Thanksgiving

Monday 21^st November

As the temperature drops, so too does one’s sanity. Which makes sitting in a room with other people that are on the brink of losing it all the more important. During the winter when the frigid temperatures make you somewhat reluctant to leave your den of warmth, the Honjo guys get together once a week or so for a home cooked meal together. This week Dave, Adam and I bowled around to Liam’s place for a dinner of Chili and rice, washed down with chocolate,cookies and tea. Adam is ex peace core so we sat around googling the hicktown in Mongolia where he’d spent two years and listening to stories of drinking games which involved the local delicacy of fermented milk and copious amounts of vodka….

Wednesday 23^rd November – Labour Thanksgiving

Our cosy setup

Coming from a country that doesn’t celebrate thanksgiving it has always seemed quite a foreign (and very American) concept. However after spending the afternoon with a bunch of ALTs at Isabel’s place in Ikawa, ‘friendsgiving’ is something that may become an annual event.

Driving out of Konoura there were flecks of snow in the air, this only increased after leaving Honjo with Liam riding shot gun and slowed the journey somewhat as it was my first time driving in the snow and the gusts of white specked wind were somewhat disconcerting.

It was full Christmas mode at Cari and Josh’s house in the city, where the wind had died down and the snow was drifting down in large quantities – it was all very pretty standing outside in a November winter wonderland until Liam decided it would be a laugh to lock me out there. Fortunately growing with a younger sister has taught me that all this requires is banging on the door until they realise that you’re a lot more annoying outside than you are in.

Gives you an idea of how much snow there was

As we headed North to Ikawa the snow stuck more and we pulled up to Isabel’s on a carpet of white. Sitting in her lounge with the heater going, snow falling outside her window, mulled wine brewing on the stove and a crap tonne of food on the table, it felt incredibly Christmassy.

That night we headed back into the city to catch ‘Fantastic Beasts and where to find them’.

Saturday 26^th November

After a lazy Friday it was time to go and be sociable again. There was a thanksgiving event held at a community centre in Akita city, complete with Cranberry sauce and copious amounts of turkey. A group of us chilled out in one of the tatami rooms and listened enthusiastically as one of the Japanese high school students there cranked out the likes of Oasis and the Red Hot Chili Peppers on his guitar. The playing turned into an impromptu karaoke session especially when Andrew got ahold of the guitar and started cranking out a few of the favourites. The mood continued even on the drive back into the heart of the city with Liam, Camille (Australia) and Didy (Canada) when Liam’s shuffle threw out the likes of Ricky Martin’s livin’ la vida loca, and the Spice Girls’ wanna be.

More Thanksgiving deliciousness

After dropping Didy and Camille back in the city Liam and I headed out for a pint in Honjo. One thing that I will not be sorry to see the back of when I go home is the smoking in bars. There is nothing worse than the wall of smoke that hits you when you walk in, or the smell of you own hair when you wake up the next morning.

Whether it’s fortunate or not I don’t know but you do get used to it after about 10 minutes or so. I did find sitting next to the humidifier with the fresh clouds of water pumping across the table quite refreshing though.

More excited sing-alongs occurred when one of the groups in the bar cued up a set of Green Day on the karaoke machine. Form Minority all the way through to Know your enemy these guys were full of genki, it was also rather entertaining how enthusiastically they belted the ‘fxck ‘em all!`’ line in minority.

Logo for the Akita JET shirts.
NB Heisei 28-29.

The next day was inevitably a write off until I’d hauled myself down to the local Lawson on a food and coffee mission ($2 for a medium sized coffee – have heard of worse deals). Determined to do something mildly constructive (but not too strenuous) we set off in to a waterfall of some sort. What sort of waterfall it turned out to be didn’t matter all that much as the road had been closed for winter and didn’t reopen until May…

We backtracked and ended up pottering up any road that caught our (or rather Liam’s interest) until one mountain road became a little too ominous and we decided to call it a day. May of the roads we drove along had interesting paths leading off into the trees but with bears around I think it pays to reign in your curiosity somewhat.

This year has been particularly bad for bear attacks in Akita. Last year there was an abundance of food, which meant more cubs this year and less food to go around, which has resulted in the bears having to go further afield to find food. Many elderly people will go into the forests to collect mountain vegetables such as young bamboo shoots which I believe is the circumstances under which a number of the attacks have occurred

Heading back into civilisation I scurried into a second hand shop in search of a humidifier. You read it right – a humidifier. After years of dehumidifiers running 24/7 through the winter and dealing with mouldy damp flats in Wellington, we’ve crash landed in a country where the heating dries the air out so much that you need to pump moisture back into it while it’s bucketing down outside. I nabbed a dinky little gadget complete with blue LED for around $30nz.

After fighting with my archaic TV to get it off the TV stand where I didn’t use it, into my wardrobe where I wouldn’t use it, I perched my the new addition in all its illuminated glory proudly on the stand before my doorbell chimed.

Cue arm flailing and excited squeaks when I realised that my family had sent me a Christmas tree.

Henry called soon after it was delivered and was therefore subjected to my shrill excitement as I baubled up the tree and tried to decide on the best way to tangle the string of lights around it.

After a shuffle of photos, Christmas trees and dangling the remaining decorations from my string of postcards, I was content with my slightly more festive flat.