Thoughts from Kyoto - January 24

Some family at our apartment has a *huge* SUV. I mean, in comparison to the smaller Japanese cars parked next to it it’s already looking large enough as it is, but this thing is monstrous in of its own right. Where the hell do you park something like that normally

So today was pretty sweet. KCJS offered a Nihon Ryouri Kyoushitsu (Japanese Cooking Classroom), at some really professional place. I mean, *really* pro. It’s probably where they make those cooking shows or something. So a fair amount of the KCJS students and their host families came – it was interesting getting to meet everyone, though we didn’t really talk all that much. They had a chef and his assistant demonstrating the four different “courses” of the meal we would learn to make, and the camera (which was definitely HD) would switch to wherever he was. It felt somewhat unreal, in a way. So after the professional chef made it all look *really* easy (I suppose cooking shows make me feel the same way), we headed to our respective “stations” to whip up some Japanese cuisine. Throughout the entire process I was really impressed by how well-prepared the classroom was – the ingredients that we were to use for the dishes were all in the sizes we would need, down to 100 grams of flour in a Ziploc bag. At the counter, there were various drawers that had all of our needed supplies, and even a small built-in refrigerator with soysauce and sake and other goodies in it.

Half of my host family.

Meg, my cooking partner. I think she fared better than I did.

Haruna was too hardcore about making the dashi egg to notice.

Other KCJS students and their host families.

At any rate, to make a long story short, a good time was had by all, and the food was delicious. I ended up quite full, since it was about 3PM by the time we ate the food, and I had eaten a bowl of noodles for lunch. I also managed to nick my fingernails at least 10 times with a knife, which goes to show how much more practice and training I need before I can take on Top Chef. As we were leaving, we even got omiyage (souvenirs?), including powdered “dashi” which is very useful in Japanese cooking, and also a small jar of MSG. Don’t think I’ll be using that, but it was amusing. Makes me wonder how much it cost – probably quite a bit, but since it was paid for by KCJS, I don’t actually know yet. All things said in done, this study abroad in Japan isn’t costing nearly as much as I thought it would, in large part because we’re getting a significant amount of the money back, as KCJS uses the program fee we paid earlier to help subsidize food (800 yen for lunch a day, which is a lot), transportation, and events like this. Definitely money well spent, I’d say.

I look awesome in a red-pink apron.

Drank a mocha latte. Not actually as in chocolate, but green-tea-ish Japanese mocha. It was made of pure awesome – I suppose it’s similar to milk tea, except that the foam is very nice.

Engrish from Pizza Hut!

For dinner, my host father bought Pizza Hut… and it certainly tasted interesting. It would seem that for most large corporate chain-restaurants, there always seems to be a certain amount of localization – for example, fried chicken and corn chowder available in Taiwanese McDonald’s, or Teriyaki burgers in Japanese McDonalds. Can’t say I was a fan of the cheese on the pizza though…

This is how Kotatsu work their magic.