Sapporo / Gakusai

Ah, this past week has been interesting. Yes... last Thursday and Friday I was in Sapporo having fun with other exchange students to Hokkaido. Saturday and Sunday were the student festival. It's been a lot of fun. I took about 300 pictures over the course of those four days. I can't find lithium batteries, however, so I have been going through alkaline ones like a stick of dynamite goes through fuse. Thank goodness for the 100 yen shops. On with the tale!

Wednesday Night

Even though the school provided us all with funds for the trip (￥25,000), we wanted to have as much to spend in Sapporo as possible, so we took the night bus. I met Jyun, Tolia, Olga, and Wu (Sasha took the train) at the bus terminal at 10:30 PM, and we all dished out about ￥5,000 for tickets. Olga had brought nigiri for everyone (in fact over the course of the trip she proved to be far better prepared food-wise than the rest of us). After we ate the nigiri, everyone but Olga went to the nearby Seicomart to get food for the bus ride. And for the first time (I'd been looking for a week), I found orange soda!

Taste-O-Meter!

Seicomart Brand Orange Soda: 5
Slightly different from American orange soda, but only by about as different as Crush is from orange Slice. Tasty! Satisfies orange soda craving well.

When we boarded, I was somewhat surprised; this bus was made for overnight trips, so it was kind of like an airplane on the inside. We settled in, and the bus left. Jyun and I had books to read 'cause we didn't plan to sleep soon -- I the D&D DMG 3.5 (I'm finally reading the adventuring chapter) and Jyun a Japanese-Russian phrase book. They had lights on for like ten minutes, then turned them off. That was ok, though, since there was a light on the back of the seat in front of me that I could turn on.

O SNAP -- It didn't turn on.

Baaaaah. Jyun had the same problem, but he had a window seat, so he tried to use city lights to read by, but quickly gave that up. I pulled out my cell phone and ran the batteries down a bit by using it as a flashlight for like an hour. I had a flashlight in my bookbag, but the bookbag was underneath us, in the luggage compartment only accessible from outside the bus. Fortunately, Japanese cell phones have amazing battery life.

When I started getting sick from trying to read under those conditions, I gave up and tried to sleep. Unfortunately for me, although the seats are actually quite comfortable when you're sitting up, reclining in them sucks. I kept sliding forward, which wasn't too bad except for the fact that my back is really particular about how I sleep. I slept, but poorly, and in two-hour spurts.

Hora? Sapporo!

6 AM. Woo! We're to meet with everyone else at the main college campus in Sapporo. At noon. So... breakfast! No Taste-O-Meter! here, though... we went to a Seicomart, and I had salad Pretz and Aka/Ao Apple Juice. I tried to take some pictures on the way, but this is where I discovered that my ruddy camera batteries had run out of juice. ARG!

With five and a half hours left to go, we walked to Odoori park and ate breakfast. There were a crazy number of pidgeons there, including two albino ones. I took a couple of pictures with my cell phone, but they kept coming out really blurry so I gave up.

After that, we went looking around. The old government building was spiffy (and I figured out the problem with my cell phone camera), but it was like 8 AM at that point and the place didn't open to tourists until 8:45. So we went to Kinokunia. But that didn't open until 10. Back to the old governmnet building, and it was open. Yay!

It was built in the Meiji Era (same time frame as Last Samurai), so it's a very Western-culture-looking place. There were some nice art pieces in there, and the red they used in there was a really nice color. There were some spiffy fossils, too. I had one problem with the place, and that problem was the stairs. They creaked and shifted quite noticeably under my weight. Those of you who know me well know that I don't handle such things well. I almost had a panic attack coming down the stairs.

After that, we went to Kinokuniya. For those of you who don't know, it's a major Japanese book store chain. The first time I heard of Kinokuniya was when I found out in high school that there's a big one in Seattle, though I think the Seattle one also sells other Japanese goods. Either way, Kinokunia was excellent. Two floors of a variety of books, with the sections labeled in both Japanese and English.

