日本春の桜--Japanese Springtime's Cherry Blossoms

Around the end of March, the entire country of Japan begins to twitterpate. The weathermen start using a strange new map that looks like this:

These pink weather maps are not showing the patterns of the fabled Pepto Bismol showers. They are predictions of when the sakura (cherry blossoms) will be blooming in different parts of Japan. There are many folks in Japan who take vacation time to follow the progression of the sakura from South to North. They call it "Hannami" or flower watching. Luckily for us, the Izu peninsula is a Hanami capital in Japan. Thousands of people come from all over to Ito, Shimoda, Kawazu, and other destinations on our small peninsula just to sit under the trees, drink sake, write haiku, and enjoy the pinkness that surrounds them. It is truly beautiful, as the breezes tend to cause flurries of petals to fall to the ground, as if the countryside were having its own fertility parade.

Many of the sakura in Japan line roads and fields. A beautiful contrast to the pink of the cherry blossoms is the yellow of the rape blossoms. Rape blossoms are a form of canola, and are used as a rotational crop in rice fields.

One of the biggest Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom festivals) is in Kawazu, on the southern part of the Izu Peninsula. Kawazu has a long avenue lined with sakura, right next to a river. So every year, the festival hawkers, food vendors, musicians, clowns, etc. line up along the avenue to celebrate the breaking of Spring. Japanese people lay out blankets and tarpaulins to sit on. They lie under the trees, take many close-up photos of the blossoms, and enjoy copious quantities of food and drink.
Here are a few shots of flowers from our springtime journeys through the Izu peninsula:
This is the river bank in Minami Izu.
A closeup of the sakura flower.
Lisa loitering under a sakura.
Paul frolicking in the canola.
Here is a video of Minamiizu's fields and flowers. (Note: this is my first attempt at making movies with soundtracks. I am so proud of myself! We had to remove the original soundtrack due to some serious trash-talking that was going on while Lisa was recording:).)


In addition to the sakura being in bloom, late March marks the beginning of a series of festivals culminating in the Golden Week holidays. On March 4th, Girls' Day is celebrated. In the weeks leading up to this festival, people decorate their homes and shrines in beautiful dolls made of paper, cloth, and ceramic. Ito City Hall has a lovely display of these dolls every year:


We took a drive around the Izu peninsula at the beginning of sakura season, and we managed to catch the former Prime Minister of Japan (Koizumi-Sama) outside a shrine in Shuzenji: As we came out of the shrine, we noticed an ebullient crowd of people had gathered, and they were all pointing and taking photos of this man:
Lisa and I had no idea who he was, but we knew that he was important, owing to the crowd and his pimped-out silk suit. We took the camera to some Japanese friends and asked them who he was. They shouted their excitement that we saw Koizumi-san. Apparently, he was a wildly popular PM in his day, and the Japanese call him the "Japanese Richard Gere." Can you spot the resemblance?

At any rate, Springtime is a wonderful time to visit Japan (although it's not as amazing if you haven't seen the other 3 seasons first). Most groups of friends and family go to or host Hanami parties, and there is a peaceful attitude in the air. The way they celebrate the flowers here seems to help illustrate why the Spring is associated with love.

Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) in Sapporo

(Editor's Note: Lisa wrote most of this entry. I filled in some of the blanks--Paul.)
With generous Christmas gifts of several members of our families (you know who you are!!) and some scheduling help from my supervisor Kurigami-sensei, Paul and I were able to take a trip to the city of Sapporo on the Northern most island of Hokkaido for the annual "Yuki Matsuri" or Snow Festival. This might be a good time to have a little geography lesson about Japan. Paul and I are living in Ito, Shizuoka, Japan. Looking at this map, find Mt. Fuji. Directly below Mt. Fuji, or Fuji-San as it is known here, there is a tiny peninsula called Izu (it is covered by the final A in NAGOYA) Ito is half way down the East side of the Izu. As you can see, we are about 120 km from Yokohama, 150 km from Tokyo and from Tokyo, a brief 75 minute flight to Sapporo.

