Second Place KACHI!!!

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Well, the big news is that my junior high school student, Emiko, finally had her English speech competition last weekend in Matsuyama, and WON SECOND PLACE!!! She was second best out of 36 students from all of Ehime prefecture! This means that she will now be going on to the national competition in Tokyo in November (on her birthday)! She is so excited because she has never been to Tokyo before and it will be a great way to spend her birthday. I am so proud of her and am glad that I actually made it down to Matsuyama that day to see it all. I was reluctant to go, since it meant getting up at 5:30am on a Sunday to catch the ferry in order to make the train to Matsuyama in time for the contest. But, it ended up being more than worth it. She did such a good job! AND her family was so happy that they took me out to eat after the contest was over to celebrate (and not to mention paid for my transportation back to Yuge which was great).

Also, last weekend, I went to a mandolin orchestra concert on a neighboring island with a couple of women from my mandolin group. I had never heard of a whole orchestra of mandolins before. Sure enough they have all different types of mandolins: regular mandolins, tennor mandolins, and the mandolin cello. It was a very interesting sound. The two women, Yasuko-san and Ryoko-san were so nice and took me to kaiden-zushi (conveyor belt sushi) after the concert.

Hm, another event from last week was my welcome party put on by all the wonderful people in my adult conversation class. We made a ridiculous amount of all vegetable sushi (which many Japanese people don't even believe is possible). It was a good thing it was all vegetarian because a lot of the Muslim students who attend the marine school here came too, and they can't eat meat either. They also can't drink alcohol (which I knew), but to my surprise they can't eat anything with alcohol in it. I never really cared to look, but it turns out that just about everything we eat has alcohol in it! They can't even eat soy sauce which is in just about everything in Japan because it contains alcohol. That must be rough. Even some candy that we had after dinner was off limits to them because it contained alcohol. The people at the super market here on Yuge must think all the foreigners (the Muslim Malaysians, Indonesians, Moroccans, and me) are crazy because we spend hours at the super market tediously translating all the ingredients to make sure we can eat it.

Anyway, the sushi party turned out to be a lot of fun. Conversation was interesting as just about everyone was from a different country and knew a combination of a few different languages.

It is also moon viewing season in Japan (Tsukimi). I never really understood why they designate a certain time of the year for moon viewing, since the moon can be seen all throughout the entire year. But, when the moon was full last weekend, it did seem to be more spectacular than usual. It was so bright that it made everything look like it was in the middle of a big spot light. The islands of kamijima glowed with a silvery tint, and the inland sea sparkled like silver glitter. Traditionally people eat mochi (mashed up rice balls) to celebrate the moon in October, but I think it was just as good without the mochi.

Next week I should have the details posted about the fall harvest festivals that are scheduled in my neighborhood for the next two weeks, so be sure to check back. Bye!

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Photos

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From left to right: the first prize winner whose speech was about how to improve your concentration (by staring at yellow paper, smelling chocolate, and stacking coins); my student, Emiko, the second place winner whose speech was about improving the nature of Yuge by making Effective Microorganism balls and throwing them into the sea; and the third place winner, whose speech was about sorting your garbage into different material types (they have to sort them into eight different types in Matsuyama!)

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Yasuko-san on the left and Ryoko-san on the right at kaiden-zushi. You can see the conveyor belt behind them and all the plates we were stacking up.

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Making sushi at my welcome party. The smiley lady in the front is Ogawa-san. She teaches an after-school English class for students on Yuge. Behind her, hard at work, is Misayo-san. She is my Yuge mom. Behind her are the marine school students from Malaysia (the only other people on this island who are my age!)

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Yassine, the Moroccan, checking for alcohol in this bottle.

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Emiko, my speech contest winner, stuffing her face with huge spoonfuls of natto. Natto is fermented soy beans, which most foreigners can't even stand to look at, and many Japanese people can't eat either. I'm okay with a small portion, but Emiko says it's her favorite food, and she eats it three times a day. Yum!

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The whole gang at the welcome party.

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Well, this was a difficult picture to take, and I couldn't get it to come out right, but you get the idea. This is looking at the full moon over Yuge island from Ikina island.