They had, among other things, a world literature section. I recognized a lot of the books, either because their titles were in English, I could read the katakana, or because the picture was the same. A display case showed off some spiffy Lord of the Rings sets. I've also come to the conclusion that I can't get away from The DaVinci Code, even though I have no intention of reading it.

I found a spifftastic kimono book over by the sadou books -- the back part has instructions for putting a kimono on properly. The rest of it shows off a variety of kimono/obi (the belt)/accessory combinations (excellent pictures for a scrapbook or collage or something) as well has having a variety of beautiful ways to tie the obi on. I tried like three times to put the book away, but I ended up losing to its appeal and bought it. I also got a pack of postcards, since I finally found some having pictures of Japan. The ones I'd seen up to then were all either Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh, or kittens.

It Starts

After that, we hopped a train across town to the university. When we got there, the others had lunch; I've taken to skipping lunch, so I just had some water and browsed my kimono book. Then we met up with Hiruta-sensei and Sasha, and headed to the room where we were to meet up with everyone.

They had assigned everyone to mixed groups to keep everyone from just sticking with people they already knew. (Completely unrelated side note; I almost typed that sentence in Japanese. Hahahahaha!) My group actually included a guy I know somewhat from UAF named Aemon. There were six groups of about 10 people each; a huge number of them were Chinese, four from UAF (including myself and Aemon), at least one from Mongol, two Brits, one Canadian, at least two people from Norway, and some Koreans. I don't know if there was anyone from any other countries, but I do know that that wasn't all the exchange students in Hokkaido; at least one from this university didn't go, and I'm sure such was true at the other universities, as well.

So, from there we went to a Jinja (Shinto shrine). That was really cool. The old man priest that explained how things went to us knew some English, which was nice. The ceremony itself was short, but interesting. It involved some praying, some blessing, and a traditional song played on flute with a drum accompaniment while a shrine girl danced with a short sword. It was spiffy. After that, we had the opportunity to drink some of the shrine's sake (after which we were given a bottle of the stuff).

(At this point, I'd like to mention that Sasha's a hoot and a holler. He tried to get them to give him two cups of the sake, using the fact that it was his birthday as a reason. He's generally fun to be around.)

We then got a short lesson in the history of Shinto and then were given an opportunity to obtain Omamori. That's the pieces of paper detailing your luck. I didn't have ￥200 in coins on me, though, so I got another piece of paper costing ￥100 that I haven't gotten around to reading yet due to being busy. ^^'

From there we went to a museum. I thought that the only camera requirements were no flashes allowed, but it turned out that cell phones were also not allowed. So I only got pictures of the stuff on the first floor. I got even more irritated with my camera's lack of batteries on the second floor. There were some really nice pieces of glasswork up on the second floor, too, which made me even more vexed with my camera. After that, we went to the hotel.

Hotel

When I found out that I had three roommates at the hotel, I was kind of saddened. From my understanding, most Japanese hotels offer few if any rooms with two beds, so I had been entertaining the hope that in spite of the cost they must be expending on this trip, I'd get my own room. However, all my unhappiness at having roommates disappeared when I got to my room.

They were putting us up in a ryokan.

The ryokan tend to be the most expensive hotels in Japan. Every bedroom is a tatami room; when you arrive, tea and candy are waiting for you. While you are enjoying a really nice, all-traditional-Japanese-foods meal with the rest of your party in a large communal tatami room, maids come into your room to set up fluffy futons for you. Most ryokan are built on top of hot springs, and this one was no exception.

We had some time before dinner. I could have gone swimming in the pool in the basement, but I elected to explore instead. The lobbies and carpets were wonderful, and I was drawn to the Super Famicom Box area of the main lobby. (Read: TV's hooked to paid "Super Famicom Boxes" that were loaded with Super Mario Kart and Star Fox, among other things.) I managaed to avoid playing the SNES boxes until I was bored the next morning, though.

One side of the main lobby was given over to a large gift store. I bought some milk chocolate cookies and some of the sweets that had been available in our room. I planned to offer those sweets as omiyage (souvenier) to the sadoubu. I wish I'd gotten two boxes of those, so I'd have one to myself 'cause they were really tasty, but... oh well. It was the hotel specialty.

