doughnuts from scratch

 

driving in the blizzard

 

A cute very lupine dog on my B-day

 

Nazi memorabilia and part costumes in a store

 

Puppy warmer

 

Kebab Guy, too bad i already ate, it looked pretty good. 

 

Plants

  

Finally a nice shot of Mt. Youtei

I had a pretty good birthday, best one in a while. I had a good dream, then school was pretty good. The weather was nice when i was going to school, and when i left. I snowed while i was there, but hey, i was inside. Then i was lucky enough to have an early let off on my schedule so i was able to drive up to Sapporo and meet some people. It was fun, we spent some time at an international bar on Tanuki Koji, and then we went to karaoke. The one Japanese guy that went with us said that i even knew more Japanese songs than he did, but hey. What can i say? I like enka. Then i spent the night at a friends house. Woke up, and went to Costco for some chips and salsa, chili, cheese, good cereal- I love Calbee Fruit Granola cereal- and some chicken breasts for 29 yen a 100 g. Then i was able to find a cheap PS2 with games and such for just 100 bucks all together for my birthday. I can't wait to play FFX International version in Japanese. I have Okami and Kingdomhearts 2 final mix after that lined up in my mind. Next week is the snow festival, and it looks like it will be a blast. I drove by Odori park and they already had the big snow cubes ready to be sculpted, and it looked like there was going to be a half scale size castle being built or something. Can't wait.

Today was a long day. I had classes every period, so that meant that i got to be with all the kids once today. It was okay. It was mostly elective English, but i was in charge of two lessons for the day. I gave a review, and then tried to make the second years speak their dreams. It was odd, because it was like.. What do you want to be?.. I don"t know, i don't want to be anything. It was like they don't have any dreams. They didn't even have any like fake ones they could come up with for some of them that said this. Oh well, it was a pretty good day other wise. It has been some nice weather these past two days. It snowed a little today, but the sun was shining this morning and it felt good.

The has been so much wind lately. Especially today. They even canceled club activities today and the kids all went home after school. It was pretty bad driving in it today when i had to go to the elementary school. I could barely see like 2-3 meters in front of me. I don't think there was any snow fall today, but with the wind, it just blew all the snow that was already on the sides of the roads and everywhere else. It isn't that cold, but i am in my snuggie, so i stay warm.

Nikuman from scratch

Yesterday i made some nikuman with the steaming stuff that i bought while shopping. They turned out okay. The bread was good, but i think i got the flavor a little off. I used benishoga and white asparagus with some garlic and ground meat and some salt, pepper, and ichimi. It was okay, i think it would be better without the ginger and asparagus. i tried to look for a small amount of takenoko but didn't find any, so i chose the asparagus. Today i went to the hot springs to relax and there was a camera crew in there taking pictures, so being naked felt a little weird with them in there, but i just stayed in the one outside. Then i went to Niseko and went to a restaurant for some gomasoba and a mini tendon. it was pretty good, but i think i ate it wrong some how, with the noodles i just poured the sauce on them and it dripped down onto the platter. I don't know if that was the right way. I am going to try and make some doughnuts maybe tonight, or when i make fried chicken this week since i got the flour and seasonings for it. I am getting into cooking some more things that i haven't so it should be fun. I think i might use some nutella and whipped cream with a little condensed milk with vanilla extract for the frosting. I guess if that works out i will give some to the female teachers on white day in march if they give me any giri-choco on valentines. Man, i hate getting 恩(own)ed in Japanese culture. People give you gifts and then you have to give it back to them. I try and stay ahead by one, but it is hard since it happens a lot. I got a lot of small food gifts after the break since people traveled, and as custom, i made sure to buy some as well when i went to Hakodate. Then i gave some Ferroro rocher to the BOE head when he brought over some osechi for new years. Tomorrow starts another school week, yeah. Gotta love teachin' the youngun's

Shopping

today i went shopping for groceries and some other things. I got a steam plate and a pudding cup to use instead of having to buy a whole new pot for it. I am going to try and make nikuman from scratch, so it should be good. I also bought the ingredients for no bake cheesecake. The snow was pretty bad on the way up to Kutchan, but at least it was light out. I stopped for lunch at the Chinese restaurant there. I do like the place, and you get free refills on the rice and egg pepper soup. It is a very good soup, and i really like it. Not much else to do today except for a little housekeeping and such. Next week looks better than this last week. The poor third years this week though had two days of tests, one on Wednesday and another on Friday. I just don't get what having all these tests gets accomplished if there is like not much time in between them to actually learn anything. Also, the curriculum for the third years is done i think for the year. the rest if review or outside learning, so not much paying attention is going to go on. I just don't get what the hubbub is all about when there are like only two high schools nearby for like all this pressure on high school entrance exams.

