Chicken Soup for the Soul

The lovely Naoko-sensei wasn’t the only one taking care of me when I came down with my cold in December. Keizo came over twice to fill my larder and provide some distraction from my symptoms. The first night I could feel the cold coming on, he brought over some hot udon for dinner, some OTC cold medicine and a package of masks, which he thought we both should wear. While eating the udon, I commented that in the U.S., chicken soup is popular fodder for sick people. He left and I went to bed early.

The next day was the day I went to the doctor. The day after that is when I wrote the last post. I failed to mention Keizo’s second care visit because I didn’t think too much of it until I got better and started putting the pieces together.

He let me know he was coming over in the afternoon with some food for me to eat. When he arrived I was napping on my porch, so he let himself in and told me to take it easy. I stayed on the sunny porch for about 10 minutes when I realized there were no sounds coming from the inside of my apartment. I went inside to investigate and found Keizo sitting on the couch starring at the wall. He showed me the bag of stuff he brought, which was a lot of raw produce, and I asked him if he had picked up any apple juice, which was my one request. He had missed the message, so he went back out again and I ate some soup that Vanessa brought me the night before.

When I was feeling better, I went through the bag of groceries Keizo bought. Inside there were carrots, broccoli, onions, chicken and even some hard to find cilantro. There was also a box of chicken boullion cubes and a box of instant chicken consome. As I was putting them away, I noticed there was a picture on the back of the instant consome---carrots, broccoli, onions, a chicken leg and a green herb-y thing. The picture and the contents of the shopping bag matched exactly! My quiet knight in shinning armor had done his best to get me some chicken soup, but once all of the ingredients were in front of him, he had no idea what to do with them. Hehe. Maybe it didn’t have quite the healing effect he anticipated, but they do say that laughter is the best medicine.

Before I left for my winter vacation, I used up the ingredients in the bag and made my first ever chicken soup from scratch courtesy of a recipe from the internet. It came out pretty well, if I may say so myself.

Would this make you feel better?

After biking home from elementary school on Monday, I barely had the energy to climb the stairs to my apt. Oh no, my cold like symptoms picked up at last week's Mid-Year Seminar in the building that felt like a meat locker had finally caught up to me. So I stayed home Tuesday and the lovely Naoko-sensei took me to see her doctor. I was the youngest person in the waiting room by about 40 years until an 8 year old girl and her mom walked in just before my name was called.

When I saw the doctor, he looked at me, at the chart the nurse had prepared and back at me and started to chuckle. The nurse had put 男 (male) instead of 女(female) on my chart by mistake. Although sometimes elementary classes I have never taught before come to the teacher's room looking for a male teacher. Hmmmm. Then the doctor, who kind of looks like a Japanese Tom Selleck (maybe it was just the mustache) asked some questions and looked at my tonsils (which he quickly diagnosed as "dekkai" or large) and wrote me four perscriptions to be filled at the pharmacy next door. In Japan, they appear to only make pills for one symptom, so if you have multiple symptoms as one often does with a cold, you get a whole cocktail of drugs to take in various combinations at different times of the day. I have two pills that are to be taken after each meal, a package of throat tablets and way too many packs of purple powder which are to be added to water and gargled 4 times a day. When mixed with water, it looks like this:


It doesn't smell or have a taste, and I am not supposed to swallow it, but still, gargling purple water 4 times a day really is not that appetizing. I suppose it's working, as I am feeling much better tonight than I was last night. Still not 100%, but better than even this morning, which is a good sign, and somewhat of a relief considering that I basically slept all day--in bed, on the tiny couch, and later outside in the sun. Hopefully, I will sleep better tonight than I did last night with my dreams about crashing helicopters and invading martians. But first, I have to do my 4th gargle of the day...

Frolicking in the Foliage

Well, maybe not so much "frolicking" as just standing around and admiring the brilliant colors, but that doesn't make for a very catchy title.

Last Sunday actually lived up to its name and was unually sunny for Japan and this time of the year, so it wasn't too hard for Jamie to convince me to abandon my chores and join her on a mini-trip to Dazaifu. While it's more famous for the ume (plum) blossoms in February, Dazaifu didn't disappoint with its abundance of momiji (Japanese maple leaves).

After picking up some hot mochi filled with red bean paste to keep our hands warm and tummies happy, we took a right at the end of the street lined with shops. At the end of the block was a small temple with an amazing courtyard of trees, moss and rocks.