There were two basement floors. The first had a pizza/beer restaurant, an arcade, and a zen rock garden. The second had the pool and one of the bath areas. (The other bath area was on the roof.)

After that came dinner. I've had some people complain about the fact that they didn't think I'd tried any "real" Japanese food. How about Nigiri? :P This, however, was "real" Japanese food at it's "real"-est. Before I dive into the Taste-O-Meter! I must define sashimi: raw fish. Sushi is rice, sashimi is raw fish.

Taste-O-Meter!

Shrimp Sashimi: 1
I love shrimp. I really, really do. Shrimp sashimi doesn't have a very good taste, but by itself, that only rates a 3. Combined with the texture... it made me want to throw up. That made me rather sad.

Three Other Kinds of Sashimi: 3
Didn't like the texture so much, but they tasted fine.

Daikon Radish: 4
Tasty, as vegetables go. It's a variety of radish, so if you like radishes, you'll probably dig it.

Egg Pudding Stuff: 3
I call it egg pudding 'cause it was quite obviously an egg dish, but it had the consistency of pudding.

Rice with Chicken and Some Kind of Japanese Mushroom: 5
I've never had that kind of mushroom before, but it was tasty. I ended up not finishing the rice, because there was really a lot of food on the table and I got full. That made me kind of sad.

Seaweed in [What I Think was] Egg Whites: 2
This stuff didn't taste too bad, but I couldn't really chew it... it slid down my throat in a rather disgusting way.

Squid in Some Red Sauce: 3
Before we got started, the Brit in my group, Drew, was telling me and Aemon about this stuff. He'd been to Japan and to a ryokan before. He informed us (in a British accent, making it rather funny), that this stuff tasted "a little bit like Hell." I don't agree with him, but it was a funny opinion and I could see why it's not something most would like. He also told us that it tasted kind of like metal, which was true. Coppery. Maybe the sauce was made from some kind of blood?

Soup with Potstickers and Tofu and Corn: 4
I didn't like the tofu, but the rest was fine. I just kind of avoided the corn.

During dinner, they had everyone go up by group and introduce themselves. That was rather irritating, since I was in group one, and they started as soon as there had been a toast. We were all hungry, and it took a while because they had a list of things they insisted each person address. By the time all six groups were done, most people had finished eating and they started some games. They were the sort of games actors play and some of 'em turned out really funny, but I'm not going to go into details here 'cause I don't feel like it. Maybe later.

After dinner, just about everyone went to the baths. There were, of course, baths in the hotel rooms, but communal bathing is fun, so most people took part. My roommates and I went to the baths on the roof. That was good. Not as good as going to a hot spring when it's -30 F out, but still good. Then I did a bit more exploring and picture-taking before bed. My Chinese roommate went with me and we got some pictures of each other. The top floor of the hotel was obviously suites and the like; there was more art there and stuff.

The Next Day

Everyone had breakfast vouchers for the hotel's breakfast buffet. My stomach wasn't very happy with the choices I saw -- I listed the shrimp sashimi first on the Taste-O-Meter! but it was actually one of the last things I ate, and I didn't want to start the day off badly, so I had rice and sausage. It took me a while to find the water dispenser -- there were two small dispensers on a table at about waist height under a sign with the kanji for water on the wall, and it was hard to find 'cause of how crowded it was.

After that was grab-stuff-and-meet-in-the-lobby time. Did so, and was a bit early, so I spent 20 minutes playing Star Fox (and discovered that my skills have rusted so badly). Then we all hopped on the buses again and went to a museum of Ainu culture. The Ainu were the natives of Hokkaido before the Japanese came along. I've never been huge on spending lots of time at museums, and it was a guided tour, so I got bored rather fast. I got some super spiffy pictures, though.

After that, the people going back to the university hopped one bus and the rest of us hopped the other. The guy in charge of the whole thing was on our bus, and ended up asking us (from my university) how we got to Sapporo. He was shocked. A lot of people were, actually. It was kind of funny. Anyway, we got off at the station, grabbed some convenience store lunch, then proceeded to go do karaoke. Sasha left early to catch his train, but the rest of us were at it until like 6 o'clock.

