March 2 – Ayane Woes

I met a new person at the Gakuen last week named Ayane. She is Encho Sensei’s daughter, goes to Kyoto University, 20 years old, studying Pharmacy, and is really cute. I finally got to go out with her on Wednesday for Okonomiyaki. It was then that I found out she is going back to Kyoto on the 4th. Talk about a lost opportunity. I immediately took a liking to her after talking for an hour or so over some dinner. I went out with her again on Friday with her father. That was an interesting experience. Nazaki san was trying his best to speak English, but failing miserably. Ayane and I couldn’t stop laughing at the Japanese / English mixing. We had Yakitori at the local Yakitori place in Muramatsu. Nazaki san and I drank quite a bit and had some pretty good conversations about Japan-America relations, Japanese foods, and eventually girls. He asked me if I liked Japanese or American girls better, then what ages I prefer, then if I liked his daughter (all in English btw). At that I turned to Ayane and said “yes”. She chuckled. It would be awesome if we could meet again, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Ayane was busy all weekend with shopping and hometown friends. Tomorrow she is working all day then hanging out with a friend from grade school. Then the day after tomorrow she is leaving. Sigh. At least I will have a friend in Kyoto when I visit in the spring.

In any case, I had a pretty relaxing weekend despite the fact that my mind was elsewhere. I went with Yasuko san and her friend to the Nagaoka Museum of History. It was more interesting than I was expecting. They had a special exhibit of artifacts from the Island of Niigata (the name escapes me). This included arrowheads, pots, plates, bones, rocks, and pretty much everything you would find at a Native American Exhibit. The main museum included a really cool 1950’s replica of a city in Niigata. The snow piled up to the 2nd floor where shops had a second entrance. It was really cool. There was also some Native Japanese scenes which depicted life in the BC ages. It had models of people, houses, animals, which once again resembled Native Americans. I was told that this museum was the biggest one in Niigata, and only had things that came from Niigata. It was more interesting than your regular history museum. For lunch we went to a place that specializes in crabs. I had tempura crab legs which were amazing. It was my first experience with crab food. That night we went to an onsen about 10 kilometers away from home. It was called “Bijin no Yu” which literally means “beautiful person’s water”. The onsen was much like the previous one that we went to. I spent most of my time in the outdoor springs this time because one it was my first time and two it was snowing! Hot springs and snow just screams Kimochii!

Today we went to Murakami to see the preparations for the Hina Matsuri. I am told that this matsuri is to celebrate the well being of women. The holiday for men is in May. For this Matsuri shops put out displays depicting people from the Edo period. Each doll represents something special (Hit up Wikipedia for more details). Yasuko said that Murakami is famous for Cows, rice, and sake, all of which I was able to try. For the first time since I arrived in Japan I was able to eat 100% real steak. It was the most delicious thing I have had in a long while. Yasuko bought some traditional rice sweets to eat back at home. They are like Onigiri, but wrapped in corn husks. The rice is half mocha-a-rized as well. Very interesting. Finally, we went to a traditional sake shop down the street. What separates this from a normal sake shop is that you can sit down and drink right there in the shop. I had a beer with my father while he talked to the shopkeeper. That was a first. Before heading home we stopped once again at an onsen. I did not realize it at the time, but Nagaoka is pretty close to the Japan Sea. The onsen used water from the sea and had an overlook of the sea. It was not as fancy as the previous ones, but got the job done well. I took a nap on the way home.