Tales of the Traveling K

Today I biked all the way to Hirakatashi for the first time. I went with my speaking partner, Asa, and our friends Kon, Kristin, and Allie. We all had bikes with us except for Kon, so he wrote Asa's and had her sit on the back. I hadn't ridden in to Hirakatashi before because it requires descending (and thus eventually ascending) a giant hill, and my legs haven't been up to the task of biking a hill that size in years.

This evening, though, we all wanted to eat out without spending too much money. So, instead of taking the bus (¥220), we biked to town and went to a cheap Italian restaurant.

When I say cheap, I mean really cheap. Allie and I split 3 small pizzas, garlic bread, desserts, plus all you can drink sodas and coffee/tea, for only ¥1043 each. That's about $11. Best cheap restaurant ever!

On the way back home, we took a shortcut, which made the hill somewhat less severe. I didn't bike the whole thing, but I made a good half of it before getting off to walk. My health--it improves!

I am seriously going to miss Asa when I go home. We always do the most fun things together.

Posted by K. Raila at 9:56 AM Comments

One of the most popular places for hanami is Kyoto. Within Kyoto, Maruyama park is one of the most popular hanami sites. Last weekend, some friends and I went to Kyoto for a day of cherry blossom viewing, and ended up at a night festival in Yasaka shrine and Maruyama park.

I began the day with Kristin and Kelly near Nanzen-ji. We walked down an out-of-use railroad, to a new pond with a waterfall.



Next up was the Philosopher's Path, which I walked with my mom 2 years ago, but when we came it was not the spring, so I had never seen it with the sakura in bloom. The entire walk is lined with sakura trees.


We then took the train back to Yasaka shrine, where we discovered a festival we didn't know would be happening. We got a whole lot of food, including candied strawberries, which were amazingly delicious. We followed the festivities into Maruyama park.

There we saw the lit-up cherry trees, found a few other Kansai Gaidai students, and had even more food! On our way home, we were lucky and saw two maiko dancing under the trees.

Posted by K. Raila at 4:58 AM Comments

Today I went with Yuko to meet her friends for hanami. Hanami is a Japanese event where people get together to see cherry blossoms and usually eat picnics under the cherry trees. It's still early in sakura season, so the trees were only about half covered in blossoms. I will hopefully be going again next weekend and will see the trees in full bloom.

We each brought some food. I made tuna sandwiches, Yuko and her sister Haruna brought chicken and salad, Yuka brought yaki soba, Haruka brought a dish she invented that involved konyaku and spice, and another girl (forgot her name, sadly) brought a rice, egg, and fish combination. Everything was really tasty!

When we were finished eating, we played cards, or as it's called in Japan, toronpu (from trump). I had a fun time talking about musicians and English pronunciation with Haruka. She said she wants to learn how to pronounce English properly, because it's usually hard for Japanese people. Her pronunciation was actually very good, though.

Posted by K. Raila at 6:29 AM Comments

This post is long overdue! Back on February 8, Asa (my speaking partner) taught me how to make takoyaki. We had a party with some of her friends and some of my friends. So, without further delay, instructions in making takoyaki!



First of all, you need a takoyaki-ki (takoyaki machine) and some ingredients. We used a bag of takoyaki-mix for the batter, so I'm not entirely sure what goes in if you make it from scratch. You will also need octopus. Tako means octopus, and yaki means baked/grilled, thus takoyaki is grilled balls of octopus. You could use the machine to make balls of pretty much anything, but if there is no octopus, it's not takoyaki! (^_^)

Get your mix and fillings ready, and oil the takoyaki-ki.



Fill the holes of the takoyaki-ki with the takoyaki batter.



When there is a good amount of batter, put in your ingredients of choice. We put one or two pieces of octopus in each, and added other things like kimchee, onion, cheese, tenpura balls, tuna, and even natto.



Get the batter nice and full of stuffings and let the bottom half of the balls grill a while.



When the takoyaki have formed a nice crust on the bottom of each of the balls, it's time to flip the them!



Flipping the takoyaki is a bit tricky. You use a little stick, which you slide under the bottom crust, and quickly flip each ball so the extra stuffing and batter than was all over the top becomes the new bottom. If done properly, each one ends up with a nice brown crust showing on top. Then you rotate them in all directions until they are evenly cooked and brown all over.



Time to eat! Toppings may include takoyaki sauce, mayo, and fish flakes. It's especially fun to put the fish flakes on while the takoyaki are really hot, because then they sway back and forth in the heat.



Enjoy! いただきます！

Posted by K. Raila at 9:01 PM Comments

The Kansai Parfait Quest Club blog is now up and running!
kansaiparfait.blogspot.com

Posted by K. Raila at 7:55 AM Comments

These are all my videos from term thus far!
I kept forgetting to upload them, so I did it just now all at once. Enjoy!

At Osaka Castle:


Denise's favorite crab:


Food!


"Isn't She Lovely" as performed by a man at Hirakata-shi station:


Zelda, the dog who lives next door:


Bowling!


That's all for now. :)
Owen and I might be teaming up to use his video camera and my Final Cut to make some awesome vids. We'll see, we'll see.

Posted by K. Raila at 6:02 AM Comments

Today I went to Osaka!



Kelly O. and I traveled together by train. We started our trip at Osaka Castle.




On our way up to the castle, we saw a clown, who would perform for 200 yen. He was quite entertaining.



Kelly had millet cake ice cream, which the shop proclaimed to be an Osaka specialty. It tasted like vanilla with a hint of alcohol. I got a coffee from a Quick! Tasty! Friendly! vending machine.



Perhaps the best part of Osaka Castle was the large number of adorable tiny dogs our for walks in the castle grounds. Weiner dogs are very popular around here.



We also saw a couple of pomeranians, one of which was very friendly and jumped all over us licking our hands. It made me want a pomeranian. :)

Then we attempted to find Denden town, the electronics district, but our map had it listed in the completely wrong part of town. Instead, we found a giant woman on a giant gold fish on the side of a building...



...followed by a crépe stand in a covered arcade. Mmm.



A nice policeman saw us looking at our map in confusion, and pointed us in the right direction for Denden.

Along the way we found the one thing I knew I had to see in Osaka, sooner or later. Yes, that's right, we found Denise's favorite giant crab.




After realizing that our map was entirely incorrect as to the location of Denden, I sent a message to Kristen, who was there, on my fancy new Japanese keitai (cell phone). She told us the subway station, since we knew our map at least had the subway correct, and we finally managed to meet up with her and Owen in Denden. It was all very exciting. We went in more than one manga & DVD store, but they all forbid the use of cameras, so I have no photographic evidence. As it got late, we went out for a delicious and cheap dinner (I had tenpura), followed by a quest to find a not-too-pricey parfait.





After an epic video-camera battle between Kristen and Owen...



...we got to a little road with a light-up blowfish.



Finally, on that tiny road... success!




We had a herd of chocolate parfaits.



In our joy, we formed a new group: the Kansai Parfait Quest Club (KPQC, or ケーピキューシ）
Our mission is to enjoy a parfait from a new shop or restaurant every Saturday. We will be writing reviews and taking photos, with the goal of creating a brochure and/or website for use by current and future Kansai Gaidai students. Coming soon: the face of KPQC--Owen in a fruit hat!

Posted by K. Raila at 8:01 AM Comments