(By the way, a very tall Russian singing Smells Like Teen Spirit at the top of his lungs is pretty awesome.)

After that, the rest of us went food hunting. Sapporo is apparently famous for Ramen, so Wu and Jyun wanted to go to a ramen shop. We found several at the station, and picked one. Olga doesn't like ramen, so she had rice-something. After that... we didn't really know what to do. I wanted to go window shopping, the others didn't. We ended up splitting until 10, which was fine with me, as I prefer to not be tied to a large group of people.

I browsed the wares in the hall outside a kimono shop under the station, as well as looking through a jewelry store. I didn't buy anything from the kimono shop because the stuff I could afford at the time would need to be color matched to a kimono I don't yet own, though I am thinking that I would like a bright blue one. I also checked out the two department stores connected to the station, but they were nothing but clothes... and I can't really wear Japanese clothes due to size difference.

So I opted to hit one of the department stores across the street. It's called Loft, and had a wonderful array of household goods. It also closed about 15 minutes after I got there, so I didn't get to see much... I did, however, find some stuff I'd have liked to have gotten for people if I'd had the money. It was a pretty awesome place, overall. Lots of nifty stuff I'll have to browse again when I go back to Sapporo.

I had not expected it to close so early, being right close to the biggest train station in the biggest city on the northern island of Japan. As such, I decided to immediately hit the next department store over, Esta. Esta had Namco written in big letters on the side, so I decided to check the place out. I got in there and discovered that it was a department store we'd wandered through the day before. I didn't see any stairs, so I decided to take the elevator to the top and work my way down. Inside the elevator was a written description of what was on each floor. The top floor was a food court, and 9th floor said Namco in katakana. Ahaha!

Getting off the elevator landed me in an arcade. Most of the games had Namco written on them, though some had no names. I looked for the seated Mario Kart Double Dash games I have heard about, but didn't see them. Then I discovered that the arcade wasn't the only thing on this floor. There was a shop full of nifty trinkets... and a geek store.

Comics, video game and anime paraphernalia, video game and anime soundtracks (oh, the collection they had!), and a wall of CCG cards. They even had tables in the back for people to play card games on, and I saw Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic games in progress.

Then I got pissed off. If I had gotten my scholarship on Wednesday like I'd been told to expect, I could have gotten all of Nacilik's shopping done in like five minutes. I had actually checked my post office account that afternoon to see if it had come in, too.

Nothing I could do about it, and I was running out of time, so I worked my way down the building. The closer I got to ground level, the less cool it was; the other 8 stories of the 10-story building were full of electronics stuff, and there's really only so much of that in the world. Impressively, one floor was almost entirely storage media -- burnable CD's and jump drives and the like. It was pretty crazy.

The only other thing of note that I got to see was another building in Sapporo -- it wasn't probably only like 6 stories, but the whole building was pachinko and slot machines. Yowza.

So I met up with everyone and we went to a convenience store to get food for the bus, then went to the bus station, yadda yadda yadda. Got home Saturday morning. I slept for like 4 hours, then got up to go help with the gakusai (school festival).

Gakusai, Day 1 (Or Mmmm, Potatoes)

The school has a gakusai once a year. It's pretty much a food-eating, hanging-out, fund-raiser fest. Students from given departments have booths, clubs have booths. The first day I spent mostly in a classroom on the ground floor helping prepare food to be cooked at the booth of the Gaikokugo Kenkyuusei (meaning foreign language majors, and hereafter referred to as the Gaiken).

I started out peeling potatoes, and discovered two things. One is that Japanese potato peelers are configured differently than American ones; American ones are set up so that the length of the blade runs the same direction as the length of the handle, while Japanese ones run perpendicular. I was not proficient in use of the Japanese-style potato peeler. It was when I got fed up with the potato peeler and asked for a knife that I discovered there were no knives small enough for peeling potatoes -- and that I don't even think I've seen a knive small enough for peeling potatoes that wasn't either a butter knife or a youji (tiny tea ceremony knife intended for cutting sweets and not sharp enough to peel potatoes anywho).