This is at least better than what i heard the crazy Sen. Buttars from Utah brought up as an idea to help with budget needs. The same guy that said that gays are the biggest threat to American life, even more than terrorists and natural disasters, he said that they should get rid of the 12th grade all together comparing other countries on an 11 year system. As well as using the excuse to say they don't much done anyways and it is all about preparing for college. I can't believe that, see here for the article.


I am personally against this. Just go ahead and let them try and be in college. Some might make it, some might not. The real problem is the education system no teaching enough maybe.

The snow is back, and it looks like it is going to be a good one. I had some classes today, and they went well. I got the schedule for next week and it looks like there are a lot of elective English courses next week, but my schedule is not for certain yet. There were some disparities between the schools schedule and the one from the company. Oh well, they usually have the one they send me first updated anyways. 8 days till i turn 23, and i guess i am in a little better place than where i thought i would be at this point in my life. I graduated from college, with an okay GPA, 3.76 isn't that good, but what can i say, history classes were hard and stupid B's. No debt really, and i am saving a fairly good amount of money each money.

I can see from a year ago that i have grown up quite a bit, mostly intellectually and emotionally. Patience is one thing that i have learned; you definitely need it to teach. The one thing that i think defines the difference between child and adult is an adult can put others before themselves, and can operate on the "what do i need, not what i want" protocol that kids simply do not want to do.

Rain, finally

Today it has been raining since school started and it has been a little awesome. I can now see some of the actual roads now. I hope this warmness keeps up for a little bit. I would like to park on level ground again soon. I had two lessons today and four of them yesterday. Just another recorder week for me. I did have elective English with the third years and it went okay for my lesson. It's review, but for some odd reason i don't think they understand me. I am using less and less Japanese in my lessons, and i only use it for like grammar terms because they don't know them in English.

The sixth graders from the elementary are coming over to visit us, i guess for trial and to see what the school will be like for them next year, and i noticed a weird thing on the roster then sent giving us info on the students. I have taught all of them, though i can't match a name to all their faces yet. The weird thing is when it listed their guardian, for some of them it listed a teacher at i guess would be an after school facility or something. And, i was wondering if that is like their legal guardian while they are here. Like their parents work in some other city, as some do, and they have no parents in the town. Must be hard for them. There was one that listed an uncle, so that helps further my theory, as well as some parents even in the school living in different cities for a while.

Front door, about 5 inches from the ground usually, but in this is the snow is almost 4 above the door. I had to bend down not to hit my head on the overhang.

So much snow that it won't close all the way.

The snow pile almost twice as tall as my car. This is a typical snow pile.

Today, we had very little going on at the school. It let out at 11:10. Then the teachers all had lunch together and it was sort of nice. There was like some souvenir lunches i think that the were bought and roll cake and tonjiru for lunch. It was good for the most part. We also had kanemeshi(?) which came in this cool donabe clay pot and we got to keep them- if we wanted. I have basically learned to just put things into my mouth and eat them. I still can't get natto, but i can do most foods. I don't like them, but i can eat them at the very least. There was octopus tentacles, whole shrimp with the head on, a pastry wrapped salmon,  crab cream baked in the shell with the eyes on it, and other stuff. I only have 10 lessons at the middle school this week and only have to plan for 2 of them. Oh well, school seems really slow to me here. The third years have all-day, every-subject tests like every two weeks. The whole school like every month. Based on english class, i just don't see them covering that much in class, so i wonder like how much they can be tested on. Most of the classes from now will be review, and it's like i can see what cram school is for: to learn all the things on the tests probably because school is for reviewing. I guess that is why the Japanese have so much studying to do at home it seems. The one thing that i feel America is really good at is the education system. Even though it seems easy to me, the actual education process is very good. They teach in class a little more, but that is just my own personal opinion. Can't wait for the snow festival, i am trying to get a get-together with the ALT's in Sapporo together on the 6th of February. Looks like it should be fun.

one more link to some funny british comedy, with the Doctor from Doctor Who, David Tennant, in a sketch with Catherine Tate as Lauren Cooper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ndpZgnMMco

Back to school this morning. I have planning all day and sort of a shortened day because of it. I have no classes, but there is an opening ceremony. I wonder what the kids will learn today?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1zK8zRCPo
Just a video that's been a part of what i have been watching on youtube lately. British comedy is definitely better than Japanese comedy. It's more linguistical and not physical. Am i bovvered?