After removing our shoes and leaving them out front with everyone else's we walked into the traditional Japanese building that surrounded the courtyard. Obviously, we weren't the only people who thought a sunny weekend afternoon was the perfect time to look at leaves.


Despite the crowd, the small building was quite serene and Jamie and I enjoyed looking at the leaves and taking pictures for about a half an hour before our feet couldn't take the direct contact with the cold floor anymore. Luckily, there were some more leaves on the outside that could be appreciated with your shoes on!

Still inside the courtyard. Gorgeous reds and yellows...



....and a blindingly orange tree at the entrance!



Walking back towards the main street, we happened across some trees we could actually get close to and a mini-stream full of floating leaves.

Then we followed the colored leaves along a path up a hill which dumped us out in the back of the larger Tenmangu Shrine, where we saw this magical looking tunnel for the first time. The it was back to the shops for some soft cream (the fall flavor was maron or chestnut) and Christmas shopping before getting back on the train to Kurume, where we both accomplished our neglected chores in record time before heading to Tatsunoya for our first ramen dinner in a long time.

A pictoral essay of Osaka and its environs

I don't know where that title came from and it in no way conveys how much fun I had collecting the images below.

Day 1: Osaka-shi.

The Open-Air Museum of Old Farmhouses, Osaka castle, din-din and iruminashion at the aquarium. These places are so different that I hope you will be able to figure out which pictures are which.

Hmmm, there's the sky...and an old building of some kind...

...and another! It's like a museum or something...

Wait! That's not a farmhouse! It's a fire engine!

Looking at old buildings ages you. Let's take a break under this red tree.

The following is obviously not a farmhouse.

A sign at the ticket booth. Sorry, no cannibalism for me today, thanks.

Now, that's a gold fish!

Osaka-style okonomiyaki. Thick and juicy!

After taking the train out of the city center, following the signs through the wrong exit at the station and walking in a big circle on deserted streets which cost us a ride on the "World's Largest Giant Wheel" we found what we were looking for---illuminated sea creatures!

I don't make a very good manta ray.

Can you guess the animal below? Bio-luminescent plankton? Nope! It's the whale shark on super zoom. Duh!

Day 2: Out of Osaka

Stop 1: The Instant Ramen Museum, which is a legitimate museum with security guards in the parking lot directing traffic.

Hall of Ramen through the Ages. I have never seen so much sodium on one wall before.

Edible airplane food? At least it's not rubbery meat. "Ramen de sky" anyone?

The man behind it all, Momofuku Ando. A real noodle head if you ask me.

Stop 2: Himeji Castle. The castle of Japan. What can I say, it was really big?

So pointy.

OMG!! Look, a wedding party!! The bride and groom were lucky to get a ride, everyone else had to walk from who knows where in their formal wear.

Stop 3. Kobe. Since it was already dark when we got there, we didn't do a whole lot of exploring and went straight to the harbour, which could have very well have been an American shopping mall, except there were a few too many Japanese people there.

We finally got to ride a ferris wheel, only this one was pretty small. Nice view though.

Ginourmous tree inside the mall. Where am I again?

I never knew I wanted a small dog so I could dress it up like a strawberry until I went into this store with Jamie.

Day 3: Osaka in the rain

Day 3 had basically one stop, the Umeda Sky Building. Kind of like a tower in that it has nice view, or will at least until all the construction around it is complete.

Going up to the "Floating Garden Observatory." I don't recall seeing any plants up there.



Out the window on the rainy side of the building. Jamie and I do have a knack for visiting high places on days with severely limited visibility. Nice.


The dry side. Lots of buildings, and even more that we couldn't see. Osaka isn't Japan's second city for nothing!

The End.

Flu Season

The weather has definitely shifted here. The thermometer on my alarm clock informed me it was a brisk 59 degrees Farenheight in my apartment this morning when I woke up. At school, the hallways and teacher's room are about the same, the classrooms are a bit warmer from the collected body heat of close to 40 students. But the changing weather is a bit of a shock to the system, and flu season has started. Kids are more boogery than usual, people are wearing their oh-so-fashionable surgical masks in public, and a week ago, Jamie actually lost her voice! Washing hands every 30 minutes and eating multiple mikans a day has become a daily routine. If only Japanese restrooms had soap in them (which I am sure is better at preventing the spread of germs than a piece of cottony paper with ear straps from the dollar store)!

