Goodbye Fukuoka

My time in Fukuoka is over now. I’ve spent the past 6.5 weeks here and have really liked the city. Also you quickly start to develop your habits in a new place and meet new people, so it’s a bit hard to leave now.
This last weekend I did plenty of “social” stuff, hanging out with people that I like and having fun. Friday afternoon I finally went to Robosquare, the roboter center in Momochi. It’s really fun, they do dance shows and stuff with the robots and you can talk with the “Hallo Kitty” robot. Friday evening we went to dinner at one of my Fukuoka favorites, “Alohana”, the Japanese-Hawaiian restaurant in Daimyo. After, we went to the famous “Happy Cock” to enjoy the “all-you-can-drink” offer once more. “Happy Cock” is really quite commercial and there are way too many American marines hanging out there as well. But when you’re a larger group it’s a compromise that will not totally piss off anybody. We met some “old friends” like “The hair” or the sleazy host club boys and it was not that bad at all.
Saturday I paid Momochi another visit and did actually study quite a bit as well (“kanji for beginners”). Nice as always… Saturday evening we met at “Morris”, then relocated to “Tatoo Bar” and then Atilla proposed to go to “Keith Flack” a small Dn’B Club in Tenjin. Should have discovered that one earlier, it’s really a pretty cool place and so are the people there. Left at 6 only… There was an embarassing episode though! We wanted to get a drink and two guys were blocking the bar. I said to David: "they could move their ass a bit, they already have their drink". Well, they turned around bowed and said "sorry" and I in turn bowed and said sorry and felt stupid. You should not assume that people don't understand English, even if they don't when it would be useful.
Sunday I had to do some cleaning up, separating the stuff I needed to send home by mail, etc. Later we went for dinner to “La Bohème” and had some pretty good Italian food.
My real goodbye was on Tuesday night when I came back from Korea. Luckily I DID make it past the immigration officer. See the related blog post… I really felt quite happy to be back in Japan! Anyway, we again went to “Alohana” (yes, we are boring!) and had another shared dinner – we would order several dishes and eat from all of them because it’s too difficult to choose just one. We made Atilla and David strike some “gay poses” for the camera, giving each other flowers and so on. One of the Japanese guys at the table next to ours felt asked to tell the story about his “gay phase” when he was a “lonely boy” then and came sitting at our table. It was quite funny, although we were not sure whether he actually wanted to say everything he said or whether it was due to poor English skills that he ended up saying them. His furious girlfriend then commanded him to go back to his table… We all missed the last subway, so we ended up going to an Izakaya (Japanese style pub) till 3.
Fukuoka, I’l miss you! But I will come back for the Sunset Live Openair in early September, that should be fun.

Graduation ceremonies

Each Friday some students are leaving school and usually Japan as well. Students would give a little speech and receive a diploma that states how many hours they studied at GenkiJACS and on which language level. Something for your mum to frame and hang up in the livingroom :)

The diploma is really great for those who have spent a few weeks at GenkiJACS but have been really lazy, because the diploma simply states that student X has studied Y hours at Genki, it doesn't mention with what success. Maybe there should be some hint like "Student A has drunk so much booze during his time in Fukuoka that he forgot 50% of prior vocab and his Japanese level dropped from 2-A to 1-D". No, but the diploma is kinda nice looking and the small graduation ceremony is really nice.

I should now prepare my own speech for tomorrow evening. I know what I'd like to say, now the question is just how to phrase it in Japanese...

My time at GenkiJACS was great in any case, allthough classes have been a bit overwhelming at times and didn't make me feel very intelligent. But the other people in my class had more previous knowledge of Japanese, I came from almost 0 and that makes it a bit overwhelming. Most teachers have really made an effort to make lessons fun and interesting and very interactive. Energetic and cool Maki-sensei, cute smiley Takako-sensei (see the adorable picture), burstingly funny Chihomi-sensei, super prepared Natsuko-sensei and all the others, I will miss them. And being at the place and seeing all the people I got to know of course.

Tea ceremony

With culture class we were given the opportunity to visit a tea ceremony, or rather to participate in once. Doing a tea ceremony is considered a classy thing and it is still common to do it once in a while. The tea ceremony is one of the classic elements of Japanese culture and dates back to the 15/16th century.