This snow festival is something that I read about way before I ever thought about coming to Japan, so I was really excited that we were able to make it up there.
We met up with about 25 other JETs in Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. This airport is very nice and relatively empty as it only deals with domestic flights. After the short flight, we landed in Sapporo. By the time we got our luggage and made it to the train bound for our hotel, the Fates had graced us with the magic of Sapporo…

Soon enough, we arrived at our home for the next few days, the Sapporo Grand Hotel. This hotel is one of the nicest in the city, and has a very Western feel to it. We went to our rooms, freshened up a bit and headed out to get a snack and see some snow sculptures.

Now, we made the journey to Sapporo for Yuki Matsuri, but the town is famous for several other things including ramen, fresh seafood (especially crabs), Sapporo Beer, and skiing. And we only had three days to do it all!!!

Since we were in Sapporo several days before the Yuki Matsuri actually began, we were lucky enough to see the “behind the scenes” of the construction of these amazing statues. In the following video, you can see the bulldozers, scaffolding, etc…

After our “removal” from Odori Park, we headed back to our hotel to meet up with the group and head to our dinner reservation. Our organizer, Grace, had made arrangements for us to eat at the Sapporo Beer Garden. Sapporo is quite well known for its namesake beer. In the mid 1800’s some German brewmasters came over and found wild hops growing on Hokkaido. The Duetsch taught the Japanese the secrets of brewing and the rest is history. The brewery now includes a museum and restaurant in the "Genghis Kahn" style featuring “nomi hodai” or all you can drink Sapporo beer and "tabehodai". which means all you can eat. Since it's Genghis Kahn style, the all you can eat is lamb or mutton. With all that alcohol and meat, is it really surprising that things get out of hand…

We spent the day Saturday seeing as many of Sapporo’s finest sights as possible. Since Sapporo was planned out by Americans post WWII, the city is laid out in a grid pattern that makes walking around a breeze compared to the ancient Japanese city plans commonly found in Tokyo and other major cities.

First stop, Observatory 38. This is the home of JapanRail's offices in Sapporo.

After leaving the JR tower, we headed to the fish market...
Here's a photo of our gang with one ofthe couples that runs a booth at the market:

The Sapporo Fish Market is world famous for fresh seafood, but the piece de resistance is the enormous crabs they have here (Mel's friend, Van, is holding one in the photo). They sell for anywhere between 2500 and 7500 Yen per crab. That's around 25 to 75 U.S. Dollars! Fortunately for us, the vendors are wonderfully nice, and easy with the free samples. The crab is delicious, and if I had 75 bucks to blow on a special dinner, I would definitely pick up one of these beauties. Here's a clip of how they look before they hit the boiling pot.

Next stop, Ramen Alley.
Ramen Alley is a really unique place in Sapporo. Granted, you can't swing a dead cat in Japan without hitting a ramen shop, but here in Sapporo, there are around 50 of them all packed into one little street. Each region of Japan has its own spin on ramen, and Sapporo's style involves miso (fermented bean paste--it tastes much better than it sounds), corn, and butter, along with that delicious crab meat. Here's a clip that demonstrates a master's craft for ramen:

Later, we wandered into a sporting goods store to buy some gear for skiing the next day and then stopped back at the brewery to see the museum and to do the tour. Here are a few shots of our stroll through that wonderful outpost of hoppy, Germanic goodness:









Day 2 in Sapporo was our big ski trip. Let me just get in a plug here for Japanese organization. We rented our skiis and other equipment at the hotel's front desk. By mid afternoon on day 1, the skiis were delivered so we could try on the boots. On the morning of our ski trip, the equipment was neatly stacked for us. We took it and walked a couple blocks to the bus stop, and our adventure began. I never felt so at ease with a tour service. Here's a documentary clip of our big day at Teine Skiing resort. It was Paul's first time skiing since he was 8 years old, and I was really proud of how much he learned in one day. But then, he did have an awesome teacher!

On our last day in sapporo, we walked around to take in some of the nearly completed snow and ice sculptures. Here are a couple of Paul's favorites:

It was really cool how they had made sculptures out of seafood frozen in ice! There were about 5 city blocks' worth of these types of sculptures along one of the main streets in Sapporo. This trip turned out to be worth every penny, and we brought back memories that will last a lifetime.

