National Health and Fitness Day

Japanese word of the day: Yukan (勇敢) - brave

This word has been brought to you by the little people I saw today at the park, who fearlessly charged into each and every obstacle course.

First off, I'm very happy that Japan has a health and fitness day. If only America had that holiday (and actually participated in it). Families in Japan are very into each and every holiday, whereas the case is obviously not the same in America (Columbus Day? Does anyone walk into some stranger's house and start declaring that this is now their living room?). 

Anyways, the day started off with breakfast, which was pancakes, to my delight! However, as I started to make them, all the ingredients were in grams/ounces/mili-litres. I got really confused, needless to say, and took a while to actually get into things. The pancakes ended up being delicious! Apparently, people in Japan often eat pancakes with condensed milk drizzled over it, which is delicious, but it's something I hadn't tried until that day.

After breakfast, we departed for the park in celebration of National Health and Fitness Day (Taiiku no Hi). It's apparently a famous park around this here parts, and it was very crowded when we got there. The line was incredibly long. 

Nevertheless, when we got into the park, that's where the fun began. I found that I'm definitely not as agile as I wanted to be, but that wasn't much of a surprise. It's a big ropes and wood course with 40 obstacles. It's more for the children than anything else, though there are a few challenging ones that adults try themselves as well. Each course is marked with it's own number sign, and a description as to how to do the course correctly. Then you have your own pamphlet in which you can mark whether or not you were successful in completing that course.

I did some cool things at the park, such as tightrope walking and running on a water wheel. Mostly I just stood around and took pictures though.

I'm not good at balance.

Ain't she a cutie?

Walking on a water wheel isn't easy.

SO MANY people got wet. Full on. Head and all.

I didn't want to run. At all. 

Very cool architecture! 

After the park, we went to a food court for lunch. On the way, I saw this whole baseball team travel in their bikes, and when I asked, apparently that's how many baseball teams get around. Biking with the whole team to your destination. That sounds a lot more fun than getting rides to the game, don't you think?

7/11 has their own premium brand here that sells
special rice and bedsheets, among other things.

For lunch, I had this beef and rice dish, which is definitely even more delicious than it looks. It's really good. Really, really good. Masahiro-san had ramen, and the rest of them had McDonald's, as you can see in the background.

After that, I went shopping for groceries with Yoshiko-san, where I saw many interesting things, like pikachu fish cakes. Their meat selection is also massive. They have every cut of meat I can imagine, and in many different sized packages, for different needs. They also had corn dogs in that section, which I thought was weird.

I also saw some very large green onions, and some very small bell peppers (they don't get much bigger than that around this here parts). In addition, everywhere, they were giving out samples, but samples of things I didn't find that special, like hard boiled eggs and rice...

When you check out, it's a three step process. First, you get your items scanned, and they put the necessary bags into your basket for you. Then you go and pay with a different lady. Then you take your basket to the bagging station and bag the stuff yourself.

After that, we went back home. The streets near the house are really small and narrow, and they barely fit two cars side by side, yet they're still two way roads. People are so used to it, like Masahiro-san, that they drive pretty quickly past other cars. I flinch every time.

For dinner (after some relaxing, a walk to the library, etc.), we had chawanmushi (the pudding like thing) and this little fish, whose name I forget. The miso soup and rice were regular stuff I'd had before, but I was hesitant about the rest.

The chawanmushi tastes like miso soup a little bit, but it's god baked egg on top, which is why it looks like pudding and has that consistency as well. I ate that all with enthusiasm when I actually realized that despite my dislike for pudding-like things, this was actually pretty good.

The fish, however, was a different story. You're actually supposed to eat the fish head and all, but I couldn't bear to eat that head. So after the head, you're still supposed to eat all the bones and spine and stuff, which I still found difficult. When you break open the fish, there are eggs everywhere too, and I usually don't like fish eggs when they're on sushi, so...

Nevertheless, I promised myself that I'd try everything that came my way, and so I took a bite of the fish, spine and all, and it actually just tasted like... fish. I don't think I'd order this of my own volition at a restaurant, but it actually wasn't that bad. The spine was a bit difficult to chew, though, so I left it alone and ate the rest of the fish. I was pretty proud of myself (and I still am).

Apologies for the late post! I fell asleep last night, having forgotten to blog. But here you are! And just in time for me to head to my school's entrance ceremony!

All the best,

Maggie