International Fest & Izakaya

Damn, today was fun. Long, but fun. I was woken up this morning by someone knocking on all the doors on the hallway, so I groggily, hacking and coughily, put on a shirt, slippers, and head to the kitchen to see what's shaking. All the while there's announcements going off every 20 minutes loud enough to wake the dead (perhaps that's what first woke me...I don't remember...) saying the International Festival's going to be starting at noon today over in AP House 2. Out in the East 1 kitchen, they're explaining that our floor's performing at 5:40pm today, and handed out signs for us to wave, and little pop-cracker fireworks for us to use at the end of the performance.

Thus armed, I return to my room, talk to Cass awhile, then head to shower and get set to head oot'n'aboot. As I'm about to head over to House 2 where the main stage, and all the big food setups are, I'm stopped by the sight I'm met with in House 1's common areas. A cadre of perhaps 12-14 old Japanese ladies are setting up and tuning electric versions of koto (traditional Japanese harp, imported from China and reduced in scale slightly...can google image, or if you've ever seen Kung Fu Hustle, it's the instrument the two triad's assault the local masters with). I help a bit with the setup, as I learn there's going to be a performance followed by an instructional period where you can learn how to play this classic instrument.

While I'm standing there, Becky and Adam come in, we all secure some seats right up in front of the tables where the ladies are going to be performing, and are then treated to the show. They play about a half-dozen songs, one of which I have the presence of mind to record. It's a wee quiet, despite me being right in front of them all since my camera's mic isn't great...it's meant for stills. The one I recorded was "北国の春" (Kitaguni no Haru, or [I'm fair sure] "Spring of the north country"). Very cool.


 

Zeff comes in partway through the performance, as does Matt, so once the instructional part begins we opt to head over to House 2 to see what foods are worth having. The main commons of House 2 is given over to the main stage, so we meander past it to the basketball courts out back; the main food pavilion. This was the line that greeted us once we made it through the morass of people...the exit from the main stage area's to the left of the awning. This large tented site had 3 separate lines with clearly delineated in and out lines (quite smart), with different floors' teams rotating out when one ran out of food to provide. Also out of frame were a yakitori stand, and another cart that looked to be serving pita pockets. Also seen parading around the cluster of people in line were various groups with signs advertising their floor's offerings (such as a 'host club,' where you go to talk to attractive people), or just standing around in their costumes from their event. Just a little odd at times...this guy was far from being the only one so attired...

Knowing we had the Izakaya planned for the evening, Matt and I get in the falafel line to get something started in our stomachs to act as a buffer, and 'cause hey...free food's free food.
20 minutes later, and several recharges from the kitchens for the falafel crew, we're about a dozen people from the front and they're realizing they're damned near out of food. Matt and I're fortunately in the section of the line that's determined there will be enough food for; lucky for the rest of the ridiculously long line behind us, another group brought out what looked to be batches upon batches of fried chicken. Needless to say that line filled up quick. I enjoyed my falafel though...they offered the choice of a mild mustard, hot sauce, or "Sudden Death Sauce." I, knowing full well that spice now would be very bad later, just get the normal heat...it was some pretty alright falafel.

Falafel in hand, we walk back to the picnic tables where a cluster of other SG people are (Summer Gateway, get it? I'm tired of writing that much every time I wanna mention them <__<;; ), and see what the plans are for the rest of the day. Matt heads back to his dorm to check with his floor for timing of stuff, Sam and a few others split out their own separate ways, so Jessica and I decide to meander through the building and see if we can find anything interesting to eat, or find on some of the floors.

Working our way over to one of the residence halls, we see a knot a people down by one of the kitchens. Among them is Shane, and apparently he, with the rest of the group present, had all subjected themselves to the Sudden Death Sauce, and were fervently trying to put out the fire...still some 20 minutes later. Now, when you have so many people on so many different floors making enough food to feed a decent crowd of people...there's gonna be aftermath somewhere. Turns out we happened across one of the ground zeroes for a cooking group, just before they all tried to tackle the massive chore of fixing their mess. Alas, the price of tastiness.

