halloween and things less scary

happy halloween to those who actually believe in it.

i went to a halloween party on the weekend in tokyo and it was a very interesting experience. i wouldnt have thought so many japanese people would get so into it, but then again they do love their western traditions: valentines, christmas, disney.....

the party was at a club in shinkiba (not far from tokyo disneyland actually) called ageha. The place is huge. about 15 different rooms, all with different music. you had house, r&b, reggae, trance, hip hop etc to choose from.

they even had a swimming pool!

we left mito at 7pm and went to shinjuku first to meet up with other JETs and get some dinner. we got there at 9.45ish and didint actually get the the night club until 12am.

nearly everyone was dressed up. i got an angel costume but it was too small when i got it home, so i took the wings and halo and wore it with a black top and skirt and boots to become a "dark angel". It worked. everyone in costume got into the club for free and so did i.

the wierd thing about this club was that
1. they checked our id. first time this has ever happened in japan
2. they checked our bags and told us "No cameras" so we had to put them in a locker. i dont get this cause our phones all have cameras on them too....
3. they gave us a pat down before we were allowed in.

in the middle of the night they had a costume competition. the people who entered were very strange... i cant even begin to describe what they were wearing, or not. one guy was almost naked, but covered in white body paint. and then someone pulled his pants down and he had his privates covered with a bit of plastic like he knew he would loose his pants at one point....

we left there at around 5am and i got back to home at 9am. i dont think i woke up till after 3. and i am still stuffed now.

but it was worth it. i wasnt planning to go originally, but my plans for friday night got stuffed up by the fact i had to do 4 hours of over time translating the govenors speech for a conference in kenya. apparently the translation i had done earlier was "too hard" and it needed to be "dumbed down"

not only did i have to work till almost 9pm, but then on saturady during the day when we were in the middle of running the international sports day that i had planned and worked on for the last 2 months, we get a call telling me that i need to be at the governors residence to make some changes to the text again!

i couldnt believe it. and when i got there, all i did was change 1 sentance of about 4 words. the govenor seems to be able to speak english (i have never met him) and he is very picky about his speeckes, so why doesnt he just write them himself!!!

oh well, i get 4 hours off on another day instead now, but i missed out on going to see my friend tatsutro singing at a concert....

btw, the sports day went well. it was supposed to rain but it didnt in the end so we had a good turn out after a slow start. maybe around 60 people turned up at various times during the day. 15 or so jets also came so it worked well. cricket, american football, petanque, baggo, frisbee, kickball, dodgeball, double dutch, tug of war, were all a big hit. i am not sure if we will be able to do it again cause my office is not big on spending money, but it was a success

a safe place...

i was told that ibaraki was a safe place to live. no volcanos, no earthquakes, no tsunamis etc, but maybe they were wrong

i was chatting to tom, who is chiba at the moment, at around 8.45 and the room started to shake! 10 seconds later the room where tom was (about 80kms away from me) also started to shake

apparently we were experiencing a 4 on the richter scale. i dont think it is the biggest i have felt, but the whole house was shaking and i was worried about the bottles on top of the microwave falling over. but luckily we all came out un harmed.

they had an image on the tv only a few mins later taken from near the station at mito. it was pretty shakey. they also showed chiba and you could even see the hotel tom was in!

its amazing how quick the response is on the tv here though. it was less than a min before info about where when and what had happened was on the screen.

disneyland photos are up!

koko ga hen: "http://public.fotki.com/carlybode1/"

my trip to daigo

ok this is what i did on the 18th (i.e. today)

i have written an article for our new english language newsletter, E-Ibaraki Report, so i will just post of copy of that so i dont have to rewrite it all.

enjoy!

Eat your way through Daigo!

Yamizo Onsen - Takami-en Tea Farm - Oyaki School

We went to Daigo Town (http://www.town.daigo.ibaraki.jp/), about 50km north of Mito, on a mission. Halloween was coming and we needed some pumpkins to carve out faces from. But things didn't go exactly as planned. We ended on going on a great gourmet tabi!

Like most places in Ibaraki, Daigo (pop. 22,781) is famous for a number of food products, Tea, Konyaku (jelly made from starch of devils tongue), Yuba (dried tofu), Shamo (game fowl), Soba (buckwheat noodles), Wasabi (Horseradish paste), Apples, and for some reason, cheesecake. It turns out that pumpkins fit in there somewhere too.

Every year in late September there is a festival that celebrates HUGE pumpkins (some up to 400kgs) and we managed to get our hands on some of the leftovers.

This story turns out to be less about the pumpkins and more about the other place we ended up because of the pumpkins

Takami-en
The pick up place for the pumpkins was called “Takami-en”, a tea farm on the outskirts of Daigo. The owner of this farm is one of the organizers of the pumpkin festival.

After stuffing about 200kgs worth of orange goodness into the back of the station wagon we were lucky enough to try some of their tea.

They have been growing “sencha” tea leaves here for over 20 years and even turn some of them in English style tea which is very rare in Japan. I can tell you now that it tastes pretty good.

Now, the most interesting thing I discovered while I was drinking their tea and eating cakes with the owners was that anyone can actually become a part owner of their farm!

For only 8000 yen a year, you are given the right to 3.3 square metres of the crop. You can put a name plate next to your trees and in when it comes time to pick the crop in May and July, you are invited to come along to help. Then your tea is packaged up and sent to you. What a great souvenir to take home. After you have drunk all your tea, you are given a 20% discount on any more your buy from them.

The 3.3 square meters corresponds roughly to 600 grams of tea. Normally 100 grams of their tea sells for around 1500 yen so if you like tea, and would like to take part in the process, it's a pretty good deal.

