The rents come to Nihon!

So it's been 7 months since I left England and throughout these months I have stumbled on the annoying habit of missing my parents... a lot. So what better way to remedy this than to have them both come out and visit me in Japan?!
Yay.
So on the 9th March, Mummy Dearest and Daddums made the 12 hour flight over to the land of the rising sun. However, they were clearly in no rush to see me as they decided to spend the first week of their holiday in Tokyo - crazy fools! Although I think this worked  out best for me as by the time they made the journey down to the island of Shikoku, and the cosy prefecture known as Tokushima, they were quite tuckered out and were in need of a bit of a rest from the hustle and bustle of the big city. So on the 16th March I speedily drove to my station to welcome the parents to my life in Japan. As they can both now vouch for, there isn't much to do/achieve/see in Tokushima, but luckily they had turned up just in time to witness the last performance of our musical (see previous post) so we managed to spend a rather warm day trailing the streets of Wakimachi before they could enjoy the stunning performance we had put on. As my rather eloquent father put "We've seen all of her other productions, of course we had to fly half way around the world to see this one!".

Outside my Junior High School

So after a quiet weekend of relaxing and taking stock, the rents soon left me again on Monday to go off to see the many wonders of Hiroshima, without me, whilst I went back to work. Sigh. However, the trip was not long and I managed to have them back at my side in just 3 short days. Thursday was probably the most 'real' part of their trip, especially in Tokushima, as I got to show them around my town and introduce them to a bit of my life here. For example, after getting off work in the afternoon, I proceeded to deliver my parents to my principal's office at my Junior High School, where we had a hairy, awkward moment where we didn't speak Japanese, my principal didn't speak English and we were trying to have a conversation. Luckily my JTE soon came in to relieve us and, at the same time, the tension and we began a conversation of sorts that led to a lot of information being shared that perhaps would not in normal circumstances. For example, I found out my principal is 59 and will retire next year which he is not looking forward to. Who would have guessed?!
Anyway, we then managed to give the rents a guided tour around the school (albeit with the extremely nosy Japanese teacher) which they thoroughly enjoyed as it was what my mum would describe as "Real Life".

After the school tour, saying our many goodbyes and bowing so many times that our backs might break, I decided that my parents deserved a break, and what better way to have a break in Japan than a Pachinko Parlour!! Actually, they wanted to go to experience this game but I don't think it was quite what they were expecting. Or at least, they didn't know what to expect so it was definitely a bit of a sensory overload when we walked into this loud, bright and smoky place. The pure confusion and bewilderment on my mother's face made it so worth the trip. Neither of them won anything (is there really a way to win at pachinko?) and once we had got back outside their actions told me all I needed to know. From the stunned silence I could hazard a guess that, yes they were glad that they experienced this, but no, they did not ever need to experience it again thank you very much!
Finally, the day ended with my eikaiwa (adult speaking class) which my parents were absolutely invited to. I couldn't be more proud of my eikaiwa and the entire evening of entertainment that they organised and put on. We had a traditional tea ceremony accompanied by a koto, we were serenaded by the class singing traditional Japanese songs, and we were (somewhat forced) given the opportunity to dance Awa Odori around the room for so long that I thought my arms were going to break! We were also given so many treats and sweets that I don't think my parents knew what to do with them. Overall though (apart from the odd stalker-like student trying to change my parent's plans so they could go round her house) it was a brilliant evening and one I don't think my parents will be able to forget in a while.

Making tea

Playing the koto

Getting into Awa Odori

Eikaiwa and parents

So that was pretty much all we had time for in Tokushima. I had work on Friday and left my parents to their own devices. Unfortunately the weather wasn't playing nice so after getting to the bottom of Mt. Bizan, they decided it wasn't worth going up as they wouldn't be able to see anything at the top. Instead they came back home and I got picked up from school by my dad at the end of the day. (how old am I?! 7??) That evening, we had been invited to my favourite eikaiwa students' cafe. They are the sweetest old couple going and she makes bloody good food. Unfortunately I had to leave my parents with the copious amount of food they had been given as I had to go to my staff party. However, they let me know afterwards that they had a really nice evening (despite a surprise appearance from the stalker student) and that it was one of the most enjoyable evenings they had had so far. (I think, I might have just made that up).

