from having different teachers with different style, ect. This makes perfect logically sense to me. But, I feel very bad for the teachers and knowing this makes me very happy that I am not a Japanese teacher because I would not like this at all.

Teachers sometimes don't find out that they will be moving or where they will be moving to until mid March. So, in between when they find out and the new school year starts they have to completely pack up their places, finish their work at their previous school, move, meet all the new coworkers, find a place to stay, memorize their class list and come up with lesson plans. It's this part that I find ridiculous. If your going to make them move then you should at least give them time to do it all in. As it is some teachers only end up with about 3 weeks to do it all in. The teachers higher on the pool can end up with about 1 month to 2 months.

As I see it the good idea is there, but the way they do it just stresses out all the teachers, and must be hard for the kids. Not to mention the teachers that have families. Lets just say, I am starting to understand why so many men/women cheat on their spouses in Japan.