Journal 23 - The New Adventure ... The Rice Cooker!

I think it's safe ... is it? Phew! Had to check behind me just now ... you know ... ever since the ... Incident!

It's definitely a long, complicated story and I won't bore you with the reason why I haven't been around for a while. Let's just say it involved a woman, a sumo wrestler and the Japanese mafia. OK fine, you want to know? Alright then!

So, there was this woman that I met at a bar one night in Yaizu. Our eyes met. We stared at each other for what seemed hours. You could say we saw eye to eye ... that is, until her glass one fell to the floor, but that's another story. So, after a few cups of ocha (look it up), I felt the courage to approach her. I walked towards her, she walked towards me. I dodged the waitress with the tray of sushimi. She ... didn't! Anyway, we talked for seconds and then one thing lead to another, before we knew it ... we were thumb wrestling. One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war ... it was a night I'll never forget. Until it turned into a night I wanted to forget... So, this very big man comes up to me and starts demanding he be part of this thumb war. I politely declined, but apparently that wasn't good enough for this man, who I found out later was some champion sumo wrestler. He decided to get all sumo on me and forced me to thumb wrestle him. So, after a bunch of tiring wrestles, I of course, was left undefeated. Well, Mr. I'm- going- to- put- my- diaper- on- and-squat had his ego to consider. He wanted revenge. So he does the one thing he could think of ... He called Daddy! Daddy, turns out to be this big time member of the Yakusa. In fact, he's pretty much considered the Japanese godfather. He decides to get in my face ... looking down at me, telling me in his raspy voice, stroking his neck ... "Ya disrespect my son? Ya disrespect my whole family and no one disrespects my family" ... I kid you not. It was like a scene from a movie. Only it was all with a Japanese accent. So, then fists started flying, back kicks, drop kicks, hair was pulled, eyes poked ... it was a terrible mess. But only one person was left standing ... yes, yours truely. But, one thing about the Yakusa is they never come in alone ... there's always more. So, my lovely lady, who will remain nameless for safety reasons, after putting back her eye ... twice (the first time was backwards), told me that I had to leave, get out of town and disappear for a while. So, I didn't hesitate for a moment ... I ran and ran some more, to the nearest Circle K (I was hungry) and then I ran further. I grabbed the first train and took it as far as I can, which happened to be Hamamatsu (go figure). I had to change my life, my name and just remain disappeared for a while. So, nice to me you, my name is Kotaro Shiro Takahashi. What happened to the girl you asked? Well, apparently rich sumo wrestlers are a lot more attractive to her ... Whatever! She's just sore I beat her in the thumb wrestling ... with my left hand I might add.

OK OK, so you got your little bit of entertainment there. Yes, friends I am still alive, but have not been diving into the adventures as much as I should be. One of the reasons is the past few months have been quite hectic. Last time I wrote in here, I mentioned that I was asked to move to another city, Hamamatsu. Well, I moved here last November (21st to be exact). I got settled into my new school, met my new students and co-workers and that was pretty much it.

First, I'll talk about the school ... the school is really nice, brand new. It opened last June and yes it really is in a Shopping Mall. There are two classrooms I use, one for the adult students and the other for the kids. I really like this school. My students are great, I have lots of kids classes which are so much fun, a lot of work, but fun. The only downfall is the commute from my apartment to the school. In the beginning, I had to take a bus which for some reason did not stop anywhere near the mall ... go figure. There is a bus that stops right by, but unfortunately that's the one that comes from the train station and I'm also nowhere near the train station. Yeah, whoever thought of getting this apartment was obviously not thinking. So, the bus ride was about 15 minutes and the stop I got off was also about a 15 minute walk to the mall. Also the last bus in the evening was at 10:17 pm ... my classes end at 10:00. So, that gives me 2 minutes to tell my students "Get the hell out", change my clothes and hoof it to the bus stop and hope and pray it's a few minutes late. Yeah, so I figured I need to do something about this. One day I decided to explore the mall and noticed tucked away on the other side of the building, was a bike shop. I decided to go in and see what's available ... As I'm walking around and realizing that the granny bikes with baskets, just don't scream my name, I saw a nice silver mountain bike style that certainly did scream my name. It obviously wasn't a real mountain bike ... you know, the one's you can pick up with your pinky. But, the price was right and I knew it would do the trick. So, I snatched that puppy right away. Now going home was a bit of a chore. I guess it helps if I had payed attention to where I was going while on the bus. But, hey I got to explore the city ... at 11:00 at night, oh well. Anyway, once I finally made it home at 3:00 am (just kidding), I decided to grab a map of the city and plot out my route to the school. Of course, I guess if I was smart I should've had that map in my backpack in the first place ... Whatever!!! Moving on, so now I commute to work everyday on a bike. And how long does that take you ask? A total of 15 minutes from my apartment to the school. And it's extra exercise as well ... so I can't really go wrong. Except for those really windy days ... hate those.

My apartment, ladies and gentleman, is actually bigger than the other one I lived in. Yes, folks I've gone from Nike box, to microwave box. I'm living the high life here. Get this ... I have 2 burners instead of one. Oh yeah baby, we're talking the dijon of apartments. Actually, I do like my apartment ... it is small in Canadian standards, but I do feel less claustrophobic in this one. This apartment also has a loft style bed and yes I do have to climb a ladder to get to bed, but at least there is a window up there, so I don't feel too cramped. I'll take pictures (once I clean this place) and send it to the site.

