Week 2: Japanese Food (Again)!

It's pretty hard to believe that it's already been a week since my last post, but I guess that's just how time works, right? With intensive Japanese (pretty much) over and the final stages of orientation ahead in the next few days, I find myself on edge and ready to start classes. Looking back on last week's post, I think my biggest problem with regards to adjustment has definitely been the lack of routine. It's much easier to fall into a set pattern than random happenings each day, and so it is with an inward sigh of relief that I realize classes start within a week. It definitely doesn't hurt to have something to keep you busy with.

Looking ahead, much of my travelling will happen in the next few weeks as well, which gives me many reasons to get excited instead of homesick. Next weekend I'll spend some time in Kyoto; the weekend after that will be the 岸和田だんじり祭, or the Kishiwada Danjiri Festival in Kishiwada, Osaka; and the end of October will be a big trip into Tokyo.

I'll have my own pictures, but this is part of the Kishiwada Danjiri festival!

My point with all of this is that I was given really good advice from someone, and it's worked well so far in helping to alleviate the worse moments of homesickness: focus on the exciting things you have planned, especially trips and travelling, and then before you know it you'll be that much closer to returning home to the things you miss. This way, you have really exciting cultural experiences to look forward to, while at the same time you aren't solely focused on missing home. I can't stress enough how much this has helped me remember why I wanted to come to Japan in the first place, and how much better I've felt over the past few days. It's nice to finally feel the homesickness fading into the background of my much larger experience here in Japan. Of course, I'm sure I'll get homesick in the future, but that's what Facetime and Skype are for, and it's a huge relief to finally feel myself not ruled simply by a longing for the familiar.

Anyway, enough of that for now. This week was focused on Japanese food, and most of our excursions were centered around different aspects of food right here in Kanazawa. It was pretty interesting overall, and uniquely distinct from American cuisine/food manufacturing.

We started out on Tuesday by making traditional Japanese foods in a building on campus, which included 味噌汁 (miso soup), boiled spinach (I think, honestly I can't remember what exactly it was), and a soup made from vegetables and beef with a sake and sugar broth. We made this mostly from scratch, but it actually turned out to be really tasty, even if it was a bit hard, or close to impossible, to read the instructions in Japanese.

The finished product, although whether or not I'll ever be able to replicate it is doubtful

On Thursday, we visited a local food production facility which supplies school lunches to over 3500 students in the surrounding area. What struck me the most was how clean and organized the entire system was. Our guide told us that if someone was even the slightest bit sick they weren't allowed anywhere near the food, and the workers all had full-body suits to eliminate the possibility of foreign contamination. They also wore color-coded aprons that signified what type of food they were dealing with (i.e. meat, fish, etc.) and/or what their job was (i.e. tasting the food). To the best of my knowledge, school lunch is not prepared anywhere near the same way in America. I remember the lunch ladies dealing with food production right in the cafeteria, and wearing aprons, gloves, and hair nets for protection. The difference was striking and certainly interesting, and I left feeling like maybe America is a bit inadequate when it comes to food production.

Some of the lunches the facility usually makes

It's hard to see but I promise they're wearing colored aprons 

Afterwards, we piled back into our bus (no pictures of that, but I promise it was a pretty ordinary bus), and off we went to make some そば (soba), traditional Japanese noodles. Making anything from scratch is not something I would typically list in my skill-set, but needless to say it was a really fun experience. We also had supervision from people who had been making soba for decades, which didn't exactly hurt our chances of success. Of course though, I still managed to mess up a bit; soba is traditionally very thin, close to translucent in fact, and a lot of my noodles were not thin. At all. In the end though they were delicious, so I'd consider it mostly a success, as far as my stomach was concerned!

They're not supposed to be that thick 

Friday was probably the most interesting food trip in my opinion, because we got to work with a master who sculpts sweets for the ritualistic Japanese tea ceremonies. There ceremonies are nothing short of amazing. We haven't had the chance to see one yet but the attention to detail is extreme and laser-focused; everything from how you enter the room to how you pour the tea rigorously controlled and scrutinized. Even the tiniest mistake can become a source of major embarrassment. Our sensei, however, was soft-spoken and polite, and guided us through making an apple and a flower out of the Japanese candy. Mine were... well, they were what you'd expect of an amateur American.

The demonstration 

My creations, maybe just focus on the apple cause it's better-made 

Then, sensei demonstrated how to make everything ranging from a rose to a rabbit, and it was easy to see his immense talent. The dough bent to even his lightest touch, and the way each creation took shape was reminiscent not of inanimate objects but the creation of life itself. It was truly awe-inspiring, and my only regret is that I was so mesmerized I forgot to take any videos! And then afterwards I got a picture with him, which was pretty cool.

I can't flip this but you get the idea, he's really good at what he does

And that was it for experiencing some local customs here in Kanazawa! With another day off tomorrow I have a few lunch plans, but otherwise I'm looking forward to starting school. I'm sure I'll regret saying that at some point soon, but for now I can't wait to be busy again. Until next time, and thanks for reading/じゃあ、またね、読んでくれてありがとう！

I've already posted this on Facebook and Instagram so may as well throw it in here too! Also, as a little side-note, still getting used to taking my shoes off whenever I enter a building; more on that custom sometime in the future.