Lost in Ogawa

Food is always an important topic no matter where you go. Japanese food is nothing new to me and it shouldn’t be to any of my fellow Californians. California is lucky to have such a diversity of ethnic food to choose from and an abundant amount of Japanese restaurants. Before I came to Japan, when I thought of Japanese food, the first things that came to my mind were sushi, raw fish (sashimi), and teriyaki chicken or beef. To me, those comprised the essentials of Japanese cuisine. However, once I started living in Japan, it opened my eyes to the wide spectrum and the variety of food Japan has to offer.

There are tons of Japanese restaurants in Tokyo and I’m sure there’s a fair amount of people that eat out. However, I learned that Japanese families tend to eat in a lot. I know this is definitely true for countryside families such as my town because on weekdays and even on weekends, the restaurants in Ogawa are rather empty. It still amazes me how these restaurants stay in business! Many families eat in because one, it is very expensive to eat out, like everything else in Japan = expensive, and two, I think that many Japanese families still maintain the tradition of eating together at home to a nice home cooked meals. In some ways, cooking is part of the Japanese culture, maybe even an art form to some degree. They enjoy cooking, they take their time to cook, and they seek the highest quality and freshness of food. I learned that the Japanese people practically go food shopping at the supermarket everyday. I even notice myself making several trips to the market every week. Maybe its because I’m always very last minute about what I should cook for dinner, or the fact that I have a small fridge but if I try to shop for a week, I tend not to use up everything and something is bound to go bad real quick even if it’s in the fridge.

I miss fruits! Why don’t I buy some? Because they’re SUPER DUPER expensive!! Ok, I do buy fruits but it always breaks my heart how much I have to pay for them. During the summer time, I wanted to buy watermelon so badly because that is my favorite food. I tell people I can make a whole meal just eating watermelon. Well, a watermelon that would cost maybe 5 bucks in the Sates, it cost 15-20 bucks in Japan, OUCH! I finally broke down and sometimes I would buy quarter slices of watermelon for 3 to 4 bucks each. Now that it’s fall, there are kiwis from New Zealand and they’re about 60 cents each, kind of expensive I think, what do you think? Apples are about a dollar something each, and a cluster of grapes cost like 7 to 8 bucks. I practically don’t eat oranges because they’re always expensive so I stick to vitamin C tablets I brought from the states. The only fruit that is cheap is banana and I don’t know why. It’s only about a dollar something for five or 6 bananas.

So what do I cook or eat? At my apartment, my goal is to cook enough so I can be full. Tasting good is just a bonus! I try not to spend over 20 mins. cooking because frankly I’m not good at it but with practice I’m getting better. I’m not even good at slicing vegetables or know in what ways I should slice them in. I do have Japanese friends that are teaching me how to prepare Japanese dishes or to cook in general. The easiest thing I can make and I’ll be sure to get full on is “spaghetti.” It’s great that you can buy all these pre-made flavored sauces and all you have to do is heat it up in hot water. It’s easy and delicious! Ok, I’m not a total cooking retard, I need to eat and survive and it’ll force it out of me sometimes. Just look at the dish I made below. It looks pretty right? One thing about my cooking, it looks prettier than it taste for the most part. Ittadakimasu!! (something you say before you eat, like bon appetite in French.) There’s really no direct English translation for that word, it’s just a cultural thing. Go figure!

Japan has many festivals big and small. These festivals are generally very cultural and traditional. I think it’s a great opportunity to learn about Japanese culture and traditional Japanese art forms. Last Saturday, I went with other ALT friends from neighboring towns to my first major Japanese festival, the “Kawagoe Omatsuri” or the “Kawagoe festival”. Kawagoe is the name of the city. Fortunately for me, that city is only 40 minutes and one train ride away from Ogawa. We went there late in the afternoon since we heard the festival becomes more festive at night. I was very excited when I got there, seeing all these people. For some reason, I just love people watching in Japan! The streets were already packed with people and we were nudging and squeezing ourselves through the herd. It was sort of fun, and then sort of not. We were a group of seven and we constantly had to call each other on cell phones to ask “where are you?!” after getting separated a million times. Anyway, Japanese festival is quite interesting. A big part of the festival is always FOOD!! The festival would not be the same if it weren’t for the street vendors selling various food items and traditional Japanese dishes. What’s so great about these food are that they make them right on the spot for you so when you get it, it’s nice and hot! The topic of Japanese food can go on for hours so I won’t elaborate on them now and explain about them exclusively later. One thing I will say is that food was definitely the money maker at the festival. Smart business strategy wouldn’t you say?!

So, if I explained about the Kawagoe festival last week, all I would have said was that there were many people, food, and these giant car thingys with performers on them playing some music tunes. Not very useful information don’t you think? But, after a week of talking about the festival with one of the English teacher I teach with, I gained new insights and profound knowledge about the festival. Ok, so I lied about profound but I did learn some useful information. Apparently, the main attractions were these giant cart things with large wheels allowing it to move around. I want to call these carts “floats” but the word floats doesn’t seem suitable for what I’m trying to describe. The Japanese name for these carts are called “dashi.” Unlike floats, they’re quite short in length but they’re quite tall in height. I’m not good at guessing height so I’ll say 20-30 feet high? Each dashi is decorated exquisitely and uniquely because they represent different towns or cities. On the dashi, there are tiny stages where one person wears a mask and a costume and do some movement or dance while the musicians behind play a tune on his recorder or a beat on his drum. This continues forever. I never heard the music stop or saw the person in costume stop dancing. When many dashi meet at an intersection in the street, a battle of the drum ensues to decide which dashi will get to move first and in the direction of its choice. Since each dashi has a unique tune and beat, the objective is to disrupt each other’s rhythm. Whoever can sustain their rhythm without any wavering or change in tune is the winner and gets to move first. The dashi move by a team of people pulling on two thick ropes, ones that remind me of tug-of-war ropes. When the team of people pulls on these ropes, they seem to be yelling some type of chant, “sore (re = ray)…..sore…….sore…..” I just found out its not really any word, its something they chant to mean something in respect to, “come on, you can do it” or “let’s do it.” Aren’t you glad I waited to find out more about the festival before I explained it? Then again, laziness could be a factor why I didn’t post this any earlier…..

More pictures from the festival
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tonykao0627/album?.dir=4397

Ogawa, population ~36,000. Cerritos, population ~52,000. Ogawa = Town, Cerritos = City. Mode of transportation around Ogawa: bicycle. Mode of transportation around Cerritos: car. It's a new environment and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Whereever I go, I somehow cannot escape natural disasters. If it isn't "Earthquakes" in L.A., it's "Snow Storm" in Boston, or "Hurricane" in Washington, DC. For now, it's "Typhoons" in Japan. In fact, it's typhoon season, YAY?! ... [Continue reading this entry]

I got punched in the nuts today by a girl student!! And the adventure continues as an English teacher in Japan. Just to let everybody know where I'm situated, I live in Ogawa-machi(town) within Saitama-Ken(prefecture). Just as ... [Continue reading this entry]