Tabemono, momo, hanabi!

A few days into this week and I feel exhausted.  This past weekend didn’t feel like a weekend.  I didn’t get my usual mornings to sleep in.  Oh well, the French class was fun.  The superintendent was one of my students so now when I see him he greets me with “bonjour.”  After teaching I met up with one of my Japanese English teachers (one of the teachers I will team teach with).  She took me to a Japanese soba restaurant and ordered a delicious dish with tempura style vegetables and fish on rice with a sauce and cold soba noodles that you dip into soy sauce mixed with wasabi and onions.  She was surprised I would like soba because it is “very salty.”  It was fun to go to a restaurant and get recommendations from a local.  That afternoon we discovered a foreign food store, Yamaya, kind of like Trader Joes with yummy cheese and a huge wine selection.  Most grocery stores in Japan do not sell more than a few cheap/gross bottles of wine.  Then we met Todd’s new boss for dinner.  We were taken to another delicious Japanese restaurant, an izakaya (small plates).  We ate with Yuki and Satomi, two young Japanese women with great personalities and English ability.  Todd’s boss, Yuki spent time in Australia so she has a fun sassy sense of humor.  Then they took us to a swanky cocktail bar where we enjoyed watching the juggling bartender make elaborate drinks. 

On Sunday we met friends to take a bus to the countryside, we went to a peach orchard.  We stayed at the orchard for about 45 minutes and during that time you could eat as many peaches as you could stomach.  I ate three juicy, tree-ripened peaches.  Todd ate four and got a stomachache. (I am sad because the pictures I took with my I-phone erased due to a restoring error.)  Before we picked the fruit the owner explained how to tear the peach skin off with one twist.  Japanese people don’t eat fruit skin, a similarity between French and Japanese people.  After eating our fill of peaches we picked two to take back and make a peach parfait.  We got our fill of peaches! Millions of peaches! 

Sunday night we rallied and went to the Hachinohe summer fireworks show at the port.  It was an hour and a half of great fireworks.  They would announce sponsoring companies or groups before each set of fireworks (there were 16 sets).  Some parts of the show were even set to music.  It was an impressive show.  But we aren’t really sure why they have the show aside from a celebration of summer. 

Then Monday came.  All weekend, I had been practicing my Japanese speech, which I wrote with the help of my coworkers and my boss.  I had two versions of the speech, one for the student body of my junior high and the other for the mayor.  Japanese culture places high importance on the beginning and end to things.  They expect new teachers to introduce themselves in the opening ceremony.  The ceremony was held in the school gym.  I watched as 300 hundred Japanese junior high students marched in, single file completely silent.  They stand in lines for several minutes, bow many times, chant and sing.  It is quite a controlled mass. If any of the students get out of line they risk their hair being tugged or a stare down by a teacher.  An amazing sight from the perspective of an American teacher. I nervously, waited until the end the assembly to be called on stage.  I think my speech went relatively well, I stuttered through it in Japanese. 

That afternoon I was escorted to the mayor’s office by my supervisor, his boss and the superintendent.  We were met by a local newspaper reporter.  I answered her questions, apparently it is common for Japanese people to ask your age and publish it in the newspaper, part of their hierarchical society.  The mayor was a friendly, non-intimidating man.  He warmly listened to my introduction and asked me questions.  After discussion about Todd, he encouraged us to have a baby while we are in Hachinohe (at least this was what my supervisor translated).  I responded with we’ll do our best and smiled.


(I am sorry for the lack of photos in this post).