Festival Food!

As promised, here is a post about some of the festival food my friends and I ate at the Setsubun Festival the other week. First off is some corn on the cob. Usually a fairly difficult item to find in standard Japanese restaurants/convenience stores, yet tasty nonetheless. Imagine if convenience stores sold corn on the cob, I would totally buy that all the time. This also reminded me of my days in Cambodia (see older posts) when we would snack on corn on the cob from street carts for like 20 cents or something amazing like that. Speaking of southeast Asia, I just made plans with some friends to go to Vietnam for Spring break in TWO weeks! I'm super excited, but still have a LOT of planning to do.


CORN!

Next up are some ginormous takoyaki dumplings. Usually made about a quarter of this size, these octopus-filled dumplings are standard street and party food (playing a central role in the "round things" party my friends and I threw in which we made and ate lots of round foods). Other ingredients in takoyaki include cabbage, ginger, egg, and flour. I didn't buy any of these, but they're usually pretty good so I can only imagine how delicious these giant ones are.


Mammoth Takoyaki (Octopus Dumplings)

More griddle-fried goodies, here a variation on Okonomiyaki, sometimes erroneously called Japanese pizza. Perhaps it could be better thought of as a combination omelet and pancake covered in tasty sauce and in this case, egg, bacon, and fishcake. Okonomiyaki seems to have evolved sometime in the Showa period after a long evolution beginning around the 16th century and through several eras and permutations before it reached its present form. This particular style of okonomiyaki also has noodles in it, a characteristic of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Don't worry about the raw egg, as they crack it over the okonomiyaki right when you order that gives birth to gourmet gooey goodness.

Okonomiyaki

Finally, here's what I bought: Ayu, a.k.a. Japanese Sweetfish, skewered and roasted to crispy, salted perfection. Ayu is typically a summer food, but luckily for me, they had it here. It was pretty good, not the best I've ever had, which was probably either in Nagoya or Yamaguchi, but tasty nevertheless for being out of season. Its crispy texture, salty flavor, and sweet (not fishy) meat were just what I wanted after a freezing fire festival.


Roasted Salted Ayu (Sweetfish)

Setsubun Matsuri and Food

Flaming INFERNO!

Sorry for the late post, dear readers, but here it is. Last week was Setsubun Festival, which celebrates reaching the half point of winter and involves throwing soybeans at demons in order to ensure good luck for the year. I went with some of my friends to Yoshida Shrine near Kyoto University to see the festivities. Here are some photos of a mound of stuff that they burn at around 11 at night and you can throw paper and stuff into it. There were throngs of people at the temple as you can see, so it took a while for us to get to the fire, but when we did it was glorious. It must have been below freezing that night, so passing by an open bonfire was a welcome relief from the frigid February air. It was so cold indeed that I had to borrow my friend's hat (the blue one if you couldn't tell).


Warming my icy hands by the bonfire

Another peculiar custom of Setsubun is the eating of Eho-maki rolls or really big unsliced sushi rolls stuffed with all sorts of goodies. An Eho-maki is basically your standard futomaki (thick sushi roll), but with the added twist that you have to eat it facing the lucky direction specific to the year. This year's lucky direction happened to be West-South-West and luckily thanks to Kyoto's orthogonal grid layout arranged in the cardinal directions, it was very easy to determine which way west-south-west was from our convenient location inside a Family Mart convenience store. Usually you buy the Eho-maki from some sushi place or perhaps a more legitimate joint than a common convenience store, but we realized that at the last moment on our way home from the festival at Yoshida that we had yet to eat the Eho-maki in the lucky direction, so we stopped by in a Family Mart where they luckily (maybe all that setsubun stuff really did work) had four Eho-maki left for our consumption. I'm sure we also appalled the poor store workers by ripping open Eho-maki in their store, consuming it all in one go (you're also not supposed to talk until you finish eating it), and then requesting them to take a picture of us (using the most polite language, of course). The Eho-maki was tasty, but I was really full after an evening of festival food, which I shall report on in an upcoming blog, so stay tuned!


