Japan: Tarama Junior HS Relay Race

Japan: Tarama Junior HS Relay Race
Originally uploaded by iSammy

I got to participate in the school relay race due to some students being absent that day. These kids are quick. Well, not so much these kids in the picture, but the other kids.

Sapa sales girls

Sapa sales girls
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Some of the girls who trekked along with us.

Sapa School Kids

Sapa School Kids
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Vietnam: Sapa Village girls

Vietnam: Sapa Village girls
Originally uploaded by iSammy

When I first arrived Sapa, these girls greeted us with great smiles and great energy. They all know how to say three main things:
"what's your name?" --"Where you from?" -- "How old are you?"
They followed us as we trekked through Sapa's rice fields and became our friends and gave a helping hand through steep hills, crossing rivers and narrow paths.
When we reached their village, however, they suddenly become "evil" and attacked us. "You buy from me, I help you, we friends" --"Okay, how much for that bracelet?.....What? $10? NO WAY, $2!" We not friends anymore.

Vietnam: Halong Bay Sunset

Vietnam: Halong Bay Sunset
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Vietnam: Halong Bay

Vietnam: Halong Bay
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Spent two days, one night in a boat in Halong Bay, Vietnam.

Vietnam: Lake in the heart of Hanoi

Hanoi
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Taipei Noodles

Taipei Noodles
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Really delicious, melts-in-your-mouth beef, mouth-watering broth.
This bowl of noodles on 1st place at some noodle competition last year.

Taiwan: You like die or what?

Taiwan: You like die or what?
Originally uploaded by iSammy

Every man was for himself, no traffic laws, go when you want, try not to die.
I stared wide-eyed at this brave, crazy, insane man cross a busy intersection. In the end, I did not have to clean up any blood.

Tradition

Since I have come to Japan, I have missed my very first Christmas with my family, and now Easter.

Every family is sure to have their own traditions when it comes to the Holidays, and ours is a plastic Christmas tree and an Easter egg hunt in the house.

I woke up this morning to find an E-mail from my mom:
"Happy easter sam! The pic is Dad laughing at the kids looking for eggs"

--On Christmas morning, the three kids are not allowed to go downstairs and look in the stockings until all three kids are awake.

On Easter morning, the three kids are not allowed to go downstairs until the adults have placed the plastic eggs around the house (the kitchen is always excluded). I remember that before, we used to give Mika a few seconds head start because, well, I guess it was the fair thing to do. In Virginia, when she was still about 4 or 5, Haru would help her: "Mika, look! What's that?" Not me. Every man for himself. That's probably why I always got bachi and never got any of the good eggs... Haru always, ALWAYS got the good eggs.

The fun part is opening the eggs and seeing what's inside. This is when we trade (or not trade) our insides. Here's a rough timeline of what's been found in the eggs:

2000-2004: Candy. Chocolate eggs. Twix. Crunch. Milky Way. Snickers. etc.

This was the era of sweets. It helped that Grandpa liked to eat lots of Crunch and Kit Kats.

2005-2006: Candy. Chocolate eggs. Money (coins mostly). Coupons (No washing dishes, make someone do X push-ups, X push-ups free pass, 15mins internets, give Dad a massage)

This was the era of coupons, doing push-ups as punishment, and having 10 Net-Zero hours of internet usage a month.

2007-2009: Money (which Haru always ends up ending up with). Coupons (No washing dishes, $x shopping spree, Xmins watching TV, choose blockbuster movie, DS game).

So as you can see, we hate washing dishes, and as the years went on the items in the eggs became much more interesting and targeted a specific age group (for example, some people weren't allowed to watch iCarly whenever they wanted).

Sometimes I feel that I look forward to Easter's coupons much more than Christmas's pack of socks and underwear and gift-wrapped library books.

Coupons not only benefit the kids. Coupons are most great for the parents. Parents can forget about Easter until an hour before the egg hunt, and it is cheap to do. Though the kids are excited about having lots of coupons, what usually happens is:

-The child puts it in a safe spot and saves it.

-The child forgets about the coupons.

