Episode 11: Tempis Fugit (Time Flies)

["Drug Store's" The clothing store.???]







Appologies for the late update ladies and gents, but things were out of my control. Blogger has been doing some maintence recently, and there is a scheduled outage coming soon. The site may be unaccessible for at least a few hours. Still, it appears to be working now, so I want to take advantage of my time and post post post! Due to the most recent opinion that I need to spend more time detailing the types of food that I've been eating here, I must say that this particular blog update will be decorated in food commentary. Without any further ado, let's get crackin'.

First, let me educate you on the fine science of taco-yaki. Now, for those who don't know what Tacoyaki is, let me break it down for you in super simple terms. Taco is Japanese for Octopus, and yaki simply means fried. Therefore Tacoyaki is fried octopus, but it is of a particular variety. Tacoyaki is small fried octopus balls. Of course, this means that since they're Japanese they must be smothered with coat upon coat of mayo and some form of teriyaki sauce, sprinkled with seaweed. But, before you get yourself in a knot, it isn't as bad as you'd think. First off, the're balls that are made of a batter as well as just octopus, and they put things like ginger and onion and etc in the balls. Also, I would like you to note that they're a party food and are sold from food stands during celebrations as commonly as you'd see hotdog stands back home. We just had to have a party.

One more thing about Tacoyaki that you probably don't know is that Karen doesn't like Taco, or any seafood, in the slightest. Yet, she's one of the most genki people you'll ever meet, and that being said, she wanted to have a tacoyaki party, minus the taco. We opted for some pork and some chicken instead, cracked out the tacoyaki maker, and began cooking up a storm. As you can see from the pictures to the left, there were quite a few ingredients once the batter was complete, and of course, the difficulty lies not only in preparation, but also in cooking the balls. There's a secret technique that we discovered during the second batch, where instead of just prodding the partially cooked balls with a few toothpicks and forcing them upon their heads, we instead coerce them into flipping over by slowly spinning them a few times then applying a tender force to one side, tipping them, and then they end up doing the rest. Suffice to say that the second batch was much better than the first... of course, the fourth was an entirely different matter all together. Ashanthi decided that she wanted to make some dessert balls, and broke out the pancake mix, some strawberries and some chocolate. Instead of mayo and teriyaki, we broke out the vanilla icecream as our topping of choice. An hour of feasting later, and we were all so stuffed full of batter and fried goods that all we could do is relax and watch "Pricilla of the desert." (A rather interesting, and strange, movie) It was a good party, and almost as cool as the party Ashanthi and I threw for Yumi-san...


Our Yumi-san party definitely took the cake, so to speak. Yumi-san is one of the sweetest people that I've met here, and she's been working so hard at our branch that she makes all the other Nova staff at all the other branches look like they've got nothing to do. Being the only staff worker at our branch, she generally works about 60 hours a week, of course, only being paid for about 40 of those hours. Because she was so great, we had a party during our break period last Tuesday. Ashanthi and I ran out and bought her some flowers, some cakes, some desserts (as you can see from the pictures) and some balloons. Then we smuggled them into the room, set up for a party, and threw on the Chibiko CD. (The 2-3yr old music CD we have to use for Chibiko classes) We then proceeded to sing and dance to the Chibiko music while eating food and desserts. We got her a really nice card, and Ashanthi videotaped the event. As you can see the big cake on the table was a collection of some strawberry chocolates, two different sized Baumkuken cakes (they're super popular multiple layer cakes) and a candle on top.


This month I get to work at Suzuka-bell city on Sundays (Tristan's branch) and because of this, I get to check out a big mall during my break period. I snapped a couple good pics last time I was there, and I'd like to direct your attention to the sign at the top of the picture on the left. HEIDI! Hahaha, I couldn't believe it. Cycling to work and checking out a place with the same name as my sis was hilarious for me. Also, the other pic on the left is a no-littering add here in Japan. See unlike the ones back home that say if you litter you will be fined, or in a less accusing way, they say that you're ruining the environment, the ones here in Japan say that should you litter, an evil black Kami spirit will sneak up behind you and assault you with what looks like the reach-around, whether you like it or not. This place is weird man.


Two more things that are worthy of noting. First, we're making all the kids classes and preparing report cards. Check out the report card on the left. Little greet frogs for marks. So cool! Second, I've got a Yukata. Check it out! I'm gonna wear this thing during the fireworks ceremonies in July and August. They're traditional and stylish.

Okay, well I've gotta get ready for work.

Love & Peace,

-benjamin


p.s. Apparently I was in the Great War movie documentary this week, and they audibly mentioned my name, as well as showing my face. Sounds kinda cool to me.

p.p.s. RUNNY EGG BURGER RETURNS TO LOTTERIA!!!