In the Hall of The Mountain king

Making Pots

One of the cool things about living in the sticks is although not a lot is going on, when something does happen it is usually pretty cool. Over the course of the past year and a half I have made a lot of friends that are my senior by about 20+ years. Well, a few weeks ago Ayumi and I were invited to go with one of my English students to a friend of her's secluded mountain hideout where she and her husband hand throw pots and bowls. We were able to play around for a few hours and ended up making a flower vase and two mugs. Although they weren't much to look at being able to use something we made will be pretty cool when we get finally get them.

Friday afternoon they started the fire and Saturday night they invited us to come along and spend the evening with them adding wood to the fire, eating good foods and chatting. We left the house around 5 pm and ended up staying until about 1 AM. We intended on staying all night but, being the weekend a lot of people showed up to participate and although we were invited to stay our ride was wanting to head home and although fun that late in the night our own futons sounded like heaven.

Pretty much what goes on is they have this giant oven which they built about ten years ago. Over the course of three days they slowly raise the temperature inside of this kiln to 1200 Celsius (2192 Fahrenheit) where once the temp is reached they keep at a constant for a whole day. Everyone just talks around this oven watching a thermometer and adding fire every 5-10 minutes while we feast on seafood and Japanese deliciacies. Although outside is freezing cold the oven is encased in a barn which heated things up pretty nice where we weren't cold at all. I can't begin to explain the colors inside that furnace I saw but, tried to snag a few photos which turned out pretty cool.

At a point they reached into the fire and pulled out a few mugs with giant tongs. Immersing this in water (if it doesn't shatter) gives the pottery a rare color. I have a picture of that as well. Not a lot more to tell other than a good time was had by all, I singed the hair on my left hand and wish I had more opportunity to do fun things like this!

Peeze out!

Home made Root Beer!

So after two prior failed attempts, last night I tried again to make a batch of homemade root beer. I don't know why I have been having such a hard time getting this stuff to work, I mean this stuff practically flows through my blood but, last night I think I nailed it. The good thing is if it works, I should be sippin' the good stuff within the week! The downside of it is, this was a brand and method I have never ever followed so, even if successful not sure if I can call it "Allred Rootbeer". Nevertheless, we are in for a treat.

So traditionally when we make this stuff with grandpa, we fill a big five gallon jug up with warm water. I think the problem with my first batch was no 5 gallon container. A few months after first getting to Japan I borrowed the biggest pot from the school kitchen taking it home only to find it was too small. I decided having had gone through all the trouble I would still go through with making it but only making half a batch. Somewhere in the process I guess I miscalculated the proportioning because in the end I think my rootbeer tasted more like yeasty water with a hint of rootbeer and not the rootbeer with a hint of yeast I was aiming for. Well, that batch went down the drain and thinking about it now, probably still have a half a container of extract in my cupboard somewhere!

My wife's dad loves root beer and in fact, whenever we are lucky enough to find it at an import shop usually buy a can or two just for him. Anyways, last summer (attempt 2) I told him I had the materials to make it and next time I went to visit him we would try to make a batch together. I don't do math but, he is pretty smart so I knew as far as calculating we would have no problems. We went out and bought a large bucket (I think the kind used to pickle vegetables). I think once we had all the ingredients in we were like an inch from the top. If my memory serves me correctly, to the best of my knowledge we followed the recipe exactly, no needing to cut back portions or anything however in the end, this batch too was missing something. I ended up finally getting to taste an unopened bottle about three weeks after making it (usually where it has the greatest kick). I don't remember much but, know it wasn't the action packed flavorful soda I was hoping it would be.

Well, last night was attempt three. This recipe came in a kit I got from my brother included in the family Christmas package. Without having to dig through my parents boxI could smell root beer somewhere from within the contents. This recipe was pretty straight forward however different from the stuff I am used to making. For example, this batch has a mysterious package containing "flavor crystals" (no idea what that is about) added at the same time as the extract. It also requires brown sugar where I have only used white and also required 45 minutes of sterilizing the containers and instruments we would be using in the procedure.

