Christmas in October!?!?!?!

Let me begin by saying that I love Christmas. I love the holiday cheer, I love the fact that people go out of their way to be nice (despite the fact that should be that kind and giving on a daily basis), I love the food and the family, I love the corny music (I will definitely be dancing around my kitchen to Mariah Carey, when the time comes, even if it is by myself) and I love the anticipation of opening gifts from loved ones that show they remembered me and always seem to know exactly what I want/need.

There is one aspect of Christmas that drives me absolutely crazy though: the commercialism of it . It drove me nuts at home when literally the DAY after Thanksgiving every theme and decoration and product was green and red or Christmas related. It's annoying anywhere, but here there was already decorations up before Halloween!

I guess the whole Christmas thing is like Halloween in that it's totally a commercial holiday and done from a marketing standpoint - not really celebrated. More and more families are making their own traditions with family during the holiday, but since less than 5% of Japanese are Christians, there's not the tradition of celebrating Jesus' birth of course. I'm still learning about what Japanese do during their winter vacations. I know what I'll be doing this year - I'm going to Thailand, baby! Look forward to some killer blogs from that trip:) Saved the best for last:

Sweet Potatoes are SWEET!

Our lovely friends Tomomi and Yoshii were talking about how they harvest sweet potatoes in October when we went hiking with them over a month ago. Alex, Laurel and I were all excited about it and kept bringing it up and asking them to go. They couldn't really understand why. It's work, after all and just something they do out of obligation to the family. They thought there was a million cooler things we could be doing than harvesting sweet potatoes on a weekend day, but we insisted they let us join in on helping out some weekend.
The first weekend of November was the last day of harvesting and we were lucky enough that they amused us by allowing us to come. I'm pretty sure they left the smallest most insignificant patch for us to "work" on, but it was still a total blast! I wish we could've helped out more.

First we went to Yoshii's parents house, where they store all the potatoes. As you can see, they already had the majority of 'em picked.

I'd never seen a Japanese sweet potato before. This one was especially gnarly.
Grandma and the girls (Yoshii's 3 nieces) show us how it's done. Tomomi's explaining to me how you know whether the potato's a keeper or not.
Check out the video at the bottom to see it in action!
After putting the potatoes in the bins, we had to load 'em up into the truck to go back up to Yoshii's parents house. And by we, I mean Alex. I pretty much sat on the machine thingy the whole time and sorted through the potatoes as they came up the conveyor belt. It was so much fun - it felt like that "bop the head" game at Chucky Cheese's - but instead of bopping, you're pulling out sweet potatoes!
We stopped about halfway through for a mid morning snack. They had beverages and the most delicious grapes ever all prepared for us! What sweethearts.
You can see how massive they are here. Mmmm. It's weird, but even grapes are much different here. I've only seen red grapes in the grocery store, and they're SUPER expensive (about $5 for one small bundle). Grandma got them from her neighbors - within their little community group they farm potatoes, grapes, strawberries, tomatoes and cabbage and then share with each other. The grapes come in these big sized ones, medium sized, and mini concord grapes. I always thought the sugary grape taste of like fun dip and suckers and medicine was fake and tasted nothing like real grapes... but it does taste like grapes - the Japanese mini concord ones! Anyway, the inside just literally pops out of the skins when you bite them. You can see Emi in the back just popping the inside out into her mouth. I'm not sure what the reason is, but I have yet to see Japanese eat the skins on fruits. They cut it off of apples and pears, and throw out the skins of grapes.
Alex with camera in hand, capturing all the best moments.
I think Shooma was jealous what with all the delicious grape eating... he must have been pretty disappointed in this dirty plastic bin.
Trying on Grandma's hat for size - too cute!
Tri-pod action = group shot!
Then we headed over to the field that Yoshii was working on. He was tilling the field that had been finished harvesting last weekend.
Yessss!!! I get to try out the tractor! It was just like mowing the lawn at home (which I love, by the way. No joke), except WAY slower and without my tunes to drown out the obnoxiously loud engine. Gorgeous day though.
Tomomi and Shooma...
and literally 5 min after I took that photo, I took this one. This is my favorite kid in Japan, hands down! He can be a little fussy at times, but he's way too entertaining to ever be really upset with.

