Travelling

I'm currently at the airport in Nagoya. Well, not at the airport, I'm in a hotel very close to the airport (on the same island. Central Japan International Airport [CENTRAIR for short] is built on a man-made island), but that's beside the point.

I'm going home for Christmas! And my longest trip home (3 weeks) since I moved to Japan. Every year it seems to get longer by about a week, hahahaha.

Anyway, I decided to avoid the stress of same-day commuting to the airport and stayed in a hotel last night. Flight leaves in about 5 hours. And in true Jen-travel style, getting here was a huge pain, hahahahahhaha

Let me explain. We got a LOT of snow in Takayama over the weekend. The whole region got a lot of snow, I'd say. I was in Toyama Friday night for an end-of-the-year party for work and we basically drove through a blizzard out and back. Safety-first! Is not always the motto here, haha.

It continued snowing all weekend, to the point that they closed part of the highway between Takayama and Nagoya. I was planning to take the bus. But they closed the highway. Snowing all weekend, and apparently they didn't have ample warning to get the plows out. Although, as with most things in Japan, I only understoond about half of what I heard so there was probably more of a reason than that. At least I like to tell my self there was, anyway.

So I had to take the train. Which costs about twice as much as the bus and takes just as long. D'oh! But at least it doesn't depend on roads being open and it never gets stuck in traffic...

So I get to Nagoya and then I have to get out to the airport, where my hotel is. This is not my first time doing this; I've flown out of this airport several times. Most recently when I went to Korea in September. So I was fairly sure I knew what I was doing when I hauled my enormous bag down the steps to the Meitetsu subway line, bought my ticket, and went down to the tracks. On the "airport" side.

And then proceeded to get on the wrong train. oops.

It seems this line splits at a stop called 太田川 (Odagawa), and I was on the line that doesn't go to the airport. And I didn't realize this until I'd been going the wrong way for about 20 minutes. I got nervous, checked the map, and realized I was going the wrong way. I checked with the conductor, who gave me an OMG you dummy look and told me I'd have to get off at the next stop. Nice of the people on the train to say something right? I mean, with that huge bag and the fact that I'm a foreigner I'm sure it was pretty obvious I was supposed to be going to the airport... but I digress.

I get off, haul that bag (25 kg) up and over the rail line, and down to the other side where the station master informed me I'd have to go BACK about 20 minutes to the Odagawa station and change there. Noooooooooooooooooo! It was already 1030pm by this point. And although Nagoya isn't anywhere near as cold as Takayama, it still gets pretty chilly at night. Wah.

And then, in typical Jen-travel fashion, I met a really cool guy who could speak English! He asked me where I was going and said he would help me get off at the right station to change trains. He was on his way home in Nagoya.

Turns out he started using English about 30 years ago on a trip to India. He loves mountain climbing, and he spent several months there backpacking. And then he went back again. He's climbed mountains all over Japan, including Fuji, IN DECEMBER. "Yes, it's very dangerous. But very beautiful!" He told me ^^

He's been all over Asia, and once to New Zealand, and he studied for 2 years at a university in Thailand. Where he met his wife. They have 2 children, a daughter and a son, both grown now. The family makes yearly trips back to Thailand to visit her family, although he doesn't always have time to join them. He did, however, make sure to tell me the best places to visit :) He speaks fluent Thai, and his wife can (now) speak Japanese very well. He said it took them having children for her to really try to learn it, since she didn't want to be the only mother at the kindergarten who couldn't understand anything, haha

By the time I got to the stop where I had to change, I had learned so many interesting things about this man. Except his name.

What is it about travelling and meeting strangers that makes people open up so much? Maybe it's the fleeting nature of the encounter, knowing you will never see this person again. So it's ok to tell them things I bet even his co-workers don't know (or maybe have never asked). At any rate, my embarrassing mistake at Nagoya station, which I had been cursing as I got off that first train, hauled my luggage up and over the tracks, and down the other side, that mistake turned into a wonderful opportunity to meet someone I would have otherwise never encountered.

Merry Christmas everybody!