Golden Pavilion

Imperial Palace

Anyway, Saturday morning saw us up nice and early as the final stint of the holiday was a week in Kyoto. And what a week it was. I'm not going to go into great detail about exactly when, where, why and how for each of the things we went to see. But I will say that by the end of the week we were pretty much all templed out and were looking forward to not having to get up every morning to go and see yet another (however spectacular) shrine or temple. However, I will say that we definitely made the most of our time in Kyoto, seeing all the main temples and shrines and points of interest that we could. Trying out different places to eat and generally just enjoying each other's company. (especially me, as my parents company usually comes hand in hand with my parents' money! Oh the joys of being spoilt). A highlight of our trip was probably our day trip to Nara where we saw and absolutely massive Buddha, and got to witness the local wildlife (the Nara deer) out in full force. Plus it was a really nice sunny day which always helps everyone's mood. Another notable experience in Kyoto was when we went to the Gion Corner, a show that demonstrated many tradtional art forms and theatre from the Geisha culture among others. Here we got to see the works from tea ceremony to flower arranging, a kabuki play to traditional dancing. All in all it was a bit of a surreal evening, but well worth it in my opinion. I even laughed at the comedy that was performed, in spite of the fact (or maybe because of it) that I couldn't understand a word of what was going on.

It's the Nara deer!

Crazy torii temple

Flower Arranging

Traditional Dance

Comedy

Huge Buddha

Finally, we decided to spend our last night in a traditional Japanese style inn called a Ryokan. This entailed us having our own room with a large tatami mat area where we relaxed, ate and finally slept. Dinner was brought to our room course by course and we didn't have to move a muscle for the entire night. Once dinner was over, some of the staff came to lay out our futons for when we wanted to go to bed and that was it. Simple. Actually it was a shock to the system in the morning when we actually had to get up and leave our room to go to the restaurant downstairs for breakfast. So let me tell you a little more about our experience. Firstly, we were a bit overwhelmed. The staff were (almost overly) polite and straight away we had someone come into our room to make us green tea. Now we, being British, I think had a little trouble at first dealing with the fact that other people were actually in our hotel room - do they not understand the concept of privacy. However, we soon got over our wariness and started to enjoy being waited on hand and foot. We passed the hour or two waiting for dinner by playing some cards (a tradition in the Jenkinson household) but we were swiftly interrupted 10 minutes before dinner so that the table could be made up ready for it. We had the weirdest woman come to serve us that evening. She never said anything to us but sang to us instead - most bizarre. It was actually quite laughable but it helped relieve the tension a little bit as we were getting a bit stressed by just how much food kept appearing on our table. And we had done this properly. None of this western style dinner, or Japanese dinner that has been toned down for the foreigners. No, we had gone for the full-blown Japanese style dinner full with fried, grilled, broiled, steamed and any other types of cooked fish you could possibly imagine. After being fairly daunted at first, we followed my brave dad's lead and (at least I did) attempted to eat everything that was laid out in front of us. My dad was more successful than me and my (somewhat pathetic) mother, even managing to finish some of the foods that neither I nor my mum would touch. I was proud of myself for getting over the fear of eating a whole fish (though I did leave the head intact) and a couple of rather nice octopus tentacles (little sucker things and all) there were only a few things that I simply couldn't stomach, but I think that was to be expected. My main problem was that there was simply too much food and I was absolutely stuffed by the end of it! And breakfast was the same. Despite going back to our roots and ordering a continental breakfast, we were still overwhelmed with just how much food we were given. A fried egg, toast, buns, yogurt, fruit, salad, ham, pasta salad, it was never ending but totally delicious! Needless to say we left that final morning feeling rather full. All that was left to do was spend the last few hours together around the station, where we went up Kyoto Tower to get a good view of the entire city. Come three o'clock and it was time to say goodbye. No tears were shed but we kept it short and sweet which perhaps helped that. Then it was sayonara to the parents as they boarded the train back to Tokyo and I the bus back to Tokushima - both heading to our respective homes.

I had an absolutely brilliant time with my parents and it definitely made me realise just how much I love them, but also how much I love my new life and how much I am enjoying it out here. Even though I still miss my parents it was a nice feeling to think that their leaving was not the end of the world for me (no offence mother and father). I do however look forward to their next trip out here and can't wait to share more adventures with them as they discover more joys and experiences that Japan has to offer.

Until next time mummy and daddums, ja mate ne xx

Beauty and the Beast - Tokushima Style!

