Sake Festival

So about a month ago, on Friday evening, when I was just about to leave work, a co-worker handed me a flyer. Since I was literally walking out the door when he gave it to me, I said thanks, put it in my backpack and went home. …and forgot about it…

Then on Saturday evening, I got ready to do hardcore studying for my JLPT exam and in my study book was the flyer. This time I took my time to read it and it was a flyer on a sake festival that would be held in my city (at a place near one of the train stations. In other words, really really close to me). Then I looked at the dates: that weekend!! So I missed the Saturday one and Sunday was the last day. I wanted to take advantage of something going on in my city so I emailed some of my buddies (in Japan, cell-to-cell texting is actually emailing. You even get to create your own cell email address!). After a little while, a plan was made.

The next day, we had lunch at Baby Face. It’s an Italian-Japanese restaurant. Good, but not really Italian… Oh, and some of my students had lunch there around the same time my friends and me had lunch. Hahaha.

After lunch, we met Julie at the train station and then found the festival. There was no entrance fee but we did have to buy our own little sake cup. But it was only 100yen!!! (~$1) And then we got to sample various sake, ume-shu (plum wine) and sho-chu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dch%C5%AB). There was also one sake that was the most expensive to buy and the only one that you had to pay 300yen to taste! And yes, I tried it and yes, it was awesome. That one had to be the smoothest sake that I’ve tried so far. But I didn’t buy a bottle. Although it was really tasty, it’s out of my budget. Maybe if there was some really big thing to celebrated I’d actually buy it. But since there are no/have been no huge things to celebrate here, I don’t need to buy it.

One of the booth was sake from a neighboring restaurant. One that serves bees. And sure enough, there were bees at the bottom of their sake bottle. It reminded me of the tequila with a worm in it…
I didn’t try this sake because I don’t know if I’m allergic to bees. But they’re always around pollen so I’m also afraid I’ll react to the pollen that may be on them…so I just let everyone else describe the flavor to me. Most of them just said, “It tastes like bees.” Yes, very descriptive. But clearly not the group’s favorite.

We also got to go inside the brewery (the festival was held right outside a sake brewery) and there were a few in there to try as well! Most of these were the chilled sake but one of them was a grape one. That one tasted just like juice. It was hard to believe there was any liquor in it.

A funny moment during the festival was when we tried the sho-chu. Apparently Lupita and Julie don’t really like it and so they would makes faces after every little sip they’d take. And I was next to them, trying to suppress my giggles. But it looked like Julie really didn’t want to drink it anymore so I drank her sample. Only then did Lupita turn, noticed Julie’s cup was empty and tried to pour her sho-chu into Julie’s cup! Ahahahaha. But I drank her sample as well. But in their defense, straight sho-chu is pretty strong. When I had it with my host dad over a year ago, he served it with hot water. Speaking of my host dad, I bought a bottle of that sho-chu for him. Hehe.

In the end, we went to McDonalds, bought fries, hung out at my place until dinner and then went to our favorite hamburger spot: Son House. What a day. Never before had I been tipsy at 4 in the afternoon!!! (The festival was 11 – 4) When we tallied up how many samples we had tried, we came to roughly around 13 cups (“roughly” because some servers filled the cup to the top and some servers only gave us half the cup. Which is more than enough for a taste really). 13 cups of sake/ume-shu/sho-chu!!! That’s just madness! But what was more insane was it was only 400yen!!! (~$4)

Oh! And there was a booth selling sake manju as well. (manju is a red-bean pastry with the outing consisting of flour, buckwheat and rice powder). I found it cute and amusing that the woman selling it to me was asking me if I knew there was sake in it and if I’d be ok. Hehe. But I honestly couldn’t taste the sake in it. But doesn’t alcohol lose its alcoholic characteristic when it’s cooked/baked???

Anyhoo~

kampai!

(cheers!)

