Sports Day, Meanderings, Takoyaki, Shodou, and a Birthday

So yeah...the week before the farmstay was kinda busy <__<;;

First off, some basic things about living in Japan.

1) The "exotic" foods; i.e. なっとう (Natto). This is definitely what one would have to define as either a delicacy, an acquired taste, or perhaps simply someone not wanting to waste any food, despite how long it may have been left out. Natto is fermented soybeans, supposedly very healthy when eaten regularly...if you can get them down. When you open the packets of it available in the cafeteria here, you're welcomed by a rather peculiar astringent, somewhat medicinal reek. Second, you pull off the little protective cover over the beans themselves, seeing that, attached to them, is gooey spiderweb-like strings of...well, I'm not sure what, that hang on and stretch from here to Guadlajara. Sam, for some reason this day, was compelled to buy two packages of the stuff to try and adjust his tastebuds to it. Going by the picture, I'm not sure it worked so well.

2) Insects. Contrary to popular belief, not everything in Japan is smaller and more efficient. Sometimes efficient translates into WTFHUGE. The first example of this is the earthworm shown at left...with my foot provided to show scale. They're hooj.
Another of Japan's insects is their varietal of the hornet. Going by this video Jessica decided to share on her facebook, you can get an idea of what they're capable of. However, keep in mind the video shows the hornets going up against the European Honey Bee. The Japanese Honey Bees are quite another story. They employ a rather unique collaboration technique to fend off the unwanted invader.
Knowing this, imagine sitting in one's room with the window open and the screen pulled aside to better stimulate airflow into a room that has the smell of wet clothes from a previous weekend of rain-wandering to some onsen. Perusing some websites, killing time, when you hear what sounds like someone doing some landscaping work...notably some edging with a weed eater off in the distance. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see something sizeable, and orange to your right.

This is what I took after I regained the presence of mind following nearly soiling myself from seeing a THREE INCH FLYING INSECT not 2 feet from me, and in the span of a second being from my desk chair by the window to the door to the hallway, seriously considering just leaving the room. The sound was not a weed-eater some distance off, but the wings of this gargantua propelling it through space. Instead of fleeing my room, common sense took hold over primal panic again, and managed to coax the Hornet Of Doom back out the window, promptly closing the screen behind it.

So yeah...some things in Japan are bleedin' huge, and incredibly intimidating (the higurashi, a type of Cicada, also grow really big here...as in, you step on one, it may push your foot off it and continue on its day).

At any rate, this past week there was another buddy event: Sports Day. Morning classes over and done for the day, we quickly run back to our dorms to change, grab 'indoor shoes' and gym clothes, then reassemble back at the APU Rotary. Also joining us for the Sports Day was a group of about a half-dozen guys from Georgia Tech who got here about 2 weeks before us on a 6-week language-intensive program. We all pour onto the bus, which much to our enjoyment, featured chandeliers and little disco lights...that were never turned on, much to our dismay. The bus loaded to capacity, we depart APU and head down the mountain to a local Beppu gym that has been reserved for our use for the day.

We're all divided into 4 teams and given colored headbands (we got to pick a color, and teams were made by that...so some numbers were a bit lopsided >__>). I got to be on Team Bada-er...Team Midori (green). For the day, we started off with Japanese calisthenics to warm up, and were told the plan of the afternoon. There were to be 3 events (tug of war, 'shippotori' [tail-pulling], and 二人三脚 (ni-nin sankyaku: lit. 2-person tripod...3-legged race), and the places would determine each team's reward. First up, with Tug of War, we won our first match against the Red Team pretty quickly, and got to watch yellow and blue go at it to see who our rival for first would be. Thanks to the weight of Sam and the pulling power of everyone we had, we took first here. Hoozah~

Next up, しっぽ取り (shippotori, tail-taking). Here, our smaller numbers worked to our disadvantage in the grand melee that was some 50-odd people running about grabbing at each others arses in an attempt to snag as many hachimaki (headband) from not-your-team as possible in the 90 seconds. With our 12 people, we got 10 hachimaki, 4 of which came from me alone <___<;; Crap.

