An Amalgamation of Thanksgiving Dinner, Riding School Exam, Japanese General Election, and the Raising Value of the Yen

December 13, 2012

---November Cultural Salon---

Turkey, and Cranberry Sauce, and Futomaki!?!?

On the 28^th, we had our second International Society event in Minamiboso. This time we held a Thanksgiving dinner. The best way to teach people about culture is to have them immerse themselves in it, right? We started off by having everyone give thanks in English or Japanese, and then we dug in to some delicious food! I was really excited about this dinner because not only was I able to make traditional Thanksgiving dinner stuff like turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie, and pumpkin pie, but also it was a potluck! Which means that we had all this traditional American food mixed with traditional Japanese food. It was really great because we had plates full of turkey next to plates full of futomaki. One woman who is in training to be a Shinto priestess baked a traditional German kuchen, which was also really delicious and kind of reminded me of holidays at my grandma's house. Here's a link to my city blog post in English and Japanese: city blog

I made this!

---Orchestra Concert---
On the 2^nd, I attended an orchestra concert at the Nanso Cultural Hall. Most of the songs were entirely orchestral, but the last two were joined in by a choir. Both the orchestra and the choir were fairly decent. The main soloists were, of course, impressive. Apparently the orchestra doesn't play in this area very often, but I look forward to going again the next chance I get.

---End of the Year Party!---
Last Friday, we had a bonenkai, or End of the Year Party for work, and I had my first experience eating shabushabu! Which is actually really sad considering I've lived in Japan for a year and a half now. But there's a bowl of water and vinegar over a flame on the table and you basically boil a bunch of veggies and meat in the bowl and add in some ponzu and devour! Honestly there's not much difference to me between that and yakiniku but I welcome any opportunity to eat meat that isn't fish in this country :)

---Riding School Exam---

This past weekend I had my exam for getting in to the riding school. I was a bit nervous because I had a really terrible ride on a pony the day before (If anyone can tell me why ponies are so evil I would love to know). Then my trainer got on and was like oh no, he's totally being fine for me! Ugh it's so frustrating sometimes when you're totally struggling with something and then another person walks up and has absolutely no problems with it. Granted he is my trainer so of course he's better than me, but still...

Anyway so the exam itself was at 5:15 in the morning so I stayed over in Chiba and had to get up crazy early. Turned out my hotel was in the middle of a district of host clubs. That was...entertaining. It was super sketch outside, but the hotel itself had a women-only floor with pretty good security so it was safe. I did get to over-hear some entertaining conversations from the women who were staying there though. The hotel itself was about 95 degrees, and there was no way to adjust the temperature, so I didn't actually end up sleeping for more than an hour. Next time, I'll just drive home. I'd get more sleep that way.

So I got dressed around four a.m. and headed over to the riding club. The exam was just okay. I came in crooked to the first fence so it could have gone better, but the rest of the course went fine. Hopefully they post the results this weekend. This Sunday is the December circuit so hopefully I place well since it's the last one of the year! I'm seriously looking forward to hanging at the barn all weekend again, and...

---Random Ramblings About Japanese Politics and the Economy---

I also can't believe tomorrow is Friday already! Time has been going so fast ever since the mid-year conference, trying to get caught up on everything. I'm almost there though! Just one thing to translate and a couple things to write and I'll be all caught up!

On a more serious note, the general election is once again taking place here. Stating that there wasn't enough funds to run the government properly, the current prime minister dissolved the lower house of parliament, effectively giving up his title (just making sure but isn't this about the third prime minster we've gone through in the last year and a half?? come on guys, we need someone to run this country...). So anyway the election is taking place right now and everyone in my office has been crazy busy manning the polls and going out to vote themselves. Since the election just ended in the U.S. as well I feel like I've been doing nothing but following politics lately, which is something that I generally try to avoid.