For more details,

Takami-en
1421 Saki, Daigo Town, Kuji Country, Ibaraki Prefecture
TEL: 02957-2-1191
FAX: 02957-2-2501
http://www6.plala.or.jp/takamien


Yamizo Onsen
Next stop on the journey was something that I had heard about and couldn't believe so I needed to see it for myself. Funnily enough, the other day at work I ran into the manager of said place and when we said we were off to collect pumpkins in Daigo he said we should drop by

I am sure that everyone knows what an onsen is, you know, a hot spring. You get all naked with people you don't know and after washing yourself down on a little plastic stool, you plunge your body into scorching hot natural spring water.

So this normal enough in Japan, but what makes Yamizo different is the fact that they put whole apples in the onsen along with the naked bodies!

Why apples?, I am sure you ask. As I wrote earlier, Daigo is famous for apples among other things. About 20 years ago someone came up with the idea of using left over apples from the surrounding farms to make the onsen water sweet and delicious. Since then it has been a hit. Each day over 100 new apples are placed into each of the men’s and women’s baths.

Yamizo is the only onsen in Daigo that does this. In fact apples are not the only speciality of this onsen. Apple season is from the start of September to the end of January. From February to April the water is filled with the aroma of Hinoki (Japanese cypress) by placing special logs in the water. May and June is set aside for Shobu (Siberian iris), and July and August return to Hinoki again.

For more information,

Yamizo Leisure Centre
524－2 Yada, Daigo Town, Kuji Country, Ibaraki Prefecture
TEL: 02957-2-1511
FAX: 02957-2-1514
http://www.yamizo.com

Entry Cost
Junior High School and above
10am – 4pm 800 yen
4pm – 8pm 500 yen

Primary School and above
10am – 4pm 500 yen
4pm – 8pm 400 yen


Daigo Oyaki School
The final stop was an unplanned detour thanks to the recommendations of the owner of the onsen.

Another of Daigo”s specialities is called “Oyaki”. It is a kind of cake which can be roughly compared with Niku-man (pork buns).

At the Oyaki School you are able to learn how to make these oyaki, but this is not the only reason it is called a school. The building where it is housed was actually a real school house up until 1997. It must have been built about 100 years ago!

There are about 10 varieties of Oyaki which are produced on the premises. Pumpkin (not the big ones that we collected though), apple (not the ones from the onsen), vegetable, azuki bean, cheese, mushroom etc. While we were there they were in the midst of cooking up a batch of 2200 pumpkin ones for the local school lunches.

The Oyaki class goes for appromiately 45 mins and you get to make 5 or 6 or your own to take home and share. It costs 800 yen for adults and 500 yen for children. There is a discount for groups but you must book in advance. You can buy individual Oyaki for around 130 yen depending on the flavour.

Soba making classes are also available at the school. These take 1 hour and cost 2600 yen for up to 4 people. Add 600 yen if you want it cooked on the spot to eat then and there. Take note that soba classes are not available until December as the soba wheat will not be finished growing until then.

The Oyaki School is very into sustainable living and all of the ingredients used are grown on the premises.

For more information,

Daigo Oyaki School
2469 Daiji makinochi, Daigo Town, Kuji Country, Ibaraki Prefecture
TEL: 02957-8-0500
FAX: 02957-8-0509
http://www.town.daigo.ibaraki.jp/05spot/other/other08.html

quick post, which turned out to be not so quick

ok, i havent got time to do a proper update so i will just do a run down of what i have been up to since my last post proper post on the 28th september

30th Sep: taught at the argicultural uni again. went to taiko practice at night
1st Oct: got on a train to tokyo to meet up with tom to go down to gifu to play golf with mr ueda and co
2nd oct: played golf. i came last, tom came first. he even guessed his own score correctly so he won an extra prize. i won washing powder for coming last..
3rd oct: left tom in gifu and went back to work... spent the arvo at NHK and was on the local TV. sadly noone taped it so i cant prove it.
4th oct: taugh some farmers how to speak english
6th oct: had a JET dinner at heather's house (lives about 500m from me) and made up an antipasto platter like mum does back home. i was very excited when i found sun dried tomatos at the supermarket
7th oct: more teaching at the agricultural uni. I fed them vegemite. they told me that was why they couldnt concentrate for the rest of the arvo. tom got back to mito that night and i took him to taiko with me
8th, 9th, 10th oct: a long weekend in japan. we stayed in mito all weekend and tried to relax but ended up being really busy doing nothing much.
12th oct: last day at argicultural uni. kate and james arrived. took arvo off and showed them round the town
13th oct: first ever primary school visit. read them possum magic and fed them vegemite. they loved it. taught them musical statues and knots. at night we go to sushi and karaoke with tom, kate and james
14th oct: kate and james leave for tokyo
15th oct: disneyland! stayed in tokyo overnight
16th oct: shopping in harajuku with kate, james, katie and tom
17th oct: interviewed by local paper. tom goes back to work
18th oct: see next post!

now you can see why i have been slow in the posting department. its 11pm now and i need to go to sleep. and do battle with the very smart mosquito that seems to be living in my room....

i know i have been slack...

but here are some photos to keep you interested

some are fromour trip to NHK (japanese equivilant of ABC) to promote the sports day

the others are of when kate and jamese came to mito last week
the disneyland ones are on their way

http://public.fotki.com/carlybode1/

bali!!! again...

Just as i was planning a trip to bali for christmas, this happens!

I think i would still go becasue we should not let the terrorists win, but the friend i was thinking of going with is not so keen on the idea anymore. i will have to find a new location for my holidays now..

i hope all the people who are over there at the moment are safe and they find the culprits as soon as possible.