Pre-Eho-Maki

Seijin Festival and Goals

A Tree with bad luck fortunes tied to it at Heian Shrine

Here's another response to the Light Fellowship-generated question:

Re-evaluate your goals for the year. How have you done? Have you needed or wanted to change your goals over the course of your study? Do you have new goals for this term?

My goals and perspectives have indeed changed since returning to Japan. I feel like Kyoto has become my home in that I no longer feel the need to go out and see all the sights. Every day is just another day, not another day IN Kyoto. Like the residents of a city who haven't seen all the tourist attractions in their hometowns, I have lost the fervor of being in Kyoto. I've started going to the gym three times a week instead of going out and exploring the city. Clearly my goals and priorities this semester have changed. I have some mixed feelings because I know I should go out and see more, but sightseeing and playing tourist feel so unnatural and out of sync with the established rhythm of my daily life.

In an effort to combat this feeling of routine life, I have made another bucket list for Kyoto. At the same time I am busy trying to find a job. I am working on my resume and a list of firms to apply for as well as trying to contact my friends in Japan who are currently working in offices. One of my friends at Sou Fujimoto says she's going crazy from all the working she has to do. I have heard similar stories from other people who have worked in Japan, which is perhaps one reason why I don't want to live and work here permanently, but I think a year of working here would be a good experience before I move on to grad school.

The prospect of entering the workforce is exciting, nerve-racking, and stressful all at the same time, but it's the next step in my life and maturation. My birthday was yesterday and another year later I do indeed feel like I've grown up in so many ways. On the subject of growing up, here are some photos from Japan's "Seijin Festival"成人祭り, which is a coming-of-age festival for Japanese youth.


My friends and I with some newly minted Japanese adults

Study Abroad + Manju

In response to the Light Fellowship-generated question of the week, I would like to discuss my feelings about study abroad at Yale. Here was the prompt:

Many students at Yale almost automatically dismiss the idea of studying abroad during term time. Conversely, we'll often see students returning from a term abroad saying it was their best time ever "at Yale"? What are your thoughts? Did this time abroad contribute to or detract from your "Yale education" in any unexpected ways?

I was one of those students who dismissed the idea of studying abroad during my time as an undergraduate for several reasons, chiefly because my major did not allow me to easily take a semester off and continue on schedule for a timely graduation. The architecture major only had two or three study abroad options, all centered in Western Europe. I was looking for a program outside the Western canon of architecture, yet there was nothing really available that was approved by the major. Of course, I always had the option of applying to the Light fellowship for a year off, but I hesitated because I did not want to fall behind in the architecture track and fall back another year. I really loved my architecture studio family/friends and did not want to miss a year with them thereby placing me in the '10 architecture class of whom I was not especially close with.

I am extremely grateful to the Light Fellowship for giving me the opportunity to study abroad post-graduation and providing me with an experience that was not easily facilitated with the complexities of the architecture major. Indeed, last semester and this year so far has been one of my most exciting semesters of my academic career. Although, at the same time, there is the tinge of evanescence that comes along with any limited period of study abroad. By that I mean it feels like everything I'm doing/ have done here is just going to fall back into some distant, hazy, dreamlike memory once it's over. All these people I've just started to connect with will go back to their separate lives and schools around the world once this year is up. I suppose in a normal study abroad situation I would be returning to Yale next year, but instead I will attempt to enter the real world (once more >.<) and have no idea what is in store. It would be comforting to return to Yale for another senior year after what would have been an amazing junior year abroad, but unfortunately that is not the case for me. The prospect of being pushed out into the uncharted post-grad life instead of the safety of my home university has given me an anxiety that most of the other people (mainly juniors studying abroad) in my program don't seem to have to deal with.