Heading back towards the central corridors, we see signs for a Ghost House that's being set up, but won't open for a little while yet. Luckily, as we're walking past the main stage, this group's performing. I don't think it's traditional kabuki; I'm not exactly sure what it was, but still...it was pretty awesome. The outfits were bleedin' awesome, and you could tell they'd put a good chunk of practice time into staying in sync. Following them was a quintet from another floor, 3 of the girls playing the Sanshin, a 3-stringed (the name means literally that) instrument not dissimilar from the banjo, one guy just for vocals, and a 5th on an acoustic guitar. They were pretty neat, but we were looking for something a bit different from all the musical performances one after the other.

 

By this time, the Ghost House has set up shop and is open for business, so we head on upstairs to give it a look. While it's about as hokey and as thrown-together as you'd expect for a 'haunted house' that is situated in a basic conference-type room that was immediately preceded by another event, it was still worth a laugh. 2 guys dolled up to be zombies (I guess?) would dart out of the exit door to surprise people in line, as well as through the house itself. One of 'em snuck up behind Jessica as we're watching the clips from Ju-On they're playing, causing her to jump and squeak, which I got a laugh at, then stuck around for some photos.

After running the gauntlet of what the International Festival had to offer, I head back to my room to relax and get set for the Izakaya later in the day. My floor's performing at 5:40, so I make a note to be back to watch what I've been hearing practiced in the kitchen every midnight (some japanese song, and Green Day's "Basket Case," which is kinda funny when sung by a bunch of asian-accented guys not completely in tune). However, something had other plans. Sitting at my computer, I start to doze, so I stretch out on the ol' bed-platform, and suddenly it's 6:30. Crap.

Oh well, time to get ready to meet people at the bus stop.

Making sure my camera's set and charged, mp3 player's good, I've got my bus passes, I head out to the stop, where a pretty respectable number of people are waiting already. We're standing around for the bus, shooting the s*$t and such, plotting what tortures we'll have to put anyone who skips out on this, despite signing up for it (Aya had to give a set number so the place knew how much food to make, so anyone who didn't show had to be covered by those who did >__>). The bus rolls up, and we pile in to head down to town.
It's a good half-hour bus ride from APU to Beppu Station, since one end's pretty well the start, and the finish being the other for the line servicing it. On the way, Becky points out "Book-off," the used book/cd/dvd/clothes store that Jessica'd heard about and we tried to find yesterday. Apparently they've yukata (summer kimono, lighter than the traditional sort) for ~900-1,500円, and even proper traditional kimono for ~2,000円, though some of the obi (the sash around the waist) they had are significantly more...as in 10-15x the price of the kimono.
Yeah, I'll just stick with the yukata, thanks.

Finally the bus reaches Beppu Station and we all offload. I'm lovin' the triple passes I can get at the co-op for 1,000円, the fare from APU to anywhere we've been in Beppu so far was 540円 one-way. It's nice being a student sometimes. We meet up with Aya in front of the "Shiny Uncle" statue (see yesterday), and realize that we're missing about half of the people who signed up to go. Luckily, we know that a good chunk of people were running late to our set meet time, and were gonna be on the next bus in 15min. Aya and Andrew stay at the statue to wait for the next load of people, and the rest of us head down to the restaurant. That's the sign for it, Uotami's the name.

It's another one of the real neat traditional style places; we go upstairs from the street entrance, enter through the sliding door styled after the rice-paper screens, and have lockers for our shoes just as WaraWara does.
This place is nice. Right upon entry, there's a glass floor inset into the surrounding hardwood that shows a mini zen garden-like sand circle below. By the small staircase up to our private room is a huge pane of glass that forms an artificial waterfall for both white noise, and a privacy screen for the table room behind it. Awesome. Our room's what I'm guessing is the largest private room of Uotami, 4 tables, a mirrored back wall, and a cool decorative floor inset with glass rocks down below.

We all claim our seats, with a final number of us coming up to 21 people, easily accommodated by the room, and start to peruse the menu. Aya had already chosen the food set we were all getting (she had to pick when she booked it, with the number of people expected): a several-course meal of salad, sashimi, kebabs, soups, rice, and so on. The rest of the fee was for the fact that what we were there for is not only referred to as an izakaya, but (at least for Kevin) the possibly more familiar nomihoudai, as the top of the shown drink menu states. This basically means that, once you declare a start time, it's 2 hours of all you can drink, be it mixed drinks, sake, whiskeys, beer, wine, or soda. This is gonna be a fun night with all the people we have there.