This recipe was used to make 1 gallon. We don't have gallons here in Japan and our biggest pot mysteriously burned our dinner the other night and now we can't get the crusty stuff off from the inside (we think the pot is done for). I got online and found that 1 US gallon is about 4 liters so, I used two old two liter water jugs. I was a little nervous because again I was afraid I would screw the portioning up but, this recipe had you mix the root beer extract, sugar, yeast etc. in a separate bowl and then add it to a half full container so, in spite of not having a gallon jug think it still worked out just fine- easy to say visually, I will have to update this blog after I have tasted the stuff.

Well, here I am 24 hours later, feeling the firmness of the jugs every few hours but, know they're still not ready. However, I am very anxious to see if this batch works. I can occasionally find root beer here (not in Isobe but, in big cities) but alas, nothing can compare with good old home brewed root beer.

Cheers to good root beer!

5:56 AM

So Hershey did what she does best and woke me up in the wee hours of the morning for food. I had a pretty early night last night so, in addition to being awoken at five this morning I couldn't fall back asleep so, I guess this is it. Last night was the year-end party for Suisan highschool. In addition to the the regular staff at school they had the entire ship crew there which alone is 22 crewmen. It was fun, I saw some crazy drunken sailors, ate sea creatures that I didn't particularly care eating and had a pretty good shot at wining a Japanese lottery ticket in bingo until I was distracted by a teacher I had never seen before decided to come and speak English with me. Its OK though. I figure the odds of me winning that bingo was like 1/85 then on top of that, the odds of me winning the lotto was like 1/1,000,000,000 so I am not too put off but, if I catch wind that one of those tickets won, I'll probably go hang myself.

Well, its Christmas time again. Last year I had to work and, surprise surprise, this year I do too. Its understandable though that a nation predominately Buddhist doesn't care to recognize a mainly Christian holiday. I didn't throw any fits in America when we weren't celebrating the Festival of Floating Bowls so why should it be any different now? Anyways, I do get today off for the Emperors birthday- a day which I will use to... now that I am awake my whole plan is off so, nuts to that. But, I am not going to pass up a free day off so, yay!

For New Years this year we are again going to be going to Gifu to spend it with my wife's family. Her little sister is home from college and with me there, will be the first time in five years that everyone will be there. I just hope I don't feel too much like, as my coworker phrased it the other day, the 500 pound gorilla in the room. Looking forward to going though.

Fauxhawk

So it has been a week since I first dabbled my toe into the big lake which we call HTML design. In the course of seven days, I really havn't done much. Well, I did a lot the first few days and then having nothing to make kind of stopped for a little while. It is test week at school so, a lot of time went towards making that.

Our tests here at Shima are pretty straight-forward. Each test is worth 100 points. 50 from reading/writing and 50 in the form of a listening test. This past semester we learned lessons on describing people (the tall man with long hair, etc.), weather, disasters, and a few others which I cannot remember. Well, we recorded a twenty minute disc with us going back and forth in conversations about the things we have learned about. Shouldn't be too hard- at least I wouldn't have any problem doing it.

On Saturday night we have our annual end of the year party with the English club. That should be pretty fun. We are doing white elephant gifts and then some karaoke. Also, that morning I am going to go out and chop my locks. My hair is pretty shaggy right now and after trying for a year and a half have decided that my bangs just don't grow so, maybe back to the fauxhawk? Only time will tell. I am pretty excited for the weekend though.

HTM-Hell

So back in the day, when I was a feshman in college. With my then fiance Ayumi I enrolled in a website design class at the University. Over the course of a semester Ayumi and I hammered out simple little websites which although fun were really hard to make. Well, the class ended and I had never though about nor hadn't had any interest in website design since then. The other night I downloaded a 30 day trial of Adobe Flash and following a tutorial started goofing around with that program and made some fun flash animations. That got me thinking back to my class and in my spare time I thought I would give another go at building a website.

After two days of tinkering around with HTML, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the one and only
www.kzombie.com- more zombie than you can shake a stick at. It's not much now but, over the next few days hopefully I will be able to add some fun things to it. Right now I invite you to enjoy the December 2008 calendar, look at my header and even follow a link to a current favorite website I have been frequently perusing.

I have a good friend here in Isobe who professionally designes websites and calling him up Wednesday night he came over for a few hours and helped jog my memory about how to do all this stuff. After a few minutes, I was able to piece things together. My only problem now is, what to put on that page.

