Cowboy Up

Ever since I was a little kid, I have enjoyed (and it may be my favorite food) what my Dad calls "Cowboy Potatoes." My dad has been making cowboy potatoes for about as long as I have been alive (I think). I remember him telling me that he would tell me how to make them when I got older. Now I am older, and I got the secrets. The first attempt I made wasn't that great, but I will get better. 

My first attempt. Looks good, but not the same. I forgot to mention that there is a song that goes with it 

Cowboy potatoes, cowboy potatoes

cowboy potatoes are so good for yyyyooooooouuuu

Now the secret has been passed on, and I have years to perfect it. Someday, you may be lucky enough for me to make it for you someday. 

I found a bakery on my way home from work that I visited for the first time. Clearly you can see this sign says that it is a bakery.

 Nice looking eh? I wouldn't mind living there. 

 Whatever wacky and nasty things that Japan may do with sea creatures, they make up for it with their bakery items. The Japanese word for bread is the French word for bread. Unfortunately, it looks like the French beat America/England to the punch when it comes to bakery goods in the Land of the Rising Sun...can't win them all I suppose. 

The best news is that I finally round a reliable source for Pan au Chocolat! My most favorite pastry since I worked at the bakery in Midway, I can now say that I have scoured the globe looking for it. It is the reason I stopped in this bakery in the first place. It was my favorite thing in Paris. This place does it pretty well (it is the one on the right). On the left is a cheese roll. It is pretty much like it sounds, but the cheese quality is not up to snuff. As a general rule, the cheese in Japan is...not good and expensive. 

 Speaking of food...here is a picture in the bathroom. In Japan, you take off your shoes and put on bathroom slippers. I guess I can see the hygienic value in this. It makes less sense when you see the size of the slippers they provide as compared to my (evidently) monstrous feet. I end up just barely being able to balance on the balls of my feet as I shuffle to go to the bathroom. I feel like a bathroom ballerina. 

 The kids were practicing a telephone conversation over the last week, and this was the sample sheet that they were given. I don't know if I should take it as a warning or not. Perhaps my Japanese Teacher of English can see the future...

A: Hello?

B: Hello. This is Hiromi (The name of my JTE). May I speak to Jeff, please? 

A: Speaking. Hi, Hiromi! What's up?

B: Oh, Jeff! I'm in Nagasaka Junior High now. You have to come to school today! I'm waiting for you.

A: Oh! I'm Sorry. I was sleeping! What time is it?

B: It's 9 o'clock. The class will start!

A: Now I leave home. Please wait for me!

B: Ok. Be careful.

I solemnly swear that this did not happen. I hope this is supposed to be a funny hypothetical, rather than a serious one. 

Lastly, related to bathrooms. I walked by my shower to find not one, but two crickets bouncing around in there. What is that all about?! Where are these things coming from? The next day there was a bug genocide on the floor. I saw 7 dead bucks on the floor the next morning. I feel like they are plotting something against me. 

3 Rounds with the Devil

Today I came toe to toe with the devil. I am somewhat ashamed to say that I had to go three rounds with this, the hellhound of Satan. Though this is not a dog, I could see this thing salivating when it looked at me. I am not one to lose my mind over bugs, no matter what earlier posts may suggest. For some reason, the whole country of Japan seems to be literally crawling with giant bugs that wish to devour my soul. When I saw this spider, I almost lost my mind. I screamed quite loud, and I am glad that I have no neighbors to hear me.

 Doesn't seem super scary right? Just a friendly ol' spider.

 FALSE! This spider is the hellchild of the devil and an octopus. Look at that thing in relation to the size of my rice cooker. I want to know one thing, how long has this spider been living in my house and where are its friends?!

After 3 rounds of fighting, I came off the victor. I first poisoned it with spray where it retreated to behind the refrigerator. He tried to trick me into leaving him alone, but I fought in the legendary spider wars of 2005. I was not fooled by this ruse, and calmly awaited for him to escape into the open (I am not sexist in referring to the spider, I merely believe that there is no way that something so hateful could be a female). 

After he charged me for ground surrounding the garbage cans, I held him off with another bout of poison. Poison is slow to act, and is good for slowing, but not instant death. Luckily, I earned my stripes in the spider wars and can improvise freely. I took my lighter and created a jet of fire that spewed forth and licked all 8 wicked legs of the beast, rendering it dead. 

You can see the coin for comparison in the picture. That coin is a little bigger than a quarter, and that suckers legs were shriveled and charred. 

 Then this happened. My neighbor has left her porch light on for a few days which has attracted moths. Moths are a bit of an understatement because these things have fur. 

 3 together, the unholy trinity.

 There is a sandwich tie for comparison on size. 

Ah...on to something not so horrible. I took a discreet picture of first graders managing the lunch cart to their classroom while wearing their little face masks and covers. They look like tiny little surgeons.  

 Friday lunch. See that little pinapple looking mystery vegetable that I hate so much? Photographic proof. 

 For Friday night, we went to a little cafe in the middle of nowhere. When I say middle of nowhere, I actually mean that it is about 20 minutes from the middle of nowhere. I couldn't get back there if I tried. 

 The inside is very comfortable and homey. 

 The folks that own this had their own pizza oven made. Awesome right? In a country where pizza is rare, this is like striking oil. 

Another view from the inside. Someday I would love to have a rec room that looks significantly like this room. If I someday acquire this room and find a spider in it, I will burn it to the ground. 

