This is a shot of the entire student body of Tsuwazaki Elementary School. The interesting thing about this school is that alot of the subjects are taught to them as a whole. However, the core subjects (math, japanese, social studies, etc) are still taught separately. When I'm not teaching at that school, I stroll around upstairs to see them. Several grades are taught by the same teacher at the same time. Each grade is facing one way and 2 different subjects are taught. The teacher would teach math on one end, japanese on the other. It's rather amusing to watch a change of subject several times in one period. This week, the normal english teacher was absent. So I ran the classes solo (what else is new).Moving a couple days to Friday night. After a hard day of 3 classes and club activities, I joined the other ALTs to a night at George's Bar. As usual, it was a great time.
Celebrating a hard week
What happens when you leave your camera to friends..candid moments.
Normal behaviorAfter a couple hours at the bar, we decided to go to the karaoke place (George's mom's establishment.). Once again, we had so much fun. I think I would've made Sinatra, Billy Joel, Queen, and the Carpenters proud. It was empty but towards the end of the night, more Japanese people came in to join us. Although we didn't know them, it didn't stop us from singing with them.
The next American Idol
The Japanese way of saying "I love you"..drunk
George's kid, Shu. Avid Dragonball fan and great debater on why Vegita's the best.
My new fans.We left the karaoke place around 2am ish as we all piled into Andrea's car (thank god for designated drivers). I fell asleep quickly, all that Sinatra wore me out.
The next day I surprisingly woke up at 7:30am feeling awake. I didn't have to meet the group for mochi making until 12:30. I tried to go back to sleep for about 30 minutes before giving up and getting up. Around 8:30 I started cleaning my apartment. Since I had so much time before the trip. I cleaned up well! Joe came on over around 11:30, just as I finished the cleaning project. The rest of them didn't come until 12:20ish when we all walked down to the meeting place.
This little expedition of ours was hosted by the tourism college here on Goto. I think this was a project for the students to have a little tour for us and some other Japanese people. The group leader was Mizorogi sensei. She goes to our conversation classes on Wednesday and her English is the best I've heard from a Japanese person. She's even better than the Japanese English teachers at my schools. She explained some ground rules, spilt us up into 4 teams and had us do some exercises. After 30 minutes or so, we headed to the mochi making place.
The bus stopped by a small farm next to the road where we were escorted next to it. From there, they explained to us the process of how mochi becomes mochi. The first step is to farm up the potatoes from the ground. They had us wear gloves and boots while we got our farming gear from the various boxes that littered the side of the road.
With scythe in hand and farmer enthusiasm, I went to work scything the field. After that, we were given hoes and we dug up the potatoes. From there, we placed our findings in a big blue basket which was carried away by one of the staff members. We only filled one of the baskets before they escorted us across the street to the building where the "magic" happens.
Once we got there, they explained more about the process and told us we would be wearing aprons and hairnets. At first they gave me a pink apron, which made me look totally buff. I felt like I was about to serve lunch at a prison. Luckily, one of my team mates wanted the pink one and traded me a green one with that banana company logo on it (Del Monte).
Introducing the staff
The next process is to soften the potatoes up. Since this is the land that time forgot, we used old tools which were used for hundreds of years. They took a bucket of hot water and brought 2 sticks tied together with some vine and had us work on it.
After they were nice and wet, we started peeling them. Nothing too exciting, but when you're in an apron and hairnet, everything becomes so involved!
It only took us 10 minutes to peel our batch and then they brought out more ancient hardware. The next step is to slice them into thinner pieces. They had a wooden contraption with a knife's edge sticking out from the middle. The idea was to slide the potato against it and make thinner pieces. The whole time I was doing this, I was expecting my palm to fall into the basket with all the other potato pieces.
The next step is to take the sliced pieces and throw them in a big pot of water. From what I heard, this pot was very old itself. They tossed all our slices in it for about 5 mintues. Afterwards, they had racks waiting for them to sun dry. They gave us a couple pieces of the dried potato as a reward for the hard work.
The boiling pot
The drying racks
While waiting for the potatos to boil in the pot, the adventures take some R&R.
The next treat they showed us was the mochi itself. They took out a huge bowl shape thing with some dough. They also brought out 2 2-hand maces to pound the living daylights out of it. The idea was to pound it while singing a song. The song that I did was "Workin on the Railroad". Apparently there's a Japanese chant to it, but mine had the same effect.