It appears flu season has also started at home in the U.S. as well. How do I know? I read about it in the NYTimes. As usual, many interesting articles today including one about the dimming of the iconic Manhattan skyline due to improvements in lighting technology and rising energy costs. There was also one about Google, and how they have started tracking searches with keywords like "flu" and "muscle aches" and mapping them to see where the next potential influenza outbreak might occur. Probably not entirely what the creators had in mind back in the day, but postitive unintended consquences are a great thing in my opinion.

Read it while eating a mikan, and be sure to wash your hands when you're finished.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

A Beautiful Fall Day

A few weekends ago, Jamie and I bid farewell to Kurume for a few hours and went into Fukuoka for a "girl" day. First stop was Yasu's magical hair palace, where we got the star treatment and emerged with lovely new fall looks. Jamie got her hair trimmed and Yasu gave her some fabulous shampoo comercial waves; I asked for a chin length angled bob with some bangs and got just what I asked for.

Looking fab, we ate lunch at an Italian restaurant we discovered a bit on accident before one of our monthly meetings. The restaurant is located on the second floor, behind a frilly boutique and is always full of women. I like to refer to it as the "lesbian lunch lair." The food is really good, and for just under $10, you get a salad, amazing crunchy bread, a huge pasta, drink and two, yes two, tiny desserts. No wonder it's always crowded ;-)

Full of lunch, we hopped a bus for the ferry port, took the ferry to Nokonoshima, and got on another bus to take us to the "Island Park," with it's famed hillside of pink and white cosmos flowers. The weather was really nice, so we weren't exactly the only people there, but the people watching added to the fun.

Follow me to the cosmos patch!

Oooo look, we made it!! Gorgeous!!

Throughout the afternoon, the sun kept going in and out from behind the clouds, making it hot, then cold, too bright and then too dark to take pictures. We had some creamy soft cream and hot from the fryer tempura sweet potatoes before boarding the bus back to the ferry, back to the bus, back to the train, back to Kurume.

The day's (and this post's) parting image--Fukuoka skyline from the ferry.

Halloween!

Based on this picture alone, it's going to be a good one ;-)

* * * *

As soon as the calender hit October 1st, teachers at one of my junior high schools asked me to give a lesson about Halloween. For the 7th graders, I gave a short speech about the three things most people do--1) decorate the house with jack-o-lanterns, spider webs and the like, 2) put on a costume, and 3) go trick or treating. I show pictures of me in past costumes, like the Spice Girls and as an Oompa Loompa from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, but sadly I am met with a whole classroom of blank stares. Some things (old pop culture references) just don't translate. After the speech, there was a quiz, and then we played Halloween bingo.

Outside of school, I had two Halloweens! Imagine that, in a country where no one goes trick or treating! Last weekend, I headed into the city with Vanessa to attend "Halloween Salsa," a party/concert/dance event which made me really confused as to which country I was in. I was given free tickets by a teacher at one of my junior high schools. After school hours, he is the lead singer of "Salsa del Oriente," Fukuoka's (only?) salsa band.

The event gathered a good crowd, there was delicious Spanish food, fun music and many talented salsa dancers. Most people dressed up in costume, Vanessa and myself included. We fit right in at the party, but I felt pretty rediculous on the train home.

Not wanting my costume to be "lost in translation" again this year, I opted for the not so subtle "kabocha." Between West Coast (used clothes) and the Daiso (100 yen) I think the whole thing cost me less than $8.

October 31st started out as a school day like any other at a mildly disfunctional elementary school. The first class I was supposed to teach forgot about me for a good 20 mins, and then the class I was supposed to eat lunch with forgot about me completely, so I ate with a mixed group of office staff and volunteer mothers in the principal's office. The all comented about how weird the day's menu was, and I would have to agree. The main dish was a tasteless concoction of tofu, boiled cabbage and quail eggs in a gelatinous sauce. At least the rice and soup were good.

Friday's main event was going bowling in costume. Nine ALT's and two slightly embaressed Nihon-jin met up at Kurume's Sports Garden to share candy and hurl brightly colored balls at unsuspecting pins. Everyone looked pretty amazing in their costumes. Our group had a cowgirl and cowboy, devil, James Bond, turkey, Santa Claus, reindeer, pumpkin and a pirate. We all called it a night after two games, but in that was plenty of time for me to eat enough candy to feel sick!

Keizo's first Halloween!!! I made sure he went all out costume wise, but I don't think he got a stomachache.