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Busy, busy, busy... but not with work!

Izakaya

Izakaya is the Japanese word for “bar” and I would appreciate it if everybody could remember this because it’s getting to the point where I can’t remember the word “bar”. I was talking to Mum on the phone the other day and I kept saying “Izakaya”. Anyway, Pei, Hannah and I decided to go out to dinner on January 16th. We went to a traditional udon (see list below for translations… and keep it handy for a reference!) restaurant and had our udon. (Surprise, surprise!) Then we went to an izakaya called Kei. When we got there, we said to ourselves “WHY did we have udon first?!” Kei has an Italian style menu and it is so so so so good!! Between the three of us, despite already eating a bowl of udon, we had two serves of pizza toast (Omigod, toast! I have been craving it and this was so unbelievably delicious!!), two types of bruschetta (tomato and tuna), cheese tonkatsu, cheesecake and honey toast. Honey toast is just a miracle! Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients

One slice of bread about two and a half inches thick.
Honey (duh!)
Chocolate sauce
Ice cream (Sounding good?!)

Method

Cut the middle out of the bread, but keep it as a square.
Cut the middle bit of the bread into cubes.
Toast all of the bread. (In an oven I guess. I’m not entirely sure.)
Once toasted, put the cubes into the bread, jumbled up, not neatly!
On a plate, drizzle honey and chocolate sauce and place the bread on top.
Scoop some ice cream on top of the bread and drizzle more honey and chocolate sauce on top.
ENJOY!!!! For anyone who sees the picture, this is worth making!!

Anyway, that was a very good night. The guys regularly go to the izakaya next door which is called “Hoeto” but we prefer Kei because they staff are so much friendlier and they give us free stuff. For example, honey toast is not actually on their menu! So, after eating all of that, we decided we’d walk back to the dorm. It was a nice night for it. Freezing, but clear and not snowing! Since I had walked up a few times already, I was quite familiar with it and Pei and Hannah weren’t. When we were about a third of the way up, they thought we were well over half way. Sorry guys, not even. Poor Pei was huffing and puffing! It’s funny when we tell the Japanese we walk up and they say we shouldn’t because there are bears! Hello, it’s the middle of WINTER!! They HIBERNATE! We certainly have the impression that a lot of the people working here are not very educated. I’m sure they all graduated high school and everything, but certainly did not go on to tertiary education. But their general knowledge about the world is extremely limited and we think that’s because Japan is quite isolated with its language and is not really multicultural. For example, until they see Hannah or Pei’s name tag or are told so, they don’t realise that neither of them are Japanese! In Australia, I can look at someone Asian and can usually tell whether they are Chinese, Japanese, Korean or other.

Onsen Again

Thursday night we went to the onsen again. I still don’t want to hop in until my back has fully healed. It’s getting there. It’s all scabbed over and I’m just waiting for it to get smaller and eventually disappear. Anyway, so I went on the net and was very annoyed that I couldn’t get on to msn. Damn it! But I got to do some research on my trip to Tokyo! I’m going to stay at Sakura Hostel (Darren, do a Google search and check it out! It looks really good!!) It only opened in 2006 and most of the staff speak English and the website has directions on how to get there and how to get to the major areas in Tokyo and there’s no curfew and of course, it’s cheap! Roughly $30 a night. I really only want to do shopping there, so if I come back for a holiday next year, I can do the tourist stuff. I will definitely be going to Akihabara (electronics division), Shibuya (shopping), Roppongi (night life) and the Imperial Gardens (speaks for itself!).

After the net, we went into karaoke (I really need to take everybody out on night when I get back for karaoke!!) The only interesting things to report: Satoshi-san did an aria, James and Matt continued their tradition of singing Hotel California and Hannah, god only knows how, fell asleep! The best thing, we didn’t have to pay for ANY transportation!! After work, we all went to the guys dorm for dinner, then we rung the onsen and asked the shuttle bus to pick us up. They also took us home, all the way to the dorm! Woohoo! We’ll probably go to onsen more now that we don’t have to pay for a taxi!

