Japan and Health

I could sit here and tell you all how Japan has the highest life expentancy in the world. Or how the rice they eat with every meal is empty calories. Or how, yes, I have seen a $50 watermelon here. But if we're going to talk nutrition let's be serious.

In June, when I first arrived in Hakodate, my host mother asked me if I was ok with drinking orange juice, to which I responded, "Yes, I love orange juice!". It was no lie or embellishment or anything, but when one proclaims that they enjoy orange juice they don't expect to get served OJ everyday for the next 7 weeks.

That's right, I've had orange juice with every meal (save for maybe 2 occassions, when we were out) daily, for the past 2 months straight. At least we know I'm getting enough vitamin C with this diet.

I also have decided to save a daily $5 by walking from the station to class and back rather than take the tram, which, if my calculations are right, also equals a daily 3km walk just in the city. Not to mention that schoolis already halfway up the mountain, classrooms are on the 5th floor of the building. And that I live on the 4th floor of an elevator-less apartment building, so I get my fair share of stairs and gluteal workouts.

To top it off, we recently started doing some radio taiso during first period. Now, apparently, if a native Japanese just hears the radio taiso theme, they can do the set exercises on cue. Needless to say, I haven't tried that out just yet...

So if you need a little phsyical warmup before you start your day, I have the first video for you - enjoy :)

Wagashi

Saturday was one of our last exciting activities as HIF 留学生 (and yes, I just figured out how to change the language on this Netbook. I haven't touched a PC since XP. Don't judge. And for some reason my house wasn't having the language change) and we headed over to the cooking school for a Japanese sweets, or wagashi, making lesson.

First, we made manju, which is a mochi-like sweet consisting of 70% sugar. Ironically, the Japanese think it suitable to emphasize how healthy this candy is for your cholesterol while trying to get you to ignore the fact that it is almost pure sugar. Goodbye cholesterol, hello diabetes.

To make manju you basically make a eggless cookie batter of baking powder, sugar and water, and eventually some flour to give it, and I quote, an "earlobe" consistency. I must write that one down. "Earlobe" is a very concise consistency and leaves little room for interpretation. We were all put to shame when asked if there was any particular word in English for this. A room full of 61 exchange students from Yale and UPenn can't find one, however, if you do, let me know. Then the "batter" is molded around balls of an, or red bean paste, put in a wooden vat-like thing and steamed for 8 minutes. Warm manju? Absolutely delish.

Then we made nerikiri, which is very similar to manju, just with a different Sculpey-like outer dough which can be dyed and molded into various shapes.

We tried our hand at morning glories, and though they didn't turn out nearly as gorgeous as the head chef's, it was definitely fun to play with our hot pink food. To get the particular shape of this nerikiri, after the dough is rolled around the bean paste the whole thing is gathered up in a wet cloth and twisted to give it the flower shape.

And then there's the amazingly detailed nerikiri the chef made that put ours to shame (picture nabbed from Veronica over at June, July, Japan ):

Ah, the joys of Om-Raisu

Life apparently doesn't get any better than Lucky Pierrot

Asahi Elementary School

Tuesday we took a field trip over to Asahi Elementary School to play with the kids. Seriously, there's nothing cuter than Asian children. This trip affirmed that about 250 different times.

The first major bout of cute was when we walked in the door and found handmade nametags for us all. Mine had origami dolphins on it. It's like they knew I was coming.

Not to mention we then managed to find a group (flock? gaggle? herd?) of Sailor Scouts in the display case. Did I mention how much I love Japan?

These kids were supposed to be cleaning the windows. Clearly, they had a hidden agenda and started waving to us instead. And then the window wiping turned into a full out dance.

We were all ushered into the gym much more ceremoniously than even my graduation. Like, to music and under brightly colored streamer archways where we spent the next hour or so singing the Japanese "If You're Happy and You Know It", playing tug of war, jan-ken-pon, and (I hesistate to say) learned the infamous Squid Dance. Kids don't really teach you or preface anything. They just expect you to instantly know. So we all hopped around in a giant circle attempting to mimic the kids who were all basically doing something different anyway xD Though adorable none the less.

We then broke up into smaller groups and taught the kids Duck Duck Goose and boy did the kids catch on quick. Catch on as in caught on to the little things you do when playing to trick/psyche out the other kids. Or smacking that annoying boy right on the head (this one little girl got in a good one xD)

It was such a blast.

So much, that afterwards we decided to hunt go gaijin smash-ing for pizza.

Which we found, but lo! Pizza in Japan doesn't really count. I would not like mayo on my pizza, thank you (or on my french fries, on my salad, on my sandwhich, on my egg, on my damn miso soup ><; Ugh, why Japan!?). Or crab/shrimp/corn/mayo. Or whatever the else they come up with. We eventually found just peppers, cheese, pepperoni, and corn (couldn't get away from that one, sadly). Bear in mind that we got a 12 cut pizza, the biggest size, I believe 31cm, for about $25. And they 're usuallu way more expensive than that.

So here's about 10 of us standing in Pizza Hut, which are all takeout/delivery only. We get our pizza and sit out front of the store on the stairs to eat it because basically, there's no other option. And then halway through it hits us - "Crap, what are we going to do with these boxes when we're done?"

Take them back into the store of course xD