When we entered the small pavillon where the ceremony was held, first the girls and then the boys were dressed in yukatas (light kimono). Then we were asked to kneel on one side of the tatami room, to oour right a small alcove with a painting on rice paper and the tea kettle.

We were then given a small sweet each, everybody took one and had to pass it on to the next person saying specific words and making specific gestures. The tea ceremony master was preparing the tea then, putting matcha (green tea power) in the tea bowl, pouring boiling water into it and then treating the matcha with a bamboo brush, stirring the powder until it was frothing slightly. Then the cup was given to the first guest. Taking it you had to turn it in your hands several times before taking a sip.

After the first round of tea we could prepare our own cup of tea using the bamboo brush. Unfortunately by then we were in such pain from the extended kneeling that we could hardly concentrate on the task and had only one wish: To get up immediately. I think the kneeling must be practised on a regular basis, otherwise it's just torture. (For anyone doubting that - please try to kneel for even 10 minutes at home...).

Hiphop in Japan

Did you know that HipHop and Reggae are really popular in Japan? I didn't until I came here. Clubs here play a lot of Hiphop, R'nB and there's quite a few laid back bars.

In Fukuoka one of the popular places for HipHop is "Sam&Dave's" which is really packed with people both on Friday and Saturday evening. The music played is quite mainstream American hiphop, but it's nevertheless a fun place to be. They often organize special events too. One was the recent "bikini night". The guys from school of course wanted to go there absolutely. A lot of women were actually wearing bikinis, but you couldn't see them. They simply took off their shirts to get in for a lower price and receive extra drink vouchers and then put their shirts back on... There are also some dancing contests and there are some guys who're really good. For the more exhibitionist ones there is a big mirror to dance in front. It's transparent from the other side and behind is the men's toilet!

The other very popular joint is "The Happy Cock". Yesss, the animal - what did you think?! Hehe, remember Alex asking some US marines whether they had ever been to "the Happy Cock" or "The Darkroom" :-). The "Happy Cock" plays music similar to "Sam&Dave's", but has two advantages: cheap all-you-can-drink offers (20 CHF a night) and a decent aircon so it's not that boiling hot inside.

There are some other cool places to go out in Fukuoka. For dinner I would say that "Alohana" and "Fasika" are some of the nicest restaurants. "Alohana" is a Japanese-Hawaiian restaurant with a beautiful interior and delicious food. "Fasika" is a recently opened Ethipian restaurant which is really nicely decorated too and food is interestingly new and tastes good. For an evening drink at the beach, go to Mamma Mia on Momochi beach. Great sunset, reggae music, cute waiters and decent Italian food and fresh fruit juice. For a classy, but slightly pricey drink on a beautiful rooftop, go to "La Bohème". "The Darkroom" features another rooftop terrace and you can play table soccer and pool. "Morris" and "The Three Kings" are traditional British pubs with a happy hour from 5 to 7 and good pub fare if you get hungry. The pizza at Morris is actually better than in most "italian" restaurants in Fukuoka. Another cool and very stylish place is the "Tatoo Bar" with chandeliers everywhere.

See last picture for proof that the Japanese are not always polite...

Life is a beach

One of the cool things about Fukuoka is that it features a nice beach. It's looking a bit "Italian riviera" which is funny, but also offers some relaxed Jamaican style beach bars, so pretty cool mix.

It's about 6 subway stops from school, so ideally located to do some afternoon studies in a nice environment or play some beach volleyball or go for a swim to relax. We often sit on the terrace of either "Mamma mia" or the other beach restaurant and study, slurping iced coffee with some reggae music in the background. We had some bad luck with the weather lately unfortunately and had to flee inside, go outside as soon as the waiters had dried the seats, flee inside again when it started to rain again... From the terrace you can also observe the beach nicely. Crazy Borat-types wearing thongs, dogs dressed in life-saving jackets and other gadgets, girls staggering in their too high high heels, etc. Today we saw two guys and first said like "whooo", but then we saw their backs featuring the same large tatoo covering the entirety of their back. From what we heard they should be Yakuza then (Japanese mafia)... So there's always something interesting to see. Or to hear like the "church" bells from Marizon.

