SALMON FESTIVAL

11 November 2006

Ricky, Veronica, Wade and I headed to Oirase-Cho Shimoda Park for the Salmon Festival. Felicia was involved in the rental of boots so when we reached, we went to the booth to visit her. Then we all had the famous "Chan Chan Yaki" for lunch. It's essentially grilled salmon and cabbage topped with red miso sauce. When it's cooked, just mix it all together and wala! Super delicious!!! Plus it was raining so hard that day (Look at the background of this pic!) so the hot meal was really suitable!
After lunch, we walked ard a little and soon it was time for the last salmon catch of the day. Since it was raining, I initially declined to catch the salmon in the pool... I don't wanna be dripping wet when I board the train home! AFter much persuasion fr Felicia and seeing that Wade was game for it, ohhh what the heck... It's just once in my lifetime that I will get a chance to catch a live salmon with my bare hands so let's just go for it!

Thus Ricky, Wade and I went into the water and begin our hunt while Veronica helped us carry our bags. Boy it wasn't easy to catch those slimy things! They kept wriggling out of my hands!!! It was also interesting to note that there were so many salmons in the pool that I tripped over some of them while wading in the water! At last I managed to catch one by holding on to it with my dear life!!! It's huge!!!!

People at a tent helped to get rid of the fish scales and chopped them up into smaller chunks. However these chunks were still really huge so I after I went home, I used my pathetic un-sharpened knife to chop them up into even smaller pieces. Then i chucked them into small plastic bags so that I can defrost a few pieces at a time when I need to use them for meals.

I thought this salmon must be really fresh as it was still alive when i caught it. Thus what can be better than eating salmon sashimi!? Had a few slices of raw salmon before my cellphone suddenly beeped. It was a messge from Felicia. It read "Don't eat the salmon raw as it is a river salmon". Thanks, it was alreay swimming in my stomach!!!

HOCKEY GAME

3rd November 2006

It's a public hol today (Culture Day) so I wanted to do something rather than stay at home and "nua"... Managed to ask Mandy out for boots shopping. In the end, I didn't manage to find suitable ones. Most were expensive & not practical at all. Ended up having lunch at a curry place on Route 45. It was good coz apart fr nice food, had a nice girly talk with Mandy, esp abt Jap dramas... This gal is drama-crazy!

In the afternoon. I recieved an invitation via cellphone email from Wade to watch a live hockey game with Russell and himself. It was a game between Daiichi JHS and Minato JHS. Russell teaches at Daiichi while Wade teaches at Minato. Upon hearing that we would bike all the way to the indoor ice-rink, I was really tempted to just give it a miss and stay at home. But on second thoughts, I've never watched a live ice-hockey game before... so was kinda interested to take a look.

And so after a gruelling 40mins or so, we reached Niida ice-rink on bike. I felt so hot & tired from biking... I would say I'm pretty comfortable with riding the bike now since I don't crash or lose control of my steering anymore (unlike few months ago!), but the Piado & Hach BOE is the furthest place that I've biked to so far. Well, at least I surivived this time!

We entered the rink and went to the spectators side. Now Russell and Wade were pressing me to say who's side i'm on, Daichi or Minato... I maintained that I'll be on the losing team's side. Heh, talk abt sitting on the fence! I saw some boys who looked familiar. Later I realised they are students from one of my schools, Choja JHS ! These boys are part of a team called Hachinohe United, consisting of players from various schools that do not have an ice-hockey team as there are too few members.

The game started and very soon, we could identify the star player of the game. The captain of Daiichi is amazingly skilled! Was very impressed by him inspite of his young age. The game was really exciting but according to the guys, this game is really mild coz apparently these Japanese ice-hockey players are not that rough, they don't slam their opponents into the wall... Canada's ice-hockey is very very much rougher... Nevertheless, I really enjoyed watching the game. I ended up supporting Daiichi and they won! Woo hoo!

HALLOWEEN

28^th October 2006

It was the annual HIRA’s Halloween event in Hach again. Never ever celebrated Halloween before back home so I really didn’t know what to expect of this event. Originally wanted to just wear an all-black outfit and cat’s eyes hairband on my head but luckily Q lent me her vampire costume in time. So yes, I dressed up as a vampire!

Went to the venue earlier to help set up the haunted house. It was real fun to see how some ALTs can transform so drastically into scary characters. Russell became a scary old woman, Claire was a pirate, Joel a hippie and Ricky a scarecrow! Soon loads of loads of children started streaming in… Many were dressed up too. Some as little witches, some as ghosts, some as bats etc. I was at the arts & crafts booth with Mandy and 2 helpful Japanese women. We taught children how to make little Jack O Lanterns and Bat clips. The few of us manning the booth were extremely busy coz many kids come to us before it was their turn to go on a “Trick or Treat” tour downtown.

I didn’t even have the time to go into the haunted house to see how scary it was… Well, judging from the constant screams fr the children, I guess the ALTs were pretty effective in their scary roles! Finally got to lead the last “Trick or Treat” tour of the day. Mandy, Erin and I led a group of children downtown and went into designated shops to say “Trick or Treat” and the shop assistants would give the children sweets in return. It was fun!