mochi making

Mochi, AKA sticky rice, is something that is traditionally put on display and then eaten later during new years in Japa. Sometimes people even leave them on for longer until the see molds....

A week before the 2007 new year, an English teacher working at the Oita city board of education invited a few of us English assistant language teachers to make mochi with local people. Even though, coming from a Chinese family, I have eaten mochi many times and already know how it is made, it was my first time actually making it!

All the English assistant language teachers were provided with this cheesy festival robe to wear for the mochi making. This is a shot of me in the robe. Wearing this reminded me of those sweaty men without any pants during the summer festivals in Japan.

A picture of my cutie pie striking the mochi. I would have put a picture of me striking it, but he insisted taking a video clip of me. So, I do not have any picture of me striking mochi. sigh...

Something funny happened when it was my turn to strike. Striking mochi was not as easy as it seemed. I thought I had it all well aimed and ready to go, but when I actually swung, I hit the rim of the bowl and also tripped. I am still trying to see if I can edit the video clip of this and publish it here.

Me rolling the churned mochi into small balls with the locals.

Viola, almost ready! Half of the mochi balls we made on that day was dipped with sweat bean powder for snacks, while the other half was cooked in vegetable soup for lunch. I personally liked the snack better because I thought the taste was just right!

After making mochi, all of us assistant language teachers flow kites with the local kids. I haven't done that since elementary school. Also, haven't been running since forever either. So, even though it was fun to play with the kids, the running really tired me out.

sumo birthday

hmmm... who is now a quarter of a century old? yeah... me...sigh....
Fukuoka 福岡 hosts the national sumo match, and since I am only in Japan for one year, I had to go watch. Therefore, purely out of coincidence, I bought tickets to watch a bunch of fat men fight on my 25th birthday. (yeah Allie, I would rather watch fat men than talk to you on my birthday)

Here is a shot of the outside of the sumo wrestling place. The huge, colourful banners you see here have the names of all the famous sumo players.

Sumo has been considered a very serious and traditional sport throughout the history of Japan. Therefore, sumo players are greatly respected here. This is a shot of sumo players entering the building. They would always dress up very nicely and arrive only shortly before their match.

A shot of the wrestling ground, oh yeah, it is this popular!

Some interesting facts about sumo, before each match, the assistants would always first sweep the battle ground. The sweeping is a form of respect for the ground and also to sweep away any evil spirits. Then, the wrestlers would throw salt on the ground, like in this picture. This is to signal their entrance, and again cleanse the battle ground.

The beginning of the match is the most important. The wrestlers would first bow to each other and open their arms to show that they have no weapon. Then they would stare at each other until they are both ready to fight both physically and mentally. If any side is not ready, the process would start from the salting throwing again.

Another interesting fact about sumo is the garment. The garment is actualy one long piece of silk wrapped around wrestlers' waist-down again and again. If I remember correctly, the silk is about 10 metres long! pretty amazing eh?

ok, ready? set, GO! after intensive and sweaty five minutes, the one on the left lost (the one whose action was very exzaggered as seen in the above picture). Thanks to my colleague SueJean for risking her life to sneak up to the front to take some very good pictures.. The final champion of this year is a Mongolian wrestler- Asashyouryuu

Well, Happy 25th birthday to me

Tokyo trip 5

November 6th, 2006, cloudy

Neko bus? oh yeah, there is a designated bus to take visitors to my dream Ghibli Art Museum from Mitaka train station. Wait! I am coming!!

After a noisy rdie with kids that were also visiting, I arrived at the museum. As soon as I arrived, I was disappointed. Visitors were absolutely not allowed to take any pictures inside the museum. Therefore, I decided to pretend that I did not speak and Japanese at all and tried to sneak a few pictures into my camera. Even with my fake act, I still almost got my camera confiscated a few times!! Good thing I run fast... (do I?)

Well, regulations are regulations. I still really enjoyed the visit. The musuem is designed mainly for kids, like low ceilings, smaller chairs and so on. There was a theatre, an animation exhibition room, a similation of Miyazaki's working studio, and the cat bus room.

The theatre plays short animation clips produced by the ghibli studio. The one I watched was about Mei (the little girl in Totoro) meeting a baby neko bus and becoming friends with it. The animation exhibition room was the most amazing. It is a room with models and displays of Miyazaki's characters. I also liked the similated studio space; it had Miyazaki's original sketches. Unfortunately, I could not pretend to be a kid to play with the neko bus in the neko bus room... but it was still very cute.

On the roof of the museum, there is a statue of the giant robot from Laputa, castle in the sky. Since I had to ask a stranger to take this picture for me, and there were kid running around while lining up, I look kind of awkard.

There is also a cafe at the museum, but the food is quite pricy. So, I decided to just admire from outside and ate not very tasty hotdogs for lunch instead.

Just before I left the museum, I discovered the totoro ticket stand tothe left of the museum. It was really hard to take a good picture that day though because it was cloudy and I couldn't use a flash or the flare would reflect on the windows. Still tried my best though.

Ok, it's time to go back to Oita. Sayonara Ghibli museum. I actually dropped my special bus ticket while trying to get this shot. The driver was trying to tell me but I thought he was rushing me to get on, how embarassing!

Well, the awesome visit to Ghibli Museum concluded a fun and advanturous trip to Tokyo. I would like to thank Mayo again for being such a loyal friend who took me around tirelessly (even though she did fail in the end cuz she was really too tired.....)

Tokyo trip 4

After the doll musuem, Mayo and I went to the ramen museum in New Yokohama city. It was about 8pm when we got there, which means, we had been walking the whole day since 10am.

I don't know maybe I was tired, but I felt the ramen museum was a disappointment. There was not much to see. Upstairs on the main floor had some simple models of how different types of remen are made, and just souvenir shops. Downstairs (picture below) was a reacreation of the old ramen street in Yokohama. Even though I do like ramen, I was still full from lunch and was eager to get my next stop.

No, my next stop wasn't the public bath, although I wished I really was taking a bath. Ahh, soaking my sore feet in warm water and cover myself in hot steam would be so nice!!

Another place you gotta visit besides Disney world is of course the Tokyo Tower. Yeah, so the tower was my next stop!

It was about 10pm when we got back to Tokyo, and we had to walk past a dark, hidden temple in some city park before we could get to the feet of the tower. I don't know why we didn't take a taxi. We were absolutely exhuasted at that point.

I just want mention a special thanks to Mayo. She walked with me for 3 days straight, pretty much from 9am to 11 pm at night none stop. Thank you Mayo! Even though I was dead tired, I had a lot of fun today!