Well what a busy few months it has been for me!
Back in November(?) the call went out for all those interested in taking part in the annual AJET musical in Tokushima. Scripts were posted online and an official date was set for the read-through and auditions at the end of November. Now it may be unknown to some of you, but I have been in a fair few productions (however amateur) in my lifetime and know just how fun they can be, so I figured I would read through the script, go to the official read-through and see who else was planning on being in the musical. After all, what better way to become better acquainted with the other ALTs out here, (whether JETs or not) plus a few local residents who enjoy being part of the musical to meet with foreign residents, than having a good old giggle putting on a musical.

Our rather nice poster!

The musical in question? Beauty and the Beast.

So let me give you a bit of information and background on this annual event. For the past 18 years, members of the JET community and local residents have come together to create a show to be performed in various venues across Tokushima. The script consists of both Japanese and English dialogue and uses simple language that should be easily accessible to Junior High School students. From writing the script, directing and producing, all roles and responsibilities are held and dealt with by the various volunteers who give up every weekend from the beginning of January to performances at the end of March in order to create a musical that is fun and enjoyable to all those who come to watch.

Actually I don't really want to talk too much about background and that as I don't think there's a lot to say. If you want a tiny bit more information then feel free to visit the official AJET Tokushima musical website (you might as well, it has lots of pretty pictures!):
http://www.ajetmusical.com/index.html

Anyway, so after going to the read-through, and pretentiously auditioning for the main character, I went home to await the result of what I would be doing for the next few months.

And what a few months it was! Happily I was cast as Belle and so I knew that for the next few months, every weekend, I would be learning lines, blocking scenes and singing songs as well as having a generally good laugh with all those involved.

Those who have been involved in something like this in the past will be aware of the time commitments and sometimes the complete frustration you feel at having to be at rehearsals doing the same thing over and over again. There were times where I would wake up in the morning and dread having to spend another day in a freezing cold school gym, trying to look like I couldn't be happier with the 'little town' I had grown up in, whilst others behind me sang about just how strange I really was.
However, being in a production like this with and intense rehearsal schedule does make you become closer to the people you are with as everyone appreciates that there are just some days that you really just need your space, but then other days when you laugh so much on stage that you can't get a simple 'ohayou' out of your mouth.

Anyway, despite all the bitching, moaning and downright grumpiness sometimes displayed (and not just by me I would hastily like to add), ultimately the entire experience was worth it. I definitely feel like I have become closer to all those involved and I feel really proud of what we accomplished. The musical this year went down a storm, earning more donations that previous musicals had got and overall I am extremely proud that I decided to take time out of exploring Japan and could actually try and give something back to the community which I have felt so grateful to have been accepted in.

Ok so blah blah blah, enough of me talking. I'll just leave you with a few pictures that I feel sums up my last few months worth of weekends. Enjoy!

the cast on our last perfomance

taking a break

freezing cold at rehearslas but still smiling...

still smiling... but much, much warmer!

another break...

ok, I'll admit, sometimes there were more breaks than time rehearsing!

standard pose!

we even made the paper! Get in!

Hitting the slopes in Nagano

So at the end of February I made the trip to go and see Helen, a friend from home, where she lives at a ski resort in Nagano, working as a ski instructor.

I was really looking forward to this trip, not just because I could get to see Helen again (in Japan of all places) but also because it felt like a proper holiday away from work, going for a bit of mid-week skiing!

There’s not much to say about this trip. My host was brilliant, saving me plenty of money by connections in the ski rental, letting me join in on lunch and dinners at her place, and letting me use a roommate’s ski pass to get onto the slopes for free! Brilliant!

The journey from my front door to my hostel took just over 12 hours, ew! Using cars, trains, buses and shinkansens, but it all went smoothly and I got to the resort in time to head up to Helen’s place to meet her friends/colleagues and eat her food! Wednesday was a perfect day for skiing, nice snow with bluebird skies, yet not so hot that I was sweltering in all of my layers! However, Thursday was a little different in weather as I woke up to, and went skiing in, the rain! I’ve never been skiing in the rain before which was quite an experience. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, though it definitely was rather wet, and I was glad when we decided to head back in just before lunch, for a nice afternoon of relaxing before a brilliant Mexican dinner and a long sleep ready for the 12 hour journey home!

gorgeous!

We're skiiiiing in the rain.....

Perfect holiday, wonderful host!

Sapporo Yuki Masturi - Hokkaido Feb 2012

Well it’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog, but I have been saving up for something BIG to write about... and here it is!!

Sapporo Yuki Matsuri is an annual event that happens in Hokkaido (the North part of Japan) for a week in February. I was lucky enough this year to join an exclusive group of JETs (who I like to call, ‘the cool kids’!) that headed up to the festival on Thursday 9^th to return back to Tokushima on Sunday 12^th.

So what can be said about the festival?? Well what I gathered, the festival consists of a few different sites around Sapporo that host giant ice and snow sculptures that have been crafted by people all around the world. From the simplest carving of an anime character, to a full blown ice palace complete with different coloured lights that light are linked up to a piano and that light when their specific note is played! Pretty impressive right?! Unfortunately I didn’t actually see a great deal of the actual sculptures as I was too busy enjoying the other sights and sounds that Hokkaido had to offer. In fact, I only went to one of the sights on Friday night and walked up and down one strip for about an hour, before we decided that one only needs to see so much snow sculptures before they all stop being impressive and start becoming the norm! Anyway, what I did see, I was highly impressed with. I’ve posted a few photos of my personal favourites for you to see!

One Piece - a really popular anime in Japan

Malaysia's entry

 

So what did I do that kept me away from the festival itself? Well, for one thing I was constantly bouncing from one food shop and restaurant to another, for as the saying goes, ‘When in Hokkaido, keep eating!’ The food in Hokkaido actually was rather exceptional, and myself and my friends took this saying to heart, trying to fit in as many different food opportunities as humanly possible before we had to return to the drab tastes of Tokushima.

So here is a quick run-down of the to-die-for meals that we consumed in Hokkaido.

Thursday dinner: A little izakaya which had the most delicious ‘meat-on-a-stick’ I’ve ever tasted! Add that to asparagus wrapped in bacon, the camembert blobs and quite possibly the most delectable tasting umeshu (plum wine) in the world, I considered it to be an awesome start to our food binge holiday.

Friday dinner: All you can eat crab. Need I say more?! I don’t know whether it is a British thing, or a Liz thing, but I have not had too much experience with eating crab. Every now and again I may have a little taste of it in some sushi, but that came ready to eat in one. So imagine my positive fear when we got to this restaurant and a platter of giant crab legs get placed out in front of me, with a veritable menagerie of different utensils I could use to crack, claw and scrape my way into getting the smallest morsel of meat! So, full of trepidation, I picked up the smallest, and safest looking legs, grabbed a pair of scissors, and began to panic, whilst the American and Canadian crab-eating veterans around me were already well into getting their bit of meat! Anyway, eventually with a lot of squirms from me and a great deal of encouragement and tips from my friends, I finally managed to successfully excavate my first bit of crab meat. And wasn’t I proud!?! After that there was no stopping me (ignoring the little squeaks that would accidently erupt from me!) and I proceeded to almost enjoy the cutting of crab legs with scissors to get to the sweetest crab meat inside! Yummy! Though I had to admit, everyone who went to the restaurant had definitely had their fill of crab by the end of the evening, and none of us will be having crab for a while yet to come!

Saturday lunch: Cheesecake. Simply cheesecake. As I will talk about later in this post, on Saturday we went to a town out of Sapporo called Otaru which is famous for its delectable cheesecake. Well we couldn’t say we’d gone to Otaru if we didn’t have any, so we promptly found ourselves a (what I like to think of as) tearoom and ordered our cake. Yum. Not the best cheesecake I’ve ever had, but definitely not the worst, and a really enjoyable start to my afternoon for sure! Along with a toasted egg mayo sandwich, nothing works better to get rid of a lingering hangover!

Saturday dinner: As if we hadn’t had enough ‘all you can eat meat’ from the night before, we decided to go for this tabehodai again – tonight’s meat? Lamb. This was experienced at the Sapporo Beer Factory, a huge building that was filled with the smoke and smells of a hundred different grills cooking the tasty meat. You knew the evening was serious when we sat down to find paper aprons presented to us (oh dear, I thought, what does this mean?!) actually it basically meant that if you weren’t careful (or even if you were) by the end of the meal you would have quite a lot of lamb fat splatters down your front (thank god I didn’t come with my parents... they would have hated it!) However, I quite enjoyed the freedom of having a hot plate placed in front of you along with a plate of meat and you could take as long or as little as you like in cooking and devouring the numerous trays. I was sharing a hot plate with a friend from Canada, Dinah, and we felt very proud at being able to consume a tray of meat each (these weren’t small trays!) However, this paled into insignificance compared to Naomi and Dani who managed to get through five plates of meat together over the course of the night! Crazy. Anyway, lamb in Hokkaido is extremely delicious, though I had definitely had enough of eating  lamb by the end of the night, and could do without eating it for quite a while longer yet!