Not much going on for me but another blizzard in the past few days. I hope it has stopped by now. I would like to go to Sapporo one more time before school starts. I was planning on going tomorrow but after going to the onsen tonight and seeing how icy the roads were down here, i don't know if i want to go early in the morning tomorrow. I will try and go on Saturday, barring the weather. The break is almost over and i am a little glad. I like to be in warm places that i do not have to pay for the gas for the heater. Another American holiday is upon us soon in Japan- Valentine's Day- and there are already preorders available for cakes. Chocolate covered Valentine's Day cakes. They look good, but i don't know about them. Japanese chocolate is okay, at least they like it dark here. The snow is getting pretty high and i almost had to dig my car out after just one day of snow, but i still had to shovel the snow around it when i came back in because it was like a mold when i pulled out. My neck hurts a little bit from head banging last night to some music, but the onsen helped with that tonight.

I made some home made naan today. Just started from scratch with my basic bread recipe. Since it was a very small batch it developed rather quickly. Though, what i like to do is take all the ingredients but the flour and then put the flour in like a couple table spoons or quarter cups at a time and stir it a lot between those so that the gluten develops a whole lot while it is easy. I also made some coconut curry to go along with it. It turned out great. Now all i need to learn is the proper spices and such for like lentil and spinach curry and the likes. The one thing about Indian cooking is that good Indian food has at least like 20 spices or more in it. Sure i used curry powder for this one, but i would like to include other things as well.

I guess i have another bread item that i can make now. I do love to make bread and i have the baguette and french bread down, the loaf is a little more difficult, but i got that down and i can do rolled breads such as cinnamon rolls. But, i guess i need to try to make rye bread sometime or sourdough. My castella- or madeira cake in English i think- is okay, but it can be improved greatly. I would prefer not to touch pastries unless i work outside in the winter. They are so hard to get right. stupid butter melting. I do not even want to try and even make croissants yet; it's way too hard

You know you're turning japanese when you make something like this.

Went to the onsen yesterday, and the snow has come back. It has been light and hasn't been too bad, but it still goes all day. Just one more week of my break left. I can't wait for school to start again. I'll get a more varied diet. I like Japanese food, but it is just very time consuming to do it all for one person and make all the little dishes and such. I mainly just go with some starch with chicken and veggies in a bowl donburi format. I should try and look for more sauce recipes, but i think i have teriyaki chicken down, and can do oyakodon as well. Making obento is very hard, and i feel sorry for the shufu(housewives) that stay at home and make all that stuff for their kids. All the tiniest things and such like in almost one bite portions of like 10 different dishes for the lunch box; so tough. I made naan for lunch today and the package was really easy. Just mix 140 ml of water with the package and i got 4 of them done in about 2 hours with the rising and all. I still have to say that i do love the texture and feel of making bread, especially after the first rising. Gotta love the feel of developed gluten. Then i just cooked them like pancakes. The mix smelled a little like crackers when i poured it into the bowl, so i wonder what exactly was in it. The picture above is one of the naan with tuna mayo and shichimi mixed together with some cheddar cheese from Costco, and then some corn i had. That is so Japanese Faux-American style. They usually sell this stuff in bakeries on toast or in bread buns, but i took the fusion to a new level. I also made a pizza with one of them. It was good.

Went up to Sapporo yesterday. I was originally going out for groceries because i had time, but then my friend answered when i called and i just changed directions. We all went to see Avatar again for me the third time. It is still good. Though it sucks that the Sapporo Cinema Frontier had Japanese subtitles for the Na'vi segments though, so the my friends didn't understand some parts. We went to the Ramen floor in the Esta building and i had some spicy miso ramen that was not that spicy at all. I had to add more ichimi to it to make it better. It was not very spicy at all. That seems to be a trend here: spicy isn't spicy at all. The movie was at 8:50, so it got out at 11:40. I had a late drive home and it was very nice. The roads were very dry; i could see the gravel. But it wasn't until i got to the road from Rusutsu to Makkari, that i had swerves. The wind was so bad in some places that i swear it moved my car and caused it to swerve. There was one bad part, but thankfully i was alone on the road and it was only a few seconds of skidding. Guess no matter what season, i will have to be careful on that road; lots of curves. It's been warm the past couples of days, and the snow is starting to melt. I actually get to see the sun and a blue sky now so that has been good. My conlang is coming on it's way, but you know how hard it is to create your own language. The vocabulary is the hardest i guess, grammar isn't that hard once you have the words you want to use.

Pic Post

weird books in the English section of the stores

Rest Stop

Hakodate Station

My Hotel

Mt Hakodate

My room view

All the views from Mt. Hakodate Ropeway

The Bay Brick Houses

Russian Dolls

Lucky Pierrot

Morning Market

Goryokaku Observation Tower

Lucky Pierrot

Goryokaku Fort

The cloth i bought with the Kabuki actors

Got up and drove home this morning. It was a nice drive, but there was a lot of slush that was kind of annoying because it would be hard in some areas and cause the car to have a little bump in the drive. The weather was clear and i kind of wish i was in Hakodate today instead because the weather was slushy all day yesterday.