On pleasant surprises at the 100 Yen Shop

My favorite Japanese entertainer of all-time is a man by the name of Nagase Tomoya (family-name first, personal-name last). He's the lead singer of the band TOKIO and an actor who has appeared in many, MANY dramas. In fact, he's the guy who played the lead in my very first (and still one of my favorite) Japanese dramas, My Boss My Hero. You may or may not remember the post I made about it shortly after moving to Japan in 2007. He was also the lead in Utahime. ^_^

Anyway, I've made good use of this particular idol, all of my students know he's my favorite and I often use my "crush" on him to humorous effect in the classroom. It comes in really handy for demonstrating personal preference "I like Nagase Tomoya. Do you like Nagase Tomoya? Yes, I do!", comparatives "Nagase Tomoya is the most handsome actor in the world", passive-voice "I have loved Nagase Tomoya since 2007", etc.

And one of the best parts about living in Japan is that I get to see his mug everywhere. On tv. In movies. In magazines. And advertising just about anything you can imagine.　Like cell phones



And jeans


Just today I was at the 100 Yen Shop and I saw this beautiful advertisement for Asahi beer:

I do believe he has advertised Suntory Beer as well

photo from tubefire
I'm actually more of a Kirin fan, but they've yet to use him in advertising (that I know of, anyway), hahahahaha
d(^_^)b

Ah and Un

A friend of mine gave me a book shortly before he left Japan last summer, and I'm just now getting around to reading it. It's called "Hokkaido Highway Blues", by Will Ferguson. It's about a guy who decides to hitchhike his way from the southern tip of Kyuushu to the top of Hokkaido, following the cherry blossoms in the spring.

So far, it's pretty awesome ^_^ I've never recommended anything here before, but this one's pretty good, and it's full of good information about Japan.

One part, in particular, struck me as a good opportunity to show off a couple pics from a recent trip I took to Koyasan, a sacred mountain near Osaka that is full of temples and shrines and one very enormous graveyard


The part of the book I'm talking about is close to the beginning, actually right at the start of chapter 7, where he describes the stone statues that are always found guarding the entrance to Shinto shrines


You approach Shinto shrines through torii gates, the entrances are usually guarded by a pair of stone lion-dogs. Like so many things Japanese, these lion-dogs came to Japan from China through a Korean intermediary. When they define themselves, the Japanese tend to skip Korea, the middle-man, and claim a connection to China that is direct and overemphasized. But here, in the shrine grounds of the gods, the Korean connection is acknowledged: the guardians are called koma-inu, "Korean dogs." That Korean icons should protect the repositories of all that is Japanese in spirit- the Emperor's Church in a sense - that Korean dogs should be given such a high-ranking position is something rarely commented upon by the Japanese. These stone guardians provide a telling clue about the ancient Korean roots of the Japanese Imperial Family.

The lion-dogs were originally a lion and a dog, and were very different in appearance, but over the years stonecutters found it easier to carve them to the same proportions. The two figures grew more and more alike, until their features blended. One lion-dog has a mouth that is always open, the other has a mouth that is always closed. The open-mouthed lion-dog is named 'Ah', the other is named 'Un', or more properly, 'nn'. "Ah," is the first sound you make when you are born, "nn," the last sound you make when you die. "Ah" is the breath inhaled that begins life, "nn" the exhale of existence, a universe that turns on a single breath. 'Ah' is also the first symbol in the Japanese alphabet, 'n' the last. And so, between these two lion-dogs, you also have the A and Z, the Alpha and Omega. In the original Sanskrit, 'ah-un' means "the end and the beginning of the universe; infinity unleashed."


Infinity unleashed! word.

BTW, the book is actually much funnier than the above passage would imply. For example, in describing a conversation he has with some kids in the back of a car...
His eyes widened with an audible boing. "English! You speak English! Say something, say something in English."
"Wayne Newton is the Antichrist."
"Wow! What does that mean?"
"It's a poem. Kind of a haiku."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA =D

a free gift, or a disguised punishment?

Haven't updated in a while, sorry! Partly due to a lack of interesting stuff to post about, and partly due to my own laziness. But, something interesting happened today that I thought I would share.

Some local ALTs here in Hida are having our own Thanksgiving dinner tonight, and I've been chosen to make the sweet potatoes. I've never made sweet potatoes before, and I don't have an oven. But, based on my success with apple pie, I figure I'll be ok.

Anyway, I had to go to the store and get the ingredients (sweet potatoes, mostly), where I was greeted by "Merry Christmas!" signs everywhere and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" on the speakers, hahaha

But the really crazy thing, what surprised me more than all the obnoxious xmas-ing, was what happened at the check-out. My first year here all the supermarkets in Takayama instituted a new policy of charging for plastic bags, to encourage people to bring re-usable eco-bags. Usually I have one in my car, but today I forgot it at home and had to buy a plastic one. 15 yen, no big deal; it's not the price so much that makes me not want the plastic bags, I hate them more because once I get my stuff home and unpacked I then have to add it to the plastics bin...