-A year passes and they become 'expired'.

At least this is what happened to me almost every year since the beginning of coupons.

Making Soap in 20 Steps

One of the English teachers that I work with is a real hand-artsy kind of person. She likes making clothes and things. And soap. She recently gave me a slice of soap that she made, and told me I should try making soap as well.

She lent me her soap making book, which was all in Japanese, which led me to ask my other English teacher to translate, which led to her wanting to make soap as well, and that's that.

Step1:

Materials

Empty paper milk/juice carton

Glass jar with cover

scale

pouring glass (or cup you can easily pour liquids out of)

180g distilled water

500mL olive oil

53g sodium hydroxide, NaOH (also known as lye or caustic soda)

rubber gloves

chemistry eye goggles

thermometer

bowl

whisk or electric mixer

plastic wrap

essence oil (optional, preferred scent)

cookie cutters (optional)

Step 2:

Measure 180g distilled water in pouring glass.

Step 3:

Put on goggles and rubber gloves. Some real dangerous explosions about to happen now. Not really, but there's fumes from the NaOH, never can be too careful right.

Step 4:

In the glass jar, measure 53g of NaOH. I have no idea where to buy NaOH, my teacher said she found it at an old hardware store. It looks like slices/chunks of sugar? Lick a little, if it's sweet, it's sugar. If it's not sweet, call your emergency hazard line, and probably wash out your mouth.

Which reminds me: When I was younger and living in Yokota, Japan, my little (but now tall) brother chewed the glow-in-the-dark necklace we got at some festival and his tongue and the inside of his mouth was glowing. Mother was freaking out (I don't remember, but I'm guessing she would have been) and called the hazard line. They told him to eat some Oreos. In conclusion, take some Oreos with you to your next chem class.

Don't leave the spoon in the glass when weighing like shown in this picture. DUH. But you know, it happens sometimes.

Step 5:

Pour distilled water into glass jar with NaOH.

Note: Always add water to NaOH, do not add NaOH to water.

Step 6:

Stir NaOH and water until the temperature reaches between 45-60 degree Celsius.

Step 7:

Measure 450mL olive oil, pour into bowl.

You may use the same pouring glass that the water was in.

Step 8:

Heat the olive oil slightly until it reaches the same temperature as the NaOH and water mixture.

To heat the olive oil, place bowl in a slightly larger pot filled a few inches with water. Put the stove on low heat and check the temperature of the oil.

Step 9:

Poke two holes (using a nail or something) on opposite sides on the cover of the glass jar.

Cover the jar and pour the NaOH mixture into the bowl of olive oil.

Step 10:

Mix using whisk or electric mixer for 20 minutes.

I think the electric mixer is more arm-friendly and will produce better results.

Step 11:

The mixture should thicken a have a pudding-like texture.

To be honest, ours was a bit watery, but it still came out OK-ish.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 24hours.

Step 12:

The next day the mixture should be a little thicker.

If you choose, you may add scented oils. The recipe calls for essence oil, but all I could find was fragrance oil so that's what I used.

Add about 35 drops into the mixture.

Step 13:

After adding the oils (nor not adding the oils) have a cute boy mix the mixture for about 10 minutes using a whisk. If your mixee is not a cute boy, you will not be able to create awesome soap.

Should look something like this with traces of the whisk:

Step 14:

Cut the milk container like shown in picture. I will let you figure out how to close the open end shut. Pour into the milk container.

I am pouring a batch into a pan covered in plastic wrap. The plastic wrap makes it easy to pull the soap out after it hardens. This one will be the batch that we will cut with cookie cutters.

Step 15:

Tie the milk carton at about three places with a string. This allows the carton and mixture to keep its shape as it hardens

Step 16:

Store in a cooler for one week or longer.

Step 17:

Peel the carton off and cut the soap in desired thickness. If you want pink soap, move your fingers a little to the right if you are right-handed and to the left if you are left-handed.

Step 18:

I think wax paper would be better, but we didn't have any so we used plastic wrap. Layer a box with wax paper (or plastic wrap). Place the slices of soap like so.

