Out of all my time in Japan, Day 10 was hands down my favorite day. All the students went off to campus for the day and the resident students had planned to have Nagashi Somen. It was a bit hard to translate, but roughly means “running noodles.” As you can see from my photos, pieces of bamboo are attached to each other and placed near running water like a faucet or a hose and cooked noodles are placed at the beginning of the tube and the “running” water pushes it down to the participants who gab the noodles with their chopsticks and place them in their bowl filled with sauce. The cold noodles refreshing on a hot, summer day and it is also a super fun way to eat noodles!
 |
| Yu setting up the water (above) and straightening up the tubes (below). |
 |
| From left to right: Naho, Me, Yu, and Ayaka. |
 |
| Striking an F-Pose! |
The residential students planned on holding the Nagashi Somen event again on Saturday to include the international students, so this was considered our trial run. Afterwards most of us hung out in the lounge and I mentioned I would love to have Nabe for dinner. Naho immediately offered to make Nabe for dinner that evening. I, along with Hannibal (guy pictured below in the middle), went with Naho to Seyu to buy the ingredients for dinner. I also got roped into baking cupcakes before I left for the States for the next day, and dragged Hannibal along to carry the groceries.
The Nabe was delicious! It had chicken, cabbage, fish cake, carrots, and mushrooms. The dinner was very lively and it fed a lot of people. Nabe is a great meal to eat with others and is probably even better during the winter time. I am hoping my sister can learn to make this while she is living in Japan so she can make it for me when she returns.
Baking cupcakes in Japan proved to be interesting: from buying the ingredients to using a microwave oven to bake. I was very unsure of how these cupcakes would come out not knowing the settings of the oven. I made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and tasted like a Reese’s cup!
Maybe it was because it was my last night that I decided after 4 in the morning I wasn’t going to sleep. It was the start of the weekend for everyone, and someone suggested that we go buy beer. So off we went to Seyu again and luckily the first two floors are opened 24 hrs. We ended up making 2 trips to refuel for the people that stayed u late. It was fun trying different Japanese beers, but what was even more fun was playing the Japanese drinking games I stayed up drinking Japanese beers and playing some new drinking games in the lounge.
In the end I had a great conversation with an exchange student and learned more about myself with these few days living in the dorm. I was slightly jealous that my sister would get to live in a foreign country for a year and it made me regret not taking the chance to study abroad. At least I was able to catch a glimpse of what it could have been like and who knows? Nothing is set in stone so there is always a chance I’ll go back to school and dive into a study abroad program. Or I can just visit my sister while she is living in Japan and enjoy being abroad without studying.
Since I didn’t sleep, I just prepared for my final hours in Japan. Don’t forget to see how to see how it ended on Day 11.
Brandy