Last was the 二人三脚 (3-legged race). Prior to this we were given a nice long rest break in which many of us took it upon ourselves to pair up with people in our teams and practice. Evan and I got some pretty good speed, as did Midori and Kotaro; so we felt pretty good about our team...until we noticed a pair of the APU buddies on red team just plain jogging 3-legged with no problems whatsoever...erk. Good competition among some members of the other teams aside, overall Team Midori won the deal. To decide the tiebreaker between 2nd and 3rd for the overall scores, Yellow and Blue got to try their hands (or feet) at a 5-legged race...4 people tied together and running. It was pretty damned entertaining to watch, I gotta say; I got a video of part of the race, but it's not that worth uploading, honestly <___<;

Overall from the day, Team Midori too first (wheee), second went to Yellow, Blue third, and Red last (alas). For our victory, 1st and 2nd place got bags of candies, and one of the buddies on our team provided promised-if-we-won ice cream (bonus~). Third place dodged the bullet that last got hit with, which was cleaning the gym when we were done. Shown at left is the awesome winning team, striking poses or just being our awesome selves. Then, we got the first full picture of all of us in the program, and Georgia Tech's crew in there too, with all the buddies who showed for the day. I think at least 2 dozen pictures were taken of this...so many cameras kept being handed up to be used. Hadn't realized before just how large our group was...

The bus was on hand to ferry us back up to APU, but the day was still young, and we'd just gotten a free ticket to town. As such, several of us decided not to squander the opportunity, and walked off to some of the local sights we wanted to hit instead of spending the better half of a day sitting around the dorms.

Our first stop along the trek was a 7-11 for some drinks and munchies to provide fuel before we made it several miles down the road to Youme town and their wonderful, oft-frequented kaitenzushi joint. Recharged, we begin our way down the main strip. The first sight that greets us is Tsutaya, a larger used book/cd/dvd store which we perused for awhile (though it seemed the cd/dvd selection was for rental only...which was peculiar) before heading further down the road.

Next up came Book Off again. I'm growing to really like this store, having found several manga that either had their series' discontinued in the states, or were new discoveries entirely, a nice inexpensive yukata (though finding an obi is proving challenging), and a spiffy cheap Stytch doll (people here love that I can do Stytch's voice). On her continuing quest to find more great Engrish shirts, Jessica also happened upon some other...treasures, which she then tried on and showcased for the rest of us.
Classy as always Jess...classy as always.


The next stop we planned on was far enough down the street, and we were tired of walking enough that we opted to hop a bus to get us closer to Youme town, where we got to be seated at one of the cool low, tatami-matted tables. After about an hour of wolfing down sushi, desserts, fried octopi, takoyaki, and even desserts delivered a la convoyeur, we took our delightfully small checks (eating there's cheap and entertaining...score), and of course wandered upstairs to the arcade.

In addition to doing a few runs on such fun games as Initial D Stage 5, House of the Dead 4, and Taiko no Tatsujin (Taiko Drum Master), I also decided to try my hand again at Beatmania, whilst Jason finally got to try Drum Mania 7. To the uninitiated, these aren't ripoffs of Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, or Rock Band...these games are where Harmonix learned how to do it all...they just packaged it and delivered it more successfully in the states than Konami ever bothered to do. Fun stuff, that.

We wandered town a little more after that, hitting Beppu Station's grocery store before heading back to APU to shower and sleep, but none of that's exactly photo-worthy.

That weekend Midori and some of the other buddies decided to have a get-together in AP House 2 and make things like takoyaki, yakisoba, and okonomiyaki (octopus meatballs, grilled soba noodles & meat/veggies, and basically a Japanese stuffed pancake, more or less). The Holland/Brazil game was also running highlights/replay/something, so there was talk about that while foodstuffs were being created. The red contrivances are takoyaki grills: the top's a metal griddle with numerous half-sphere indentations in them. Batter, tako meat (octopus), dried ebi (shrimp) bits, and onions are poured all over the top of these griddles, then gradually they attain sphere shape by repeated turning and rolling, cutting the overflowing batter and flipping each hole's worth of makings over and over until they reach doneness. Then they're put on a plate, doused with takoyaki sauce, mayo, and 2 other dried somethings for toppings.