So I get the bag, and along with it comes:

A pack of 3 boxes of natto >.<
For those of you too lazy to follow the wikipedia link, I'll copy some of the info for you here:
Nattō (なっとう or 納豆) is a traditional Japanese food made from soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis. It is popular especially as a breakfast food. As a rich source of protein, nattō and the soybean paste miso formed a vital source of nutrition in feudal Japan. Nattō can be an acquired taste because of its powerful smell, strong flavor, and sticky consistency.

"Can be an acquired taste" is kind of misleading. In my experience everyone, foreigners and Japanese alike, fall into two, very distinct camps with respect to natto. You either love it or you hate it. I'm in the latter group, hahaha, natto is definitely one of the grossest things I have ever had the misfortune to try. Unsurprisingly, that experience has only been thrust upon me during school lunch. One particularly horrific experience was the infamous shishamo-natto double-whammy lunch last year. *shudder*


So I find it unsurprising that, in the event you forget to bring your own bag to the supermarket, not only do you have to pay 15 yen for a plastic one, you now also get three boxes of natto as a "gift". I'm thinking the person behind this particular marketing campaign must also fall into the camp of natto haters.

Autumn!

Fall in Hida is...

The autumn Takayama Festival


Chilly BBQs with friends

Hida no Sato


Festivals at small village shrines


Autumn Tea Ceremony



Hiking in Kamikochi




Coffee

Halloween


Hiking in Miyagawa



Visiting friends in Nyukawa



...TBC

Sorting trash in Japan

I've recently been doing a bit of purging in my apartment, sorting through the small mountains of stuff that have slowly been collecting over the past two years of living here. Most of it is paper - old envelopes, magazines, junk mail, phone books, out-of-date tourist info and maps, old cards, half-finished lesson plans, and an overwhelming number of calendars, teaching resource books and "JET Journals" the good folks at CLAIR just keep on sending to us, year after year. Seriously, who needs FIVE calendars? I can understand one, maybe two (a big one to hang on your wall, and maybe a smaller one for your desk). They're quite pretty and useful in that they have all the Japanese holidays written in them. But five? Really? In a tiny Japanese apartment? They do suggest in the accompanying letter (itself a nice addition to my growing pile) that you can give the ones you don't need to coworkers and friends. But who am I supposed to be giving them to, really? Everything's written in English and all the people I know who could use an English calendar have themselves been inundated with too many. So we all end up with piles of unwanted crap, and nowhere to throw it away.

Which brings me to yet another interesting phenomena in Japan. People love packaging in this country. They LOVE IT. I suppose it's partly due to the culture of gift-giving here, in which case it's nice to have things in little individual packages. Makes sense for things like omiyage (souvenirs) or perhaps the odd, easily-perishable item that might go bad in relatively high (as compared with Denver, anyway) humidity. Box-lunches that benefit from a small self-contained snack also spring to mind. But the over packaging doesn't stop there. Everything comes individually wrapped. Buy a box of cookies? Open it up and you'll find 12 individually wrapped little snacks. Want some tissues? Here, have a box with 5 more boxes inside. How about a box of pens? Inside you'll find 20 pens that come in their own plastic bags. And don't even get me started on how those boxes of pens are themselves coated in plastic shrink-wrap.

As an environmentalist, I certainly have plenty to gripe about with such an gross example of wasteful packaging, strictly on moral grounds. But if I get off my high-horse and speak as a person living here, it's just plain hard to throw anything away. In this culture of over packaging, there are virtually NO TRASH CANS anywhere.

It's kind of a big joke amongst the foreign population, how we all end up carting around loads of garbage in our bags until we find a place to get rid of it. Out in public this usually takes the form of the convenience store, which is one of the only places you can ever find to get rid of your trash.


photo from julie in japan

You may have noticed that those aren't just ordinary trash cans. They're set up for you to sort your unwanted goods, in addition to getting rid of them. This applies equally for public trash cans and disposing of garbage at home, so I'll just focus on what it takes to get rid of the stuff from my apartment.