Friday Night Shopping

Chi-chan asked us all is we wanted to go to the supermarket and of course we said yes! So, firstly we went to a Japanese equivalent of Priceline (and my damn “o” key is not working properly! Grrrr!) Chi-chan and I were out in about 10 minutes but we had to wait for Pei, Hannah and Tomo-chan, who were in heaven with all the girly products there! After that we went to Arai, which is the same place Tako-san took us. Chi-chan and I made a quick trip to the hyaku-en shop. Then into the supermarket. *sigh* We love our trips to the supermarket. It’s a chance to firstly buy more junk food, but also to buy fresh fruit and vegies (I got snow peas, green beans, cherry tomatoes, apples and bananas.) and to see what sort of products Japan has to offer. I also bought man. No, not man as in male. It’s pronounced [m-uh-n], like bun. Man, bun. Ok?? Anyway, man is a soft bread that has different fillings. From this trip, I learnt I need to fully read labels before putting them in my basket. With the man I was expecting to have pizza-man, (remember, not a pizza person!) and I took one down to work, heated it up during my break, bit into it and thought “This isn’t the pizza flavour!” but it still tasted fine. When I got back to my room, I checked the packet and the pack actually contains two pizza-man and two beef-man. So, that was my first incorrect reading! The second, I wanted to buy long life milk. I saw a container, it was that papery container, it said “gyuunyuu” (milk) and it was good until May 2008, so I thought “Great! Long life milk.” When I was packing my shopping (you have to do it yourself in Japan) and Chi-chan was looking at what I bought she said to me “Oh, you like bean milk?” HUH?! It turns out my milk is SOY milk! Whoops. Thankfully, I don’t mind soy milk too much, but it’s certainly not a preference! So, yeah, the lesson, read things properly Kate!

Also, while we were waiting for Pei and Tomo-chan to finish, Chi-chan went to the toy store and was standing in front of a singing and dancing Winnie-the-Pooh, bopping away to the music! When it stopped, she'd pause for a second then clap her hands to make it start again and bop away! It looked really funny!!

Blog Delay

Over the weekend I was meant to write my blog but it keeps getting put off! Sorry!!! If I go and visit Pei and Hannah, I tend to stay there most of the night. In addition to that, Friday night is movie night. Last week was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and this week was Fantastic Four and this coming Friday is X-Men 2. After that I think it’s Japanese films. Then, Saturday night is drama night. There is one drama that we’ve started watching that is really funny. It’s about a boxer who has to starve and dehydrate himself to pass a weigh in before each match, but he is obsessed with food! Without seeing, probably sounds stupid, but it’s hilarious! There’s another two on Tuesday nights, one about art students that only half makes sense and the one that follows that is about a guy that can’t say no and keeps giving people money and accumulating serious debt but we can’t understand it. Also, we watched one on Monday night about a florist whos wife died and a woman who is pretending to be blind is trying to get him to like her. Bizarre! But the boxing one is good! =)

I also had a day off on Monday (21st, I’ll get to that next) and spent the night in Hannah and Pei’s room having a picnic! From the shokudou we took three eggs and mayonnaise and in their room, we cooked the eggs in the denki pot, made toast using the heater and made egg salad with the egg and mayo and put that and tomato on the bread! Genius! It was so so good! A self home cooked meal! Yes, we had already had dinner too! But wait, there’s more. We had our usual snacks and stuff and finished up with strawberry and white chocolate ice-cream that also has strawberry jam in the middle. Mmmmm, so F-U-L-L!! We were groaning “Ippaiiiiiiiiiiii!” But a good night! =P Oh yeah, the reason it didn’t get done on Sunday was I was watching Ice Age in Japanese! I finally got a DVD working. I still haven’t tried Shrek again yet.

