Homemade mochi

My host grandparents are pretty awesome. They live on the other side of town. They have a really big garden -or a really small farm, whichever you want to call it- where they grow vegetables. Because of that, my family gets to eat fresh watermelon, cucumbers, figs and melons every day. I believe they also sell some of the produce at a roadside stand. This evening we went to the grandparents' house for dinner. The grandmother was cooking up some fresh mochi in a mochi-making machine.
If you don't know what mochi is, or think it's a kind of ice cream, let me explain. Mochi is the gooey outer coating you find on mochi ice cream. It's basically white rice cooked until it's soft, then ground up and steamed into an elastic white dough. I've had it before from Japanese grocery stores, but it was soooo much better fresh. We ate it with azuki beans, soy sauce,peanut powder stuff, or ground daikon radish on top. As the grandmother was making mochi, I saw her chopping up a very, very, purple root.
Me: Wow, that is definitely purple.
Grandma: This is a sweet potato.
Me: Really?
Grandma: Yes! Do you have sweet potatoes in America?
Me: Yes, but not that color.
Grandma: Sou desu neeee. (can't be translated)
She kept asking me a lot of funny questions like that, whenever different topics came up. "Do you have cucumbers in America?" "Do you have convenience stores in America?" "Do you have Saran Wrap in America?" Anyway, she took the purple potato and mixed it into the next batch of mochi, so the mochi turned a beautiful shade of purple. And you know how much I love purple.
After dinner the grandma took me on a walk around the neighborhood and showed me the local buildings. The grandfather also taught me how to play some board games. And they kept trying to get me to eat more food, which is exactly what my American grandparents do. "Eat, eat, there's plenty of food! Are you sure you're full? There's more food you know." Maybe someday when I'm a grandparent I'll understand this.
Before I left the grandmother gave me some little hashi oke, chopstick rests, made of Italian glass. I would like to give them a present as well, but none of the souvenirs I brought from America are nice enough. I think I'll draw them a picture.
Today, as usual, was extremely hot. Our house has no air conditioning, so I'm getting used to feeling sweaty all the time. So I was sitting there, feeling sweaty and fanning myself with a paper fan when all of a sudden it started to rain outside. Within about a minute, BOOM, it was furiously pouring outside, with thunder to boot. It was crazy raining. Looking out my window I saw a few pitiful souls who had been caught walking or biking. About five minutes later all the rain went away, and left the evening cool and dry. So I am in a very good mood this evening.

Thanks everyone for reading my "bloggings of Japan" and leaving nice comments.

Engrish fest!

Here's dinner, which my host mom made. We have egg tofu, miso soup, and an omlette over fried rice. The ketchup spells out "Ke," which are of course the first two letters of my name! How cute is my host mom??

Last night was sooo hot. In America I was used to the cool sea breeze coming in the evening. But here we're not so lucky. The days are hot, and the nights remain hot. Last night was particularly bad so it was difficult to sleep. Eventually I went into the bathroom, wiped cold water all over my body and went to bed without drying myself off. It helped. Right now it's raining, so if I need to cool off I guess I can just step outside for a bit. Thank goodness my host mom is letting me borrow the electric fan for my room tonight. I heard that we're going to have a typhoon tomorrow! As extreme as that sounds, nobody seems very concerned about it. How awesome to be able to say that I've been through a typhoon.

Boy do I have some great Engrish for you guys today. Really outstanding.

Inuyama Castle

Yesterday my host mom was kind enough to take me to Inuyama castle. It was pretty small, but still beautiful. Of course we had to take off our shoes before we went inside. What surprised me were the very, very steep stair cases which were a little scary to walk up and down. My little host brother actually refused to walk up them. It would seem to me that having such steep stairs would make getting around the castle in a kimono or samurai suit very difficult. From the top level there was a great panoramic view.

While looking at the view, I saw this little chapel. You can see it in the picture below, to my right side. "Oh look!" I said to my host mom. "A Christian church!" "Huh? Where?" She said. Then she laughed, "Oh no, that's not a church. That's a wedding chapel. Most Japanese aren't Christians but they like the western church weddings. See, it's right next to that hotel. The ceremony is in the chapel and the reception in the hotel."

