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Thursday, September 12, 2013

August/ September update

My boss/ teacher has given me the opportunity to receive a tea ceremony license! Although it is just a beginner's license, I am still very excited about it. She said because I was foreign, they would allow me to advance a little quicker because they know I won't be here forever. I'm hoping to be able to teach a little of the tea ceremony when I go back to America.
Because the summer's been so hot (and still is even though it's technically fall out here), I haven't been going out as much for fear of heat stroke, which I've had before and it wasn't pretty. However, I did so some things, so here's my latest update!


 Sunset from my balcony.





I wish I hadn't opened these, or at least bought another pack! These are PEPSI-flavored chips!! They look like Cheetos but taste just like Pepsi, it was the weirdest thing ever! I actually didn't like them at all but was amazed by how they could do that.


It says Kola flavor corn snack. Too bad I couldn't read the "flavor" Kanji otherwise I would've known.. I honestly thought it was just supposed to be good WITH soda!


A student from the tea ceremony gave me these!  She kept talking about them in the previous lesson and I had no idea what she was saying besides the word "rice" in Japanese, so she brought these for me last week!

The brown stuff is "chirimen kurumi"  which is made from sardines! I had no idea until I was eating it one day and realized the things that looks like yellow seaweed had eyes on them!
the black one is made from konbu (a type of seaweed, since they have many types), soy sauce, mirin (sweet sake), and sanshyou (a Japanese pepper). It was really tasty, too!





And of course, I just had to make a rice taco when I saw "tako risu" mix on sale!


It's a cheese cowboy boot!



And cheap Chianti on sale.


 Now for my birthday-extended
 Midnight (the night before sept. 10) I opened my parent's gifts because I knew they'd be clothes and I wanted to wear them the next day.
My mom wraps everything so prettily!

On my birthday

I was too tired so I settled for British beer, Domino's pizza and a chocolate roll cake!

 The day after my birthday. Yep, I was still celebrating!
Ms. Maeda, our manager, gave me this! I practiced wearing it but it kept falling out. She said it will be good for wearing kimono.




 Not easy to get a good picture of the back of my head... but you get the idea. And that's the dress my mum got me for my birthday!

I think my boss may have forgotten about my birthday, but either way, she got me this wonderful white wine!

I'm so spoiled by how they wrap things out here. All stores will wrap gifts for you, and perfectly!



Yum. I let it chill and broke out the wine glass. It was eve better with cheese!
 
 And on Thursday, I was still celebrating! I went with another friend for a birthday dinner, and we also went to the Hojoya Festival!
ham, with something on the side, I'm not quite sure what it was, but it was delicious! I'm drawing a blank as to what this ham is called in English. Is it really raw?!

Apparently, this is a favorite at Tapas bars, which I'd never been to. The cheese and sausages were boiling in oil. They gave us bruschetta afterwards to dip in the oil, it was sooo good!

I think this was my first drink after the beer. I just got umeshyu because it's my favorite!



mentaiko pasta! So creamy and delicious! Mentaiko is a specialty in Fukuoka.  You can read more about it on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentaiko
and here's a recipe just in case you happen to randomly come across some mentaiko somehow, or if you live in Japan: http://norecipes.com/blog/mentaiko-pasta-recipe/

Margherita pizza!  It was so tiny!




Now how often do you get to have a violinist play for your birthday?! It was truly awesome.




Matcha ice cream! ^_^

 Actually, we went to this festival before what you previously saw, but blogger's annoying and posted them out of order. This is the Hojoya Festival! My friend said it's like a Thanksgiving kind of thing. This Hakozaki shrine was built near the ocean as a place for the gods to protect that port from invasion.
the man in green is a priest. They are about to start a procession






So cute!! I think they are wearing prince and princess outfits! But I'm not sure. 


They are having some type of ceremony before moving the portable shrines off the stage so they can hold performances there for the festival.


Look what I found in the midst of the crowd! This kid was just too adorable.
 

Ikebana displays surrounded the shrine.






It is supposed that Sen no Rikkyu, the guy who created the tea ceremony, possibly created this shrine or gifted it or something, but apparently that's just conjecture.

neigh! From a distance, I thought this was a real horse and was confused. Apparently it was a gift from 50 years ago.



I stole a picture!












This is the ocean view


And that's all for now. I'm rendering the videos but it takes forever so I'll post those later... thanks for reading!