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.