Something that I do enjoy talking about however, is money! And the current low value of the yen makes me sad. Luckily, I still have some time before I have to purchase any dollars, but with all that has been going on lately in world economics, the value of the yen has been fluctuating like crazy. Needless to say, I'm going to have to keep an eye on things. With the euro doing so poorly, people have been buying tons and tons of yen, driving its value higher and higher. Unfortunately, with the economy in Japan being what it is, and the pressure being put on it by the island dispute with China, Japan's economy can't handle a high valued yen that makes its exports more expensive. With no one purchasing Japanese products, the economy will fall into further recession. To counter this, the government is purchasing trillions of U.S. dollars and driving the value of the yen back down. Once the election here ends, they're looking to implement a more cyclical purchasing of dollars on top of printing more yen at the mint. In the twelve hours since I started writing this, the yen has fallen from 82.4 to 83.6 yen to the dollar **sigh**

Clinic with Olympian Yumira Takayuki, my first yoga class, and Minamiboso Industry Festival

November 26, 2012

---Mid-Year Conference---

Last week was the CIR Mid-Year Conference. I got to go to a bunch of interesting presentations on translation, interpretation, taking business phone calls, etc. in addition to a not-so-interesting key-note speech where the speaker spent half of the speech introducing people from her office on slides...

Mid-Year Day 1

---Yumira Takayuki Clinic---

This weekend was, as usual, busy. On Friday, I went to the barn for a clinic with 2012 London Olympian, Yumira Takayuki. We had a meeting in the clubhouse beforehand where we discussed the importance of balance not only for the rider but for balancing your horse as well. Someone else was riding Parco this time so I ended up riding a different horse in the clinic, but it still went well. We did a lot of work on balance, and bringing your horse back in between jumps on course. Since it was after dark and the arena was quite muddy from all the rain we've been having, there were quite a few refusals from horses scared of the reflections off the puddles. (Honestly a little outside rein, outside leg and they would have been fine though...) Anyway this was my third time riding this horse that my trainer wants me to start showing with next year. I like him a lot but he's also quite expensive so we'll see what happens. I also have this younger horse in mind, but it's a matter of whether or not my trainer thinks that horse can do the one meter+ classes or not.

---Yoga Camp---

Saturday, I attended a yoga camp taught by a friend from the International Society in the neighboring town. She taught us about the importance of breathing during yoga exercise, and a few basic moves that left my body hurting the next day (yoga combined with hours of riding the day before (>.<) ). After the class we had tea and a homemade vegetarian lunch.

Edit: I have to say that after doing that yoga class (it has now been almost a month since then), my back pain from years of lifting bales of hay and cleaning stalls is completely gone! I've spent thousands at the chiropractor and the pain just kept coming back, but after one class of yoga the pain is gone! It's insane. Other people should do this.

When the camp ended, I hurriedly drove up to a friend's house near Chiba city for Thanksgiving dinner! Though I arrived quite late, I was glad to be able to meet up with a few of my friends.

Mochinage. See that wooden pavilion? People are throwing rice cakes from there.

---Minamiboso Industry Festival---
 The following morning (functioning on three hours of sleep), I attended the local Industry Festival for work. An industry festival is basically like what you would expect from a community festival in the U.S. There are kiosks selling locally produced goods, and booths advertising things like eco-driving, in addition to performances from local dance and drum groups. Some things that you won't see at a community festival in the U.S. included mochinage where people stand on top of a tall wooden tower and throw rice cakes at the people below who all but fight over the rock hard cakes, and a wooden festival float called a dashi that is donned with local children who play the drums while being drug around the grounds by city employees.

Dashi. You can see the kids sitting on the second level waiting to play the drums.

The other lady in my office and myself (yes there are only two of us!) worked as the “glorified tea ladies” and set up the lunch tables, beer, and tea for the lunch meeting attended by local division and section chiefs and the mayor. It was kind of fun because it was like working at a restaurant, where there's only one table and you have an hour to prepare for it.

