These past couple days haven't been very exciting. The cultural activities were "Japanese manners" yesterday, which was a bunch of stuff that we pretty much all already knew (otherwise we'd be in trouble by now), and the tea ceremony today (I went through the motions, but didn't actually drink anything). The ceremony was kind of complicated, but I now at least understand a bit of the reasoning behind turning the cups and all that. And apparently one of the cups they served tea in, the fanciest one, was worth over $1,000. That's too much for any non-ancient cup, in my opinion, and it didn't even look all that special... As for turning the cups, it's so that the design faces you when it's served to you, and away from you when you drink so everyone else can see it.
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| Kneeling in the tea room at school after the ceremony. |
I'm getting kind of tired of Japanese food. It's different every day, but a lot of the dishes are pretty similar. It's lacking the level of variety in my usual American foods. Yesterday's lunch was actually pretty nasty. I didn't realize exactly what I was ordering when I got it, but it ended up being rice with those little fish/eel things in it, covered in an omelet-style egg, with some sort of slime sauce on top. The sauce was particularly disgusting. I don't know what it is with Japanese people and slimy foods, but they seem to love them. I ate most of the food, except the sauce, but I couldn't finish it. I even ate most of the fish. It helped that it was warm this time.
To make up for yesterday's lunch, today's lunch was decidedly American-esque. Breaded chicken (chicken cutlet, so not quite normal) in marinara sauce with lettuce, a tomato slice, some other greens, and a side soup and rice. That was pretty good. Dinner today was actually pretty similar to lunch, but better. The menus change daily without any input from me, so I guess I just got lucky today.
Yukie invited me out shopping with her, so I'll probably go at some point when we're both free to help pick out groceries and maybe make some of the American food I know how to cook for everyone. Assuming I can find good ingredients at reasonable prices.
Tomorrow the school is taking us all on a trip to Nara. I don't know much about what's there, so we'll see how it goes when I report back.
Aww, it's unfortunate that the novelty is starting to wear away. Or is it. Hope you can get ingredients, from what I've heard fresh produce (is often individually packaged, but more importantly) is pretty expensive. Also, turkey is a delicacy and so supposedly is only found at specialty stores that sell them.
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