Surprise Soba and Textbook Molestation

This week was much less eventful than last, which I think is a good thing. After the hectic craziness of last weekend, I kind of needed some time to rest.

A few people asked for it, so I'm going to subject the rest of you to a couple picture of me and Naoko. It's an awful picture of me, but that's pretty much like saying the sky is blue :/

I made soba this week! Admittedly, that sounds pretty unimpressive, but what you're probably missing is that I made the actual fucking soba noodles. My Japanese teacher invited me, and I had no freaking clue what it actually was until we got there. She had asked if I wanted to eat soba, not if I had wanted to go to a big once-a-year soba-making party. I didn't mind. None of these pictures are actually from my camera... ><

Some of the toppings you can put on the soba. Everyone was really eager that we try all of them (we being me and the three other foreigners there, all of which came with my teacher), so some of them were added to my bowl twice. In fact, after I poured my sauce (broth?) in, someone else added more, and a third person almost tried to add more. Later they told me I had put in too much of the sauce... gee, I wonder who's fault that was? ><

You know you wish you could take awesome pictures where you're in the middle of eating and your Japanese teacher decides it's a good photo op.

Me, my Japanese teacher's friend, and my Japanese teacher. And the picture taker's finger. And the GIANT bottle of beer they clunked in front of me when I selected beer from the choice of drinks they gave me... Later I got to drink some awesome sake that they apparently only have at this time of year. It was delicious.

I've had some "OMG GAIJIN!" reactions here, but none so much as at this place. In fact, I'm pretty sure someone announced very loudly when we all showed up "Gaijin!". I was asked where I was from at least a half dozen times, sometimes by the same people, even after doing a short self introduction. My Japanese teacher was, of course, busy telling everyone I was good at Japanese, so I had to pretend like I understood what everyone was saying the whole time. Anyways, this kid was pretty awesome. I was eating and felt someone walk up behind me. It was this kid, and he was just staring at me. I talked to him a little and tried to get him to give a thumbs up for the picture. No dice. Another kid was jumping up trying to touch the top of my head, so I bent down and let him, then picked him up above my head. I've said it before and I'll say it again: kids are awesome as long as I'm not the one that has to take care of them.

All the sudden, SURPRISE SOBA MAKING! Seriously, I had no idea this was expected of me, and, of course, a crowd quickly gathered to watch the various gaijin make damn fools of themselves. It was fun. First, we mixed the... dough? I have no idea how to refer to it. Soba are buckwheat noodles, so whatever the powdered form of buckwheat mixed with an egg and some water would be called. We had to use really long chopsticks, holding the middle and lower portions, to mix it.

Once it was mixed, we had to knead it by hand. I started kneading it like dough (using my fingers and all that), but that was apparently wrong. You use the heel of your palm and bend your fingers in so they're pressed against themselves/the top of your palm, then you push down and forward, folding when necessary. 

After that, you roll it out! Pretty simple, really, but there's an art to it. Spin, roll from the middle in one slow, continuous motion, spin, repeat. Once it's really big, you wrap it around the rolling stick (too big to be a rolling pin, right?) and roll from one side of the table to the other in the same motion. Then any small folds are flattened out, and it is folded on itself multiple times.

After that, it's time to cut. This is so much more difficult than it looks. There's a small wooden board on the left that you put on top, but you can't put any pressure on it, at all. I know this because they corrected me multiple times when I pushed down even a little. You hold the cleaver (seriously, it's a damn cleaver) right behind the blade with your thumb pressing on the top, position the blade sufficiently far beyond the upper edge and close to the wooden board (the thinner the cut, the better), slice down and forward (the forward part is important for some reason... I also got corrected on this quite a bit before finally getting it right), then shift the blade slightly to the side to push the cut noodles away from the uncut hunk while shifting the board a tiny bit. Coordinating both hands to do radically different things with that much precision was tough, but I got it down after the first quarter of the dough about. I was still happy when Jesus took over though (wow, I love that sentence... Jesus was one of the other Gaijin, btw, not a biblical figure), because my hand was cramping seriously bad.

These are some of the noodles I made!

That was yesterday. Today, I didn't do much. Had a Japanese lesson, did some grocery shopping, practiced Japanese A LOT (I'm getting really down on myself for not being better. This translates directly into trying to kill myself with studying), cleaned a bit, searched a book store in vain for some pre-intermediate Japanese language books (I'm really struggling closing that gap between beginner and intermediate with the materials I have. Guess I'll look again next weekend), bought Naoko's birthday present, and secretly hoped the games I bought online would show up so that I could play video games all day instead of doing that other stuff. They didn't, and I couldn't :(

Random shit!
1.)

Went to print club with Naoko and saw this thing. The picture doesn't quite convey the horror. Those glowing eyes? Yeah, they change color constantly. I was really trying to get a picture when they were red, but it seems that red was only a transition color, because they didn't stay that way long enough to get a good one.

 2.)

I'd like to introduce you to two of the characters from one of the textbooks I teach: Bill and Toshie. Now, the text insists that the two are happily married, but I submit this picture as evidence to the contrary. I'm not saying anything definitively, but I'm 100% sure that someone in this picture is being given the bad touch, and it's not Bill. I think Toshie needs an adult.

3.) I'm really proud of myself. I brought about $1,500 with me. AEON insists that you should bring at least that much because you will need supplementary income for the first month or two while setting up. It's been what, three months now? I still haven't withdrawn any money from my bank account here. been living entirely on that 1,500. Now, admittedly, my rent is withdrawn directly from my paycheck, but I still think that's damn good considering the cost of  doing anything in Japan. Planning a trip to Kyoto next month, though, so that'll probably change soon.