Obasan no uchi de gohan o tabemashita.

I had lunch this past Saturday at a Japanese lady's house. Her name is Yasuko-san, and this Lady is soooo nice! Not only did she invite me over for lunch, but she made me feel right at home. Thank goodness that she did, because I was so nervous. Haha. I really have not been around Japanese people for a few years, at least not on a consistent basis. There were six other ladies that joined us, and the atmosphere was very reminiscent of the cooking class I went to in Kanazawa.... It mainly reminded me of Kanazawa, because apparently Japanese ladies like to tease a lot. Haha. 

This obasan was helping us cook tempura.

The cooking class that we went to in Kanazawa consisted of three stations. There was the temupra station, the sushi station, and the soup station. Making tempura was my first actual encounter with cooking chopsticks. I was surprised at how long they were! I was pretty happy that they were long though, because I hate hate hate!!!! getting hot grease or any sort of hot anything on my skin, especially when they are little droplets! Anyways... this station was not where I was teased.

This was the station where I was teased...A LOT! First of all I apparently suck at rolling sushi, second off I had no idea that I was supposed to wet my knife before trying to cut seaweed. It was pretty funny though. I actually enjoyed making the obasans laugh, but what killed me is that when we were all done eating and I brought back everything I ate with they pointed at my sushi plate, back at me, and then started laughing all over again. I don't show color much, but I'm pretty sure that I was red.
 

Ingredients for tempura. My favorite
is pumpkin temupra. I had it at Yasuko-san
no uchi.

This was basically a huge wok that
we used to fry the Tempura.

I can't wait to learn how to cook
even more Japanese foods...
Hopefully Yasuko-san will teach
me! Also since going to Japan I have learned that using a sushi mold is a lot easier...just sayin.

These are just close ups of the finished products. Notice the beautiful coloring of my tempura and disregard my sad excuse for a sushi roll...however the sushi did taste better anyways so whatever.

Our beautiful meal...and my not so beautiful sushi... as you can
see in the background there is sushi that is how it is supposed
to actually look...:/ 

Ah, how we all grow up. Just another day in good ol' Kanazawa with
good ol' friends.
ITADAKIMASU!

O Kamisama ga Watashi o aishite imasu!

So I had been having a hard time finding native Japanese speakers around where I live, which totally sucked because the fastest way to learn the language is to immerse yourself and to speak with natives. So, at work we have quite a few Asian costumers that come in, but they are mostly Chinese or Korean. The only Japanese people that would come in are 2nd generation from Hawaii. So I have been praying that I could find at least one person to talk to. Finally a Japanese lady came in, but she was soooo new to America that she couldn't understand me at all and the accent was a lot different as well... so my Japanese didn't help either. I gave her my number anyways, but I figured that she would, more likely than not, not call me...and I was right.
I was pretty bummed out about it, but I just moved on... A few days later I was working a morning shift and one of our regulars came in. I had always felt like I should ask him what nationality he was but I never did. That morning I finally bucked up and asked him. Turns out that he is half Japanese and that his mother lived just down the road!!! He called her up on his cell and let me talk to her, right then and there, and she invited me over for lunch with her friends! I was so happy. I had really been wondering if pursuing Japanese was really for me and if it was really a path that I wanted to take. Not only did I have lunch that day, but she gave me a retired Japanese professor's number and I have also met with her! And She doesn't charge!!!
I seriously feel so blessed and happy. I have also realized that I truly am learning way more than had thought. I feel that things really are starting to fall into place!