After peeling potatoes, I helped prepare karikari cheese. That would have been simple if they hadn't insisted I wear over-large disposable gloves. It was pretty much like making eggrolls, so I had practice with the basic motions, and that helped a lot. While helping make the karikari cheese, I got to try the food we were working on. I also took a break in there to check out the rest of the festival and got to try the food at the Ongaku Kenkyuusei (music majors') booth for free, since I knew like half the people there from koto class.

Taste-O-Meter!

Imodango (Potato cakes): 5
They were good without the sauce, but the sauce made them better. I need to find out what's in the sauce. I know how to make the cakes themselves, but I need to find out if that's something my friend Bob can eat -- there are three ingredients: water, mashed potatoes, and katakuri powder... but no one could tell me what katakuri is.

Karikari Cheese: 5
Take a circular, three-inch diameter eggroll wrap and wrap it around a piece of cheese, then deep fry it. Yeah, it's tasty.

Kimuchi: 4
This is a kind of soup that I tried at the music majors' booth. Good stuff, but a little spicy.

After that we of the Gaiken cleaned up the room we had been using. The president/secretary (haven't figured out what Takashi's title is, but she seems to keep track of the paperwork) reported the profits and everyone but me discussed how to improve them, because I couldn't understand everything they said. After that, most of us went back to Sayaka's apartment building (which also happens to be the building that the Gaiken's Shiba, Ayaka, and Mina live in, though I dunno about anyone else) to prepare food for the next day ahead of time.

I ended up at Mina's place. We first peeled and mashed potatoes for more imodango. Then we got chicken and started making gyozangi. I never got to taste the finished product because it's another thing you're supposed to deep fry, but take those same eggroll wraps from the karikari cheese and fold 'em like potstickers over chicken that's been cooked in a soy and ginger sauce and it tastes good even without being fried properly. We ended up having way more chicken than eggroll wraps, so we got to eat quite a bit of chicken.

I had to leave about the time that was done, as I had some things to do before going to bed and needed to get up early on Sunday for gakusai day 2 with the sadoubu.

Gakusai, Day 2 (Or Trials and Kimonos)

I overslept. Not by much, but by enough that everyone who'd had to show up at 6:30 to start putting kimonos on couldn't make use of my spiffy kimono book's obi-tying methods. I also found out that not only was the school's back door (the one closest to both my place and the tatami room) was not open. After going all the way around the school and all the way through school to the tatami room... I discovered I had forgotten my fukusa basami. (Fukusa is the cloth used in sadou. I don't know what basami means, since I'm under the impression that "bag" is "fukuro", but it's a small pouch in which one puts one's sadou stuff. On a side note, the word for "hand" is "te", and gloves are te + fukuro = tebukuro.)

By the time I got my fukusa basami and got back to the tatami room, I was a little early still, but sensei had already gotten there. She was providing kimonos for all of the exchange students (including the one from Okinawa, who also had no kimono) to wear. Olga looked absolutely gorgeous in the maroon one. Tolia got a blue one, which was made of a different material and had a hakama (old-style Japanese pants). Mini had a white one with a pretty pattern, but the knot in her obi kept wanting to go crooked all day.

The kimono I got had been modified. It was an old one of sensei's, and she's much smaller than I am, so... it didn't fit. ^^' I'm just too big around. It was also orange, which isn't really my color. I was still grateful for getting to borrow it, though, and it made me want my own kimono even more. I really do love feudal clothing.