Now, Hamamatsu! What can I say about this city? Well to be honest, it doesn't feel like a Japanese city. I'm not sure what it is ... maybe it's because it looks modern, maybe it's all the shopping malls in this city or maybe it's the 20% population of foreigners, mostly from South America. Sure there are shrines and there's even a castle, but I guess after living in a small place like Yaizu where I was use to seeing the narrow streets, the small venue shops, the old people staring at the foreigner, I guess I assumed it was the same everywhere. Hamamatsu is considered a city. There's roughly 500 000 people here and as I mentioned, 10% of the population are foreigners and they're mostly from South America. I am not sure why they chose Hamamatsu though. Anyway, if I'm not sounding excited about this city, you're probably right. I don't hate it, but I also don't really care for it either. If I was to live in a city, I would much rather be in Tokyo or even Osaka. But, I do have a few friends here and I do go out quite often which is nice, so I can't really complain too much.

Oh yeah ... Happy New Year everyone. Let's hope 2006 will be a great one for all of us. So, this year I actually decided to do something I never do. I made some new years resolutions. And like everyone ... I broke pretty much all of them. All except for one ... cooking more at home instead of buying pre-made stuff. To help with that, I decided I was going to buy myself a rice cooker. Well, it turns out, after mentioning this to some students, one of them actually had one that she didn't want anymore. So, she gave it to me. I was absolutely thrilled. The rice cooker is great. It's small, perfect for one person ... although it can make up to 4 portions, so that's OK too. OK, so I'm ready to start my new years resolution and cook more. I even looked up some great recipes with rice cookers and there are a lot. Before I decide to tackle this new machine, I figured I should probably ask people how it works since the instructions are all in Japanese. No problem right? Well, I got lots of different answers from people about the proper way to cook rice. One person said, you must buy only one kind of rice, don't buy rice from Kyoto, it's not good. The best is from Shizuoka. Another said you shouldn't buy rice that doesn't need to be washed, it costs much more. I'm thinking, huh? OK, so rice from certain areas of Japan is OK and the one's that I need to wash? Well, how the heck do I know which one is which? Then someone told me when you wash the rice, make sure you don't wash it too much because then all the nutrients will be gone. Scratching head here. Oh yeah and to add to that, another person showed me how they wash the rice ... use your hand and stir them in a clockwise direction three times only. OK, so there's some kind of ritual here. Do I need to burn incense as well? After all that, I'm going OK, we have the rice figured out (I think) ... how do you use the rice cooker? I got ... add rice, add water and turn it on. OK! How much rice? How much water? And which freakin button do I push? All I got was the typical Japanese, tilt their head, I have no idea what you're saying look. So, this rice cooker pretty much sat in my cupboard for 2 weeks before I did anything ... I was scared to!

One day, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I woke up and said to myself, this is going to be the day I make rice. I mean heck, if those Survivor people can do it over the fire ... how hard can it be? It's a freakin labour-saving device that's suppose to make your life easier right? So, I went to the supermarket near my work, went to the section where they sell rice and picked out a bag of rice. I had no idea what type it was or where it was from. In my eyes, rice is rice. After work, I brought this bag home and decided to tackle my little project. I took out the cooker, set it up. It had 2 buttons, both in Japanese of course, but one was bigger than the other. I figured you can't go wrong if you hit the bigger button. So, no problem. Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself here. I have to admit, I was a little nervous ... this was a big ordeal. If I get this wrong, then who knows what will happen. You have to be accurate. OK, so was it wash the rice in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction? How many times around? Oh yeah, was I suppose to light incense? Maybe, I need to sing to it? Well, I didn't want to get this wrong, so what I did was put the rice in the bowl, added a little bit of water, took the bowl and held it up in the air as if I was praying to the rice gods. Then I put my hand in the bowl and turned it 3 times clockwise. Then I stood on one foot, and turned myself counter clockwise. Oh yeah this was all while I was burning incense and singing a round of "Old McDonald". I tried "Twinkle twinkle little star", but it didn't quite work out. The rice seemed to react in a negative way ... let's just leave it at that. So, after the rice washing ritual, I drained the water ... carefully of course. Put the rice in the pot, and added water. How much? Well, after looking at the pictures in the book, it showed one and one. One cup of rice, add water to the "1" line. So, I did that. I put the pot in the rice cooker and pressed the big button. All I could do from then on was ... wait. About 40 minutes later, I heard a beep from the rice cooker. As I slowly crept up to the device, trying not to make any noise, I slowly opened the cooker. It was like one of those scenes from Indiana Jones. Hot steam quickly rushed out as the lid was lifting. When I finally got the lid completely open with no extra disturbance, I looked in. What I saw was thousands of little white pieces all cooked and stuck together. It was a beautiful sight. My first attempt was a success. I wanted to scream out "It's Alive"! But, I didn't because that would just be silly. But, I have to admit, I did feel a little teary eyed. The rice was very good, but I couldn't help but think, do I have to do this every time? Maybe next time, just to save time, I'll take the rice in the shower with me!

OK folks, so I'm noticing that I kind of went on a tangent here and this journal became much longer than I figured. Sorry about that. But, I really wanted to share my new adventure. The adventures of the Rice Cooker! I hope everyone is doing well and I am sorry I haven't been keeping this up to date regularly. Whenever I experience a new adventure, I will definitely share it with all of you. I'm hoping this year I will have more since I'm pretty sure this will be my last year in Japan (for now). After going back to Canada during Christmas ... oops, did I forget to mention that? I spent Christmas in Montreal with my parents, my sister and her family. I had a great time and realized I missed this country. I am very sorry I never got the opportunity to make it out west or even east for that matter. But, unfortunately that would've been an expense that I just couldn't afford. But next time I will, I promise. Until now, have a great day, week, month, whatever and I'll talk to you later.

J