The castle was built on a very steep hill with the river at it's back- a very strategic position, no? But I still saw a very big flaw: the castle, like all old Japanese buildings, was made of wood and paper.
Wood.
And paper.
To me it seems like all you would need to defeat the mighty castle would be a ninja with a lighter. It's amazing it's survived as long as it has.
Later that day my host mom asked me to wait in the car while they picked up something at their grandparents' house really quick. I ended up waiting in the car for a good while. When they finally came back, my host mom said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Kelley! There were a lot of mosquitoes!"
I sat there wondering how mosquitoes could have possibly hindered their return to the car. Maybe huge godzilla-size mosquitoes, or sudden swarms of mosquitoes sucked the blood out of their legs so they were unable to walk for several minutes. Most likely it was the innate Japanese impulse to drop everything in order to hunt down and kill every mosquito in sight. After looking at the puffy little mosquito bites on my legs, I guess it's not such a bad thing. Apparently it's pretty time-consuming, though.

Meeting the In-laws

Today I met the in-laws...not mine, of course. Today we went to grandma and grandpa's house. They were, of course, very nice and asked me a lot of questions about California. They got out an atlas and asked me to show them where I live, etc. We also had this interesting conversation as we sat around a coffee table eating cake:
Aunt: Kelley, do you like sweets?
Me: I love them! (a huge understatement.)
G'ma: But you're slim!
Host Mom: We've had 5 other exchange students, girls, stay at our house.
Aunt: They were all fat.
Me: Were they Americans?
Host Mom: Yep.
Me: Of course they were.
I was watching the grandfather play with my little host brothers and remembered something my Dad said: that not too long ago this grandfather and my grandfather would have been pointing bayonets at each other. War sucks.
We went out for sushi for lunch. Raw squid was offered to me, and I couldn't turn it down without being rude. It tasted pretty much the way it looked: like eraser covered in fish slime. I've been learning to appreciate the taste of whatever is offered to me without thinking about what it might be made of. Sometimes it's better not to know. But on the other hand, we also went to a pastry shop, and I could have eagerly gobbled down everything in the store. They make the cutest little cakes here.
Around the corner from my house is an awesome little shrine. It's so quiet and peaceful, I think I'll go there whenever I need a breather.


In the back was an old cemetery. It was so crowded. A Japanese just can't get a break, I guess. Someone put a pink lace cap on one of the statues.


Walking around my neighborhood, I noticed how modernity and tradition co-exist in Japan:

That's it for now.

My Host Family

Today I met my host family. There is a father, mother, and two little boys, aged 8 and 6. The parents speak to me in short, simple sentences so I'm able to understand almost everything they say. The grandmother, who I met later, said to me, "watashi wa grandma desu!" But she talks so fast that that was pretty much the only thing I understood from her.
In a way, there is nothing remarkable about my host family. They are very kind, pleasant and patient with me, of course. The little boys treat me much as you would expect from little boys: a mixture of shyness and indifference. But hearing them call me "Kelley-chan" is really cute. One of the boys was bugging his mother for more money for video games, much as my little brother would. His mom rolled her eyes and put her fingers in her ears, much as my mom would. The father fell asleep on the train with his head tilted back and his mouth drooping open, much as my father would.
My university is in Nagoya but my host family lives in a small agricultural suburb about 30 minutes away. Host Mom warned me that Japanese houses are very small, but their house is really not bad at all. It is two stories, and while it isn't a strictly traditional Japanese house, there are Japanese influences to be seen. Most of the floors and walls are wooden and some of the windows have sliding wood-and-paper screens. The tables and beds are low to the floor. But otherwise the house looks pretty normal. It's cluttered with baby photos, VHS tapes, house plants, legos, airplane models, and origami dinosaurs.
I was surprised at how large my room is. It's much larger than my bedroom at home. I have a bed, desk, little couch, coffee table, and a dresser.
Japan has a reputation for being high-tech, but I didn't expect this to extend to the bathroom. I'm surprised at how complex the toilet and bathtub are. They have buttons. Buttons on the bathtub, shower and toilet. In my primitive American mindset, I think, "Why would you need buttons? How many options can there possibly be?" Today I tried to take a shower, but for the life of me I couldn't get any hot water to come out. My host mom told me that I needed to push a button first.
Host Mom is especially helpful. She seems to know a lot of English but only uses it if I get stuck on a Japanese word. She asked a lot of questions about what I like to eat and you are all going to be jealous when you hear what's on the menu for dinner tonight: sushi!

