Oh Target, How We Yearn for Thee!
I say this because oddly enough, when you consider my current location, good old Target came up as a topic of discussion four or five times in a week–American teachers, Canadian teachers, Japanese students alike all exalt Target in its practical and yet tasteful glory. And my lament holds true–Kahma (the local affordable home-goods store) is great, but there isn’t that much you can do with it by way of home decorations. Very standard options for cushions, curtains, light fixtures, and the like. Standard and not really my style. But it is helpful for organizing and storage, and I still managed to spend a substantial sum there on my fourth weekend here (slightly contrary to my desire to keep the budget tight). Nothing was unnecessary, though, so I’m not too upset about it. I still made it through the week and got paid six days later. But getting my apartment even slightly close to the way I want it requires a craft store. Little to no luck on that front so far. There are art supplies in the expensive Bed&Bath type store (which, by the way, is ridiculous. There are six levels that sell all kinds of things, and each level has a separate register. You have to pay for your things from that floor at that register. But they let you carry stuff through all the different floors…what’s up with that?? AND!–and–on the first floor, there are several departments with separate registers. Why be one store if it’s all really not the same store?? Yes, this is the store I was so excited about earlier, called Loft. It’s still pretty cool, but come on!)
You can find a tidbit or two at the local hyaku-en store, but there’s no centralized arts and crafts materials store, as far as any of the Japanese staff at the school or I know. The closest I’ve gotten is a great art supply store in the Sakae subway-station-mall. Still, that’s not helping me with my apartment at all! I need fabrics, glues, random assortments of any kind of creative material imagineable! How I miss–not Target, but Michaels and Rag Shop and Joann Fabrics!
So that weekend cooking went pretty well. My boss and his wife didn’t end up showing, and other-new-teacher (aka teacher-no-japanese) caught up on sleep, so it was just administrator-girl-who-loves-to-cook-bake-and-eat and me in the kitchen, and then the same climbing family from lunch came over for dinner. Cooking was replete with (unwanted) escapades. I bent the vegan rule and bought a whole liter of milk to make paneer, and for some reason it simply would not curdle. I kept potato koftas with no tofu separately for other-new-teacher, who is a real baby about tofu and cottage cheese and eggs, but he never woke up and came. The naan dough took twice as long as it usually does to rise (what the hell, guys??) so I had to cook rice in the last minute while my guests waited. But it came out well in the end. Thank goodness for girl-who-loves-to-cook helping me! We made Aloo Paneer Kofta, by the way. I had bought tofu beforehand in case the paneer bombed, so we used that. I think it was too spicy for them. Afterwards we had the delicious chocolate raspberry ganache cake said-girl had made. I put the cake climbing-family brought in the fridge and ate it over the following two weeks. I had a wonderful time with their daughter. She’s adorable, and very clever. They wanted her to be confident and strong and named her accordingly, so her name means something to the effect of, “one who knows and pursues her intentions.” Pretty cool, huh?? They are very cool people. I haven’t heard from them since that day.
Another fast-paced week of work, then a night at Minoji’s with two other teachers. They talked about video games for about two thirds of the evening; thanks guys. Thanks. But it gave me a chance to tune them out and just take in the surroundings a bit. Aside from the stench of cigarette smoke, which is not considered an issue of any sort here for whatever absurd reason, it was quite nice. The following day I cleaned up the apartment a bit and then my friendly FAS (the one who took me to the doll exhibit) rushed me to the neighboring ward’s (Tenpaku-ku’s) Agricultural Center to see the plum blossoms before it closed. It’s a really cool place; like a huge co-op basically, with plots for community classes and growing experiments and a small market every weekend, and greenhouses with beautiful begonias of all kinds. I don’t know whether it can be called a green market, and I don’t know how the animals are handled. They milk the cows on the premises somewhere and sell ice cream. My student bought me some, and I wasn’t exactly about to go into a big lecture on my reservations about milk products at that point so I took it, and it was quite good. matcha. (green tea flavor). But I really loved the place. It made me so happy to be there, what with the interesting landscaping, the community market, and the presence of plants everywhere! I needed that so badly. This city, at least in our immediate surroundings, is completely devoid of vegetation or warm and comforting sights of any kind. I mean, there are pockets and oases but on the whole it’s quite depressing, especially with the semi-Brutalist architecture I was complaining about before. As for the ume-no-hana, they were pretty, but I missed them in their prime. I have to catch the sakura in bloom!!
From there she took me home and I met her husband. This is the man who picked up and moved out to Minnesota all by himself when he was sixteen years old, in the 1960s! We had a really fascinating conversation. They are too nice to me! They made me dinner and kept me for a while, and tried to call my parents’ house so I could talk to them!! Thankfully it was an ungodly hour in the States so I could tell them not to worry about it without being offensive, but really they are very forceful about doing things for you. (presumably because of the whole teacher thing, I don’t know). Then, after treating me to a drink and giving me presents, they took me back home. I tried to find out what kind of food they like so I could have them for dinner but they don’t seem very receptive to the idea, so it looks like I’ll have to do the bought-and-wrapped present deal. I don’t know when that would be. FAS tends to be slightly boastful and sometimes a little blunt but from what I’ve seen she’s friendly and genuinely kind to people, so I respect her warmth and forthright nature.
I was going to try and see the plum blossom festival in Tsukigase the next day (in Nara-ken) but a trip to Nara is a full day affair and I was too sleepy in the morning. Plus, the fact that the blooms at the agricultural center had all already wilted made me skeptical about hauling ass by multiple means of transit all the way to Tsukigase. I did make progress on the Lord of the Rings movies with no-japanese-teacher, though. Ah, well. I will make it out to Nara this spring or summer! I have longed to for far too long not to go.
And as I finally give up on finishing this entry properly and just post it already, my apartment is strewn with the dishes and leftovers of a dinner party for eighteen that went smashingly well. The two new teachers (Head Teacher and husband are moving back home in just a few weeks!! Unbelievable) have arrived and start training in two days, Spring just decided to begin precisely on the 21st of March (seriously, all of a sudden it was just beautiful weather. Bam. That’s it, get used to it for three months) and the sakura are in bloom going into next week!
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