One of the biggest surprises I had waiting for me when I first moved here was the "garbage list". Which looks like this

Basically, what we have are:
燃えるごみ (moeru gomi), burnable garbage like kitchen waste, tissues, bedding, etc.
燃えないごみ (moenai gomi), non-burnable garbage like broken glass, rubber, non-recyclable plastic and metal (like jar lids), broken plates, etc.
プラ (pura), plastics
PET bottles, aka plastic pop/tea/juice bottles
紙 (kami), paper items like empty ice cream cups, paper bags, and paperboard boxes
瓶 (kame), glass bottles
缶 (kan), aluminum cans/metal
紙パック (kami paku), milk and juice cartons
資源ごみ (shigen gomi), recyclable materials (like all that office paper I've got)

The way you pay for your trash removal is actually a pretty good system, IMO. Instead of paying a monthly fee for however much you want to toss, you pay for the bags you use to put the trash out. Without the proper bag, they won't pick up your garbage. In addition, each household is allotted a certain amount of "trash stickers" to be used for the burnable and non-burnable trash. If, by some aberration of nature, you actually manage to use up all of the stickers they give you, I'm not really sure what happens. I've never even come close to it in my two years here.

Anyway, I was really fortunate in that the girl in my position before me was incredibly organized and left for me a pretty easy system for coping with the "list". I've got boxes under my sink for plastics, PET bottles, and boxboard. The burnable trash goes in the regular trash-can with a lid. In one of my closets I have boxes for aluminum cans/ metal and glass bottles, and a small box for non-burnables. I've only thrown the cans and bottles once or twice, and I've yet to collect enough non-burnable trash to make it worthwhile to bag up and put out. At least before the purge, heh heh heh.

In addition to the trash stickers, everybody gets a schedule for when to put their trash out. Burnables are taken twice a week, and everything else is on kind of a rotating system. It's pretty logical, put the separated trash in the appropriately colored clear-plastic bag, and in the case of burnable or non-burnable trash, a sticker showing your name and address. And if you've put something in there that shouldn't be there, technically somebody can return your trash to you for you to sort out before throwing it away again. Although I've snuck in the occasional junk-mail into the burnable garbage here and there, it's never been returned to me, and I see bags in the trash cans all the time that clearly have not been sorted properly.

All of this is to say, that although I've purged my shelves of all this paper, it still hasn't left my apartment. It's currently sitting in three nicely-loaded bags, waiting to be bundled in twine and taken over to the drop-off place. And there they shall sit for now, for recyclable materials like office paper and milk cartons are only collected once a month; and that day doesn't come again until November 14.

*sigh*

So long Smacky, hello Bucky

I never even saw it coming. It was like being hit by a speeding truck, that drove off in the night. Every day we had been together; mostly when I was on my way somewhere, but also occasionally while killing time waiting for something. Always there with a pick-me-up, when I was feeling down. Ready to rock when I was in a good mood. And who could forget all those classes spent energizing the kids with holiday jingles and Super Mario?

I'm talking, of course, about my iPod. Smacky.


We'd been together since 2005, sharing many travel adventures and boring commutes, occasionally doing a tv program here and there. Everything was going fine until last Friday, when I disconnected him from my car adapter and put him in my bag. The next time I tried to play him... nothing.

At first, I thought it was just one of those silly "reset" situations. We've had those before, they're not a big deal. But try as I might, no matter how many times I reset him, Smacky refused to turn on. Then I thought it might be the battery, so I hooked him up to my computer for a full night, hoping he would be recognized in the morning. But nothing T_T

It was at this point I realized that at some time on Friday night, while I was wandering around the Takayama Festival eating snacks and talking with former students, Smacky passed silently into the great iPod "beyond".

I looked up on the internet what it would take to get him fixed. We'd been together for 4 years, I figured I at least owed him that much. And then I found to my horror, that if I did send him in for refurbishment, he'd come back with his memory erased. He might not even be the same iPod, I could end up with someone else's former friend. And it would likely cost me 100 bucks at least.

I mulled my options. Send Smacky in? Drive music-free for who-knows-how-long, only to get back an empty shell of my former friend? Or do I go get a new one? I decided my only real option. It was time to let Smacky go.

The next issue was deciding which new one to go with. There's the shuffle, the nano, the classic, and the touch. Not to mention the iPhone, which I was actually kicking myself for turning my nose up at only a few months earlier. At the time I thought, I've got an ipod already. Why would I want one for my phone? Ha ha ha, oh irony.

I already have a shuffle that I received as a gift a few years ago. Satchel, as he's known, doesn't have a lot of memory, but works just fine as my faithful running partner. So that removed the shuffles from the list automatically.