Ok, so apart from eating, what kept us away from seeing the many different snow sculptures around Sapporo?

Well, what better way to get accustomed to the snow than by doing a bit of late night skiing/snowboarding! This was actually a really fun night. About 10 of us headed up to a local ski resort Thursday night to partake in a bit of night skiing! This was great fun, especially as the whole idea was Naomi’s, an Australian girl who had barely even seen snow before, let alone skied! I spent most of my evening following her down the slopes, trying to do a bit of teaching, though finding it fairly awkward as I had chosen to snowboard this particular night! It was great fun anyway and Naomi did a great job of getting down the slope quite a few times, with only minimal topples and falls. All in all it was quite entertaining!

 The Friday morning a group of us decided to head to the local zoo to see what it had to offer. I can honestly say it was the most fun I’ve ever had at a zoo, seeing animals that I’ve never seen before and just being able to go from exhibit to exhibit walking around in the snow was an exciting experience in itself. The highlights for me were seeing the red pandas, which were fairly active in the snow, and spending time watching a ‘slow loris’ creep around its enclosure! Possibly the cutest things I’ve ever seen! Add a couple of ice slides in the middle of the zoo and you have yourself a brilliant day!

Did I mention I got to hold a hawk?! (or whatever bird it was!)

Ice slides in the zoo!

soooooo cute!!!!

Snowballs in the street!

 So on Saturday, our final day in Hokkaido, we decided to take the train out to the smallish town of Otaru to see what it had to offer. This day just proved to me all the more how, sometimes, the best times are when you don't always plan every part of your day. Our main reason for going to Otaru was to have a piece of their famous cheesecake before we left. That being said, we were in no rush to get there, allowing us to happily meander around the snow covered suburbs, tossing the occasional snowball and just getting the chance to see a bit of normal life. That being said, we eventually stumbled across a rather strange place that we simply couldn’t refuse to enter. Basically it was a rather large building that had converted its interior into a room of ice! And not just your average room of ice either (because I've seen a lot of ice rooms in my day?!) no, this room of ice was created using ice blocks with various things frozen inside ranging firm piece of lavender and flowers, to fish as long as my arm and crabs bigger than my head! It was somewhat unnerving walking through the aptly named 'fish alley' feeling the eyes of all the fish following you as you walked between their walls. In fact, this place was probably one of the most random places I've ever been to. What from walking through walls of fish, chilling on a bed made of ice (literally), walking past a wall of mammoth fossils (well that was what the sign said!), navigating through a flower ice maze, to finally taking the ice slide back down to the ground floor! It was certainly a very bizarre experience but one that definitely added that little bit extra to the trip. I wish I could post photos of the place but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take our cameras in with us. You'll just have to take my word for it, it was completely random, but great fun!
After coming out of this ice house, we finally made it to, what I can happily compare to an English tea house, serving the famous Otaru cheesecake. Here we stopped for lunch and I thoroughly enjoyed my toasted egg mayo sandwich, double chocolate cheesecake slice all washed down with a tasty cup of tea! Bliss. Then it was back out in the snow to do a bit of sightseeing and shopping for omiyage (souvenirs and sweets to take back for friends and colleagues). Here we discovered a great little Studio Ghibli shop, bought a rather large amount of Royce chocolate potato chips (crisps covered in chocolate = simply divine) and we went into a shop where everything was ¥1050. Here I bought my only non-edible souvenir from Hokkaido - a curtain divider for a doorway which I used to replace my one hanging on the doorway leading to my bathroom.

So after Otaru (and loaded with a massive bag of omiyage) we decided to make our way back to the hotel to drop off our stuff before heading back out to the nearby 'snow dome' filled with the promise of more ices slides and fun! Unfortunately we left it a little too late and as we arrived the place was closing. It was a shame but we all felt like our day in Otaru more than made up for missing this. Plus, we had managed to go on ice slides on the past two days so we weren't too disappointed.
After this, it was time to head to or final dinner of the trip - our all you can eat Genghis khan lamb experience at the Sapporo beer factory (as already talked about above). After fully gorging ourselves on the food we headed outside and had a few spontaneous rounds of snow sumo before walking back to the hotel for a lamb-filled sleep.
The next day was spent simply travelling home (stopping to pick up yet more omiyage at the airport) lots of catching up with sleep was done on the journey home, but it was smoothly done and I got home without a hitch.
It really was a fantastic trip. Great people, awesome snow, and fantastic sites. One of my favourite trips and I am looking forward to going back to Hokkaido in the future!

Yes we do!!

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