Department stores and Pure Engrish

Yesterday I visited a "Depaato," which is Japanese for "Department Store." Going to a department store doesn't sound like a very interesting or touristy thing to do, but this is not your average Macy's. Japanese depaatos are of titanic proportions. The one I visited was 12 floors high. It was like a Safeway, Wallgreen's, Nordstroms, and Staples all stacked on top of each other. I went around exploring the grocery store on the bottom, the cute Japanese stationary on the 6th floor, the kimonos on the 10th floor, and other areas. There are restaurants on the top floor, too. There are lots of western brands here, like Gucci, Louis Viutton, Occtane de Provence, and of course Starbucks. The whole store was very crowded.

I noticed that people often hang their umbrellas on the handles of their bikes, obviously not concerned about them being stolen. Japan has a lower crime rate than the US, and petty theft is rare. Yesterday the reason why became clear to me. The Japanese place their policemen on a pedestal. Literally. In the train station you can see the occasional police man standing on a small blue platform labeled "POLICE." They stand there perfectly still, looking serious and authoritative, and holding a very big stick. Would you steal bikes with that guy around? I sure wouldn't. I'll try to get a picture of one of these policemen for you guys, but they look so intimidating I'm a little hesitant to go up to one and say, "hey, can I take a picture really fast?"

The breakfast buffet at my hotel has all the food and condiments labeled in Japanese and English. But the English is so bad that I wonder why they went through the trouble if they couldn't even be bothered to use a dictionary. The knives are labeled "naahu," the forks are "hooku," the soy sauce is "source," and the orange juice is "orenge juice." These are simply attempts to English-ify the Japanese borrowed words; for example, the Japanese word for "knife" is "naifu," which they then tried to translate into English as "naahu." This isn't English, it's English's twice-removed cousin. Pure Engrish. So I wrote down the correct spellings on a napkin and gave it to one of the cooks. I wonder if they'll do anything about it. Maybe they don't really care- do the forks really need a label anyway?

Robots, cone pizza, and shopping

Today I went shopping in Japan.

Do you know how long I have wanted to be able to say that?

A long time.

I found a huge underground mall full of fun stuff. I love the clothes here. They have the cutest stuff for girls, but a lot of it is pricey, so all I bought was a pair of tall socks. I also found a lingerie shop named "Triumph International." I guess they take lingerie very seriously. Some of the bras had tags on them that said "For girls only"...I don't really want to think about that too much. There was also a kimono store, which I was stoked about.

I also went to the Robot Museum today. On the first floor they had robot-related activities for children. I stood off to the side and watched, mostly in confusion, until one of the employees got me to join in the activity. So before I really knew how it happened, I was standing in a group of tiny Japanese children and their moms as we watched a girl on a screen do a robot dance and tried to imitate her, hilarity ensuing. It was pretty ridiculous. Escaping to the second floor, I looked at an exhibit about the history of robots, beginning with the amazing little mechanical dolls Japan made in the 1700's. At the end of the exhibit there were a few robots to interact with. I went up to one that looked like a small R2-D2 with an anime-style face. I leaned close to it and said, "Konnichiwa!" To my surprise, the robot actually looked up at me, smiled, and said "hi!" There were also some cute little robot dogs that would wag their tails when you pet them, and baby seals that looked like stuffed animals but could move their heads and tails and make cooing noises. I've heard that they're supposed to be "therapeutic robots."

For lunch I went to "Kono Pizza," which is basically a pizza slice rolled up into a cone. Brilliant.


This is Nagoya TV Tower, which had a lovely park around it:


And I have nothing to say about these shoes: