thinlizzy2

I'm a sushi purist. Uni, belly tuna or a nice slice of eel on rice, a little nori belt and some wasabi and soy sauce are all that are required to make me happy.

So when a "gourmet" sushi place opened up in our town (Western owners!!!) and my curious friends wanted to try it, I was all gleefully prepared to get my snob on.

But philedephia citrus rolls (seared salmon, cream cheese, manadarin oranges) are shockingly delicious. So are the summer rolls, which are crab and cucumber wrapped in a thin slice of avocado and topped with a bit of strawberry. And the DESSERT SUSHI (fruit pieces wrapped in a layer of dark or white chocolate with a sweet-milk dipping sauce) might just be what my life has been missing up to this point.

I was wrong and I can admit it! And now I'm going to eat the entire thai duck handroll that I brought back for Masashi because if he doesn't know about it he can't miss it.

Animal Refuge Kansai is a wonderful nonprofit animal charity, that takes in and cares for lost, abandoned or otherwise homeless animals.
Check them out here:

http://www.arkbark.net/?q=en/

They do wonderful work.

The thing is, they've had to take in hundreds of animals after the disaster in March. Animals who were lost or abandoned, animals that had to be surrendered after their owners lost their homes, animals whose owners passed away, etc. In addition to this, the number of animals coming to them for reasons other than the disaster has not decreased, so their workload has increased significantly.

They are not currently adopting out animals that were lost in the disaster; they are looking for their owners and hoping to reunite them. They've had some successes here; just recently two dogs (Choco and Nami) and a cat (Kotaro) had their owners found and have gone back to their loving families.

But there are loads of animals that they CAN adopt out right now, and this would free up space and resources for the animals from the disaster. So if you know anyone in Japan looking to give a home to a dog like White (pictured) or maybe a cat, rabbit, hamster or other animal, please encourage them to contact Animal Refuge Kansai. In adopting one animal, they will make life better for many others as well.




I want to stress that these animals are not currently at risk. They are in a safe place; Animal Refuge Kansai operates no-kill shelters and healthy animals will not be put down. They just deserve forever homes.

Spread the word!

ETA: I've decided it's best to end this kind of post on a positive, happy note, so here's a picture of a little beauty who was recently adopted from ARK:

I taught my Junior High school boys yesterday, and they're very different from the kindy kids. For the most part I really like them, even though they can be a bit much.

One of the boys is really into American media, and he always tried to talk to me about it. But he's got very limited English, so he'll just say something like "Michael Jackson" or "Prison Break" or "Green Hornet" and then wait for me to take him up on that. Since I don't care at all about any of those things, there's not a lot I can say besides, "Oh. Good pronunication."

But yesterday, when I told him his spelling test was "Super", he offered up, "Supernatural". I must have started grinning like an idiot, because he beamed at me and said, "Sam and Dean". Then, I actually got a full sentence from him: "I... like... Dean."

This kid is SO getting an A! I had to restrain myself from going into full fangirl mode and asking who he ships!

Speaking of shipping, kettle_o_fish and I have decided that the offical ship name for Gabe/Balthazar shall be "Babe". Please inform the interwebs.

We have a new PE teacher at work.

The PE teachers don't actual work for the kindergartens here. They're contracted through a private agency and they come to the school twice a week to lead sports programs. This one seems very nice, except...

How can I put this?

He's so very LURCH!!!

You know Lurch? The creepy Frankenstein butler from the Addams Family? THAT'S THIS GUY!!!

He has a weird squarish head and really thick eyebrows and he's at least 6'5". Because he's so much taller than the average Japanese guy, his suit jacket is way too small and contricts him so he moves really stiffly. And he's totally embarrassed to talk to me; one of the other teachers told me he said I was the first foreigner he's ever seen. So he very nicely made me a cup of tea today, and just gave this low, shy grunt when he gave it to me and OMG COMPLETE LURCH LURCH LURCH!!!

I am not mentally capable of handling this. Seriously, I'm just not strong enough. I've been humming the Addams Family theme song all day and cracking up whenever he walks (lurches) by.

I really really wanna go find a tall pale woman with long dark hair and a spry little guy with a carefully groomed mustache and find reasons to make them all stand close together now.

I've made a few of the classic language learner blunders in my time in Japan. A few highlights:

-Telling a mother her newborn baby was kowai (scary) instead of kawaii (cute). To make matters worse, the baby had a cleft palate.

-Calling a room full of children kudamono (fruit) instead of kodomodachi (children). Made worse by the fact that an hour later at lunch I told them I was eating ningen soup (man soup, or, in popular slang, semen) instead of ninjin (carrot) soup.

-Ordering oshiiko maki (urine sushi) instead of oshinko maki (pickled radish sushi).

-Asking if a cake was filled with eunko (shit) instead and anko (red bean paste). This was compounded by the fact that while I was searching for the right (wrong) word for bean paste, I desperately told the bakery guy that what I wanted was chaairo (brown) and oishii (delicious).

But today I added yet another winner to the bunch. When offered some squid jerky (which I loathe) I turned it down by saying, "opai desu".

IPAI desu means I'm full. OPAI desu means I'm a breast.

Yup, not gonna live this one down for a while!

Today was (thank Chuck) the last of our three winter concerts at the kindie. The kids did beautifully despite the fact that our boss has officially lost the plot and needs to lie down for a very long time. I'm proud of them!

As always, making small talk with the parents was a bit awkward. They're a bit uncomfortable with foreigners as a general rule, and although some of them are really friendly, most of them are very nervous about talking to me. This is especially true of the fathers; they lose a lot of face if they make a mistake with English in front of me and they usually don't risk it. They just clam up.

But one of my favourite kiddies came over to give me a hug at the end of the show, and I told her dad, "I just love her." His whole face lit up like he'd just discovered we were long lost twins; he grabbed my hand and enthused, "Oh, me too! She's my favourite person!"

How cute is THAT?!?

I love my adopted country, but there are some things I genuinely don't understand. I've compiled a list of the funniest stuff I've noticed in the last week, and am sharing it here cuz I'm bored and such. Please enjoy!

1) There is a tradition of sending glossy, embossed cards to your friends and family on New Year's. No problem there. But my friend is opting not to do it this year. Again, no problem. But she let us know this by sending GLOSSY, EMBOSSED, I'M-NOT-SENDING-CARDS CARDS to everyone she'd normally send a new year's card to!!! Does this not defeat the purpose of eschewing the whole glossy, embossed cards thing???

2) The guy at the immigration office, whose main job is dealing with foreigners, does not speak one word of English or any language besides Japanese. The lady who sold me shoes today in a tiny shoeshop where I am the only foreigner who every comes in is fluent in English, Korean and Russian. Would it be really inappropriate to suggest a job-swap?

3) They are making Rilakkuma condoms. For those who don't know, Rilakkuma is an adorable little cartoon bear who hangs out on pencil cases and posters having little birthday parties and eating cookies with his other bear friends. It's nauseatingly cute and very G-rated. He now has a condom brand. The picture on the front of the two bears trying to open the condom packer with their big fuzzy-wuzzy paws is hysterical!

4) I just noticed that the teasppons I bought today have the words "sheep poon" engraved in English on the handles. They have nothing to do with either sheep or vaginas. I'm very confused by this.