Long time no read my GLLRs (Grace's Lovely Little Readers). I have had a nice January and I hope you all have as well. Without further ado...
After my winter vacation to Kyushu was over, I took a couple days to rest before going back to work. It was nice to see the other ALTs and my coworkers again. I had a Yakiniku party with the other ALTs once everyone returned which was great. Turns out it is hard to find a yakiniku place open on Tuesdays in this town but we managed 😅 ( I forgot to take pictures, sorry 🙏)
My relaxing didn't last long though, the weekend after winter break I had a teachers' trip to Osaka with one of my elementary schools. It was a two day, overnight trip with many fun activites planned out. To get to Osaka it was a 6 hour bus ride but it luckily didn't feel too long. The people planning the trip had scheduled fun games and trivia intermitten on the drive and I chatted with my cowokers a bunch so the time cruised on by. I was able to see three new prefectures on my way: Kagawa, Tokushima, and Hyogo. The scenery and weather were lovely and we stopped in Kobe for lunch.
In Kobe, we spent 2 hours for lunch in Chinatown! Kobe's Chinatown is one of the biggest and oldest in Japan and it was so awesome to go there. The streets were filled with street food vendors and various shops. We broke into groups and tried many foods. We started with the fluffy bread dumpling, then to a steamed and fried dumpling, then mapo tofu, and then finished it off with a dispointing goma dango. Other than the cold and hard goma dango, everything was so delicious! I didn't know dumplings could taste so good! The flavors were immaculate and I wish to eat Chinese food again soon haha.
After lunch time, we finished driving to Osaka and checked into our hotel. We quickly checked in and dropped our bags then headed to our next engangement of the day: a comedy show. We walked for about 20 minutes through the heart of Osaka with the tall buildings, bright signs, and hundreds of tourists. It was fun to see all the different, cool building decorations for resturants, most 3D and some moving. After our walk, we arrived to the building for the comegy show. The comedy show was full of famous and good comedians. Despite everything being in Japanese, I understood most of the jokes and show and thought it was very fun.
After the show, it was time to head to dinner. We went to a famous and lavish Yakiniku restaurant that had AMAZING wagyu grilled meat with delisous side dishes. I ate my hearts fill of food and enjoyed great company. It was nice to get to know some of my coworkers a bit more and have them warm up to me too. After dinner, was the after-dinner-drinking-small-party. It is common that after the official dinner/drinking party, there will be a small group that will stay out later to have some more drinks. I decided to join the after party and we headed to a nearby izakaya (bar) for some more drinks and conversation. It was interesting to get their perspectives on the education system here and what they thought about certain things.
The next day, I had free time before the Kabuki show so my friend, the Japanese English teacher, and I headed to Koreatown. I was very excited to go to Koreatown and eat delicious Korean food. Korean food is one of my favorites but there is none in my town and especially not to the extent of Koreatown. We arrived at a good time and there were not many people there. Before eating, we walked the entire length of the Koreatown street to eye our options before indulging. We started with some Tteokbokki, I had a Hotteok, then some Yum yum chicken, and finished everything off with some Bingsu. I had missed Bingsu so much since leaving Korea so I was sooo happy to be able to eat it again 😊 The Korean food was delicious and filled our free time perfectly.
In the afternoon, we went to a Kabuki show. I had never been to Kabuki before so I wanted to go and see it. Kabuki is hard to understand even for Japanese people because of the old speaking style so they have small audio assisters that tell you whats happening in your ear as you watch. Even with that, I had no idea what was happening 😂 But luckily after the show, my coworkers also had no idea what had happened either haha. It was still an interesting show and I am glad to have gone and seen it.
After Kabuki, our trip was finalyy coming to an end. We had a long 6 hour drive ahead of us but since it was late, they put on a movie and everyone fell asleep. I arrived back home around midnight tired but happy. The next day was a holiday so I was able to relax and sleep in. I went to see Barbie in the afternoon at the local culture center since there is no movie theatre in town.