Yasumi’s

I had the first of my two consecutive day holidays. Gees, I don’t think that makes sense! I have three lots of two days off in a row. Is that better? =P No, I had the 21st and 22nd off! I spent both days skiing and it was sooooooooooooo good! Sooooooooo much fun!! On the 21st, I had the day off with Hannah but she wanted to get away from the resrt so she went and explored the outdoor onsen. She went to one about an hour away, which is at the top of a mountain and is milky white water. The Akakura onsen are clear and there’s also a red one somewhere. Monday’s skiing wasn’t all that interesting because I was by myself. I’m definitely getting better and faster! The weather wasn’t very good. It was overcast, not snowing but very very cold and cloudy. I was literally skiing in the clouds! I went to Champion C course for the first time. Firstly, the lift is scary! It’s only a two person lift and there is no front rail! In addition to that, in the shed areas where you get on and off, it’s really fast (ironically, it’s very slow going up!) and I skied to the line and turned to look to see where it was and SMASH! It crashed straight into the top of my calf (yes, that low!) and I just made it into the seat! That was in no way graceful! When I arrived at the top, it basically throws you off! But given that this was the first time I have done this course, I picked a bad day because I could barely see 10 metres in any direction! I went down the first part, which was OK, not too steep. I didn’t realise there was a fork though. If you ski left, you go to Champion A course, the hardest one!! I almost ended up there!! I saw the sign just in time to turn right. Going down that part of the course, I knew at the bottom it would flatten out and go slightly up hill, but because I couldn’t see how far that was I couldn’t go down straight, so I made my slow zigzaggy way down and had to try and get myself up that damn hill! When I finished for the day, I took the correct turn from the hotel course and glided right to my front door! =D

Tuesday was a far more interesting and exciting day. I slept in! I didn’t wake up until 8am! Yikes, late! LOL! Despite that, I skied down and found that my legs were still aching from the day before, but I wasn’t shaky like I was when I first skied on Monday morning. I braved going down jyoushi-kokutai, which I usually find quite bumpy, but today it was good. Near the top, I saw a group from a ski school (ski schools are usually a pain because they always zigzag in a line behind the instructor and you can’t go past or around until they all stop.) and I stopped because I needed a rest, and as his students were lining up behind him the instructor started yelling (in a friendly instructor way, he wasn’t being pushy or anything) “PUSH, PUSH, HIDARI, MIGI, PUSH, PUSH, GO, GO, PUSH, PUSH, HIDARI, MIGI” etc.! So, I ended up going down this very steep course in a near straight line! OY MY GOD!!! It was so scary!! I must have done it right because he yelled out “YEAH!!!!!!” When I got further down and was out of sight I stopped for a breather because I was buggered! Whilst taking my rest, Chi-chan, Shizuka-san and Yuta-san turned up. They also had the day off and are all snowboarders and are all very good! I skied down with them and then went up to the Champion C course. It was a much better day for it! I could see what the course actually looked like! It’s actually quite flat except for that final bit. I went off and just watched the other three ZOOM passed me! That was the last I saw of them. When I got to the steep part of the course, I zigzagged about half way down before going straight. I can tell you now, I was going fast and it felt awesome!!!

After that, I was starting to get a little bored so I thought I’d try my hand at some of the jumps and bumps. Firstly, I did the bumps, which are just hills on the side of the slopes. Up, down, all good. The first time I went to try a beginner jump, I chickened out at the last second. So, back up the lift and try again, and I did a jump. It went well, except for the ending!!! I think it was mostly shock! Anyway, skiing down and up the jump and I was actually in the air this time and I landed on flat skis and then went tumble tumble tumble. OWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, I only really hurt my left leg, same issue as before when I hurt the right leg, just strained the muscle up the outside. But I also hit the back of my head again. I was a bit tangled so I straightened myself up and felt better, then looked behind me and of all people to be there it was Tohru-san! He came up the jumped and landed, I waved at him and his just gone “OH!” He just realised who I was. I got myself up and when I started going down again he was walking up to see if I was OK! I was fine and because his friends were visiting he went off and so did I. That was my morning. From then, my day just improved!