If you also made a thinner layer of soap, you can make desired shapes with cookie cutters. Make sure the cookie cutter is taller than the soap so you can cut it through all the way.

Also, make sure the cookie cutter isn't too small, or else you will not be able to get the soap out (see "S" and "R" in box)

The soap at this point is still not completely hard. It was still a bit soft in the middle areas, just like Dad's belly.

Step 19:

Leave the boxes in a cool, dry area for about (according to the recipe book) 6 weeks, or until you feel like it, it's a free country.

Step 20:

Don't forget to wash up! Brush your teeth and wipe your butt.


**Well, I hope your soap comes out lovely!**

Some other information:
There are two main ways of making your own soap--cold process (CP) and melt and poor (MP).
CP soaps are made by mixing NaOH and oil together (as I did). This process takes a total of about six weeks to completely finish.

As for the MP method, this is basically done by buying a block of soap and melting it down and pouring it into your molds. This is a fun and easy way to make your own shapes and designs. You can make layers of different colors, blend colors, etc. It's probably easier to be creative using the MP method.

Japan Junior High School Graduation

This weekend was filled with graduation for the junior high schoolers.

Some conclusions that I came to:

1)It's a big deal.

2)All graduations are the same at every school.

3)Everyone gets emotional. No, VERY emotional.

A graduation runs about 2.5 hours. Well, at least that's how long it was for a school with a graduating class of 45. 45!! It seemed like it would never end. There are endless speeches from the principle, random BOE guys, students, .....

Once you've been to one, you've been to them all.

The graduating students:

Confetti at the end:

Emotional Tears:

These were the semi-trouble-makers. Oh, don't the look so happy?

Can you feel the love? This is one of the homeroom teachers of the graduating class.

Dinner

Last night's dinner

pre-marinated beef mixed with broccoli, onion, and garlic. Lettuce, carrots, rice, and wine.

flickr

A work in progress

http://www.flickr.com/people/isammy-kay/

Happy New Years

Happy New Years, or "Akeomede" as some would say, shortened for 'akemashite omedetou'

It's been a little over a month since my last post in Dec5. So much has happened since then I'm almost too lazy to write about it.

Here are some of the significant events:

Bounenkai

12/22 Office Bounenkai. Bounenkai is an end-of the year party that all of Japan has with their office workers. To celebrate the end of the year. Mine was at a hotel. The food was so-so. Played various fun games. Hulahoop relay game, be the fastest team to transfer the hulahoop to the other end.

Golf Bowling.

There was raffles at the end, I got a 1,000yen stuffed animal/massager thing. I thought it was an OKAY gift, when I look at the lady next to me, and she GOT A PORTABLE DVD PLAYER. I thought, wow, she got lucky.. and then I look at the guy next to the lady next to me, and he got a PS3!!!! And I look around and the other people got gift certificates, food, and basically things way better than my creepy stuffed animal massager.

Trash bag

Trash day is every day. But not EVERY trash every day! Cans and bottles on Monday, cardboards and boxes and books on Friday, something on Wednesday and Sundays, and the actual TRASH trash on tues/thurs/sat. And the trash must be in specific bags. Cans and bottles must be in clear plastic bags. The trash trash must be in this SPECIFIC bag, which can be BOUGHT in sizes small, medium, or large.

One time I did not use this bag and used a regular plastic bag, and the evil trash people did not take my trash.

Cards

Two for two. The two cards I receive in Japan to show that I live here have mis-printings.

In Hawaii I live in Ihilog Loop, and my name is Samntha. And where are my eyebrows.

Christmas and New Years

In a nutshell, spent Christmas with Toru and my fellow Miyako ALTs, headed to Osaka for New Years and stayed with Toru’s grandparents. Went to Universal, Nara, Kyoto, and around Osaka. Fun stuff!

Aunty Pearl

I went back to Hawaii for a little bit for the funeral of my Aunty. Sadness. I got to see my relatives who I haven't seen in years though.

Decision

I have decided not to re-contract for JET 2011. Everyday I am more and more sure of this decision and am looking forward to my next adventures!