Softball Mormons, Bugs and Halloween Month

Sometimes, in the fall in Japan, Mormons will get together and play softball. It is very important, as you can tell. The whole stake gathered to play. Sadly, we lost both games. I must say that almost all of it was not my fault.

I am in this picture with some missionaries. 

 These are the Hargers, their dad is from the U.S. and their mom is Japanese. They are super cool.

 Elder Shiozawa who is currently in my area.

 MoMo's in action (momo means peach in Japanese)

 Meta-picture

 The sisters based in my area

 As you can see, I was working very hard (see the Kindle) at my elementary school when a bug came and flew into my head. Yeah. This fly just ran into my forehead and fell on the table and twitched for a minute. My instincts told me that this was bizarre, so I took a picture. About 1 minute after this picture was taken, the fly just got up and flew off. 

I took a drive around my city and saw this giant pumpkin (not a real pumpkin, trickery). 

Paul Rusch is a famous guy because he saved everyone from starving a few decades back. To honor him, they have this big organ on the back of a truck for some reason. My guess is that this organ represents his bodily organs which are dead. The advantage of this organ pictured is that it can't die.  

 Tractors are very chic this time of year.

Happy Halloween month because who wants to celebrate for just a day? 

A horse made of logs. We should start selling these at Swiss Days. 

As for the most bizarre thing I saw over the weekend, here is a toilet equipped with a button for flushing noises. You push that button and the toilet will make simulated flushing noises for 25 seconds. Someone explain to me in what universe this would be needed when it is attached to an actual toilet!?

D-D-D-Double Trouble!!!!

Boom! Here you thought you were only going to get one delightful post to read and savor, but being the kind, modern gentleman that I am, I am delivering double the delight!

 Continuing on. This was the cool looking wall at the Izakaya that we went to on the last night of orientation. It is a cool place. It is usually designed for people to drink copious amounts of alcohol. This methodology is great because it means that the food is cheaper. 

 Also, this is a drink called the Sakura Cherry Blossom something or other. It had glowing ice cubes in it. As you can see, that is Christina (my next door neighbor and new JET) in the background. 

 Gyoza. Delicious.

Yakisoba served on an iron skilled. Also delicious. 

 Ah...the delicacy of Yamanashi. Raw horse meat. Raw horse sushi. The sushi was good, but the meat itself was only ok. It was like greasy beef. Kind of like the difference between chicken and duck. Just greasy. 

 This was at an entirely different restaurant on a different day. It is food, so I thought it would fit. Katsu Curry. Think delicious chicken fried and breaded pork cutlet in Japanese curry sauce. Delicioso (notice that I said delicious in Spanish this time)

 Also in the food category, we got together and everyone made a dish to share. I made the Yakisoba on the left (wasn't my best effort). The middle is Okinomiyaki. Okinomiyaki is a Japanese pancake pizza thing with all sorts of crazy stuff inside. Actually it means favorite things fried in Japanese. It is served with a barbecue like sauce, mayo and fish flakes on top. The fish flakes move when you put them on top because of the heat and it makes it seem like it is moving. On the right is home made Houtou. 

On to the next occasion. Last weekend we had a big party up in our city with a bunch of people in the prefecture. We went to a legitimate Irish Pub located smack dab in the middle of Japan. I got some delicious fish and chips and mint milk. The mint milk tasted a lot like melted mint ice cream. 

 After the Pub, everyone came back and proceeded to get drunk and play Rock Band. I took my leave after a few renditions of good songs. Here you can see all the folk in not too much room.

More folks. Notice the guy in the hat because his birthday was yesterday, and we celebrated in style. 

There is really no easy way to do this...bugs. This is bugs part two. I want you to look at the size of that freaking mosquito that is feasting on the ear of corn in the middle of the photo. Giant. Huge. Mosquito.

 Here is the spider that tried to kill me outside my house a while back. His web was as big as the whole window and I had no choice but to burn him alive. I left just enough life in him so that he could warn any others. It was legitimately the size of a half-dollar.

 These don't look that terrifying, but I assure you. It is because my camera is terrible. These things are significantly bigger than the one outside my window. They are green and they are mean. They hang out in the roof over the train station I use (see used). I counted 8 of these little death-bringers in a 15 foot radius.

 I tried for over 5 minutes to find out what kind they were and got bored. 

 One of our lovely crickets that found its way into the house. Yuck.

 Now THIS is a big bug! As part of the orientation, we went to the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum. It was interesting, and kind of boring. It is less fun to go to museums when you can't read the displays.

 Big Japanese beetles on display.

 This is some armor that they found that dates back to about 1500 A.D.

 Since we didn't speak Japanese, they gave us these laser tag vests to wear that spoke into our ears about where we were in the place. It was interesting, but also mad you look silly. 

 Ah yes, the birthday party. We had a birthday party for James who is pictured above. He has been here for a few years so we wandered out to cheer his birth by going to a bowling alley out in the middle of nowhere. This picture doesn't adequately capture how terrifying the bowling alley looks from the outside. It feels like it belongs in Soviet Russia.

 They did have some wicked fly shoes that were in my size. They came with velcro straps and everything! Eat your heart out Marty McFly!

 A view of the alley

Private karaoke rooms up top because why would you have a bowling alley without karaoke rooms? 

That is pretty much it. Thanks for bearing with me. You may find yourself to be a little too excited by the sheer amounts of delight that you have just finished. So go ahead and take a few minutes to breathe.

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Better? Good.