Anyways, there's a quick record of my thoughts on study abroad and now for a lighter, tastier subject, here are some pictures of a manju I ate last week.

On the way back from the archery festival at Sanjusangen-do I stopped by this shop with steamed manju outside. Manju are Japanese sweet buns, often filled with delicious tastyness, in this case filled with sweet rice, beans, and topped with a piece of chestnut.

Bow and Arrow Festival

Today I went to Sanjusangendo, a Buddhist temple in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto for the annual Yanagi Kaiji and First Arrow Festival. The festival is a competition where the best archers from around Japan gather to exhibit their skill in a shooting contest. Traditionally the contest was to shoot the length of Sanjusangendo, whose name means "Hall of the 30 Bays". Sanjusangendo is also known for its 1001 statues of Kannon観音, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, as well as many national treasures of sculptures depicting the guardians of Kannon.

The competition was really cool to watch all the archers. There were three main divisions: Young women, young men, and teachers. Of course, the teachers were the best group to watch because they actually hit the targets and several got bull's eyes as well. The girls were also very entertaining to watch because of the aesthetic appeal of their kimono and hakama (archery outfits). After each round of shooting, several volunteers in little yellow jackets scurried out onto the shooting range and gathered the arrows from the targets and ground. The people in the yellow reminded me of the kids who collect the balls at tennis matches. The shooting also reminded me of tennis matches because the audience reacted very calmly with "oooooh"s, "awwww"s, and several "oshii"s (oshii means regrettably close in Japanese). The audience also politely applauded and remained in a very good temper even during the champion round when the winner hit the target nearly in the bull's eye. One can only imagine how an American athlete would act after such an achievement. Even Tiger Woods used to do a fist pump or a cheer in golf, perhaps America's most etiquette-conscious sport. Japanese archery is also tightly bound to tradition and watching the ritual approach and stringing of the bow made for an entertaining sight regardless of whether or not the arrows hit the targets.

This week is my second week of Japanese classes and I hope to resume my volunteering at the architecture firm this week as well. Here's to a great start for a new semester!

What is This? 14

Spotted: A chimera along the Teramachi shopping arcade in downtown Kyoto. Standing outside a pet shop, this fiery beast opens an closes its mouth while its tongue darts in and out of its pelican-esque beak. Adorned with All-American red-white-and-blue stars and stripes, yet offset with "kawaii" flowery pale pink petals and rabbit ears along side dangerous horns, could this to be a perfect specimen of cross national breeding?



Answer: I'm not entirely sure what this is at all. I saw it and was unable to answer my own question beyond the simple response that it is meant to draw your attention to this pet store. It is possible that it was only to draw your attention here, but I would hope for a better association with the pet shop. They sell none of the animals whose subservient parts have come together to form this beast (i.e. no lions, ducks, dragons, rabbits, kangaroos, nor goats). In any case, it is a very animated and enigmatic character with whom none of the Japanese were taking any pictures with.

What is This? 13

Spotted: An explosion of lights in the center of downtown Kobe. This brilliantly illuminated and transient city would seem to be the native country of Disney's Electric Light Parade, but embellished floats were nowhere in sight, only a steady stream of people all flowing toward the center of the lights. Is this a revival of 1850s Industrial English architecture with a post-modern twist in Kobe's attempt to out-shine Time's Square? Or perhaps it's the best way for the electric company to increase its profits during the holiday season? What is This?

Answer: This is Kobe's annual Luminaria festival where they erect this huge display of lights around the city's central district. It began as a memorial to the victims of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and has now become a huge tourist attraction for the city during its winter months. There didn't seem to be much memorializing going on at the festival, although I think much of the money raised from it was going to go towards some related cause. Much of the festival seemed to be centered around walking through the city past a lot of shops (who were all vying for sightseers' attention) to this central area where there were a lot of lights and many many more street stalls with delicious foods.


Lights along the main road to the memorial park in downtown Kobe


In front of the main illuminated structure at the center of the park