No Money, Mexican Fiesta

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Regarding the running out of money business: the last time I successfully used my debit card was buying a ticket back from Himeji temple. Unfortunately, after that, I couldn't seem to find it. I shifted all my assets out of the bank account to which it was attached, and then waited to either find it or for someone to use it. I wanted to get a new card as soon as possible, but I'm very prone to losing things, so I didn't want to cancel it too quickly. It'd be much easier to find it than to cancel it, wait a month for a new one, but discover it in the intervening time. Eventually, however, I had to face the facts that I had a) no money, b) no way to get more money. I spent a good 15 minutes explaining the concept of "cash-back" to a convenience store employee, trying to get some sort of usefulness out of my remaining VISA card, but ultimately discovering that they couldn't do that. So I gave up and canceled it with my bank (which, incidentally, was a huge hassle because I couldn't pay the international long-distance phone bill to the VISA people, and the 800 number only works in the continental US), but I still don't know if they are sending me a new one yet. So I got a loan from the center, have been minimizing spending, and biking a lot. Furthermore, in my bank's overzealous effort to minimize liability, it canceled all the cards I held through them. Meaning that my one remaining method of payment, my VISA card, was rendered useless. Overall, not having money in this country is crippling.

On Thursday, we had an amazing Fiesta. Yes, a true Fiesta worthy of a capital letter. After two and half months of no Mexican food, it was communally decided that this state of affairs should continue no more. So, Lisa-san acquired 18 avocadoes for us, and a whole host of cooks prepared a feast. Meanwhile, the brilliant ME majors engineered for us an armadillo pinata, and a trip to a hyaku-en store ($1 store) acquired the necessary decorations. After several hours of cooking, we had two massive tubs of guacamole, ALL of the necessary requirements for burritos (I miss cheese so much ... they simply don't do milk products here), a festive atmosphere, and an amazing orange frilled armadillo waiting to be demolished. Lacking a proper beating club, we made use of a traditional Japanese Kendo sword for our whappin' stick.

Come party time, a large number of our Japanese friends came out to enjoy the food and our company. Most had never had Mexican food before, ever: Japan doesn't have a lot of international ethnic restaurants, it seems. So we explained the process of burrito construction to them, explained our signs (written in Spanish for authenticity, if not for readability, and then poorly translated into Japanese), and made sure everyone was okay with the spiciness. The Japanese also don't have a lot of spicy food, either. The food was wonderful, filling, and delightfully in surplus. It'd been a while since I'd eaten until I simply couldn't eat anymore, and had forgotten that guacamole, salsa, and cheese salsa are approximately equal to ambrosia in terms of taste.

Afterwards was the amazingly entertaining piñata. We explained the basics of a piñata (big thing, it hangs, you try and hit it), but left out some of the relevant particulars. The first girl seemed somewhat distressed when we blindfolded her, spun her around, and then asked her to attack it. Among the yelps of ABUNAI! , MEGI

, and HIDARI

, we had quite an entertaining time. After we showed them how it was done with an American, we made all the Japanese students do it, much to our amusement. Unfortunately, we realized about halfway through we didn't explain the reason we were beating the crap out of this armadillo with a big stick, and the whole idea of finding the candy inside seemed like quite a surprise when the armadillo was violently rendered.

Good times!

~Danny

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Photos

Shots
An amazing confluence of cultures: a Spanish drink imbibed by Americans to a Japanese toast. Good times.

The armadillo
Tommy (left) and Benji (right) show off the amazing pinata constructed from cardboard boxes and newspaper. It actually stands on its own, too (hey, they're mechanical engineering - it's well built).

Cooking
Lisa-san (background, facing camera) helps out by cooking delicious things. Lots of people help (hey, free food is involved).

Cooking
More cooking. Yi (EE TA) helps cook some of the tasty meat.

Food line
Yum, lots of burrito stuff. I had to take this picture standing on a chair to get it all in view.

Pinata time
Someone attempts to destroy the pinata. Note the Kendo stick, and how close the camera is to the person. If they decided to rotate around (after being inebriated, and then spun three times), they could easily whap the crap out of me. Hence the many "ABUNAI!"s.

Song time
Time for songs. Benji rocks the bass drum (big trash can), while other people help out with the hand drums (plastic jack-o-lanterns), and Stephen helps out with the shakers (soda bottle with gravel). Hieu brought his guitar and provides melody. I had my guitar too, but had a bike accident that morning, so my hands were cut up. And I hadn't practiced in a while, so I didn't play.

Comments

[AydinA]

Mmmm, Mexican
You lucky bastard, you got to eat a nice Mexican dinner without having to pay 2800Y for it. PS - when are you coming up to Tokyo? (hint, hint)

[Z]

Mo' Money
Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity. - Arnold Bennett (Enoch Arnold Bennett) Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle." -- Ken Hakuta