Then we have the nano, which comes with a video display and has more memory than the shuffle. They also come in an array of colors and the new ones can take video. Which is like, who thought of that? "hmmmm, what do people look for in a portable music player? I know! Let's put a video camera in it!" :S

The classic is what I had originally had, except now they come with way more capacity than Smacky, who, at 30GB was apparently a relic model. The new ones come with 160GB. If I'm honest with myself, I never came close to filling the space on Smacky, even with videos. And the few times I watched videos on him it killed the battery, so I didn't do it very often. 160 GB is probably way too much storage for me, esp when it's almost twice as expensive as the nano. And a lot bigger physically too. So I decided the classic was out.

That left the touch, which intrigued me. It's got the touchscreen interface, and wifi capability. You can play games on it and and it's basically an iPhone without the phone part. It's also quite expensive.

In the end, I decided that for me, an iPod is a music player. I don't need it to play games, and I can get internet access through my phone when I'm out and about. I'm probably not going to watch videos on it. For the same amount of storage and half the price, not to mention a fraction of the physical size, the nano was the way to go. And I could pick my favorite color too ^^



Getting an iPod in Japan is the same as getting one anywhere. The only difference is all the documentation that comes with it is in Japanese

Other than that, they're exactly the same as any other model. It's been so long since I even contemplated getting one of these that I was really surprised by the size of it. Compared to the classic, it's tiny!


And it's greeeeeeeeeeen!

So now I face the arduous task of loading the music I want (as opposed to everything in my library) onto it. I'll always remember Smacky, my first portable music player. But I'm looking forward to new awesome adventures with Bucky ^_^

Cockney Rhyming Slang

This really doesn't have anything to do with life in Japan, but I doubt it would ever have taken place if I didn't live here.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a fellow ALT in Hida, who is originally from England. He was teaching me about the nearly intelligible dialect of Cockney Rhyming Slang. Something which, prior to this conversation, I didn't even realize existed. And I'm still not entirely sure why it does, ha ha ha

ALT
cockney rhyming slang is where you substitute things for words when they rhyme
but not just anything
and i have no idea why
so apples and pears is stairs

Me
apples and pears together are stairs?

ALT
so you say "she fell down the apples and pears"!

Me
ha ha ha
how the heck did apples and pears become stairs?

ALT
i have no idea!
and "midnight kiss" is piss
and a funny one i found the other day is piano is joanna
so in london people with strong accents say piana

Me
well that's romantic

ALT
erm, dunno about romantic

Me
;)

ALT
cockneys aren't really the romantic types

Me
ha ha ha
i dunno

ALT
they are more like scallies

Me
giving someone a nice sweet piss...

ALT
he he he

Me
or do i have that backwards?
go take a midnight kiss?

ALT
lol, the other way round!!!

Me
ha ha ha ha ha

ALT
yeah, to take a midnight kiss

Me
ha ha ha ha
i totally don't get it
but it's making me laugh

ALT
like, "hold me brew, i'm gonna take a midnight kiss"
i have no clue why cockney rhyming slang exists

Me
to confuse other people?

ALT
just geezers with too much time on their hands

TY0918 (Melor)

In the US we call them "hurricanes". Some places say "cyclone".

In Japan, these storms are called 台風, tai fuu.

Whatever you want to call it, there's one heading this way, and besides being the first one to make landfall since 2007, it's also supposed to be the most powerful in a decade (according to the AFP).

And it's projected to take a path that runs smack over Gifu prefecture, including Takayama

(from the Japan Meteorological Agency, with a small modification ^^)

The Japan Meteorological Agency is predicting wind speeds of 98 mph near the center, and gusts of 123 mph by the time it reaches us here. This is down from 134 mph gusts when it makes landfall on the southeastern coast of Honshu tonight. No sign of the wind yet, although the rain has been falling here since this afternoon, steadily getting stronger and stronger.

In light of this, the JR Lines will not be running (the trains will stop) and all classes in Takayama elementary and junior high schools are cancelled tomorrow. Meaning the kids don't go to school. Lucky guys.

The teachers however, being dedicated civil servants (including yours truly), are still required to go. Why, exactly, is a little beyond me, but such is life in Japan. At least up here in the mountains of land-locked Gifu prefecture we don't have to worry about storm surges... just lots of rain and wind. Bring on the ponchos and rubber boots!