Anyway... once we were all dressed, we hightailed it (as fast as possible in zoori, the kimono shoes) over to the lobby beneath the library entrance. Benches, an umbrella, and a table for doing tea ceremony were already set up, as was a table for taking admission fees and a screen behind which we could work our tea-magic. If the person performing the ceremony made tea for everyone, it could take a very long time, so as soon as the person starts actually mixing the tea, people behind the screen start whipping up bowls for everyone else in the audience. When the first guest has received their bowl and started to drink, a small army of kimono-wearing foo's comes out bring tea to everyone. It's awesome. :D

I was the only one exchange student who got to perform the tea ceremony. I'm the only one who's practiced enough to be able to just do it. However, I wasn't quite ready the first of the two times that I did it in front of guests... I pretty much bungled the first time, as well as having problems with my kimono coming open while I sat on the stool. I'm pretty sure that even if I never get to be in another play ever again, the amount of acting training I've had will always find ways to do me well. No embarrasment, though I was a little bit angry with myself for a couple of the things I forgot to do. I spent a good portion of the time before my next turn going over the ceremony in my head, and the second time went fine. Other than that, I helped carry and retrieve bowls and sweets. I also stopped by the Gaiken booth at some point to show them me in a kimono.

Real quick: apologies to people, I forgot my camera and so have no pictures of me in a kimono. *dodges a tomato* I'll make sure to get plenty when I have my own, which should be next mont- *gets hit in the face with a tomato*

Anyway, sadou got done around 3 o'clock, after which I changed out of my kimono in the tatami room and then went back to help pack stuff up before meeting the Gaiken for a post-gakusai party. Woo!

The Gaiken's Post-Gakusai Party (In Which Many People Besides Me Get Drunk)

The gaiken, as well as having food, had the first-year students do a show. It was pretty much souped-up karaoke -- with lots and lots of confetti. They had like six boxes of confetti, and they weren't afraid to use it. There was a 2-3 minute period in between each song where a couple of other people stood on the stage in front of the curtain to entertain the audience while you could hear brooms shoving confetti back into boxes.

The partying started off with a special edition of the show. It was a little more rowdy, in good old-fashioned cast party tradition, as well as having everyone from the previous songs dancing on stage with the people for the new songs instead of staying off stage like for the previous performances. After every song, the people for that song introduced themselves, starting with thier student number and their name. There were bottles of water and juice all over the stage, and there was a lot of chugging from them. I discovered that the Japanese clap in rhythm and say "Hai-hai!" where Americans would just shout, "Chug!

After all that was over, there was a drinking contest. First-years vs. Second vs. Third vs. Fourth-years. I'm a junior, and therefore a third-year. I discovered that most of the people I'd made friends with, including Sayaka, were second years. The way the contest worked was that there were four giant bottles of alcohol, each about two feet tall and 7-8 inches in diameter below the neck. Every person on a team had to drink from the bottle at least once, and the goal was to finish first. I was last in line, and didn't quite understand the rules, so... I could have just slugged down the last third of the bottle that was given to me, but I thought I had to pass it on and didn't. If I had just slugged it down, we might have won, but we lost to the fourth-years. Now I know for a potential next time.

The first-years lost and got to finish the cleanup we'd all started before the drinking contest. Everyone else started heading toward Aquaveil, a building in town. We went to like the third floor and entered a room made for dinners such as this one. There were several tables with food and bottles of beer (large ones, since Japanese tradition is to pour alcohol for other people). The seats were all numbered, and they had us draw numbers. They were trying to make sure that cliques didn't form.

There was some talking that I don't remember very well, punctuated with drinking as excuses for it came up. It was a lot of fun. Eventually, people started milling around. The songs from the show were played again, with almost everybody going up on stage to dance and sing. A couple of people sought me out to ask a bit about Alaska and America.

I got called up on stage at one point to introduce myself -- that was fun. There was an unspoken rule that to be onstage one must have a glass of beer in one hand so that if people called for you to drink you could do so. I started off by saying that I was the no-student-number-exchange-student Lena, in fun imitation of the introductions from earlier. I also surprised Sayaka by publicly thanking her for helping me get used to Japan.

After that, most of us hopped off to another place. This place exists for big groups of people to go drinking at. Instead of chairs and tables, the place was full of modular tatami rooms (they could change the sizes to accomodate different-sized groups of people), so we dropped our shoes off in lockers at the door and went in. There were other parties going on around us, but I didn't venture far. I learned a lot of names at this party. It was fun. I never got more than buzzed. After that, I could have gone to karaoke with some people if I'd had money, but I didn't. That sucked.