Check back here and there for updates!

ABBA

It's 9:09 Friday night. I have absolutely nothing to do. I have looked at all my regular websites, I have played all my games, just not in much of a mood to do anything. I currently have ABBA Gold playing thus the name for this post. Things have been going pretty well lately. It is cold, and as a result I have pulled out my big thick winter jacket and wore it to school today. Upon entering the office today, the Vice Principal came over to me and (I think I caught a bit of sarcasm in his comment) you sure look warm. I had my big snowboarding jacket, a scarf and some fingerless gloves. Yes I was warm, yes I was comfortable and no I didn't feel dumb.

It is that time of the year. Our apartment must not have been made very well because in the summertime it gets uncomfortably hot and in the winter it gets uncomfortably cold. Actually I think a lot of that has to do with the lack of central heating/cooling in structures in this country. Our Summer/Winter ritual consists of heating/cooling the computer room and lounging in there only leaving to answer the call of nature, raid the fridge or get the door. Hershey loves winter because she gets to curl up next to the portable heater and steal a large percentage from ever reaching us. She just lays there for hours on end alternating every now and then from belly to back only getting up to use the bathroom and/or eat. Wait, that's what we do.

So in Japan the recycling laws are pretty strict. I have gotten used to them and since doing so see that they kind of make sense (like not wearing shoes in the house, showering before getting in the bathtub and washing hands after using the bathroom). Our little town has us separating our garbage I think into six different groups. On top of this after separation, you have to put the corresponding garbage into an appropriate bag and leave it down on the street the day of to be picked up. You are not suppose to put garbage down there any earlier and of course, if too late not picked up. Well the past six months or so, somebody has been totally ignoring this rule. It is not like one or two items but, things like couches, bikes, toys and most recently about twenty big bags of mixed garbage. When the garbage is picked up all this garbage is left aside with a note stuck on it reading, "we will not pick up this garbage." and states the recycling rules. I mean garbage is garbage but, when you've got and are used to a nice little organized system and a small, clean garbage disposal area you kind of get upset when the rules are not obeyed. I have included photos. The white bags do not belong.

November

So, a lot has happened in the past two and a half months since my last update. With the in frequencies of my writings I don't know if calling them updates is quite the appropriate terminology. Maybe I should refer to them as quarterly ramblings or something along those lines. Looking back at it all, not a lot really has happened out of the ordinary but, I will fill you all in nevertheless.

September brought about the return to school. I know I posted something during that month but, only commented on my current ailments at the time- which a lot like you read on this blog was me complaining about being sick. This season a funny cold seems to be going around. It starts with a scratch in your throat followed by runny/stuffy nose and a fever all ending up with a persistent cough that I have seen last for up to three weeks. In my case I think I had it all done and finished in about a week. Ayumi had it worse with a fever and sore throat for about two days. When we get sick, we tend to put on our warm pajamas and try to sweat the illness. Not rocket science but, even if it isn't doing us any good we sure are comfy.

The first week of October we had our school festival at Shima Highschool. For the past few months, about one time a week I had been meeting with my Vice Principal practicing some songs we intended to perform there. With the help of two additional teachers (one on drums and another on bass) we sang a total of five songs in front of all the students. We sang the Beatles' songs "Something", "Let It Be", The Mommas and the Poppas "California Dreaming", The Eagles "Hotel California" and another called "sora mo toberu hazu" by a Japanese band called Spitz. I have a DVD copy of the show but so far have been unable to rip it down to a format that I can send/post on the internet. I am going to see if I can track down the originals off the camera and send them in that format.

It was actually really fun and I think turned out great. The students had a great time and even sang along on some of the song parts they knew. Some kids at Suisan saw a copy of the video (via students in another band that played during the same festival) and word spread there that I have the voice of an angel. I don't know about that but, I have kids there that want to see the DVD. We'll see if we can arrange something.

Halloween came and went. For that we did a fun Halloween lesson where we watched a few Disney videos, learned about the holiday and got a special treat. For that we decorated up our classroom at school with some cheap things we bought at the dollar store and some great things Ayumi had made for her class. Tomorrow at school I will see if I can track down the video footage I made of that and post some of it here on the blog.