下関

Hello!

I'm sorry! I know I have not been updating as regularly. I didn't have a very exciting last two weeks, but this month should be better! This coming weekend I have a game day in Fukuoka, the next weekend is my birthday (as well as Leah's) and we have a lot planned, and the third weekend is Korea for my friend's wedding!

Despite my lack of excitement, I did have a great day on Sunday! I met two of my friends, Dave and Fumiko, at the train station and we took the 15 minutes ride to 下関 (Shimonoseki). 下関 is a city located on the southern most tip of Honshu, the biggest island of Japan. 下関 is very famous for ふぐ (fugu, pufferfish) and there is a beautiful warf I had been to only twice before. the weather was perfect, although not at all what I normally experience on the second day in February. It was in in the 50's and the sun was peaking through clouds. We walked along the warf until we came to 唐戸市場 (karato ichiba), the fish market there. We walked around tasting different foods for a while. We eventually settled on a few different plates to split for lunch, including some giant sushi. We brought our food back outside and found a bench to sit and eat on next to the water. There were performers outside and we sat in between a band and a magician.

After having lunch, we grabbed some ice cream and found a nice spot to sit and overlook the water. A lot of people were fishing and we even saw a couple doing a wedding shoot by a small light house! We decided that although we were ready to head home, we didn't want to get back on the train just yet. So we caught a ferry over to 門司港 (Mojiko), the northern most point of Kyushu island where I live. Shimonoseki and Mojiko are very close and the ferry ride only took five minutes, but sitting on top of the small boat on such a nice day was a great way to travel.

We took a train back from Mojiko and did some shopping. We went to Kaldi, an imported food store, and a fish pet store. Dave has a fish tank and wanted some shrimp to put in it. The store was incredible! It had tons of different types of fish and even had a small sting ray! It had turtles and frogs and even a few non-fish pets including a hedgehog! It was really cool to look around and reminded me of being back at Hofstra and going to the fish stores with my friend Reid. We spent over an hour looking at everything in the store and had a lot of fun! We caught a bus back to Dave's apartment when we finished and made some dinner. All in all it was a great day!

Today, February 3rd, is 節分 (Setsubun), a bean throwing festival in Japan that is preparation for Spring. Beans are thrown out the door of your house. Sometimes fathers will dress up like an Oni, Japanese demon, and children will throw beans at him instead. People can also say, 「鬼は外! 福は内!」(Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!, Demons out! Luck in!)while throwing the beans. For school lunch today I had some roasted soy beans and was also given beans by some of my coworkers. Some of the beans were even coated in frosted sugar! The packages all these came in had cartoon Oni on them and some said 「鬼は外! 福は内!」. Traditionally roasted soy beans are used for tossing, but more recently peanuts still in their shell have been used since the beans are sometimes eaten after being thrown. I would rather have a peanut from the floor than a soybean from the floor!

Another thing going on now is the private high school entrance exams. This week my 三年生 (sannensei, third year students) are taking their High School Entrance Exams. In Japan, students don't go to high school by district like we do in America. Instead, they take a test during their last year of middle school and based on that test they are accepted or rejected from different high schools in the area. They are testing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This exam is for private high schools and they will take another test in March for the public high schools. I'm wishing all my students a lot of luck during their exams!