Chinese Lantern Festival in Nagasaki

Cindy suggested we all go on this trip to Nagasaki for the Chinese Lantern Festival (thanks Event Planner Cindy!) and when Matt realized he would probably be back in the states for this event, Cindy and I decided to make a girls weekend out of it! We had a BLAST. For starters, a HUGE snowstorm dumped on Iwakuni practically as soon as we boarded the bus (later we found out that the base had so much snow it had to shut down- unheard of, I guess). I love how the Japanese use umbrellas when it snows!

Our hotel room was adorable. I seriously felt like Snow White in the seven dwarfs' house (Britt- remember that version with the little wood beds... and the carrots and bread??? Please say you do!) We had so much fun examining the oh so small treasures of our room, I realized about fifteen minutes later that I had left all my bags, including my purse, in the hall with the keys in the door. Ooopss!

Aren't peep holes supposed to be EYE level?

I'm really not sure.

Germaphobes : Beware.

Cindy and Joe taking pictures of the lanterns...

Cindy and Joe posing for a picture in front of the lanterns, while crossing guard in blue nicely tries to get them out of the way...

Cindy and Joe cracking a joke while the crossing guard is like...SERIOUSLY...GET OUT OF THE ROAD!

Man, I'd do anything for some Log Kit right about now. Mmmm...LOG. KIT. Japanese marketing at its finest.

Okay, this picture may be my favorite. We joked all morning about how it would be impossible to lose each other in the crowds, being that all of us were a good 6 inches to a foot taller than everyone else....oh, and BLONDE. This proved completely true when I stopped for more sesame balls (more info to come), and Cindy and Christine went on without me into the sea of people. After walking for a few minutes to catch up to them, scanning the crowds, our eyes finally met across a sea of people and they had to snap a picture. We were more than 50 yards apart, separated by hundreds of people, yet we could pick each other out as if we were the only three people in the place. PERFECT.

Joe had this thing about needing to get into any long line. His reasoning was that if there was a line, it had to be good. Turns out, he had a point, because one of those lines led us to...SESAME BALLS! I lost count of how many these things I devoured throughout the day, but I'm pretty sure it was in the neighborhood of ten.

And some more food.

Breakfast: Sushi-rice ball, roll, cabbage salad, corn flakes, mini hots dogs with ketchup and mayonnaise.

THE NEXT DAY: Seeing the other side of town- the wharf.

The Japanese LOVE their oysters.

A little European influence.

Joe was determined to eat blowfish, being that it is one of Nagasaki's specialties. What's the draw? Blowfish is fatally poisonous if not prepared properly, so you know...why not? It was a no-go for Joe: they didn't serve it for lunch and we were leaving that afternoon. Me? I don't like seafood when it's GOOD for me, so why would I even bother?

A cute little cafe we stumbled upon for some dessert.

Quotes not to forget:

"Is this going to be an indoor festival?"

"Hey Tessa, want to buy a few dried mangoes for 1000 yen?" Tessa: "Hie."

"Where's Joe?"

"That Cindy, she's a doer."

"SESAME BALLS!!!"

"Mardi Gras! Mardi Gras!"

"I believe in you, Joe. But, I also believe in six year olds. So..."

"Red Coat. Black Coat. Grey Coat."

Octopus Balls

My partner in crime, Cindy, wrote the following little narrative about one of our excursions. This happened awhile ago, but here's to not letting it be forgotten!

Take it away, Cindy...

"So, a group of us met up to have dinner before our Japanese language class last night. We parked in the parking lot across from the Civic Center and decided to walk around town to find a place to eat. This should have been a simple task because there are many restaurants to choose from in downtown Iwakuni. As we set out (in the opposite direction of the town center for some reason) our colleague/VP adamantly insisted that we not choose a meal of intestines, octopus, or something else.....I don't know what because we must have tuned her out. (Sorry Mrs. Eittreim!)

We only had a little over an hour before class and we quickly realized that the direction we were headed was not good because eating places were scarce. In fact, we ended up turning around and walking back to a very small place that someone in our group had noticed. It was so small that the six of us barely fit inside. Eureka! We hit the jackpot. It was a specialty shop with just one very special item on the menu. I'm sure there is a great Japanese name for the food prepared there but we prefer the American name we chose...octopus balls.

I wish I could post pictures so you can see the way the cook carefully prepared the food. The batter was poured on a special pan. Pieces of octopus and I don't know what else were put into the batter. After the batter was partially cooked, more batter was added and then eventually the batter balls were turned and cooked on all sides. The end result was dumplings filled with octopus, sauce poured on top, and I don't know what else placed on top of that.

Obviously, our VP was thrilled with our dinner choice (see paragraph 1).

The taste? Different. We ate as many as we could, washed them down with Coke, and ordered ice cream cones to go."