School has Begun

Classes in Kamogawa have just began, or at least for the school I will be teaching at. I was so excited to begin and start my journey of teaching. I knew I had to prepare a small speech for the school's opening ceremony, but I ended up indulging a little too much in my hedonistic side this weekend and didn't get to practice at all. It's okay because I would arrive at 8:00 and not need to present until after 9:00.... or so I thought. As I entered, I was informed that I would give my introduction around 9:30ish, but I also had to do an introduction in front of the entire staff right away! I gave a rather choppy introduction at that time and told myself, "you better practice that big speech a thousand times Brandon!". With the remaining time I practiced and gave my introduction in English and then in Japanese (which I was told surprised many students LOL). My Japanese is not very good, but I will be trying to improve it as much as I can! The rest of the day was basically a free day as I toured the school watching all of the kids practice their battle dance for the upcoming sports festival. The amount of hard work and dedication that these kids showed me was admirable. I wished they had something like this back in the states. The sports festival day was nearing and I couldn't be more excited!

 On Sunday I decided to try my hand at making Japanese style hamburg steak. It was a half success...although I learned a lot about how to prepare better next time. I thought I had to cook the patties fully before pouring sauce on top, however I missed the step where you allow the patties to simmer in the sauce for 10 minutes, thus finishing the cooking process. I ended up just dabbing them in the sauce for fear of overcooking. 

 Due to a tip I read online of adding tofu to the recipe, the meat stayed remarkably moist despite the lengthy cooking time. I was thoroughly impressed and had an all-kill game plan for the next hamburg escapade. 

 The next day I thought I'd try making yakisoba pan (pan is bread)! I was inspired by the combini yakisoba pan I ate from family mart that day and figured, Hey, I make yakisoba all the time, so this should be easy! Oh how wrong I was LOL. The downfall began with the bread, which said something along the lines of margarine and jam on the package. It looked rather plain so I purchased two of those bad boys. When I got home I was surprised to find that inside the bread was a fat line of jam and an even larger line of margarine... Although I read that on the package, I thought it was merely a suggestion of what to eat the bread with >_< The worst part was yet to come... the margarine and jam were easily excavated with a spoon, however the yakisoba pan had the structural integrity of a wet paper bag in a hailstorm... thus as I ate this wonderful bun, the Niagara Falls of yakisoba poured from every orifice in the bread. I remember at some point I got angry at the bread (yes, AT the bread) that I held the bottom with both of my palms and ate the bun like a monkey eats a banana. I had experienced devolution that night...

 Luckily the next day I was able to have my first experience of preparing okonomiyaki in Japan. This food is often coined as the pizza of Japan, only its probably 100x healthier. It consists of a light batter and heaps of cabbage with a crusted pork belly top.

 Now I couldn't leave this pizza naked, so I added the traditional okonomiyaki toppings of: okonomi sauce ( a tangy brown delicacy), kewpie mayonnaise (accept no others!), shaved bonito flakes (they wave in the heat of the okonomiyaki, signalling that its ready to eat), and a brisk shake of aonori (delicious flecks of seaweed). Quite the sight and equally quite the feast. Start to stop time on making these puppies including prep, probably 15 minutes!

When I arrived to work, I was greeted with the Kamogawa newspaper (I showed the picture only previously) and it was a nice little reminder that I was here to do something great for the kids in Kamogawa and I couldn't be happier to do so~!