Tuesday, 26 August 2014

BBQs and Squishing Innocent Creatures for Fun

Post VIII


Today I had a BBQ. Japanese style. Unlike England, when one macho man (often myself, it has to be admitted) takes control of the fire, and the cooking, and feeds all his guests, in Japan; literally everyone huddles around the BBQ cooking small pieces of meat. You then take them straight off the BBQ and eat them. This is a pretty cool way to eat, but at the same time, you are flipping raw meat with the same chopsticks you then eat from - which goes against every BBQ handbook there ever was. Again, though it was against my instincts, I just rolled with it, and here’s to hoping I am not as sick as a dog tomorrow.

Other than the food, the BBQ was pretty fun. I had a race with the PE teacher because I thought I could take him... It was close, but he won, which was annoying. But then I out-drank him so I guess that’s some kind of (very sad) victory. I also saw my first ever shooting star. The skies are so clear and I was watching the sky, and it just shot across. So that was pretty awesome.

Today was actually my second beach BBQ since getting here. The first was last weekend, when we ate some Yaki Soba and Niku (meat) by the beach and waited for the sun to go down, and then went to the pier (and by we, I mean most of the town) to catch some Umihotaru. Now, these are best described as 'sea fireflies', but they glow electric blue. There is no word for them in English. We all stood on the pier and caught them, and then proceeded to squish them on the pier, and spread their glowing bodies all over the place. Sounds pretty gross right? And yeah it is, killing innocent creatures and what not, but the end result is very beautiful! The children also like to stick them to their shoes so that they leave glowing footprints. That said, I preferred seeing the alive ones swimming though they rarely come to the surface. Still, pretty awesome experience even if it was a bit uncomfortable killing fish just because they looked cool.

All in all a pretty nice week, though I feel a bit 'in demand' at work and so am very tired, I keep putting the effort in - especially with my speech contest girl who is lovely - and I am still very positive! I think it will be interesting to read back over my blog and try to track my mood, and plot exactly when I start to get overwhelmed by everything and find it frustrating. Let's hope it never happens, because for now, I am having many challenging but rewarding experiences every day. So let's hope that continues at least for a little while!





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