Bugs of Japan

Spring is upon us here in Ito, so I thought it would be fitting to dust off this old proposal for a blog and make it an actual entry. For the most part, Japan's pests are quite similar to those found in the rest of the world. There are a few exceptions, however, which I will illustrate here. (Make sure you click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

When Lisa first came to Japan, she would call home to me and anxiously warn me about the bugs that lived in our apartment. As I listened to her fearful explanations, I silently vowed that when I arrived in Japan, I would learn everything I could about the critters, and then exterminate every last mother-freaking one of them. No one makes my girl cry, NO ONE!

Fortunately, when I arrived in actuality, I found that we were not as infested as I had feared, but I was amazed at the kinds of bugs that showed up around the joint. I almost had second thoughts about killing them--almost. Their forms reminded me of the selctive processes I studied in college that made their body shapes and appendages what they are. I marvelled at them almost as much as I loathed them.

My very first encounter with Japanese bugs was auditory rather than visual.

This is a video clip I took outside our apartment to capture the sound of the Japanese cicada-Magicicada septendecim ( Turn up your speaker volume when you play it). The sound was so very different from the American cicadas that I just had to save it for posterity. We didn't kill these, as they are fairly polite. They only sing during the daytime. If you enjoy Anime films, you will know that these sounds end up in a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's stories. They are almost characteristic of Japan's summertime, and I imagine that many people here associate the song of the cicada with the relaxing days of summer. In contrast to our next arthropod exhibit, the cicada is quite pleasant.

On my first morning in Japan, I woke at 4:30 am due to jet lag. I read for a while, and watched the sun rise at 5 am. At around 6:30, Lisa got up to start our day. I remember vividly the look on her face when she came running around the corner from our living room to the bedroom. She had a mission for me--KILL IT! I walked around the corner and found something I had never seen before outside of dreams and horror movies. I was face to face with a terrifying Jungian archetype!

The Geji-Geji
Scutigera coleoptrata
This little guy is a small sample of what I saw in our living room that day. I was in awe at the number of legs it had. I chuckled to myself when most of them came off after I smashed it with a shoe. You would think that the geji-geji was fast, but it seems that in actuality, all the extra legs get in the way. When you plug "geji-geji" into a digital Japanese dictionary, the phrase "house centpede" comes up. I am damn sure that when I am finished here, they will want to change their names. I kill them with extreme prejudice. This little guy was my first step into the surreal world of Japanese bugs. Before I get to the geji-geji's bigger cousin, I'd like to share with you what lives in the bushes outside our apartment, and above every driveway, and in every tree, and between every tree's lowest branches and the shrubs underneath it, and inside of phone booths, and pretty much everywhere there are mosquitoes, moths and other flying insects for it to eat.

The Japanese Golden Orb Weaver

Nephila pilipes
Japanese custom says that it is good luck to see a spider in the daytime, but bad luck to see one at night. Considering the unbelievable abundance of spiders in the country, I imagine that the luck pretty much balances out. Another frightening fact comes to you when you consider that their enromous population hints at an even greater population--their food. Most of my friends and family know that I have a love-hate relationship with spiders. I used to have awful nightmares about them as a child. As I grew older, I realized that they actually eat many of the disease vectors, and so I gained some respect for them. As long as they stay outside, I am content to let them be, unless of course I have to be outside in nature for an extended period, in which case I usually find myself killing them with extreme prejudice. The golden orb weaver in Japan is pretty similar to the "banana spider" common to the southeastern U.S., so it wasn't a shocking sight for me. What is interesting, however is their abundance in such close proximity to civilization here. They spin their webs on power lines, between buildings, under guard rails on the highway, in shrubs, inside telephone booths, and generally anywhere that a person hasn't walked in the last 45 minutes. here's a shot of the golden silk for which they are named:
I took this photo at a park near Okuno Dam in Ito. These webs are so prolific that pretty much anywhere you go, you are looking through one at something. As I said earlier, they are usually not a problem, as they stay mainly outside, but I pitty the foolish spider that makes her web above my head in the house. We had, at one point in the summer, 8 of these that I could count living in the bushes in front of our apartment. They string their webs between the azaleas and the large tree that shades them. Nothing, however, had prepared me for the legendary 8-eyed relative of the orb weaver that had caused Lisa to call me from Japan upset about bugs in the first place.