--Edited 10/08/2009 5pm: well what was supposed to be the biggest storm in a decade turned out to be surprisingly weak. Light rain and a few gusts of wind is all we got here; I think we had more damage from the torrential rains we had in June and July than from the "typoon"! At least I was around to experience the last one, in September 2007 =)

Me no naka de taiyou wo mieru ^_^

I used to really dislike the color of my eyes. For some reason, I always wanted them to be blue. A lot of people in the Scandinavian half of my family (I'm roughly a quarter Swedish and a quarter Danish, and half Irish) have blue eyes, and I always thought that was a better combination with blond hair than what I've got. Which is sort of a greenish-blue, that can look mostly blue, depending on the colors I am wearing. But, in reality, they are sort of an odd light-green, largely due to these rings of yellow right next to my pupils.

I always hated those rings. It was like they cheated me out of my blue eyes.

At home, since there are so many kinds of eye color, and mine aren't a brilliant shade of anything, they didn't really stand out. And then, I moved to Japan. Where any eye color other than a very deep brown is a rare thing of wonder. I get complimented on my eyes all the time here, and recently I've come to like them more and more.

One fifth grade student in particular loves to just stare into my eyes, for loooooooong stretches of time. To be honest, it's kind of unnerving. And then she'll comment (in Japanese, of course) "oh, Jen-sensei! Your eyes are green! Why are they green? Why are foreigner's eyes not brown?"

This of course leads to a discussion about how not all foreigner's eyes are blue or green; there are many eye colors, and many kinds of foreigners. I'm constantly fighting a (losing) battle to show that being American isn't a race, it's a nationality. You can find any kind of person from anywhere in the world in the US, and they can all be Americans. It doesn't help that I fit the blond-hair blue (or in this case, green)-eyed American stereotype almost to a T when making my case...

Anyway, stereotypes aside, this little girl gave me what is probably the best compliment I have ever received about my eyes; and in the process completely changed my opinion of them. One day, while referring to the (formerly detested) rings of yellow in my otherwise bluish-green irises, she said to me:

"I can see the sun in your eyes!"

Now who could continue to dislike them after hearing something like that? =)

Pan!

Have I ever mentioned they sell bread here with no crust? Or how you can buy sandwiches at the convenience store with no crust? It's so funny how unpopular it is here! And the crust-less bread? It's sold in boxes



\^o^/

Ayu

Plecoglossus altivelis.

According to wikipedia, it is a relative of the smelts and is placed in the order Osmeriformes. Native to the Palearctic ecozone, it occurs in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of western Hokkaidō in Japan southward to the Korean Peninsula, China, and Taiwan.

And it's eaten WHOLE. (x_x)


It's quite popular here, showing up on menus, at festivals, and with an unnerving frequency in my school lunch.

There are a few ways to catch ayu, like fly fishing, Cormorant fishing (Gifu City is actually quite famous for this), and by taking advantage of their territorial behavior using a decoy, known as ayu-no-tomozuri.

The decoy method involves the use of a captive ayu and a long fishing rod. And by long I do mean loooooooooong


Last month I had the opportunity to try my hand at catching ayu. We went to a river in the town of Kamitakara; which, though technically in Takayama, lies about an hour's drive north of the city (^_^)b

A friend of a friend is an avid ayu fisherman and was kind enough to provide us with rods and tackle, and captive ayu. And seeing as I've never been able to skewer minnows or worms, let alone hand-sized fish, he also bait the hooks for us too ^^

It's actually a fairly cruel process - the bait ayu is attached to the line by the mouth and also has a second, free-swinging hook that is attached to it's back end.

so close to freedom...

You then introduce the decoy into areas likely to have ayu and wait for one to attack the intruding fish and hook itself.

It's kind of an interesting process. My only prior experience involving the use of live bait has only been with small creatures (like minnows). You can't feel them on the end of the line, so the second you feel it pull you know you've got something. But in this situation, since there's already one live ayu on the hook, it pulls and wiggles around as the fish goes here and there on the end of it. I was tricked more than once into thinking I had something.

In the end, I managed to hook three, and catch two. One lucky little guy got away from me the one time I was left to myself, while our fisherman was off helping my friend, ha ha ha

And the two fish I did catch? Presents to our fisherman for showing us a great time. Cause I sure as hell wasn't going to eat them myself! =D

The culinary delights of kyushoku

School started last week.
Which means - school lunch is back!

Today we had

whole squid. mmm mmm mmm.

//sarcasm.