The next day I surprisingly woke up at 7:30am feeling awake. I didn't have to meet the group for mochi making until 12:30. I tried to go back to sleep for about 30 minutes before giving up and getting up. Around 8:30 I started cleaning my apartment. Since I had so much time before the trip. I cleaned up well! Joe came on over around 11:30, just as I finished the cleaning project. The rest of them didn't come until 12:20ish when we all walked down to the meeting place.
This little expedition of ours was hosted by the tourism college here on Goto. I think this was a project for the students to have a little tour for us and some other Japanese people. The group leader was Mizorogi sensei. She goes to our conversation classes on Wednesday and her English is the best I've heard from a Japanese person. She's even better than the Japanese English teachers at my schools. She explained some ground rules, spilt us up into 4 teams and had us do some exercises. After 30 minutes or so, we headed to the mochi making place.
The bus stopped by a small farm next to the road where we were escorted next to it. From there, they explained to us the process of how mochi becomes mochi. The first step is to farm up the potatoes from the ground. They had us wear gloves and boots while we got our farming gear from the various boxes that littered the side of the road.
With scythe in hand and farmer enthusiasm, I went to work scything the field. After that, we were given hoes and we dug up the potatoes. From there, we placed our findings in a big blue basket which was carried away by one of the staff members. We only filled one of the baskets before they escorted us across the street to the building where the "magic" happens.
Once we got there, they explained more about the process and told us we would be wearing aprons and hairnets. At first they gave me a pink apron, which made me look totally buff. I felt like I was about to serve lunch at a prison. Luckily, one of my team mates wanted the pink one and traded me a green one with that banana company logo on it (Del Monte).
Introducing the staffThe next process is to soften the potatoes up. Since this is the land that time forgot, we used old tools which were used for hundreds of years. They took a bucket of hot water and brought 2 sticks tied together with some vine and had us work on it.
After they were nice and wet, we started peeling them. Nothing too exciting, but when you're in an apron and hairnet, everything becomes so involved!It only took us 10 minutes to peel our batch and then they brought out more ancient hardware. The next step is to slice them into thinner pieces. They had a wooden contraption with a knife's edge sticking out from the middle. The idea was to slide the potato against it and make thinner pieces. The whole time I was doing this, I was expecting my palm to fall into the basket with all the other potato pieces.
The next step is to take the sliced pieces and throw them in a big pot of water. From what I heard, this pot was very old itself. They tossed all our slices in it for about 5 mintues. Afterwards, they had racks waiting for them to sun dry. They gave us a couple pieces of the dried potato as a reward for the hard work.
The boiling pot
The drying racks
While waiting for the potatos to boil in the pot, the adventures take some R&R.
The next treat they showed us was the mochi itself. They took out a huge bowl shape thing with some dough. They also brought out 2 2-hand maces to pound the living daylights out of it. The idea was to pound it while singing a song. The song that I did was "Workin on the Railroad". Apparently there's a Japanese chant to it, but mine had the same effect.
To think that people will actually buy the stuff we're making.
Team D..GO!The staff members brought out some finished dough for us to work into smooth round balls. We had a contest on who made the best ball. Unfortunately, Andrea's team won. I contend I won a close 2nd. The prize for winning? Wearing a crown and having your picture taken.
The winners, Team A - Blue
Team B - Green
Team C - Yellow
Team D- Pink
The winners, Team A - Blue
Team B - Green
Team C - Yellow
Team D- PinkAfter the contest, we got to eat the results of our hard work. We had some mochi and tea. During this time, I took the opportunity to take some great shots!
We finished around 3:15pm, the bus to take us home would arrive at 4pm. We took this time to head to nearby Yagatame to do some quick sightseeing. What to do when you have time? Take pictures of course!
I will leave the pictures to your interpretations. There are some that make no sense, but use your imaginations, they're probably not too far from the truth. Until next time!
We finished around 3:15pm, the bus to take us home would arrive at 4pm. We took this time to head to nearby Yagatame to do some quick sightseeing. What to do when you have time? Take pictures of course!
I will leave the pictures to your interpretations. There are some that make no sense, but use your imaginations, they're probably not too far from the truth. Until next time!
3 comments:
Those mallets look like someone stripped a log and put it at the end of a stick.
Learn to make ichigo daifuku next time.
At least you don't clear the room, like a certain other karaoke singer.
For more beach-side pose inspiration, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVcJ-qTP3H8
This looks so fun. According to my 3 years of education in Japanese language and culture, they also make mochi at the start of the new year.
You remind me of those people that do documentaries in mexico, except you would be making chocolate balls. I like the hammer and the hat
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