The Huntsman Spider

Heteropoda venatoria

Their scientific names comes from the fact that these spiders have their legs oriented more like a crab than a normal spider. This orientation makes them able to hoist themselves up into the corners of rooms quite well and wait there for long periods of time. The principal diet of these rather large spiders consists mainly of cockroaches. I am glad for their help in killing the roaches (gokiburi as they are called here), but when I think about the fact that thousands of roaches can be managed by 10 or 12 of these huntsmen, I can't help but immediately jump to the conclusion that no roaches equals no huntsmen, so I rush out to the home center and buy the strongest chemical insecticide avaialable. "Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out!" When Lisa first arrived at the apartment, one of these was waiting for her in the bathroom. Luckily, another ALT was present to help her, but the girl didn't kill the blasted thing. She shooed it outside! Of course, it came back, but by that time, I was there to exact furious vengeance and rightous anger upon it, like in the book of Ezekiel. That's enough about spiders, let's return to the geji-geji family, to have a look at his much more dangerous cousin.

One morning, I got up (near 4:30, as I was still jet-lagging) and decided to cook breakfast for Lisa. I went into the kitchen to put on a pot of water for coffee. As I was filling the kettle, I swear I remember hearing the shrill, chopping violin sounds that they always play in horror movies when the killer, or giant bug, comes onto the screen. Out of the corner of my eye, the drain cover on our sink began to move with undulating, hair-like appendages. The running water had disturbed an overnight resident of the drain sump:

The Centipede
Scolopendra sp.

I will spare you the other photo of this specimen that I took. It exposes the enormous chelicerae (fang-like teeth) of this stinging arthropod. Of all the bugs we have mentioned here, the centipede is the most malicious because it has a nasty bite. I have never experienced it, knock on wood, but I have heard that small children and the elderly can end up in the hospital after being bitten by a centipede. To date, I have found two of these inside the house, but I have since taken measures to prevent their reappearance. When I killed the one I found in the sink, I talked smack to it for about 5 minutes before finally flushing it down the toilet. Despite what you might think, running out of the kitchen to the backyard to escape the centipede may not be the best plan.

The Praying Mantis
Tenodera angustipennis

This 4 inch long back yard predator would often keep me company while I was hanging laundry. They don't shoo when you swat at them with a broom either. I think I heard it laughing at me one day when I tried that. I ended up having to physically push it off the railing. I actually grew fond of the praying mantis, just because it would sit and watch me with its head cocked to the side. It seemed to want to understand why I was hanging clothes (I always hanghe laundry, because Lisa doesn't like going out on the back porch). It surpised me one day when I tried to get it off the clothesline by flying to the other side of the porch. Fortunately, Lisa wasn't there to see that, as I think it might have been too much to bear.

There are a couple of other entries in bug log that are not offensive to my eyes, but I did think they were quite interesting to look at:

This is a 3 inch long caterpillar that I found on a walk to downtown Ito one day. I have not been able to identify it or the moth into which it transforms, but it has a cute little antenna on top of it's head. That, combined with it s size, made it photo-worthy.

This is a garden snail that I found after I parked the car on a rainy day outside the apartment. It's about 3 inches long also. I never saw more than just this one, so I had to run back outside with the camera before it went away.

That about wraps it up for the bugs of Japan. I waited until our friends and family had already booked flights to Japan before revealing this little tidbit. Hope they don't cancel their flights. Speaking of which, we are really looking forward to Bryan, John, and Amy's visit, followed by Lisa's mom and her sister Marcie. Anybody else who wants to come see us this spring or summer (if you can overcome your fear after reading this post) is more than welcome!

Yokohama: Japan's Other Biggest CIty

A few weeks ago, Lisa and I went to Yokohama for a sightseeing/get out of Ito trip. It is just south of Tokyo (a 20 minute train ride) and holds about 3.6 million residents. It is actually the second largest city in Japan, but there is some contention between it and Osaka. According to Wikipedia, however, Yokohama has a million more citizens than does Osaka. At any rate, there is quite a bit to do and see in this city!

We stayed at a traditional ryokan-style hostel in the city's hostel village. This was a bit of a different experience from other places we've stayed in Japan, as there was a large transient population living in the area. It was clean and quiet, in contrast to the areas of the US that are mostly populated with homeless people. The staff at the Hostel were gracious and helpful.

