We organized an afternoon of soba making in Nakayama, which was a perfect activity for the crummy weather. We were in two groups, and being JETs a little competitive. The jury's still out on who made the best soba...

The ingredients are simple, but the process is not! After mixing 2 types of flour and exactly 195ml of water, a very specific method must be followed! If you take too long to make the noodles, they will not taste their best! The dough has to be rolled out into a large, even square. The square is then folded and cut into long, thin noodles.

After we made the soba, we got to taste the fruits of our labour! Yummy! And I must say that, finally after 3 years here I quite like soba. Though I don't think I'll be making it from scratch anytime soon - I'll just buy it next time :)

Saturday was also Vania's birthday - she was sooo excited to spend it making soba! Happy Birthday Vania! Oh, and Dave and Scott were also celebrating their birthdays! Happy Birthday Scott! Happy Birthday Dave! There was a pretty big and crazy party at Ogodogo afterwards! Too bad I forgot my camera...though I'm sure some people will be relieved that I didn't have any photos to post.... :p A fun weekend!

emma found her way @ 9:03 p.m. | 0 comments

Today I was teaching at Kuranuki Shogakko, and it was fun as always. The kids are always super genki and excited to see me, which is always nice! Today I ate lunch with the first year students. As usual, they were very chatty and asked many of the questions I have come to expect from 7 year old Japanese kids. "Were your eyes always blue?" "How tall are you?" "How many children do you have?"

But today, I was floored with the questions this particular group of kids came up with. There were three hum-zingers that made me fall off my seat in fits of laughter:

"What time did you have to leave Canada this morning to get here on time?"

"When do you think you will die?"

and perhaps the best of them all:

"What is your job?"

If that doesn't make you smile then I don't know what will. I love this place!
emma found her way @ 7:36 p.m. | 0 comments

After 2 weekends of elementary school plays I was very happy to have a bit of time to myself this weekend! I got to sleep in woohooo! I had an awesome weekend with friends, just what I needed! On Thursday night I had a few friends and my old boss over for Nabe. Yummy!

My old boss making his 'oishii' face :)

On Saturday I went to see 'the grudge' with Clare and Phil. An awful and disturbing movie remade from a Japanese original. Though it was interesting because the main characters were foreigners in Japan, don't spend your money on it. Watch it at home, alone and then you'll really be scared!

Today I spent the day with Toshie and Koji - and what a fabulous day it was! One of those totally random days that seem to happen more often than not here in Japan. So we headed out for lunch and an onsen in Tsushima, about 1hr south of where I live. The onsen in Tsushima is one of my favourties - nice and big and a huge variety of bathes!

So after lunch the plan was to head to the onsen but Koji suggested that we go to see a nearby Japanese Garden. Originally, I wasn't too keen because I didn't think there would be much to see - - given that it's the middle of winter and all. We found out that there was a Plum Blossom Festival so we decided to check it out! When we arrived we were too late for the mochi throwing event - no Japanese festival is complete without one! But, we were just in time for the Plum Pit Spitting Contest! Or in Japanese the Ume no Tanetobashi Taikai. Toshie and I decided to enter, numbers 20 and 21. Toshie, the little thing that she is spat her pit a whopping 4.70 meters....much to Koji's amusement! Next it was me, and I must say I even shocked myself.......5.78 meters! And guess what, that was enough to win the competition!!! How do so many fun random things happen to one person! As my father always says, I could fall into a cesspool and come out smelling like roses!

Check out the haul!!! 2 tubs of umeboshi, 3 packages of ume somen noodles and a huge bottle of ume chu! I love ume chu - - anyone up for a party? Maybe I'll let it age a bit more until hanami season :)

emma found her way @ 8:47 p.m. | 0 comments

Last weekend I went to the spring play at Shuki Elementary school. But this year was different from all years past. Why you ask?? Because this year, I was IN the play! And what a blast it was! As promised, here is a photo (albeit a bit blurry) of my dancing the MatsuKen Samba with my 4th year students. Thank god I didn't have to sing!

Thanks to mom and dad for the great yukata, I finally got to wear it!

Here are some of the third year kids dressed up like ninjas, kawaii ne!

emma found her way @ 8:22 p.m. | 0 comments

hey guys! thought it was about time i changed my blog around a bit. will write more later. though i can't seem to get the nihongo to work....
emma found her way @ 12:34 a.m. | 0 comments

Rich playing a mean didge.

emma found her way @ 9:56 p.m. | 0 comments

Note, the level of apparent genkiness is directly related to the amount of tequila consumed.

emma found her way @ 9:52 p.m. | 0 comments

This is what Phil looks like after one piece of pizza, 4 shots and about 10 elapsed minutes. Karen's doing her best to console him after his unfortunate loss of motor skills which resulted in the misplacement of his behind on the floor, rather than the chair.

What, oh what is Nathalie doing???? I don't think Tom has any idea either....

Kate, me, Kerri and Natasha. One guess which 3 are playing catch up...

Clare and I on day two of the conference.

At lunch to took over this okonomiyaki shop, they're still telling their friends about it! Sara, Tom, Wes and Colin enjoy some yummy 'as you like it' pancake.

emma found her way @ 9:34 p.m. | 0 comments

Here's me and the girls at the Mikame Ekiden a few weeks ago. We sure weren't the fastest but atleast we weren't the slowest :) It seemed like everyone in town was running on one team or another. I was the first runner on our team....I wanted to murder whoever decided the order. I had to run against all my students who run about 10km a day....the HS is famous for it's cross country running team. I'll give you one guess who was on the start line with me........

emma found her way @ 8:12 p.m. | 0 comments