Our first course was a pretty fair sized platter of salad, followed pretty quickly by a bamboo steam basket-like platter of sashimi (sushi without the rice, more or less). Drink orders are taken for everyone's starting round, with Yumi explaining to my table what some of the kanji were, or what some of the drinks were. Once I deciphered the katakana for a lot of the drinks, I was able to throw out a lot of explanations of what some of the drinks were, or were apt to have. Nice having a hobby that can serve you when you travel.

The drink menu's pretty immense, the one I showed above isn't even the complete listing of all the offered potent potables. There's a crap-ton of sours made with myriad fruit juices, or as Becky later found, even the fruits themselves; she had a lemon sour that was brought to her with a halved lemon, and a little metal juicer so she could add more lemon juice to taste. Damn. Matt discovered much to his ecstatic delight that there was a Kiwi Sour (the boy loves kiwi), Mimi opted to try the Suika Sawa- (watermelon sour...really good), while I decided that what better way to start the 2 hours than with a little Suntory Time. Mmmm, good whiskey.

A great novelty to most everyone there were the Thai Tonics, not just because it was a rather sweet drink that it seemed everyone ordered at least once, but that it was blue. Nobody seemed to have ever heard of blue curacao before <___<;;
Matt was still pretty hungry, despite the salad, sushi, and wonton soup, so he claimed the remainder of the salad for his own, with a look that promised any challenger quite the struggle for claim of the platter.

 Being the very nice place Uotami was, they had a pretty good offering of sake. Jason and Andrew, at the table next to us, opted to try some of the choshu offered. Much like wines back in the states (and here, as Connor's was evidence of), they provided a glass, and a little bottle/carafe for the sake. Of course, this meant the opportunity for some cheesy photos...definitely not the last of the night. Yet another course is brought out to us, this time it's tempura shrimp, with what was honestly a bit peculiar of a side that I wasn't expecting to see: fries and ketchup. Whelp, traditional or not, it was good stuff all around...we even joked with Yumi about it coming down to the last shrimp or fry, having a battle like the one from Kung Fu Panda.

Every table had their own call button for the wait staff for drink orders, but since there were a number of seasoned college drinkers there, and a large number of us anyway, so Yumi told us that we were able, and perhaps even preferred, to order 2 or 3 drinks at a time. Yep...photo times were to be had.

One thing that was provided at each place setting when we arrived was a little cup of a pickled spinach, which, after a little liquid innovation, allows itself, and other table elements, to be turned into photo-ops.

The shrimp head on a finger-tip speaking very elementary Japanese, while also funny in a ridiculously stupid way, reminded me much of the Sicily reception, and a large prawn that danced about on a forktop, then went for a swim in a water glass...

I'm running out of long blocks of text to accompany these photos, so these get to be simple:

Mayu and Aya on the left photo, Yumi and Becky on the right.

Winding down towards the end of the night, Aya mentions going out for karaoke after the izakaya. While this sounds really fun, I've still not much of a voice, and don't feel like spending the yen for a split of a taxi all the way back to APU. Masato, one of the APU buddies, and also owner of the hat Yumi's wearing above and Jason's doing his King of Pop imitation with, suddenly starts singing some Beatles. Jessica gets him to repeat, and we all get some video of him singing "Let It Be," but it's too short to justify uploading, so you'll just have to hunt me down when I get back if you want to see it.

Our 2 hours have run out, last call has come and gone, and it's time to settle the check. Turns out 2 people who signed up skipped out, upping everyone's share by a few hundred yen, which we all then decide they need to get some serious grief for, 'cause, well....we're mean, and we had to pay for them ditching. <__<
The last bus of the night's gonna be leaving in not too long, so Becky and I, who aren't feeling in the mood for more time/yen spent for karaoke/taxi, head off to the bus stop. Bus rolls up, we find Andrew on it (he walked all the way up to the station for some reason...), and takes us back to campus. About 3 hours later and I'm finally done sorting all this out and uploading everything, I'm about ready for bed.

Nothing big set for tomorrow, having had the past 2 days decidedly full of stuff; gonna take it easy, do laundry and homework...maybe play some ultimate frisbee in the evening.

We'll see how week #2 of classes goes...the pace is picking up.