Yokohama boasts one of the world's largest China-Towns. It is a beautifully decorated area with large Chinese-style gates at the ends of the main streets. We plan to go back there around Chinese new year, as I have heard the celebration is pretty spectacular. We ate dinner at one of the restaurants there. Unfortunately, we were starving when we went, so we just jumped into the first restaurant we found, but if we had held out longer, we would have found that there were 7 or 8 better restaurants than the one we chose.

On the second day of our trip, we took a walking tour from the hostel to the downtown area. It was about a 30 minute walk from the hostel to the city center, and we got to look at some of the beautiful buildings along the way. The shipping industry is huge in Yokohama, and there are three buildings associated with the history of trade in the city: Jack's, Queen's, and King's Towers. Unfortunately, the path we took didn't give us a good view of King's tower, and by the time we got back to that part of town, we were too tired to wander over to it just to take a picture.

One of the other major attractions in Yokohama is the 331 meter Ferris wheel, The Cosmo Clock, pictured here next to the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand Hotel.

The wheel ride gave us some pretty spectacular views of the city, and Tokyo off in the distance. We were lucky it was a clear day. Here's a shot of the famous Yokohama Landmark tower from the top of the wheel:

Here's another more artsy photo of the tower just outside the mall underneath it:

Yokohama's famous Bayside Park is a great place for a peaceful walk. There is a sculpture here of "The Girl With Red Shoes" which everyone seems to take pictures of when they come here. I didn't! Instead, I found this statue commemorating the friendship of the Girls Scouts of Japan withe the Girl Scouts of America:

Lisa also took a cool picture of the arches lining the pathway that leads out of the park:

That about wraps it up for this entry. We spent a few fun days and nights in this, "The Other City By The Bay" (side note: You gamers will be interested to know that The Bay Bridge here was the inspiration for the level of the same name in Sega's "Virtua Racer" game):

あけましておめでとうございま! Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu! Happy New Year!

After a quiet Christmas, Paul and I were ready for a traditional Japanese New Year’s. In Japan, New Year’s is a much bigger holiday than Christmas. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, many Japanese people go to a shrine to offer their first prayers of the new year. We were lucky enough to be invited to spend midnight with Tomomi, a teacher friend of ours.

She and her family live very close to Ike Jinja (sounds like eekay jeenja) or in English, Ike (the name of the town) Shrine. We drove through crowds of people to get to Tomomi’s house, then walked the 5 minutes to the shrine just in time to hear the count down and see the fireworks. As soon as the fireworks were finished, everyone scurried to the shrine to offer their prayers. The huge crowd was festive, yet controlled. I think people were too preoccupied with the Taiko drumming to start a ruckus.

We waited in line for about 20 minutes before it was our time to pray. When it was our turn, we threw our change into the well, rang the bell, clapped twice, bowed twice, then clapped our hands two more times.


We then were ushered to the side where shots of sake were waiting for us. After saying hello to a few people we recognized, Paul and I were getting ready to leave when we were instructed to go back to the front of the shrine. Apparently, another Japanese custom is to throw out balls of rice dough, called mochi, into the crowd. If you catch one of the balls, it is said that you will be blessed with good fortune for the new year. This may be true, but I feel like I was lucky to CATCH the blasted thing. Those little balls are HARD! You’re lucky if you don’t get clunked in the head with one of those buggers. Well, we ended up with three, so hopefully we’ll be in good condition for 2007.
We got home from the shrine at about 2 am, so we hit the hay for a few hours, then woke up to take part in another Japanese New Year’s tradition. For many Japanese it is customary to witness the first sunrise of the new year. In our town of Ito, there are two mountains that have quasi ski lifts running up the sides so visitors can have a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean, Ito, and on a clear day, Mt. Fuji. Toshi, my supervisor, told me that the lifts would be open New Year’s morning to shuttle people to the top of the mountain to see the first sunrise of 2007. Excitedly, Paul and I donned our warmest layers and were out of the house by 5:30. As we approached the parking lot, I was surprised to see so many people. I would guess there were about 200 waiting in line by the time we got there. The sun was set to rise at 6:51.