I'M ON A BOAT.

During our free time, we wandered around and sampled local cuisine (I managed to avoid eating whale once again). I got to eat some juicy beef skewers, freshly made udon, and sake manjyuu (round, sticky cakes made out of rice and flour with red bean inside). The manjyuu was so delicious! The outer breading actually tasted like sake, it was so yummy! I totally didn't think to take a picture before I devoured it though.

We also got to tour a local fishing boat (I got pictures this time)!

Inside the control room.

Busy-ness at Work (no pun intended)

November 5, 2012

I spent this past weekend at the barn for a show and caught a horrible cold! But then I got second in 90 cm so that was nice. I kind of don't really remember riding though because of my fever ha~.

I also officially located that temple I had been trying to find! I'm going to stop out there soon. Also a new roadside station opened up this week, so I'm looking forward to checking that out as well.

Today we have our block meeting during work so that's...exciting. I'm still slightly sick and its pouring outside so even though I slept 12 hours last night I kind of just want to crawl back in bed. Anyway I'm also working on the Minamiboso Wikipedia page. Before it really only had the history and population written down, so I'm working to make a more complete version. Once that's completed, I'll probably fix the Facebook page too. Right now it's pretty sad and boring looking. I'm also working on an event project for the end of November here (Just waiting on approval. Cross your fingers), and then Friday I'm going to do another interpretation for the Knife Ceremony at Takabe Shrine. I guess France Media is coming to watch or film(?) so that will be pretty cool. (edit: here's the article! http://www.mboso-etoko.jp/top/goodlife/disp_A.asp?id=12710&group=1)

I just got exciting news that the slides I translated for that museum that was destroyed in Tohoku have officially opened in a gallery in Yokohama as of November 3^rd! It's about 1 hour and 45 minutes away though, so I don't know if I'll have a chance to go see it. http://tsunami-311.org/?p=1181

November 13, 2012

So work this week is insane. I have the newsletter and column both due tomorrow, and on top of it the Thanksgiving event is coming up on the 28^th, which I officially only have this week to really prepare for because the CIR mid year conference is next week! The event isn't exactly going smoothly either. I was originally told that the venue would hold forty people, only to go to a second meeting with the owner and be told that we probably couldn't fit more than fifteen! (what!?) As of right now, however, I have convinced him that we can fit at least thirty. But this is getting in to some sketchy territory... we can't just change things a week before the event, so hopefully nothing else goes awry. Anyway, this week I'm pretty grateful for the box of chocolate that hangs out in my desk drawer, but really I just want to escape to the barn. I wish it wasn't so far away! Back at home I could totally just go there and chill out for an entire evening, but now I can only go on the weekend :(

Anyway I'm getting super excited for mid-year conference so I can be in Chiba all week. Not only are most of the lectures going to be about translation and interpretation (=actually of interest), but it will be a nice break from the stress of event planning, and I'll probably pick up some new project ideas from fellow CIRs across the country (across the island?).

November 15, 2012

So the event planning is all settled now, my article is written, the newsletter has been uploaded and I'm pretty much set to go to the conference next week (other than some cost-co shopping on Saturday for event food). But I'm officially exhausted. Yesterday my alarm never went off and I didn't wake up until 7:55! Then today I had to pretty much drag myself out of bed. Granted I love being busy at work, so I'm going to stop complaining now. Still really wanting to go to the barn though. I wish they had little apartments in their facility. I would totally happily live there and commute to work every day. Oh man, it's barely getting cold out and I'm already getting the winter depression that sets in every year. Well not depression so much as I just really don't want to leave my apartment when I could be warm and watching dramas on my lumpy couch. I really should buy a new couch. Maybe that will by my Christmas present to myself.

I've been trying out this new (to me) facial toner that a friend recommended to me, by Albion. So far I love it a lot! I had a crazy breakout the week before I bought it, and it seems like it just draws the impurities right out of my skin!