At the electronics store. Mission: Lighting.

While shopping this weekend, I also checked out the electronics store. The one closest to me is a chain store called Eiden. There is also one called Yamada Denki a little further off, which has better prices, I didn't want to drive out to it. To, to Eiden it was, and wading through the crowds and blaring theme song music, I finally got to the aisles of shiney goodies.

The mission: Get a lamp to replace he one that went out in the kitchen. Difficulty level: Relatively easy, since it was a matter of writing down the letters and numbers on the existing lamp and playing a matching game at the store. The trouble was, there were a few that matched! Did I want the green one, the red one, or the brown one? Natural light, blue light, or bright lighting? What company? Gaaaah!

In the end, I went with the one on sale. :) 2 for 880 yen, not bad! (The others were selling for 1400 yen for a set.)

Ta-daaaa!

It helps when buying electronic-ish items in Japan like lights, wires, etc. to have the previous one in hand so you can just hand it to a nice floor salesman and ask him (or her) for the same thing. If you're feeling really confident about your Japanese skills, you can ask them to explain the differences between the products and what their recommendation is. But only if you understand what they're saying or have enough time to sort it out with a mix of the two languages and gestures. Most of the electronic stuff has English terms, so if you have an ear for Katakana English, then you should be set!

Or you could sit down with a dictionary and try to guess what the pictures mean.

On the way out, they had a gachapon machine with one of my favorite series (Natsume Yuujinchou). I couldn't resist. Ended up getting a weird meld of the cat mascot character and a fish. Hmm.....

They're everywhere.

Nyan-ko Sensei!! <3

Elementary school and Dragonball

Today, I visited one of the elementary schools. Going to the elementary schools is a bit of a treat, because we go so infrequently (About twice a month) that the kids are so excited to see us. In this particular school, we only teach grades 5 and 6 normally. This is pretty normal from what I hear.We studied "what time is it in New York?" in sixth grade and reviewed question sentences in fifth.

In between classes, the kids practice singing for the graduation ceremony that is coming up. The kids here practice singing every day at this time of the year, so most people have really nice voices! The first and second graders' song was really adorable! They were saying that their "big brothers" and "big sisters" will be graduating and leaving the school, good job and good luck! And please still play with us! That's going to cause a few tears in the actual ceremony.

Every morning before classes and evening after school, the middle schoolers (that's not an English word? Oh well.) also stand up and practice singing for the upcoming ceremony.

 

Lalala-!!! Or as the Japanese say, "Rarara-!"

One of the teachers that I have taught with and has been in the elementary school these past 3 years surprised me with some Dragonball Kai postal stamps! Score! That just made my day. He knows how interested (read: obsessed) I am in the series, and keeps an eye out for me for little goodies. A few months before, a coffee brand (BOSS, maybe?) was running a promotion, and gave out a little pull-back zippy cars (is there an actual name for those?) on the top of each coffee can. He apparently likes coffee and gave me a nice set of cars after the promotion was over. Luckily, my favorite series is very mass-marketable. Though it's not nearly as popular as the tycoons known as One Piece, Hello Kitty or Naruto. Those guys are EVERYWHERE!!!

 

Vroom vroom!

Japanese grocery stores

One of the things in daily life here, that you don't necessarily think about at home, is going to the grocery store. Unless you eat convenience store (conbini) bento every day, that is. But since the nearest conbini is a 20 minute drive from my current location, as well as being expensive, that isn't really an option. Plus it's not nearly as fun as experimenting in the kitchen. >:-D

 Today's dinner: Japanese style curry, packed (a little too) full of deliciousness.

Yesterday, I went to the new grocery store in the nearby city. One of the things you notice immediately is the loudspeakers yelling at you from every direction. Welcome, the meat is on sale, today only! Fish is good for the health! When the Ponyo movie from Studio Ghibli came out a few years ago, the fish section looped the theme song over and over again every day for months. I don't know how the workers didn't go crazy. And then you have the (usually chain) stores with their own theme songs that loop endlessly throughout the store.

Once you learn to tune those out, shopping is a pretty fun experience, mostly because there are loads of things that you look at and have no idea what they're used for. Or the sections that are huge in comparison to the ones at home. Even in the prefecture that is the farthest away from the sea as you can get in Japan (yes, this is true), the seafood section is bigger than all of the meat combined. And that's not even including the sashimi and sushi. Most of the fish are whole. One of these days, I'll learn how to properly clean and cut a fish....until then, I get the fish precut, but still with the skin on.

One more section that is relatively huge is the seaweed. There are so many types here, Kombu, sheets for sushi rolls, shredded for garnish, powdery for going on top of rice, dried stuff for soups, etc. I remember in elementary school, the teacher said that in the rest of the world, seaweed was a very common food. I refused to eat the sample. Now I eat it almost every day! A favorite snack is dried and flavored strips while watching TV or such.