It was 6:47 when we got onto the lift. There was a little bit of cloud cover right at the horizon, but when the sun eventually broke through the clouds, the people started cheering and clapping. A surprising outburst of emotion from the Japanese! The large, piñata-like ball behind us burst open, spraying confetti and streamers onto the ground. It was great! We hung out on the mountain a bit then got in line to go back down.

Merry Christmas, Cowboy!

Many of the other ALTs in the area had gone on trips over the winter break, so Ito was pretty quiet around Christmas. I really wanted to have a festive Christmas Eve dinner; something to remind me of Christmas at home with our family. Paul and I and our friends Aura and Blaise got dressed up and went to Cowboys Steak Saloon for a nice steak dinner. Let me tell you, this place is one of a kind. It’s pretty rustic, outfitted with swinging door, and decorated with all sorts of country western paraphernalia. We were a bit over dressed for the place, but it didn’t matter. The owner, known as “Ohara the Kid”, had spent some time in California and spoke a little English. The four of us all got the same thing, cubed steak, steamed bean sprouts and rice. Now, it was no Ruth’s Chris or even Outback, but it was pretty good for Ito, Japan. We finished our dinners and headed to our very own Baskin Robbins, only to find that it had closed about 5 minutes prior to our arrival. Grrrr… Merry Christmas anywho!

We Finally Sold Our House!

On January 26th, 2007, our house closed, and we breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Up until now, most of our money was going to the mortgage, but now that the house has sold, we'll be able to loosen our belts a little and enjoy more of our life out here. Our realtor, Cara Ameer, of Lifestyles Realtors, Sawgrass, made this process go so smoothly. She did a really great job, so if anybody in Jax. is thinking of buying or selling a place, be sure to contact her. She made us a nice little slideshow to commemorate our first home. Here it is...

Christmas by the Sea, In Asia

Just before Christmas, Lisa and I went downtown to the beachfront park in Ito to celebrate with about 5000 other fans of Christmas. They had typical festival foods, like Ika-Yaki, Yaki-Tori, Tako-Yaki, Yaki-Gyu, Okonomi-Yaki, and many others. Here's a shot of me eating my very first Ika-Yaki with a Kirin chaser:
Have you guessed what Ika-Yaki means yet? Keep thinking, and no, Dr. Freud, it is not something that usually comes attached to the human body!

Speaking of strange foods, a few days before we went to the fireworks show, Lisa and I had a Christmas Enkai (office party where everyone is allowed to drink and be comfortable) with some of the teachers from Yawatano Shou-Gakko (grade school). We went to an Okinawa-style restaurant. The early entrees were fairly normal, even by American standards: fried chicken, noodles, rice, sushi, etc. But then they started to get strange. This particular Okinawa-style restaurant specializes in two things: 1. foods made from a very bitter tasting cucumber called goya that has tiny bumps all over its skin and 2. sliced, sauteed pig's ear. The pig's ear was OK, but it was a little too cartilaginous for me, and I didn't like the bitterness of the goya, but everything else was good. I also kept getting my cup refilled with an Okinawa-style hooch called Awamori. It was a lot like whiskey, but not as oaky, and it packed a pretty decent punch.

I almost forgot to mention that earlier in the evening, Lisa bought me a 500 Yen santa suit. There were two children coming to dinner that evening, and Lisa had told the others that I would play Santa. Here are a few pictures of our friend Kaoru and me doing our best to pull off Santa and a reindeer:

The two little girls, Riko and Kako, were quite shocked when Santa and Rudolf came around the corner. Riko Jumped 3 feet across the room into her mother's arms. They were only able to receive the gifts we had for them after a good bit of coaxing. But once they realized we were the real deal, they commenced to opening presents and munching the candy inside them. After I went outside and took off the costume, I came back inside to eat. Riko kept eyeing me suspiciously all night, but I don't think she made me.

Fast forward a few nights back to the festival. Have you figured out yet that "ika" means squid? Anyway, after we ate strange food and had a few beers, we went over to the dance show. I have included here a highlight reel with some of the fireworks, dancing, and drunken commentary from Blaise and me.

So while we terribly miss our friends and family, we had a good time at Christmas. Love and good-wishes going out to everyone!