Real Update: End of August to September

Alright, it’s time I fill you in on stuff that’s been going on since my last real update (which was when…August?!?! Aiya…)

Hokay, so after the crazy extravaganzas with my cousin, I started to help plan out stuff for my Block and really get to know the new JETs. So we had a dinner and karaoke event. Sadly, not everyone was able to make it but it was still a blast! (It’s awesome when you’re with a crowd that also likes to go karaoke.  ) After karaoke-ing, Matt, Lupita and I decided to head to do some more karaoke-ing. But we went to Matt’s preferred karaoke place instead of staying at the one we were at… It turned out to be quite interesting. After a while, Matt decided to go mingle with the guys in the karaoke room across from us (there were windows and we waved at each other before…so I guess he wanted to make more friends). But then Matt didn’t return so it was really just Lupita and me singing…till some of those guys came over to join us. Hahaha.

Fast forward…

That Sunday, I met up with Lupita nd Julie for dinner and then we all met up with Kimiko-sensei to go on the Hakata cruise. Hakata is a couple of train stops away from me and it’s the station that everyone around has to go to to transfer to get to other prefectures and to get on the Shinkansen (Bullet train). That cruise was quite fun! It was a night cruise so we were able to see all the lights from the cities around the bay. And the breeze was rather nice too.

Fast Forward…

The next weekend, I went to Sasebo with my girlies (Julie and Lupita). We did the cruise around the 99 islands of Sasebo, daydreamed about just lounging about our favorite island and ate the famous Sasebo Burger (which has a bit too many things in it in my opinion…so so so stuffed after eating that…). But we actually stayed at Huis Ten Bosch hotel, not in Sasebo. Huis Ten Bosch is a Dutch area. …it’s kinda like a theme park… And it’s famous for it’s annual flowers. They have a tulip season and a rose season (there may be more…but I think the Tulip one is the most famous). And in the park there’s a CG movie theatre where you can have your face scanned and then added into the movie! It’s pretty cool and fun to watch. We all bought a print out of our CG pictures. Hahaha. (There’s different roles in the movie: the brain, the protectors, the elders and…one other…hmm…)

Fast forward…

Sports Day!!!
This was my second Sports Day and the only thing that was upsetting was that my battery life is too short now!!! >.<” I was unable to take pictures to my heart’s content. Saaaaaaaaad. But I did manage to get some awesome pictures and even some video of “kibasen.”

Kibasen is possibly the most anticipated sport during sports day at my school. The boys (this is a “boys only” sport) get split into groups of 4. In each group, one boy is designated as “the rider.” The other boys become part of “the horse.” The 3 boys lift “the rider” up and go head to head with another group. “The horse” boys have to keep their “rider” steady and keep him from falling down. Both “riders” wrestle and try to get the other to fall off his “horse.” …this may not make a whole lot of sense…but once you see it, it does. :P It can be quite intense and dangerous. And so some boys and most of the male teachers “spot” each wrestle group and if needed, soften the fall of the boys.

Oh! I was asked to participate again this year! This time, it was a student-teacher obstacle course. It was soooo much fun. But sadly, my block didn’t get first place. T_T. I did, however, help shorten the gap between my block and the winning block. 
(I was the third runner and I had to first bite off some bread from a clothes line and then run to another table, open a bottle of soda, chug it down and then run to pass the blue sash.)

Fast forward…

For “Silver week” (as special 5 day weekend that occurred in September), Lupita and I headed to Beppu, Oita. Which is known for it’s onsen (hot water springs). Our aim this vacation was to chill and relax. And relax we did. Unfortunately, we tried to book rooms a little to late and so were unable to stay there for the whole break. But we made sure to take in what we could in those 2 days (we went to the onsen twice in one day!)
Then we got to go to a Fukuoka Hawks Baseball game!!! And thanks to Mike, some really awesome seats behind home base!!!!! It was awesome. And so exciting. And we could’ve won had Matsunaka-san not choked!!! Arg!!

And that pretty much concludes what happened until the end of September. Next up, October shinanigans. ^^v

どうしよかなぁ～

The forms are out.
The wheels are turning.
The list making has started.

The question has come again: to re-contract or not to re-contract...

どうしよ～？？？
なんか、ここにいるのを感じているけど頭に小さ声が「家族は怒れる」と言っている．．．
よく分からない～！！！

これから、よく考えま～す！