Swirly bread and scary bar girls

Short post today, as I've spent most of the week "recovering" from vacation. Yeah, this whole week has felt pretty off. In both work and free time, I've just felt... bleh. I'm kinda used to this though. Normally I have about one week like this per month. I've been informed by my co-worker that I have an excuse this time, though. Apparently, both Ryan and Alethia (my fellow trainees) have been dealing with the same thing, and one of Ryan's students gave a name to it: Yasumiboke (basically, your brain still being fried after vacation). Dunno, but I hope it's gone by tomorrow.

So, on Saturday I went (on extremely short notice) to a yakiniku party to welcome the new year! If you're not familiar with it, Yakuniku is kind of a barbecue done at the table as you eat. We got a cool clay-pot charcoal stove with a grate on top, and fried raw meat. Like men. Because it was very manly.

What's cooking there is the first dish. Pretty sure it was tongue. It was fucking delicious. Honestly, all of it was delicious. Even the intestine (although it was way too chewy. Only ate one piece).

It was a kind of small event, but really fun. Pretty much just myself, Seiji, Sarah, a guy who's name was very close to Kuma (which caused some awesome hilarity when Sarah's friend brought bear jerky. Bear is kuma in Japanese, so his reaction to the explanation that it was "Kuma" meat was fantastic), Masashi (the owner of 5150), and Yuzo (a new friend). Afterwards we went to 5150, but everyone except for Seiji and myself left really early. Interested note about 5150 that I think says a lot about my personality and my current state of being single. While eating Yakiniku, Masashi informed me that most of the girls there had asked him about me after my last visit and had thought I was really handsome. Sure enough, when I went there after dinner, the girls were very interested in talking to me. So, in a completely rational development, I now feel uncomfortable going there. Because that's a totally normal response to finding out all the girls at a bar think you're hot. Pretty sure even I don't understand how my brain works.

One big development did come from the bar visit, though: I got more incentive to practice Japanese. For a decent chunk of the night, the bartender, Masashi, and the patrons were all trying to get me to speak only in Japanese. I made a decent go at it, but was woefully unable to express myself (to be fair, I'd like to see pretty much anyone speak a second language they're not fluent in after having 7 or 8 glasses of beer). As a direct result, I've spent a decent chunk of my weekend practicing. I'm sick and fucking tired of being unable to communicate over here. I've always been a little motivated to practice, but I really feel like I have some good drive now. I might start visiting 5150 more often just to renew that desire to not seem like a babbling idiot whenever I need to speak with people. Shame has always been one of the biggest motivations in my life, so I might as well monopolize on that.

Other than that, I did nothing special this week. Just a lot of sitting at home. Here, have some random stuff:

1.) My head teacher (yes, her again) approached me this week and requested to ask a "really personal question". So, I girded my loins in expectation to hear something like "do you like dudes?", and instead got "How long were you in Hiroshima?" Waitwut? So, asking how long I was on a trip is super personal, but asking how old I am, why I don't have a girlfriend, and why I broke up with me ex (questions I get all the fucking time) are perfectly normal? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CRAZY CUSTOMS OF THIS FOREIGN LAND!!!

2.) I discovered during one of my speech lessons this week that there are forbidden names in Japan. That is to say, there are certain Kanji (characters) you are not allowed to use while naming your child. This is not just a cultural taboo. Apparently, in the somewhat-recent present, a couple tried to name their child Akuma (devil, more or less). There was a legal battle, INITIATED BY THE GOVERNMENT (remember, kids, caps lock is cruise control for cool), that (I presume) ended in them being forced to change the name. Holy shit.

3.) My new favorite student mistake: "Jerry is a goatee." Please note I am not mocking my student here. She's actually really smart and good at English. It's an easy mistake to make, and totally understandable; it's just freaking hilarious. PS: Jerry is also freckles and long hair.

4.) One of my students makes homemade bread. She gave some to the office. Please give us more bread, oh goddess of most-delicious doughy substances.

I made them into delicious grilled-cheese sandwiches. Yes.

5.) 

It's been snowing even more lately. Luckily, most of it didn't. Still annoying though. Finally able to start riding my bike again :D

6.) On Sunday there were kimono girls everywhere. Mostly around Saty, but there was a fucking shitload of them. Some were totally oldschool, some were ultra cutesy, some had crazy big hair, and some looked like they would never dress up in a kimono ever. All of them shared two things in common though: they were all freaking adorable, and I had no idea why any of them were dressed up. There didn't seem to be anything special going on aside from the fact that there obviously was. I can't help but feel like I missed something awesome.

Thomas' Play at Home Food Challenge Day 10: Udon With Pork and Leek

The leek (leeks?) is in there, I promise. It's just hard to see. Overall, not bad. I've been trying to get used to different soups over here. They're... different than back home. Normally I don't like the broth that much, and I can't quite place why. This one was definitely not an enjoyable broth. I think the recipe uses way too much soy sauce. 1/2 cup of soy sauce for 4 cups of water seemed a bit much to me, but I'm hardly a master chef. If I make the recipe again, I'll use less soy sauce. Other than that, though, I liked it, so I'm calling this a much-needed victory for me.

Recipe: http://www.udonrecipes.com/udon_noodle_soup_with_pork_and_leek/

Score to date: Thomas - 5 Vengeful Food Gods - 5 (sigh... another tie)

Just a quick aside. The meat over here is different than back home. There's nothing like a steak. The only slabs of anything that I have seen have been fish. All the meat is either ground beef, chicken breast, or thinly-sliced pork/beef. Makes it very easy to cook things since it pretty much cooks all the way through in under a minute.

As you may have noticed above (and in the previous weeks), there are not two entries for the food challenge. It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to do two recipes every week; especially on the weekends where I have plans in the evening. Since I'm the kind of person who starts to feel really bad if I don't do something I said I would (even if it's a stupid food challenge on a blog I highly doubt anyone pays attention to), I am officially withdrawing my plan of doing two new recipes a week. I will still be trying to make as many new dishes as I can, but I am officially changing it to a "whenever I can" approach. For the record, my second (first) dinner this week was the beef bowl recipe again. Still delicious.