A Nihon Christmas Story

I know it is not right to exploit poor, defenseless, innocent Japanese school children, but I can’t help it. I was born and raised in Cleveland. This is something that I have thought about doing since I applied for the JET program in November of 2005. What you are about to witness may not be funny to those people who are not from the land of Cleves, but it is my tribute to my beloved hometown and a movie that is as much of a holiday tradition in my family as “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Without further ado…

Thanksgiving in Japan

Undoubtedly, one of the toughest times to be away from family and friends is during the holidays. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I think it’s because there isn’t a lot of hoopla around this particular holiday, just really good food and hanging out with people you love.
This year, even though we were missing home, we were lucky enough to be asked to two Thanksgiving dinners. The first dinner was on Thursday, November 24th, proper Thanksgiving Day. It was kind of strange because I had the day off work, too. Not because it was American Thanksgiving Day, but Japanese Labor Day. Regardless, no school means more time to eat. Another ALT in our town, Aura, was nice enough to invite us over to her apartment for dinner. Her mom, dad, and younger sister were visiting from California and brought a beef brisket and a turkey stowed away in her checked luggage. Oh boy! All together, there were going to be about 13 people for dinner. Our job was to bring the mashed potatoes. I had gone to the store the night before to buy the supplies, but for some reason the store was closed. No problem, I thought, I can go to the store in the morning. Little did I know that Murphy would pay me a Thanksgiving visit and would slap his law right across my turkey!
Most supermarkets in Japan open at 10:00 am. Aura had asked us to be at her place for noon. No problem. I was set to walk out the door at 9:50, when I heard voices outside. No it was not Murphy, but Asada-san, the housing manager for the Ito Board of Education. He and a crew of three other men came to put in our new bathroom window. To make a long story short, after some chit-chat, it was 10:45 before I got to the store. The line at the store was long; the traffic home was horrid; it took me forever to peel the potatoes; the water wouldn’t boil; the hand mashing was a PAIN; (mashed potatoes are not as easy without an electric hand mixer) needless to say, we were late. We got to Aura’s house about 12:40.
One of the things that was POUNDED into my head before I left for Japan was how the Japanese are a people of promptness. They are on time and they expect other people to be as well. Needless to say, I felt terrible. I apologized when I got there and the several Japanese people that were there, along with everyone else, were extremely gracious, but I still felt bad. (Oburr, if you are reading this, I am still sorry I was late!)
Dinner was being put on the table when we got there, but we had just enough time to make the international debut of a long standing Hudak Family Thanksgiving tradition; the shaking of the butter. It started at my preschool, Appleseed, but my family adopted it maybe 15 years ago and has been a beloved Turkey Day activity ever since. Fill a glass jar with heavy whipping cream, add salt to taste, and take turns shaking it until the cream actually “pop” into butter (just like the pilgrims did it!). The person holding the jar when that happens is the winner and usually gets a small prize like candy (just like the pilgrims did it?!) It was a great way to keep the kids out of the kitchen while my mom cooked.
Several of the other guests tried it, but they didn’t seem as excited as I was. Except, that is, for one of Aura’s mom’s friends. In her limited English, she told me that she wrote a newsletter to cancer patients and was going to write about the “magic cream”. It made me happy:)
The dinner was really nice with the brisket, turkey/ham, mashed potatoes, cheese, bread, cookies, seven-layer dip, and even a quasi-pumpkin pie.






We stayed for a few hours, but a food coma started to kick in, so Paul and I headed home relax in front of the TV.

Our second Turkey day was Sunday, December 3rd. Our friend Katie organized a Thanksgiving picnic down in her town of Minami Izu. Katie had been cooking like a crazy woman for days before trying to get everything ready. It's hard to prepare food for 15 with an oven the size of a microwave!

I was worried about eating outside, but it turned out to be a really nice day. We had dinner at a park next to a river. There was tons of good food and good company.

I brought the butter shaking here too and it was received with a little more enthusiasm...

It was a cool day, so to warm up and burn off some calories we started playing the unofficial national sport of Japan-dodge ball. Using two-liter bottles of pop, we made a court and had some pretty intense games.

We ate and played until the sun was getting ready to set, then we packed up our cars and headed back to Ito.

All in all, both Thanksgiving feasts were great and definitely memorable!