Japanese Food

I’m pretty bored at work right now (I’ve been here for about 10min), so I decided to write a bit about how I’ve found the food so far. Basically, it’s about as different from Canada as I can imagine. I know we use a lot of the same ingredients and eat sushi and teriyaki and stuff, but the variability is still really different. In Canada you can get food from everywhere, but in Japan everything is Japanese. They make hamburgers and pasta at some places, but they are still just Japanese approximations. Hamburgers, for example, seem to not always have buns, but do have mayonnaise every single time.

Another thing that gets me is the texture of everything. For the most part things here taste pretty good, but the textures of some of the food is really weird. They seem to prefer sticky, slimy, or squishy things here, which can get a little gross.

That said, there are some pros to eating in Japan. Pretty much the nicest of all is that due to the relatively high cost of groceries it is often cheaper or the same price to eat out rather than cook for one person. Also, their restaurant food seems much healthier than ours (but it probably isn’t really).

Anyway, here are some things I have found that I like so far:

Tajima Beef: It’s usually called Kobe Beef because Kobe is much more identifiable than Tajima, but this type of beef actually comes from the area where I’m located. It’s pretty much the best tasting beef I’ve ever had. Apparently the cows are fed beer and massaged in order to get the right type of marbling. Its pretty expensive though.

Yakisoba: Basically this is just some fried noodles, some vegetables, and some chicken sometimes. It’s really good though, and lots of restaurants serve it.

Gyudon: Basically its fried beef, onions and rice in a bowl. It’s not really anything special, but I think pretty much everywhere sells it, and for the most part it tastes the same everywhere. I don’t know what that pink stuff in it is, but I don’t like it.

My Speech

Next week I have to give a speech to the entire school during an assembly. I wrote my speech in English, then Adachi sensei translated it and read it back to me, and I wrote it down again as best as I could. Anyway, this is what I have to say (I’m sure some things are misspelled, but I was copying what he was saying, not what he had written).

Asago Chugako no minasan ohaya gozaimasu. Watashi no namae wa Drew Garvey desu. Watashi wa Canada no Toronto kara kimashita. Minasan ni oaideikitei totemo ureishii desu. Nihongo o hanase nai no dei, hatsu onga okashii ka mo shireimasen ga oyurushi kudasai. Anata tachito ishoni bengkyo dekirukoto o tanoshimi ni shite imasu. Muzu kashi i ka mo shiremasen ga iroirono basho day watashi ni hanashi kakete kudasai. So sureba otaga ini motto wakari a eru dei sho. Isho kemei Eigo bengkyo shite kudasai. Watashi mo gambarimasu. Dozo yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Arigato gozaimashita.

It’s gonna be interesting I guess.

Himeji Castle

Yesterday some other Hyogo JETs and I went to see Himeji Castle. It’s supposed to be the best castle in Japan, due to the fact that it almost entirely original rather than concrete reconstruction. I haven’t seen any other castles here yet, so I can’t really say for sure whether I think its the best, but it was really nice so I sorta doubt there is a better one hiding somewhere. It was a lot bigger than I expected it to be, and they built it so that it takes forever to actually get up to the main tower. It seems like every feature was designed to make it hard to get into, and then it was never even attacked. We also went to a little museum, it was all in Japanese, but there were some interesting things to look at. Here are the pictures:

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Tajima Tour

Today Veronica, Myrie, Jeff and I drove around various parts of Tajima and saw some of the stuff the area has to offer. In Japan they like to name all different sizes of areas. Tajima is the name for the section of Hyogo prefecture that I live in. Anyway, today we saw a temple that contained the largest wooden Buddha (50ft I think), a small temple at the top of a mountain, a waterfall, and the beach where Kevin (another ALT) lives. It was pretty cool to see how many amazing things are within a short drive of Asago. The temple was especially amazing, and we were pretty much the only people around. Here are some pictures because they show a lot more:

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P.S. Last night I felt my first earthquake. I didn’t know what was going on at first, but apparently it was strongest in Wadayama at about a 3. Basically my apartment shook for a few seconds and then stopped, but nothing fell down.

Okuganaya Round II

Today I had my second day at Okuganaya Elementary in Ikuno. It was also the first time I had to drive there by myself, and I couldn’t find it. I did manage to find the town hall though, and when I asked directions the guy called the vice principal to come get me. When I finally got there I spent most of my time working on lesson plans for the three classes I will be teaching. Basically the lessons will all go like this: slideshow introducing myself mainly with pictures, and then a game. It doesn’t sound like it should be that hard, but considering the number of students in the classes are 20, 13, and 5, they don’t speak English, and the teachers don’t speak English well enough to explain a game makes it pretty tough. The class with 5 students is especially hard to plan for, because most of the games that are popular with Japanese students are group based. So if anyone has any suggestions I’d be very appreciative. Keep in mind that they basically only know the alphabet, numbers (to 100?) and maybe really basic phrases (Hello. How are you? Nice to meet you). I did, however, only have to work until noon which was pretty nice.