Off to Ikaho for Udon, onsen, and cultural enlightenment

After sweet potato harvesting, Tomomi and Yoshii were kind enough to take us to the nearby famous town of Ikaho. It's the next most famous onsen (hot spring/spa) town, after Kusatsu, in Gunma (where they took us like a month ago).
Ikaho is not only famous for it's hot springs, it's also famous for udon (a type of wheat noodle). Udon's a pretty traditional and popular dish throughout Japan and can be eaten in a ton of different ways with a ton of different sides and toppings. However it's done, in my experience, it's delicious. This is a pic of the udon noodles being dried outside after the wheat, water, and salt had been kneaded together, set to rise, and cut into the strips.
The restaurant had these sweet chairs in the waiting area. I guess they were made by a famous Japanese artist... but I could've sworn they were in the Ladies' Man's room on SNL. Regardless, they're pretty awesome.
I think Shooma was as hungry as I was, but he had to settle for some green tea until he got to eat.
Here's the set I got. The warm udon noodles are in the middle in the triangular dish with some dried seaweed and mushrooms on top. To the left are tempura fried mushrooms and green peppers. You dip those into the soy based sauce to the left. Tomomi is holding the diced spring onions, which are one of the toppings you can add to the dipping sauce for the noodles. The sauce is right in front of the noodles with green tea to the left of that. Then the three dishes to the right are fresh pickled mountain vegetables. I think one was a type of mushroom... not sure what the other two were, but they were tasty!
The girls show us how to properly slurp our noodles.

Onto checking out the town of Ikaho.
We feel as full and happy as this guy after our big and tasty lunch!
This was an awesome surprise. We got to check out the Mizusawa Kannon Temple. The girls raced up the steps through the Niomon gate... I took a more casual approach.
The place was huge and had a shrine, a temple, several statues and this here pagoda.
We each hopped in to help give the pagoda a good turn.
And I cleansed myself by waving the smoke over me. I look confused in the picture because I was. I kept asking if I was doing everything right. Japanese seem to have a very specific way of doing most things, but they're not too upset if a foreigner butchers the ritual, horribly, as I'm sure I do all too often.
Ring my belllllllllll-lllllllllllllll-lllllllll, ring my bell!
Pouring the fresh water on the frogs for good fortune... I think mine worked:)
The statues for the gods of each of the 12 periods/animals/years in Chinese astrology. I am apparently the year of the pig which was fortunate for my parents because because of their "fertility and virility" I am meant to be "happy and honest" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar_(zodiac)) . I held up my part of the deal... for the most part;)
After how much we enjoyed the last onsen (natural hot spring) in Kusatsu, Tomomi thought we'd like to hit up another one. She's so smart! We were pumped because like I said, this is probably the second most famous spa area in the prefecture and you can only get there by car. It was much smaller than the onsen we went to in Kusatsu, and the procedures were a little different. There was no showering area, so after stripping down I was about to get in the onsen, when all the Japanese women in there already started waving their arms and saying "Dame, dame!" (stop, stop). I learned I was supposed to dump water on me from the spa with a wooden bucket first. I apologized like crazy to them, but they just laughed and said it was okay.

Anyway, below are some pictures from Ikaho.

These are the famous steps that lead through the main part of the city up to the Ikaho onsen. We only walked down them:)

Yes, another blog about hiking... sort of

In late October a few friends and I wanted to squeeze one more day of hiking in before the colors disappeared. But then our driver got sick and demanded she get to sleep in before a late noon departure time. Fair enough. A sick girl needs her rest! We started off on our drive to the hike, and got distracted by an awesome 'lil farmer's market. Fair enough - the little oranges (mikan) were delicious. Back on the road for the closest and most well known mountain in Maebashi, Mt. Akagi, for that hiking we planned on. Lauren didn't know the EXACT way to the mountain or a hiking trail, but as you can see, the colors were still amazing on our adventurous drive.
But then we got distracted by this.
Yes, a giant roller slide in the middle of a national park. $2 for a pad and a short but fun ride down this roller slide!
It looks like I was going at warp speed or something... that's deceiving.
Onto hiking? Nope, time to eat again. My first taste of figs. Real figs taste nothing like fig newtons. We ended up having a 'heated' debate about whether you're meant to eat the skins or not. I decided that while you can, and they've probably got all the nutrients like most fruit skins, they don't really taste that great.
Yay! Onto our hike! By this time though, we only had a few hours before the sun set. I chose this trail in the middle of nowhere because that's where we were. It was steep... and there was hardly any one else on it. Lauren also realized she was more sick than she thought and had to stop half point, which was sad.
Still, it was perty and I decided to make a leaf angel, on like this 50 degree angle hill.
Laurel and Alex making their way up.
Check out this gnarly tree!

This is where we realized we'd have to turn back to get down before the sun set. This is looking up in envy of a mountains peak we were far from reaching.
Pretty sunset!

Group shot: Lauren, Alex, Laurel, me, and Russ with picturesque tree in the background. Props to Alex and his tripod, even if it does slow him down a bit on the trails.
Mmmm - a delicious dinner at the Italian restaurant by my house. Up until now, I couldn't bring myself to eat at one of the MANY Italian restaurants in the area (super trendy in Japan right now)... the Japanese food and restaurants are just too good! A quick change for our lovely vegetarian in the group though brought us here, and it was a fantastic surprise. There were like 318 pasta dishes, and since every menu has the option of a set (usually with a starter, drink, main dish and dessert), I went with the extreme dessert platter set option. Best choice ever!