One beach is reserved for jetskiing and beach volleyball. The weekend before last a beachvolleyball tournament was held on Momochi. We had played with a group from school before, but we were really quite bad. The guys from school clearly had an advantage in terms of height, and that should be a big one in volleyball. But the Japanese guys were just playing much better and we totally sucked.

A really popular thing to slurp is sirup ice here. It's eaten instead of icecream and consists of crushed ice which is poured different types of sirup over. There are also two nice little shop selling beach wear, flipflops and so on. Really feels like holidays going to Momochi...

Serious business

Episode from this morning...
Lucille and me sat in the Starbucks near school this morning before class to have breakfast and do some pre-lesson studying. We often do that, it's a good way to start your day, although it's unfortunately benefitting the evil empire of Starbucks :)
This morning there was a special attraction. Next to school there is a beauty and spa salon where hip young guys with colored hair work. To match the hip look of the place and the employees, they held their morning team meeting at Starbucks. So imagine, entering Starbucks you saw this table with about 10 young guys in very colorful Hawaiian shirts, hair dyed in all shades from blonde to reddish brown and cut in one of these fashionable J-Pop styles, white trousers, tanned and a latte in front of them. You would somehow imagine the atmosphere to be quite relaxed and informal, maybe even a slightly chaotic touch that often comes with young, hip companies (I've used to work for one of these...).
But NO! The whole group looked like they were attending a funeral - and that is really an achievement if you are dressed and styled like that. But they sat completely upright and very stiff, with the most serious faces possible and were listening to their boss in complete silence. That guy explained to them how they should greet customers and make them feel comfortable and things like that. There was no discussion, no questions, no reaction whatsoever, just complete concentration on what the big boss said... They surely don't realize, but for us this was highly entertaining...

Japanese karaoke song

I finally tried it... Two Japanese karaoke songs, I sang together with Kathrin. I went ok I think. Maybe due to the fact that I had a) heard these songs several times before b) the texts are rather simple and repetitive, but I would also like to think that it is c) due to my improved kana reading skills...

Whichever the best explanation may be, karaoke was again fun. This time we were extremely many students at the party and we had to rent two rooms. Not everybody dared to sing however, so we still got the mike a few times. One of the new students was a bit annoying though. He took the mike all the time and was singing so completely wrong and obviously didn't know the songs. Don't know whether he was just really really drunk already or just crazy.

Check out the Japanese songs we sang on Youtube:

"Linda, Linda" by the Blue Hearts:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=kACmuAREEf8

Sounds a bit like a Japanese brother band of "Die Ärzte", doesn't it? Funny enough to sing, especially screaming the refrain. Sounds more like "rinda rinda" though, the letter "L" does not exist in Japanese.

"Daite señorita" by Yamapi:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=e0rN64gRPj8

Eeehm, Japanese version of Ricky Martin?! Although he's kinda cute, I am not convinced that he's a good dancer. This does look more funny than anything...

The cat café

We discovered a funny place here in Fukuoka. It's the "Neko Café" = Cat café. It's a place where you can go and play with cats. You pay an entrance fee and then play with the cats they have. We wanted to go there, but thought that 1600 Yen is a bit pricey just to play with cats. The guys we asked for directions looked at us as if we were a bit strange, but showed us the way. Maybe this is even a bit eccentric here. But nevertheless cute, don't you think? You don't have your own cat for whatever reason (small apartment, no time, etc.) but still like them a lot. So you just get your appointment at neko café and have your opportunity to cuddle and play with them.

Pottery class

In addition to the language I took culture classes last week. On Wednesday we were scheduled to learn about Japanese pottery. Remembering the bad experiences from secondary school I was already in doubt whether I would be excelling. I think my mother still has some of these ugly products that I made in pottery class back then and they clearly show that I've always lacked talent in that area.

Well, half of the class had already had pottery class before, so they started off with a half finished product. We, the beginners got a piece of clay and had to start from scratch. First press it onto the turning table, mold it and extend the side part. Then add an additional layer of clay on top and make it smooth again. It sounds simple, but I was right, I am still lacking talent. The pottery teacher had to intervene quite a few times to save my tea cup. But it was really fun actually!

"Fairlyland" and "Virgin Grave"

Japanese products often feature English labels. Well, let's say somewhat English labels. It seems that English sells well, but the marketing gurus are not very proficient in the language and often unaware of the message that the product description gives. Here are two really funny examples:

• Text on Cake from am/pm: "Darling sweets might take you to a fairlyland" - What is a fairlyland?! I guess it is meant to say fairyland. So this cake is really cool... Are they meaning to say it's some space cake?! I thought use of marihuana is quite severely punished in Japan, so I'm surprised they sell it at the konbini ;-)
  
• Underwear and stockings label: "Virgin grave". Hmmm, does that mean that you will die as a virgin if you wear this underwear? Not sure whether that is clever promotion :-)

Another funny one are the cleaning staff at GenkiJACS. They wear t-shirts that read: "Clean Staff". That's a bit too much personal information, isn't it? After all it's more relevant is "to clean" than "to be clean".

Intervention

The school has obviously reacted to the behaviour certain teachers showed lately when going out with students and has issued new guidelines for behaviour that is expected. It has been in the work contracts before however.
I think that this sort of behaviour can be really bad for the school's reputation. And that's a pity because GenkiJACS is a cool place and studying there is really enjoyable. Of course we the students were more amused by it than anything and there was a lot of talk about it. But in the end it's unprofessional behaviour and will hurt the school's reputation in the end. Especially parents could become a hesitant to send their kids here and if they learn things like their daughter has made out with a teacher they might try to seriously damage the school's reputation through the agents, media, etc.
And people will not shut up about this, so you can not keep it in the closet. A prospective students who had read my blog asked about the school in general and I replied that I hope this stuff does not put him off coming here because the school's got excellent quality and classes are both fun and productive. He replied that he had already heard these stories on an internet forum, so it was not new.
I think it's good and necessary that GenkiJACS is now reenforcing these rules. It has become too "normal" to be extremely flirty with students or even make out with them as I've seen in one case. I know that that kind of things happen in other schools too and no school can guarantee that it won't happen, it's just that people involved always know that it's not ok and are not making it public.
I will remove names of teachers from the blog. One of them has already seen this blog and apologized, although this is not necessary as it does not affect my own well-being. I don't want to put people on the spot however and I guess the meeting that our school director held should have been quite a warning.

Funny mistakes

Hm, I keep on making some funny mistakes and misunderstanding words completely (see the recent "therefore I go to England" example). Today I had the following two misunderstandings:

• Miyuki sensei said: "...tomodachi ga au..." = to meet my friends. I understood "tomodachi ga ao" and ao means "blue" (as opposed to au = meet). I was a bit confused and asked why the friends were "blue"...


• Later Miyuki made an example that said because she had no "jikan" (time) she took a taxi. "Jikan" sounds very much the same to me as "chikan" which means "molester". So I undertstood that she took a taxi because there was no molester. Didn't seem logic to me, so I asked about it. And for the second time I was the laughing stock of the class...

Yes, Japanese has its traps. But maybe I'm just a bit stupid and I really was tired and still a bit sickish today. Let's hope I can be less of a dummy in the future...

Sushi wonderland

I know that many of you back home love sushi (except for my mum probably everyone). And we all know that we spend a fortune when we have sushi at Noohn, Sakura or any of the other sushi bars in town. Usually a sushi dinner would cost around 40 CHF.

Japan is really sushi wonderland, which is not surprising since it's orginating here. Super fresh and many more types of sushi than we have back home. But I'm actually surprised how cheap it is, considering that Japan is said to be really expensive (which I generally haven't found it to be so far). The cheapest way to have sushi is buy maki rolls from a convenience store like am/pm. A roll costs a little more than 100 Yen (~1 CHF) and is probably around 12 cm long, so quite big. You also get a selection of different sushi rolls on a plate for about 300-400 Yen (3-4 CHF).

Then there is the luxury take away version from Iwataya, Japan's equivalent of Globus. The most delicious sushi plates at a slightly steeper price, but still less than half the price of the Swiss take away sushi. See picture... The sushi is super fresh also, you can see the time when it's done on the label. Yummy!

And then there are sushi bars of course. I have found a really nice and cheap one, the "sushi train" kind of place. Delicious assortment of various types of sushi that usually cost 120-300 Yen per plate. For a lunch I would typically spend around 700-1000 Yen (7-10 CHF). Isn't that cool, to have super fresh delicious sushi for the price of a canteen lunch?

I'll be spoilt for Swiss sushi forever...

Karoke advanced

Well, since the last karaoke I've been on a couple more karaoke nights and I'm really enjoying it... Kathrin and me actually thought about opening a karaoke bar somewhere in Southern Germany or Basel when we go back, because it's a currently a unsatisfied need back home and we actually think there IS a market for it. People may have their playstation and "Singstar", but that really isn't a substitute for a real karaoke night.

I have gotten more courageous since the first karaoke night and do not wait with signing up till the last minute and then "hide" on the toilet instead of singing :) Apart from the big school karaoke night we have also rented a karaoke room with fewer people and each one of us got to sing a lot. We didn't really care whether we knew the songs well enough to give a great performance either. It's really more about having fun singing than singing well. After all we're not trying to audition for one of these casting shows (and still sing better than some candidates.

One of the highlights of the last karaoke night were Axelle (France) and Chris (US) singing "My humps" by the Black Eyed Peas while Chris sang the female part and Axelle the male one. Chris also excelled at 50 Cents "Candy Shop"... And we found out that it's quite an achievement to sing Destiny Child's "Survivor" without collapsing of breath shortage (and WE did not have to dance as well). Kathrin and me even found a German song to perform, "99 Luftballons" by Nena. It was the only one available to us and it's not the best representation of German speaking artists we think...

The really daring and those who can read hiragana and katakana fast enough (I'm not one of them yet) would go for Japanese songs. Some of these sound pretty horrible, but are probably fun to sing. Check out this really popular one by Utada Hikaru on Youtube:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=2U0myXslSng

Enjoy some sugary J-Pop with an pretty kitsch video!

Missing 1st of August? No!

1st August, our National Holiday - would I have missed it being so far away from Switzerland? I have to tell you - NO! Fukuoka awaited me with a party that at least matched our 1st of August fireworks and celebrations.

On Friday evening there was a 1.5 hour firework at Ohori Koen, the city's big park right next to my dorm. Traditionally you wear a yukata (light summer kimono) for this event, so I decided to buy one (see previous post). As I had no clue how to put it on, especially the obi (belt), I got dressed at the shop where I bought the yukata. Like a princess in the middle age ;-). I basically just stood there holding out my arms and the shop assistant put it on and pulled the obi tight and made a beautful knot in the back. My yukata is light blue with purple flowers and a purple/yellow obi. Of course it does have the typical wide "Lord-of-the Rings"-type of sleeves. With it I wore Geta, the traditional Japanese shoes (sort of a flipflop) and a kitsch little flower thingy in my hair. I felt a bit strange walking back to the school in that though, it felt a bit like dress-up. Also the Geta were really uncomfortable and the yukata tightly wrapped, so I could only walk in tiny little steps.

GenkiJACS also provided a few yukatas to students, so there were more of us getting dressed up. Everybody looked really nice in it. We then walked to Ohori Koen together.

There were masses of people at Ohori Koen. I had read somewhere that the hanabi (fireworks) usually attracted about half a million of people. Ohori Koen was indeed very crowded, there were police men trying to bring some order into it, stalls with foods and drinks and a lot of people dressed up in yukatas. The fireworks were quite nice. Interestingly it weren't the large and impressive crackers that seemed to be the most popular. It was rather the cute smiley faces and heart shapes that made the people go oooh and aaah. This seems kind of logic if you see the Japanese's preference for cute things. Back home these would certainly not impress people much.

I needed to quickly go to my dorm to change shoes after. I could barely feel my feet anymore and was really uncomfortable in the Geta. So I changed to my more comfortable Clarks ballerina which still looked nice with the yukata. We went back to school and then headed for ramen and gyoza with two Japanese friends.

Later we joined the big international party at "La Bohème", organized by "Fukuoka Now", the region's English magazine. The place was really nice with a library-like sofa corner and a big rooftop terrace. Those dressed in a yukata got additional free drinks at the party, so good for me.

I talked to quite a few Japanese people throughout the night and had so much fun (well, my GenkiJ friends complained about me being away all the time). Again I had to notice that Japanese people are not all that stiff and unapproachable as people like to think in Europe. I got chatted up and introduced to more people easily and people were really cool. The only downside to the party were the Djs. There were three of them, but somehow they still didn't manage to permantly play something and there were a few awkward breaks in between.

Sun protection

How popular are suntans in Japan? Well, from what I see they're not at all.
You might see the odd surfer (-girl) on the beach who is deeply tanned and proudly showing it off. Otherwise white skin seems to be the desirable thing here. You see a vast assortment of whitening lotions at drugstores. Malls sell elbow length sunprotection gloves and leg"warmers". And women all either wear a big sunhat or carry an elegant sun umbrella. Malls sell these in all kinds of fabrics, colors, sizes and price ranges. It's much harder to find umbrellas against rain actually.

I decided to go with the trend, although I'm not opposed to having a little tan. As I would inevitably loose the umbrella given the first opportunity and since I consider these a bit ridiculous, I went for the hat. There are tons of beautiful hats on sale. Found mine in a small shop in Daymio quarter and I really think I picked a nice "kawaii" (cute) one. Don't you think so?

Feels like primary school

Can you remember the times when you couldn't read and write? Probably it's hard to imagine not to be able to do so. I'm back to that...

Japanese uses three different types of scripts: Hiragana and Katakana, two syllable scripts and Kanji, the Chinese signs. I have learned Hiragana and Katakana which are a limited number of characters, but it still takes quite some time and effort to get them into your head and become fluent. I have written endless rows of both Hiragana and Katakana. It's an oldfashioned and very boring method, but I don't know anything better. So I guess it's necessary to do it.

Now that I am a proud Hiragana and Katakana "master" (well, I can't do Japanese songs at karaoke yet because it's too fast), I need to start tackling the kanji. These are far more complicated and usually made up of way more strokes. And there are endless numbers of them. You should learn about 1900 to be able to fluently read Japanese. That's an awful lot!

It's really frustrating when you go to bookshops and can't read a thing. The texts are always written in a mix of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. All nouns are usually written in Kanji, except for words with a foreign origin (-> Katakana) and flexions, particles, verb conjugations and alike (-> Hiragana).

The reason why they do not simply use the much easier Hiragana and Katakana only is that the Japanese language has a limited set of sounds at hands only. Many words have various meanings, but are written (in Hiragana) and pronounced the same way. You could sometimes guess from the context which meaning is applicable for a particular case, but it could often be confusing. The kanji have one clear meaning, so it helps clarifying which expression is really meant.

As a courtesy to foreigners (I guess?) there exist certain publications that use only hiragana and katakana, like the "Hirag@ana Times. I bought it to practise a bit and might be able to understand a few things, that would be a cheer up.

My first Yukata

I bought a beautiful yukata (summer kimono) today. On Friday there is a huge party with 1.5 hours of fireworks at Ohori Koen in Fukuoka. So right around the corner from where I live. Plus it's August 1st, so our Swiss national holiday and it's cool to see some fireworks here too. Reduces homesickness (if I had any)...

For this festival you are expected to dress in a traditional Japanese dress. The school has some yukatas they rent out, but I wanted to have my own and a really nice one.

So I went shopping after school. I found a really lovely light blue yukata with flowers on it, a matching obi and geta, the wooden "flipflops and a undergarment. The price included a fitting - or dressing rather. So I will go there on Friday to be dressed up. I'm not sure I'd manage otherwise, especially getting the right knot into the obi would be tricky.

I never thought I had fat feet, but trying on the geta I started thinking I have... They are really really tight and I had to squash in my feet. But I will wear them!

Gaijins on Japanese TV

As announced below, me and a couple of other GenkiJACS students signed up to be on a Japanese cooking show on tv. The idea was to do "cooking olympics" where people from several countries would be competing against each other. Holland, France, the US, Turkey, China, Japan and Switzerland were represented.

The whole thing was filmed in a tiny apartment near the school. It was really small, crammed with stuff (but not chairs...) and very hot. It started off really good, because the fire alarm went off in the building. It was obviously just a test to see that the inhabitants would react the right way. We just went on the terrace and waved down to the guard, which was probably not appreciated.

