Mochi Season

For those who don't know, mochi is a delicious pounded Japanese rice treat. You can find it year round, and I have fallen in love with yukimi daifuku, which is a small ball of ice cream wrapped inside a cozy mochi covering. It is especially popular and traditional for New Year's. We can now find it everywhere, including our neighborhood Circle K.

Friday at Kasugaoka was Mochi Tsuki, the traditional mochi pounding ceremony. Nowadays there are machines that automatically make your mochi for you, but, the traditional; and much more entertaining method is far more labor intensive. The rice is soaked overnight and cooked in what looks like your basic wood burning stove. The rice is then pounded to oblivion in giant mortars with wooden mallets by a team of two adults. One whacks and the other turns and wets the rice to keep it from sticking to the mallets.  After this process the glob of rice is formed in to little balls or squares to be enjoyed. It is common to cover it in some kind of powdered sugar, sprinkles, or my psersonal favorite, kinako; 'yellow powder' made from crushed soybeans. These tasty morsels are often filled with something sweet like ice cream or sweet red bean paste (annko) and then called daifuku. At school I was taught its common to have mochi with a soy sauce and sugar, or soy sauce and radish combination.

So, at my school on this very special day all the teachers and mom volunteers are out on the playground preparing for the event. A few classes come out at a time and each stands in a circle around a mortar while the cooked rice is transferred from the stove by a team of two. To begin, a pair of teachers start beating and rotating the rice until it is completely mashed. Afterwards, the kids take turns hitting the rice glob. All while bystanders are chanting 'YO-I-SHO' which doesn't have a direct translation, but I was told means 'Fight!' or 'one, two, one, two'.

Yoisho. Yoisho.

Some of them could barely pick the mallet back up.

My turn!

The transfer of the rice into the mortar. 

Every time there is a school event there is a team of professional photographers running around , so the kids are always posing. 

Ballin' it up.

My pink school, Kasugaoka.

Rice cookin' crew.

Traditional rice cooker.

She's one of the gym teachers and is always practicing her English with me. 

A typical school lunch. I don't normally get miso, mochi and an orange, though. That was special for Mochi Tsuki.

Food and pictures

I took a tofu cooking class today. It was a little far from the apartment, but completely worthwhile. I learned how to make tofu burger patties with an amazing sauce made from shiitake, shimeji and enoki mushrooms; garlic, soy sauce, sugar, sake, and mirin. I also made Shinoda-maki (fried tofu rolls), ninjin no shira-ae (carrots dressed with mashed tofu), kinoko no takikomi-gohan (rice with mushrooms), miso soup AND...soy milk pudding! I am so excited to have learned some more Japanese dishes and can't wait to try them out at home. There were many other English teachers in attendance which was a nice little taste of something familiar. At the same time it was almost strange being around so many Westerners. It seems as if most of them have western friends with them here or have other native English speaking coworkers. On one hand this would be nice, but really I am glad I don't. I like that I am constantly surrounded by and work with only Japanese people. I like that I seem to be having a completely different experience from many ESL teachers abroad. But it sure was nice to meet so many people in a similar situation as myself.

October 21

While working at Hotoku one week in October we went on a field trip to Yamadaike Koen, the park that is across the street from our home, to collect donguri (acorns). What is done with these acorns afterwards I have yet to find out. I have seen a few acorn figurines, but that's all. It was a lovely fall day chillin' in the park with my kids and their parents. There's just something so lovely about eating lunch outside on a tarp without shoes on.

Because I had another day off on November 3rd for Cultural Day, Rob and I headed to Hoshida Enshi Quasi-National Park for some good 'ole fashioned hiking. When I was stuck in bed with a giant leg, he and Evan went there and turns out there are several different hiking trails. We took the route with the suspension bridge. As you reach the mid section you start to feel some swaying, but the view was too nice for my stomach to upset the mood. A few temples scattered along the trails hidden by the thick forest and yet another magnificent sunset made for a good day.

Having been promised an orange pickin' field trip for several weeks and having them canceled due to weather or mothers' classes I was stoked to finally have the opportunity on November 7th with Hotoku. We took the cute yellow school buses towards the hills where you could see the sky line of Osaka in the hazy distance, and again it was refreshing to be removed from the city, even if only for a few hours. We of course picked a few oranges. Mostly we ran around, ate the oranges, and sledded down a a mud hill. I should also mention how oishii, delicious, these oranges are. They were very tart much like a tangerine or cutie.

November 20

Yamadaike in Autumn, it's nice that it goes so late here. It has been getting quite a bit cooler here each day. My scooter rides to and from work are nippy and being inside a building without insulation has been keeping us cold, but the colors are intoxicating and warming.

November 23

Last Wednesday I yet again had a day off, this time for Labor Thanksgiving Day. We took the opportunity to wander around Hirakata and cook ourselves an American Thanksgiving meal, chicken replaced the turkey since you can't find any in the grocery stores here. And no Thanksgiving is complete without a few park neko friends.

A few extras:

Karaoke with Yuko and Masa

LOVE this girl!

If only they weren't 8000 yen...

Had to stop and talk to the owner for a minute.

Hoppin' temple in the middle of Dotonbori on a Saturday night.

Restaurant in Dotonbori

Japanese product

They just wanted to talk to us about baseball, and did impressions of Hideki Matsui of NY Yankees fame's batting stance. Also, the guy on the left approached us by asking what time it was. He was wearing a watch.