I cancelled my lunch at the Resort Centre and ordered it for the shokudou because they were cooking shouyu-ramen, which we can’t get at the Resort Centre. Oh, it was so good! So, so good! I was sitting next to a lady who sometimes works at the information centre and she made a rather random comment to me that I’m very skilled with chopsticks! I sat there thinking “What the hell do I reply to that??” Anyway, after lunch was more skiing. My leg was quite sore, but meh! I still do all my sport even if something hurts! So, I was skiing by myself, then Tohru appeared again! I was ahead but I stopped and watched him. We went up on the jumps and then skied backwards down to me. I tried to explain the phrase “show off” to him!! I wasn’t doing very well when Minami-san, another lady from my dorm, turned up and she has quite good English. Between us we got the message across and Tohru-san’s like “Oh? …...sometimes!” LOL!!! We skied down the rest of the Hotel Main Slope together and caught the lift back up. Minami-san left us at the Hotel B course and Tohru-san and I kept going up to the Hotel C course.

I had an awesome afternoon skiing with Tohru-san. He taught me so much! I can stop!!! He taught me how to go down fast and do that turn and spray powder everywhere and stop! Omigod, it’s so cool!!! If you’ve ever watched professional skiers when they stop, that’s what I can do!! I’m now almost a real skier! Remember how I always had trouble with left turns? Well, now my left turns are perfect and the right ones are problematic! I can still do it easy enough but I can’t turn right with parallel skis, which makes it hard to ski correctly. To ski properly, you’re supposed to have your body facing down the hill and you move your hips side to side to keep yourself under control. But when I turned right, my left leg is in the right position, but my right left is making about a 45 degree angle with the left. That means when I do the cool-looking stop, I can only do it turning to the left and not the right. Tohru-san kept saying practise the right but it wasn’t happening. Oh, guess what he also told me I need to do Mum?! B-e-n-d m-y k-n-e-e-s!!!! LOL!!! He also gave me drills to do!! One involves bending down and touching your bot as you turn and the other involved having to lift one leg off the ground when turning to make sure you’re putting your weight on the outside leg. The boot touching was OK, but I can’t really lift my leg. I feel quite unbalanced! I will keep at hem though! So, yeah, getting there. On my next day off, I’m going to go to the beginner course to try and get the parallel skis happening and the leg lifting and stuff. I’ve got is all planned out! I go a bit too fast on the intermediate courses and to ski properly it’s hip swivelling, so it’ll safer to do it slower first! But I still like going fast and am just as keen to practise that stopping! Up on the Hotel C course I went first and Tohru-san came flying past spraying powder all over me! Show off!!! *sigh* Five days of work before I can ski again. =( However, just looking at the difference between each time I’ve skied, for only skiing 6 times in a little over a month, the progress is remarkable! I think so anyway! =P

We got chatting a lot on the lifts. He has actually been moved. They moved him from the same dorm as the guys to one that is at the top of the Champion Beginner curse, making him even more isolated. It’s really sad for him because if he wants to go out at night, he has to walk up the slope in the dark. Technically, it’s not that bad, but I don’t think anyone should have to do that, particularly someone as young as he is and who would want to go out. He isn’t there by himself. He lives with a lot of ojii-chan’s. So, because they are elderly, being stuck at the top of a course isn’t a big deal. I actually said to him, “you live with obaa-chan’s, right?” because that’s what Hannah told and his like “No, ojii-chan. Men!” Yeah, yeah, yeah, not my fault! I was also telling him that I want to try the advanced courses (Oh, I think I forgot to mention that I wanted to do Champion B course, which is the easiest of the advanced courses because it doesn’t have the bumps in it, but it was closed!! There was a competition on the 21st and 22nd, my two days off! Damn it!) and the beginner jumps and stuff and he’s like “No, no, no! It’s dangerous!” I eventually managed to explain I had already tried I jump and all I got was “Oh!” He’s so funny though because he is learning bits of English, mainly from Matt and James and he tries to use it all the time. He has bits that he’s quite good at and others that are a bit weird. He probably thinks the same with my Japanese, because sometimes when I said something, he’d repeat it to himself s-l-o-w-l-y to try and work out what on earth I’m trying to say!! So, my speaking may not be improving a lot, but my listening certainly is!! =)