The guys from tv didn't speak English (of course) and we were glad that Kim-sensei, the culture teacher was there with us. We were expected to first strike a couple of silly "fighting" poses and scream "ganbarimasu" = "I will do my best".

Lucas from Holland was the first to cook his dish. He did a pretty complicated dish with meat and asparagus which looked delicious. Next on were Lucille and Axelle who made a French desert called Clafoutis, a pie with cherries inside. Then Atilla prepared Turkish mezze which looked delicious and watching him you could tell he was used to cooking, looked very professional.

In between the candidates had to answer a couple of question on who you were, how long you stayed in Japan and why, what your favourite dish was and which dish you like least and so on. Luckily Kim-sensei was there to assist... We had prepared some cooking related phrases however to be able to comment a bit. We were not really asked to do that however. Lucille and Lucas were the most advanced students, they are both majoring in Japanese back home. The rest of us was a bit lost.

Then it was Chris' turn. He's a 17-year old American who has never ever cooked before in his life. We all thought it's slightly stupid to get your very first cooking experience on tv, but it's also kind of brave. It turned out to be the most hilarious performance ever... It was sooo obvious that he had no clue what he was doing - and despite the fact that hamburgers are not that hard to prepare. First task was to prepare the meat. We had instructed him to mix it with eggs and enough flour to keep it together (he had no idea what to mix the meat with). He put everything in a bowl and started stiring it with a tiny tea spoon. That looked really ridiculous, even more his scared expression. The two women commenting already started to laugh very hard. We tried to tell him with sign language that he should start using his hands to mix and form the meat. Then he put the meat into the pan and at the same time the buns into the toaster. He supervised the meat closely, but forgot about the buns - which of course resulted in completely burnt buns. This and his shocked expression when he took them out made the tv team crack up completely. More troubles followed - he had taken the cheese out of the fridge too early and it had started to melt in the heat. So he had to scratch it off the plastic with a knife and used a big butcher knife to do it and then paste it onto the meat. Everybody was laughing so hard and the team filmed me and Axelle laughing - they will probably cut that together somehow...

Chris was just THE perfect candidate for the show. We really assumed that they were not only looking for foreign recipes, but more so for gaijin behaving stupidly. And Chris met the brief perfectly and was being so funny. And guess what, today, only one day later they called the school to ask whether Chris wanted to appear on another tv show. He could be really "big in Japan", Japanese tv seems so silly and he would be perfect for a funny show.

I was next and way more boring. I concentrated on the dish "Älplermagrone" (thanks to my sister for the idea and recipe). I think it turned out quite nicely, although the potatoes were cooked a bit too long and therefore crumbling apart. But overall it tasted really good.

Japan and China were last to prepare their dishes. The Japanese dish contained Natto (fermented beans) which most foreigners really hate. It's sticky, smells and tastes rather disgusting and is immensely popular with the Japanese, but probably no one else. The Chinese dish was simple, but looked good. The woman works in a Chinese restaurant after all.

The winners were Holland (1st), Turkey (2nd) and China (3rd). They didn't specify further, so I can still believe I was 4th :-) We then tasted all the dishes and chatted with the tv team as far as our Japanese language skills allowed it. In the end they wanted us to march in again to have a nice beginning sequence.

That was a fun day and really worthwhile doing. Even if we looked stupid no one back home will get to see it anyway...

All the girls love...

Is there a Japanese equivalent of Casanova? We start to think there is and he's working at our school...
I have mentionned before that quite a few of our teachers like to go out with students, get really drunk and reeeally flirty. Some also do it in class. Mention that they like handsome and sexy guys and blinking at students while saying it. Or asking you whether you think they're cute. But nevertheless, most are still sort of discreet.
There is a young male teacher at the school and he really does not hide how much he enjoys his job and its "fringe benefits"... During the three weeks I've been here I've seen him flirt with numerous students and publicly making out with two of them. One of these scenes was also caught on camera - the teacher and X making out at Sam&Dave's. The guy who took the picture suggested to him to print it out and hang it on the school's blackboard. He did get a little nervous then, probably he's not entirely sure that Evan, the school director, would appreciate that sort of student-teacher interaction...