My next week featured delicious homemade pasta and pizza.
The following weekend I just relaxed and recoporated from my travels. I had a girls night movie night and a sweet potato party. Some of the ALTs volunteer on the Board of Education boss's small farm and they had gotten a huge haul of sweet potatoes. So, logically, the only thing to do is have a sweet potato party. The main dish of the party was sweet potato tempura which was very delicious. It was paired with some marinated beef snadwhichs from the beef my friend won by being MVP at sports day. A very delicious dinner it was. (I forgot to take pictures)
The next weekend (Jan 23-26th), I had a number of delicious dinner events. First, Thursday evening there wasa meeting to discuss an upcoming speech contest and after the meeting there was a delicious dinner/drinking party held.
The following day, Friday evening, one of the ALTs hosted a drinking party with some of his coworkers and us ALTs. Again, great food and great company. After the dinner, we headed to karaoke and had a good time singing songs. (No pics)
Lastly, Saturday evening was a sweet potato party 2.0 because lo and behold, even after the first sweet potato party there were still a ton of sweet potatoes left. To spread out the work a little bit we decided to make it potluck style. Everyone picked up their sweet potatoes the night before and prepared them in a unique way. Therefore, for the party we had sweet potato mochi that I made (big success), sweet potato latke, sweet potato and broccoli salad, and sweet potato pie and muffins. As you may have realized, I am surrounded by very good cooks so I often eat exquisite foods made by them. We also have a couple ALT's who love to host so there is frequently a nice dinner shindig happening.
The work week continued as usual but did feature some very interesting school lunches. For one week, there was a theme of school lunches through the ages. So, we ate school lunches that were common from 1940s to now. The last school lunch featured a futuristic take on school lunch which was a rice burger. All of the meals were very delicious and I learned about the development of school lunches broadly in Japan.
The last weekend of January was also fun filled. On Friday evening I went to a brithday party at our favorite karaoke place. This time we didn't sing though we played various board games and online games. It was very fun. (No pics)
Saturday afternoon I had a lunch with the lovely older lady who is like the ALTs grandma and some ALTs. We went to a Philipine restuarent and the older lady actually knew the owner and her son! (I'm telling you this lady is like a celebrtiy she knows everyone). The food was great and we had really good conversations.
Saturday evening I had another dinner/drinking party with the elementary school teachers I went to Osaka with. We were supposed to have an end of the semester party last December but because most of the teachers had the flu it was postponed. So, I had another night filled with delicious food and fun conversation.
Lastly, on Sunday Feburary 2nd, it was Sestubun. Setsubun celebrates the transition from winter into spring and it was something I celebrated every year in highschool so it was nostalgic to celebrate it here in Japan. I bought an Ehomaki, an uncut sushi roll for Setsubun, and ate it in the lucky direction of the year. It was very delicious. I also bought some roasted soybeans to throw at an "oni", demon (a volenteer puts on a mask), which symbolized scaring demons away and welcoming good fortune into the home. I brought the beans as well as the homemade crab apple jelly my parents mailed me to the scheduled burrito and movie night.
As forementioned, one of the people who like hosting and cooking was attempting his hand at homemade tortillas so we all made burritos for our movie night. And let me tell you, these burritos were so good! I defninely was missing a good burrito being here so that helped squash my craving. The crab apple jelly was a big hit and we successfully threw beans at an unsuspecting oni. There was also a surprise banana cream cheese bread for dessert one of the other ALT chefs spontaniously made some 😂 The movie we watched was the Ghibli movie, Princess Mononoke. Most of us hadn't seen it yet and we all enjoyed it. It is one of the more graphic and serious Ghibli movies commenting on industrialization and the environment but it was still a good watch.
Well, that wraps up my January. As you can tell, I am well fed here 😂 and spend my time amongst good company. Thanks for reading till the end and until next time 👋
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