 Super healthy seaweed!

And then, there's miso. Miso is a paste made of fermented soybeans (but sooo much better than natto. Eugh.). It's used to marinate fish, spice up some vegetables, and used for the broth in the popular miso soup. It's one of those thing that's ALWAYS in the Japanese kitchen. There are so many to chose from, so for me it's like playing eenie meenie miney moe.

 Miso-ey goodness...

You can generally buy store made bento, sides, sushi, and chose from a wide variety of fried foods in all grocery stores. They tend to go on sale at about 5:00, if there's any left. There have been many a night that I get out of work late and buy half off sashimi for dinner. 

  Dinner sides, prepared in store!

One more thing that's pretty different here is the amount of senbei, or Japanese rice crackers. They're completely different from the airy, puffy zero calorie snack in the U.S., they're actually GOOD. And there is such a broad range of shapes and flavors, including sweet, savory and spicy. My current favorite is covered in kinako, a flour made using soy. Mmmmm. They're also individually wrapped for portion control.

On another note, it's aaaaalmost strawberry season. Which means that there are some in the stores, but they're still way overpriced. Maybe in another month or so....

Valentines in Japan part 2

So Valentine's Day is done and over with, all chocolate eaten and emotions rebounded from being single AGIAIN on that special day. Okay, so it wasn't too bad, especially considering the chocolate I got from students and coworkers. These included some too – beautiful – to – eat chocolate, green tea and strawberry flavored suckers from a female coworker. Apparently she used 100 yen store molds to make these cute confections which seemed like a pro's work. Except everyone thought that the ones with faces were skulls.

Also on the list of goodies were pieces of molded chocolate from a first year, and a mini chocolate cake from a third year. The instructions said to put it in the microwave for 20 seconds, after which it became the deliciously warm lava variety. <3 Sorry, but the other chocolates were devoured before I could take a picture. I saved the cute wrapper though!

 

In class, we made Valentine's Day cards. They kids didn't know at all what to write on them, since they had never seen any V-day cards before. So I brought in some Disney Princesses elementary school cards left over from last year when I handed them out to teachers and taught them the "Roses are red" poem. 

Oh, and it's flu season, so everyone has a permanent mask on their face.

We had many people write "Roses are red, violets are blue. Happy Valentine" and the like. One of the third graders wrote a beautiful poem with each sentence starting with the letters L.O.V.E. It was full of nice and mushy-feel good-ness. Then on the flipside was written "It's all a LIE!!" I laughed for about a minute straight. We threw the cards in a bag and picked one at random at the end of class – These are the ones I ended up with. Can you guess what the picture is on the one on the top?

Valentines in Japan

Tomorrow is February 14th, and you know what that means: Valentine’s Day!!! Valentine’s Day is a wonderful day of the year to spend a romantic day with that special someone. Or if you don’t have a significant other, to have a singles’ party, or mope in your home for yet another year.

Valentine’s Day is also celebrated in Japan, but not without its own quirks. Usually on the weekend or night before, girls spend a lot of time lovingly making homemade chocolates. It’s popular to put the chocolates in cute molds, throw some sprinkles on them, or sometimes color the chocolate itself. Then, they are put into cutely decorated (this IS Japan, after all) little baggies and given away. (Or for the busy woman, there are elegant displays of different types of chocolate in the grocery stores for at least a month leading up to the real day).

 My local grocery store display of chocolates

There are a bunch of different types of Valentine chocolates. They are:

  -Giri choko
      Chocolate given to male coworkers
  -Honmei choko
      Chocolate given to their boyfriend/husband/romantic interest
  -Tomo choko
      Chocolate given to friends

Working in a Japanese public school, I should give some to the principal, vice principal and maybe the Board of Education. But remembering how much fun the Valentines exchanging was back in elementary school when I was a kid, I try to give something to all of my coworkers. Last year, I had some individual packets of sweethearts shipped here. They were met with…less than ecstatic enthusiasm. But this year, embracing my newly found love of homemade food, I decided to experiment. And lo and behold:

Peanut butter cups! In Japan! If they don’t exist, make them!

(Thank you, Joy of Baking, for the recipe!)

But of course I had to put some aside for the JTEs, my English teaching buddies:

Aaaaw, how cute.

But then, I also have to give some to the Eikaiwa, the adult English class. And then...well, let’s just say that there will be NO leftovers.   >:D

In past years, I have received chocolate goodie bags from some of my female students. I already got one today, a day early! I wonder what tomorrow will bring....

Another thing of note: chocolate and gifts are only given from women to men. For the reverse, the Japanese invented another holiday called White Day, a month later. Also, people don’t send Valentine’s Cards. Or flowers, really. It seems as though Valentine’s Day was imported by the Japanese sweets industry to sell more chocolate – so what do they need flowers or cards for?