Alternative Names

Pei, Hannah and I have come up with alternative names for the Japanese staff here, so they don’t know when we’re are talking about them. We always know when they’re talking about us because we can at least pick up our names and they talk about us A LOT! When I was working with just Shizuka-san and Yuta-san, when they were talking together, I may not have understood everything they said but I picked up our names a lot. Pei and Hannah have noticed too. Satoshi-san doesn’t seem to care and Matt and James aren’t there. Anyway, so we came up with alternate names for them so when we speak in English, they don’t know if we’re talking about them.

Yashita-san: “Our boss” Self-explanatory!
Yuta-san: “Young boy” He’s 23, but we weren’t overly creative with these!
Shizuka-san: “Noisy one” She lives next door to Pei and Hannah and there is always a lot of banging coming from her room! Ironically, her name actually means ‘quiet flower.’ Hmmmm…
Tomo-chan: “End girl” She lives at the end of the corridor.
Keiko-san: “Hotel girl” She works in the hotel
Chi-chan: “Op girl” Lives opposite Pei and Hannah
Don’t know her real name: “Mean/ Half-smile girl” This person lives across from me but spends most nights in the guys’ dorm! Every time we see her, she never smiles and she never speaks to us. Also, she’ll take peoples’ (mainly Pei’s) washing out of the machine or dryer, whether finished or not and dump it on a dirty table and do her own. Thus, “Mean girl.” She got the “Half-smile” title because I was just behind her and when she turned to open her door, I got half a smile! Lucky me.
Another one whose name we don’t know: “Curly hair” She works in the information and obviously has curly hair!
Sakurai-san: “Office guy” He’s the one who’s in charge of all of us.
Sakurai-san: “Office lady” Office guy’s wife. She works with Pei and according to her, Office lady is not very nice and hardly ever works and closes her ticket booth whenever she feels like it.

Word List

This is a list of words that I now struggle with in English bcause I’ve used them so much in Japanese. Theeofre, it would be appreciated if everyone started learning them so when I get back to Austrlia and use them when speaking to you, you’ll understand me!! =P Also, I will probably bow to everyone as well! =D

Udon: Thick noodles

Izakaya: Bar/Pub

Gomen: Sorry

Samui: Cold

Ramen: Thin noodles

Shokudou: Cafeteria where we eat dinner

Kei: Name of the bar where us girls go.

Hoeto: Name of the bar where the boys go.

Tonkatsu: Deep fried crumbed pork

Onsen: Spa, can be indoor or a natural outdoor one.

Hyaku-en shop: 100 yen shop. Where would we be without it!

Man: Soft bread with various fillings. About $1 at the convenience store.

Konbini: Convenience store

Denki pot: Basically a kettle but it’s left on all the time and the water stays close to boiling point. Reboils when temperature is low.

Ippai: Full, can be used for most contexts. Full stomach, the…is full etc.

Yasumi: Holiday; rest

Hadari: Left

Migi: Right

Shouyu-ramen: Broth, noodles, pork, egg and vegies.

Ojii-chan: Used as a generic term for elderly men; grandfather

Obaa-chan: As above expect for women!

Sugoi: Great; unbelievable

Uso: Lit. “That’s a lie!”; No way!

Hontou: Really?; Is that true?

Aa, sou: Really?

Hai: Yes

Iie: No

Dame: No (not allowed)

Itai: Painful, sore

Three Things I Forgot to Mention Earlier!

1. I ate a 500 yen strawberry. One strawberry, which costs about $5!!! Sugoi ne!!

2. I served coffee to the CEO of the resort! Don't I feel special!

3. Pei was telling us about a friend who is working at Hakuba, another ski resort nearby, and she works in a KFC in the middle of the mountain!! LOL!!Pei is so jealous!