Taste-O-Meter!

Sapporo Beer: 3
Not a bad beer, but I don't like beer much.

Asahi Beer: ?
By the time I got to the Asahi beer at the second place, I'd had enough beer that beer tasted OK.

Plum Wine: 5
That was some really good stuff, which I totally didn't expect.

Some Kind of Bread with Meat in the Middle: 3
The meat reminded me of vienna sausages, but it was a really good idea.

I don't really remember what I ate other than that, except for karokke, but I've already covered that. So.

During the Week

Since the weekend, it's been pretty much business as normal. Thursday was a holiday, so I took advantage of the day to clean and use the internet. Didn't get as much done on the 'net as I would have liked for chatting, but hey -- you win some you lose some. (And sometimes, you win half. ;) )

Yesterday was Friday, so there was sadoubu. I'm no loger working on the table setup that I was studying before; since winter is upon us (it feels weird saying that when there's no snow anywhere), it's time to switch to the type that's set into the floor. There's always been a weird little square in the tatami mats on the floor of the damashitsu (tatami room), and I found out that that square lifts out to reveal a hole for sadou. The textbook that Ikajima-sensei (sadoubu teacher) gave me during the gakusai is the lower level one and doesn't include this setup, but I got to run over it once on Wednesday and am more familiar with the ceremony in general, so Ikajima-sensei was able to focus more on showing me how to do the motions properly.

A now-graduate, past-member of the club has been visiting this week, and she got to show us some upper-level sadou-ness. The normal tea we create is called usacha; what Chiyaki did is called koicha. The order in which she performed each task was different, and instead of one bowl being tea for one person, the one bowl was tea enough for five people.

Taste-O-Meter!

Koicha: 5
There was so much tea-powder in this that it was really more like a sludge than a drink. I loved it.

Omochi in Anko Sauce: 5
Today's main sweet. The omochi was stiff before immersion in the sauce; after immesion in the sauce, it didn't want to be separated into chunks by either chiopsticks or teeth. But it was soooooo good.

Meika: 4
A traditional sweet much like youkan. I didn't like the texture quite as much, but it tastes just as good.

After sadoubu, I went to the library to check on a couple of things on the internet, then went back to the damashitu. We were all going to a yakiniku place. When we got there, I discovered that yakiniku is pretty much like robata, except a little more restauranty and a little less free-for-all. The selection of food was also more along the lines of meat and less along the lines of fish and seafood. I had trouble reading the menu (mostly 'cause I was just slow at it), but I eventually figured it out. I'm not gonna Taste-O-Meter chicken and beef, but a couple of things get it.

Taste-O-Meter!

Choregi Ceasar Salad: 5
I am not sure what choregi means, but they told me it's a Korean word. It had lettuce, small croutons, salad dressing, and cheese. Tasty. I'm getting to like salad dressing, as long as the salad isn't drenched in it.

Ebisu Beer: 4
This one is actually not half-bad. Maybe I'm getting acclimated to beer? *wrinkles nose* The name of this was written Ebisu in katakana, but the roomaji (Japanese language written in English letters) on the glass I got was Yebisu.

So yeah. It was a much more reserved post-gakusai party than the Gaiken one had been, but no less fun in its own way.

Realizations of the Period

1) I really do love feudal clothing, both western and asian. I love the look of it, and the feel of wearing it.
2) Never, ever, ever turn a camera off at a cast party. Ever.
3) I have a much higher tolerance for alcohol than Japanese people do.
4) My right shoe's sole is coming off the rest of the shoe. My feet are about half a centimeter bigger than the biggest shoe size you can get here. I'm in trouble.
5) I need to find out where to buy youkan.
6) Really, if I try to show all the pictures I take on the blog... insanity. Inserting them into the blog takes longer than I expected it to. So. Here's the gallery where all the pictures are. >.> Sorry, folks. More pictures need uploading, too, but this library connection really is horrible.