Yakisoba is remarkably simple to make...it's just soba noodles (buckwheat), some cabbage, and shreds of beef all grilled together, some soy sauce tossed in, then served up on a plate to pick away at. Masato fried up a few batches to provide some variety to the seven batches of  takoyaki that were made all in all @__@;;
Okonomiyaki is basically a savory Japanese pancake that gets made with lots of tasty stuff thrown into the batter. Shown here is Midori (with Asami in the background) showing off what she does at her part-time job down in Youme town, making up some okonomiyaki with meat Masato didn't use on the yakisoba, cabbage, and some other ingredients, I think, into a very tasty concoction.

However, as the batter batches grew to their final numbers, Asami decided to show us what Fukuoka-style takoyaki looked like. Take your ordinary, average platefull of takoyaki, smother it with the sauce, add twice as much mayo as normal (at least), and finally, melt/grill some cheese in one of the grill holes, and drizzle it over the entire top of the plate of takoyaki. Throw on the (benito shavings, I thnk?) extra accouterments, and you end up with the plate that Brendan's holding at left. Personally, I declined the offer to try any, content with my yakisoba and okonomiyaki. I unfortunately had to leave the gathering a bit early, as I'd laundry to tend to...it seemed that day my entire floor decided to do laundry all at once, so it was a bit of a fight for a spot in the queue.

The next week, we only had one class in the morning on Wed., due to the fact we were scheduled with another Gateway Program activity: 書道 (Shodou: Calligraphy [lit.: "The Way of Writing/Drawing"]). Everyone's piled into a large classroom, spread out enough between us so there's workspace for the sizeable amount of stuff we're given to work with, and shown the basics. First we're given some blank paper and instructional sheets on how to achieve the neat effects you typically expect to see on calligraphied kanji, and practice for a bit.

Shown at left is the shodo set: you get a black felt mat so ink doesn't soak through your paper and onto the surface below, a paperweight (the bar) to hold down the very flimsy lightweight calligraphy paper, 2 brushes (1 large for the kanji themselves, 1 small for your signature), an inkstone, ink, and a little siphon to pull the excess ink from your inkstone's reservoir when you're finished. Following our basic stroke practice, we're told to pick a favorite kanji to make as an omiyage (souvenir), able to practice it some, then finally given nice, gilt-edged stiff bristol paper, and try not to screw up. While I got the desired effect on some of mine with a bit too little ink so the brushmark shows, other parts were a bit too dry...rawrface.

Mine is Wado-Ryu Karate, Matt's is...translated "I am a Tiger Pirate."
...I make no explanations for the other people in the program. If you're reading this, you probably already know how strange I am.

The final happening of the week before Saturday and our leaving for the farmstay was a rather fun evening, one I don't usually do often. Sam's birthday was Friday, so some of us went down into town that evening to Spa Beach to celebrate with alcohol, fireworks, and subsequent hijinks. By the time we got downtown and ate at MosBurger (actually really tasty burgers...far better than McCrapalds), then worked our way back up to Spa Beach...Sam was well advanced into the Land of Inebriated Fun™. When Sam enjoys his libations...he has a bit of a habit of climbing things...any and all things he can. He's surprisingly coordinated when drunk...some have said far more than when he's sober.

As we're all around shooting the s#*t, celebrating a birthday and waiting for more people to show up, many of us get more liquid courage in us, and as such...strange props make for photos and amusing conversations, such as Matt's here, reminiscent of "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"
Like I said, I just have fun hanging out with them, I don't explain any of 'em...or myself, for that matter. A rather high point of the evening involved Dan and Matt (the third of 4 of them...this one was 'football Matt [Matt at left is 'James Bond']), some roman candles, and lines from Harry Potter. Yep...a Wizard's Duel on the beach. No, they weren't falling over drunk either...this was just the standard "we're having fun and finding odd ways to do so" type thing.

Not wanting to pay for a taxi, Becky, Zeff, and I ended up leaving a bit early, sprinting to the nearest bus stop so we could catch the last bus of the night and make it back up to APU. Becky and I headed off to Jessica's room, where we found Jason, Greg, and a handful of others all hanging out pulling up random videos on Youtube that someone in the assemblage confessed to having never seen before. Jumping right on in to the fun had therein, we were up for several hours more having fun before we all had to call it a night so we could pack and sleep before the farmstay the next day. Good times, good times.