Yakiniku

(PICTURE: Yeah, that's a lot of meat.)

I recently mentioned to someone that I had not eaten much meat in Japan. Between the abundance of fish and tofu, it seems that meat doesn't appear to often on my lunch of dinner plates. Sure there is usually some chicken or pork in soup but that doesn't compare to big hunking slabs of meat which we too often eat in America.

Well, after not eating much meat for a couple of months, I dived into a meat orgy at a Yakiniku restaurant. Yakiniku is the term for Japanese grilled meat. At the restaurant you can order individual plates of the meat you want or pay a little extra and get all-you-can-eat. It wasn't a hard decision. I believe we ate about a dozen or so different cuts/marinades of beef, chicken, pork and squid. Besides the meat there were also sides of vegetables, salads, noodles, rice, garlic, and even ice cream -- with the choice of a topping -- at the end.

I'm not a vegetarian by any means but the next morning I felt like how a life-long vegetarian must feel after taking a bite of a hamburger for the first time in decades. Lets just say I had a tad bit of stomach pain.

18 Months

The other day I was riding the bike at the gym and started to let my mind drift. I began to think about December 29th, when I would be landing back in Hanoi. I imagined being greeted by Huyen, right in the lobby where the two of us met the first time. I can vividly picture the giant smile that will be on Huyen's face. It will be the same smile I saw when I landed in Hanoi in August, and the same smile I've seen thousands of times over the last year and a half.

As I thought about hugging Huyen at the airport, I became conscious to the fact that I was sitting on a bike at the gym with a giant smile on my face. Anyone who saw me must have thought I was either crazy or checking out the girl who always wears daisy dukes on the treadmill.

I've said for a long time that I know Huyen is the one for me because whenever I see her I smile. When putting together this video -- yes, another cheesy video -- I found myself laughing every time I heard Huyen's laugh on my old video footage. Smiling because you see someone and laughing because you know they're happy, well, those are pretty amazing feelings.

Coincidence

How about this for a coincidence: One night Masumi mentioned to me that she and Kensuke have been sponsoring a child in Vietnam for a number of years. They have been sending money and gifts to a little girl through an organization called Plan. I was obviously interested and asked Masumi to show me information about the girl the next time I was at her house. Well, the other night I went over to Masumi and Kensuke's house for a home cooked meal and asked to see the letters they had from the little girl. Through the organization, the girl writes letters in Vietnamese and they are translated into English. I was looking at the letter when I saw a familiar name: Nguyen Huyen. Yes, the little girl has the SAME NAME (minus the middle name) of Huyen. This blew my mind. I mean, what are the odds that my friends in Japan would be sponsoring a girl with the same name as my girlfriend in Vietnam. I just think it is nuts. When I told Masumi and Kensuke about the coincidence, Kensuke had a great line: "Well, now we can always remember your girlfriend's name."

One person was not impressed by this coincidence -- my Huyen. I called Huyen after dinner and told her about the coincidence and Huyen says to me, "I told you Nguyen Huyen is a common name." Come on!!! It's not that common! I had never met another Nguyen Huyen during all my time in 'Nam.

Anyway, the little girl Nguyen Huyen lives pretty close to Hanoi. When I get back to Vietnam, I'm gonna plan a trip to her commune to bring her some presents. So stayed tuned in a few months for a blog update and a picture of Nguyen Huyen and Nguyen Huyen.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

From my travels around the world, I have learned that every country has their own hand gestures. The best example of how one thing could mean something good in one country and something terrible in another is crossing your fingers. In America, crossing your fingers is something people do for good luck. In Vietnam, crossing your fingers at someone is by far the rudest hand gesture one can make especially at a woman.

Three hand gestures that are universal though are those played in Rock, Paper, Scissors. I've found that everywhere I go, people know how to play this game. However, people in Japan play this game ALL THE TIME. Rock, Paper, Scissors in Japan is seemingly how every decision is made for non important decisions. I can't tell you how many times my students have played Janken (one of the official names for the game besides rochambeau) to decide who gets to do what in class.

I never thought there was much skill to this game but after being trounced by a few students, I'm starting to become a believer. After a little more time abroad, I met enter the USA Rock Paper Scissors League.

Cycling Trail

(PICTURE FLASHBACK: Jessica and Chi-Na in Beijing.)

A few weeks ago I had my first visitor. My friend Jessica -- who I had met in China while she was traveling with her friend/ahoy hanoi reader Chi-Na -- was doing a tour of Japan and swung by Koryama.

I had met Jessica at the Great Wall of China. For her visit, I took her on the slightly less famous great bike ride of Koryama. Along the local river here is a bike path called the Michinoku Cycling Trail. I had only ridden a little bit of the trail before Jessica's visit and decided she would be a great person to explore the rest with.

I borrowed Katie's bicycle for the weekend and Jessica and I headed out along the trail. After about fifteen minutes the trail leaves Koryama and begins to wind through the countryside. The reason I asked to be in a small city was so I could be around Japanese nature. Well, this trail had everything I could want: rice fields, orchards, a river, huge open areas, tree lined forests and even a little waterfall and shrine at the end.
(PICTURE: Jessica on the bike trail.)

(PICTURE: Me, Iain and Mikka.)

The trail was so good that I took Mikka and Iain on it the day after the fire festival.

My Student

On the way out of the fire festival, we passed a tent with some extremely energetic vendors who were pounding mochi. Mikka took out here camera to get some pictures and one of the vendors came up to her and Iain. I immediately recognized a familiar face -- my student.

I was really proud of my student because he was using English to talk to my friends. I stepped up and said hi and he absolutely lit up...and sold me a piece of grilled pork from his tent.

(PICTURE: Me and my student. Mikka took this great picture. My favorite part is the random girl trying to sneak into the shot at the end.)

Now I need to flash back into earlier in this night when I was talking about my students with Mikka and Iain. We were comparing our classes and I was saying how my students are extremely shy and introverted. As soon as we walked away from my student, Iain turns to me and says, "That was one of your shy students?"

On Monday my student came in and turned bright red. He was really embarrassed about seeing me and thought he had acted inappropriately by being so friendly. I smiled at my student and assured him that it was great seeing him and there was nothing to be embarrassed about. That said, every time he comes into class now he turns bright red.

Sukagawa Fire Festival

I recently had a fantastic weekend with my friends Mikka and Iain from Hanoi, who are also teaching in Japan through the same company I am. Mikka and Iain are living and working in Tokyo and decided to come out and visit me and the country side.

The three of us had met up my first weekend in Japan at our company conference. While at the conference we heard great things about the Sukagawa Fire Festival from my coworker Katie. Her sales pitch worked on us and we all decided to hit up the festival when it came around. Well, Katie done us well. The Sukagawa Fire Festival was freaking fantastic.

Kensuke and Masumi came along and explained to us that the festival was in honor of a King who had lost a battle on the same ground the festival was being held. Every year they light a castle and giant pilars of straw on fire to appease his spirit.

(PICTURE: Masumi and Kensuke watching the Fire Festival.)

When the fires began I started to take some pictures and quickly realized that any photo I took wouldn't look half as good as Mikka's. Mikka is an extremely talented photographer and was snapping away photos like she was the papparzi and the pillars were Brad Pitt. You can check out Mikka's photos on her blog: www.mikkarose.blogspot.com All of the pictures in this post were taken by Mikka.

Here is my favorite photo Mikka took that night. This fireman is epic:

Here's some pretty cool video from the night: