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| From around school |
Here’s a pretty typical example of Japanese school lunches. There’s almost always a bowl of rice (this one has red beans), milk (produced locally), some kind of miso soup, vegetables (these are pickled tofu, bean sprouts, and carrots), and protein. Does something look unappetizing here?
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| From around school |
That’s right, it’s a whole boiled fish. The kids eat every part of it except the spine, which is too hard to chew. It really creeps me out that they start by biting off the head.
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| From around school |
I call this stuff “awesome bread.” It’s just a roll of plain white bread, but before baking they slapped on a starfish made of sugar cookie. Thus, awesome.
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| From around school |
Outside of the nurse’s station she frequently puts up posters about washing your hands or eating enough food (a lot of Japanese girls starve themselves from an early age). Last week I was walking down the hall and noticed this new one. Basically, it’s explaining to girls that, during the colder months, they should wear knee-length skirts rather than miniskirts. As you can see, it features an infrared photo that proves their point about heat loss. At the moment I was taking this photo one of the rare kids who willingly talks to me came out of the nurse’s room. She asked why I thought the skirt thing was funny and an argument ensued about why the female students have to continue wearing skirts in the winter instead of changing to pants, which would be healthier and more practical. She argued Japanese tradition and I argued cold knees.
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| From aikido |
Meet Mr. Takahashi, the elderly fellow described in a previous post. In his seventies, he’s still actively farming, always has a well-fed-lumberjack smile on his face, and dresses like it’s 1870. For these reasons (and that he can chuck me about ten feet with little difficulty) Mr. T is pretty much the coolest guy ever.
Dude, that fish looks sick! We have fish at our school but it is by far more appetizing. I guess when people complain about their school lunches I shouldn’t think that they are like mine. Jeez.