Voyage Junkie

We had a three-day weekend, so one of Matt's teachers took us "hiking" on a "mountain" on Sunday.  It's lucky we chose Sunday so we could rest on Monday, because I'm currently nursing the worst sunburn I've had since childhood, and Matt torqued up his knees pretty badly.  Maybe in another few days I won't be such a lobster, and Matt will be able to walk normally again.  Are we old?  At 28, I don't think so... especially since we lift weights, run, dance, walk and ride bikes all over Japan.  Before moving out of Colorado, we routinely went for weekend hikes all over the Rockies without much trouble.  Okay, first trouble: we didn't have good hiking shoes.  The whole indoor/outdoor only shoe thing here makes it impossible to wear shoes for various purposes, so we couldn't wear our sneakers with much better treads, we had to wear our outdoor pumas.  Those are slippery!  Second trouble: the sun is so strong here!  Even with 50 spf, I bur...

Approaching Aikawa Higashi Junior High School from the south, as I have done every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday since April, one must round several mountains until one finds the right hill, ringed with perfectly spaced cherry blossom trees and comfortable homes.  Behind that hill sits the school, with stairways down to its dusty grand field.  The students are among the most well-behaved in the city of Gifu, and the athletics are fairly successful -- it produced an Olympic Gold Medalist.  So, as you may imagine, Sports Day for them is a day-long Leni Riefenstahl film. Abigail's post below should give you a good sense of the setup of a grand on Sports Day, and the general shape of the events.  My aim is just to supplement her post with the flourishes Aikawa Higashi put on the day.  These start with the special guest appearance by Minamo, the mascot of Gifu City.  If you've seen Hikonyan on a previous post, you know that each town in Japan has a character...

This month marks the anniversary of my first year living in Japan.  Now I've started to teach lessons for the second time, and I recently attended my second sports day.  This year, I'm known by the students, well-liked by the faculty, I know a bit more Japanese, and I'm generally a lot more comfortable here than I was last year.  It's noticeable, too - several teachers commented that I seemed "healthier" than last year - and I'm glad.  There were exciting relays and  kibasen  fights just like last year, which Matt can describe more in full in the next post - at my school, the best part this year had to do with the adults. First up: the principal and I dressed in the same color!  As he put it: "Red plus blue plus white is purple."  We were representing all three teams and the message of school-wide teamwork that dominated his speeches before and after the games.  Love that man! Second: one of the teachers had a broken hand due to a...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of performing in a Full Moon Festival in Hashima, a small town just outside of Gifu.  Modern Dance You Co. performed a small, relaxed dance that featured a kid's number to a song about onigiri (rice balls), Sachiko as the princess from the moon, and the rest of us as kunoichi , or female ninjas.  This is the year of the rabbit by the Chinese zodiac, so the two little girls were dressed as rabbits, and had a very important role in taking the princess back to her home on the moon.  It was adorable, and quite a lot of fun. Rie teaches me how to take tea. We spent the day at the cultural center getting ready for the performance.  We were able to take a break before the show started, and we went upstairs to take part in the tea ceremony.  There were manju  decorated like rabbits and delicious bowls of macha , otherwise known as green tea.  I couldn't eat the manju , because although some people will swear it contains no wh...

Dancing at a Gifu festival.

The back entrance to Ikuta shrine at the base of a mountain in Kobe.

Since I'm on a GF food-writing kick I just have to mention my friends at the  Kobayashi Noodle Company .  It's a wonderful, certified GF facility that makes pasta and various kinds of traditional Japanese noodles (ramen, kishimen, and udon) from brown and white rice.  I met the two responsible for company publicity, Seiji Mugishima and Satoru Inukai, by chance at a mall one weekend.  They were manning a stand for the Kobayashi Company, talking to passerby and selling rice noodles.  They both lived and studied in America, so they are very fluent in English.  This helps them because they travel back-and-forth to NYC a lot as they are trying to expand the company internationally. Additionally, they told me about a restaurant they work for called Godmother.  It's an Italian restaurant in downtown Gifu (mapped), that makes excellent pizza and pasta, among other sides, salads, and cocktails.  The restaurant is owned and operated by Hironori Kobayashi,...

Part of my re-design includes now talking about gluten-free eating options in Japan.  It takes skills and smarts to weed out good places to eat on a GF diet, and I want to share my hard-learned information with others.  Whether you'll be a long-time resident or in for a quick visit, I hope my adventures can help you have an easier, minimally painful stay.  Check out my posts and my new "Gluten-Free Japan" page, where you'll find a map of GF friendly eateries! This new line of posts is dedicated to current GF faves I find in Japan.  If you're also GF in Japan, or with someone who is, I'm always looking for new places to visit.  Send me info, I'll check it out, and it could make my list! 1. Sushi is a big GF fave of mine.  This photo is from our trip to  Rokusen Sushi  in Osaka.  They gave me lemon and ginger salt instead of soy sauce.  Pictured is some salmon and fatty salmon sushi.  It was amazing.  The chef really knew wha...