Pretz Fever

Aaaaaaaagh, I'm addicted to Pretz! Flavored pretzels, in a variety of flavors!

Taste-O-Meter!

Tomato Pretz: 4
Not as good as salad, but still an excellent snack.

Hokkaido Butter Pretz: 4
So buttery. It's the essence of the good taste of butter in pretzel form. It's salty and sweet at the same time. I'd give it a five, except that it's a little rich -- I got tired of it fairly quickly.

Kumadango Hanpen: 2
Not Pretz. Dumpling of some kind. Nothing inside it, and it tasted fine, but the texture was weird. It looked a lot more substantial than it felt. It felt, in fact, like it ought to melt when I put it in my mouth, but it came with a bit of hot soup, and was pretty much impervious to melting. Imagine trying to eat a sponge, only the sponge gives way to your teeth very easily.

I have managed to buy a shirt that fits me! Hahahahaha! It's XXL, but in America I'm pretty sure it'd be somewhere between L and XL. Just my size. It's also got the English initials of the school on it. Ultimate souvenier shirt, yo.

Sooooo... school festival Saturday and Sunday. Sadoubu is only performing on Sunday. The girls who have their own kimonos get to show up at 6:30 AM to work on putting them on. I don't envy them. I don't have to get there that early because the teacher is lending me a kimono, and she won't show up until 9. I'll probably show up between 7 and 8, though.

My Nihon Jijou class is pretty awesome. Not the European Union today; Hokkaido agriculture. I got to draw a picture of the USA and point out which places have a lot of agriculture and which don't (and explain why -- east coast has too many cities, Alaska's too cold, this region is mountainous, yadda yadda). I'm the only person in the class who isn't either a Korean teacher on exchange or a student on the way to becoming a teacher. Eek!

I got some money today. :D It's intended to cover expenses in Sapporo and the trip to and from Sapporo. I haven't gotten the scholarship yet, but at least I have more than 2000 yen again. Woo! Speaking of the trip to Sapporo, I may not be able to get online there, so I might not be updating the blog until like Monday. I don't see myself having time on Saturday or Sunday to hit the library.

Today at sadoubu, a lot of the girls were practicing putting on kimonos. I want one sooooo badly! But I realized just how many pieces a full kimono outfit has. That doesn't stop me from wanting a kimono of my own, though. They also practiced doing sadou in their kimonos. I took pictures, but I don't have time to upload them right now. (Taking the bus to Sapporo tonight.)

Realizations of the Period

1) Aagh! I haven't been posting pictures! I even have a bunch uploaded that I just haven't put up on the blog yet!
2) Many Japanese people have non-silk (usually polyester, I think) kimonos. Wave of the future?
3) The convenience store across the street from the school has shut down. That explains why their selection has been crappy the last couple of times I've gone in there.
4) The now-nearest convenience store (a Seicomart) sells salad Pretz cheaper than 7-11. It's just as close to my house.

Let's try to fix the pictures problem, then. I begin with the Buddhist monument up the hill from my apartment:





It's got different pictures on each face of the monument, but at the time the sun was angled poorly for taking pictures of them. Here's a nifty fresco I saw on my way to a recycle shop with Sayaka:





There's another fresco in the completely opposite direction that I've yet to go by during the day. So no pictures of it, yet. I go that way often, though. That's where the book store that I've done a lot of window shopping is at, as well as a good place to buy food.

I can't get the bloody site where the photos are hosted to cooperate, so I'll have to stop here for now. TTFN!