Minakami: Memories

blogger's apology: I am deeply sorry for that typo in the previous post...it makes me sound like a pervert! haha... My typos are usually more harmless than that!
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This post will have a lot of pictures :)

So, I'm counting down my last days in Minakami, so I will share with you some of my best memories. Oddly enough, the majority of them take place outside of the pension (NOTE: Apparently a 'pension' refers to European[western]-style inns that provide a meal and room for a fixed wage). In no particular order, here they come:

1. Walking my host sister home from school.
This only happened once. My friend Mary was visiting us that day, so I thought it would be a god way to show her our area. The walk to the school took about half an hour. The walk back took much longer. Maybe it was the constant state of snowball-war we were in?Maybe it was the scenery? The wild monkeys? It was a fun walk, and a bit educational, with it's share of mini-culture shock: Japanese children are bullies. It was not the case that everyone was beating each other up, but older children have a sort of 'right' to pick on the younger children.

It's called the senpai-kouhai relationship, in English it's similar to "senior-junior" type relationships. In Japan, it crosses all boundaries: school, business, part-time jobs, sports teams,etc.
It seems that there's always an instance where the younger (or newer to a group) person is exploited; serve tea, pick up equipment, clean up, or in this day's case, take unnecessary bullying, and brushing it off saying "daijyoubu!" (it's fine!). It's not always demeaning work, but rather sort of character building, "I had to do it when I was a kouhai" type thing. In this instant, it's a bit unnecessary, but as I said, they are just children. Children can be mean (not a good excuse, but true).

But in all, it was a good walk. The children kept calling my sister "crazy girl" or other mixtures of mean Japanese words with "girl". I was impressed with their vocab, both Japanese and English! My favorite was when they pointed at the wild monkey we happened to see and said "Japanese monkey". Wow! They then started to call my sister "perverted monkey" (sukebe monkey). How cute :)

Check them out! too wild...the one
who is blurry is my host-sister...
she is crazy sometimes


What's going on here? A messed up senpai-kouhai
relationship...this is how she views our relationship? haha!

2. Minakami outing!
We (the three foreign students) were invited to join some Minakami elementary school students at a community/tourist center. There, we participated in wall climbing, mochi making and overall merry-making and foreigner showing-off. The children were cute, as children are bound to be, and they really loved Ian. Maybe it's because he is a guy, and they feel better about playing rough with him, or maybe it is because he is so tall, but they were all over him! It was fun to watch, but I was a little jealous. On the up side, I actually made it up all the way on the climbing wall, and it was one of those walls that juts out (it was not straight up…). I was super scared, but I did it!

Yatta! I did it!

Mochi making! Pound hot rice gruel into a glutenous mass!
slather that with sweet red beans, a sweet mixture of soy flour and sugar, or
cover it with soy sauce and nori. Yummy!
Aren't those twins sooo cute? I wish I was better with my camera...

3. Going to…Wait, where was it again?
My Minakami host family and I went to Niigata Prefecture by train, which is just north of Gunma Prefecture where I am right now. We did leave the station, but we didn't stray far. It looked similar to Minakami, being that it was surrounded by mountains. We ate a delicious Japanese-style meal, walked a bit, played one of those cork-gun-shooting games (we all won prizes! Mine was a sympathy prize…), and meandered around the HUGE station. This part of Niigata is famous for rice and, as we all know, sake (Japanese alcohol) is made from rice. Naturally there is a huge section of this station dedicated to souvenirs (the majority of it being consumables), and a big part of this huge section is dedicated to sake! At the back and to the side is this magical room:

Looking at this picture (it's a bit dark) you can see rows of sake dispensers. My father bought some tokens (9!) and we shared a little cup and drank samples. I only had 3, but that was enough! I am not terribly fond of the stuff. Not to mention, I didn't want to end up like these guys:

DRUNK MANNEQUINS! Scary stuff!

Ryota, Mitsuki and Lydia.
Note the facial expressions.

This was a good day because I connected with Ryota through a zombie-shooting video game! What a wonderful time. We had to waste an hour in the station because we missed our earlier train back home. Unlike Tokyo which runs trains every 2 to 10 minutes, the trains going to Minakami were far and few between. But, I'm not complaining! I think the best part of this trip was that I was with my family in a completely non-work related setting. Since we live in the pension, it's hard to be 100% relaxed, even when we have no customers. There's always something that can be cleaned, etc. We called it our 'mini-vacation', and it was just that!

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So, there's an update! Tomorrow I am going to an onsen, so I can practice the art of bathing. Speaking of which, I took a bath with my host sister tonight, and it was interesting. As usual, Japan in theory is thrown off by actual Japan. What do I mean? Well, the first thing she did upon entering the bath/shower room was jump into the bath! She didn't wash off first! I asked her about it and she did her whole daijyoubu! routine. I think part of it was that she knows I have no real authority over her and since I cant argue with her in Japanese, I just let it go. In the end, it was a very interesting bath. She talks a lot, and she doesn't even mind that she has to explain vocab to me. She likes to talk :)

Oh, remember the mask from the previous post? I made that at the 'Craft Village' and we are going back there as well! We will do that, go to the onsen and then...drink! Ian told our Minakami associate that he likes to drink, so we are going to an Izakaya (Japanese style bar) together!

Also, I went snowshoeing a few days ago, and I would like to post a little about that, so I'll do that in a few days!

Jya, mata ne! (See ya next time!)