Fire Fire

Sunday morning I was up at the crack of dawn and getting into my suit, doing my hair and other things that you normally not find me doing on a SUNDAY at all, let alone so early. WHY??? Well, I had to attend the Volunteer Firefighters Ceremony. Hirai picked me up, 2 other local foreigners were already in the car, and off we went to the huge completely underused hall in Yoroshima (a tiny town where nothing happens which leads me to believe the hall was built with dirty election money). 20 minutes later our suits are covered up by a massively oversized, thick, heavy traditional firefighting jacket, a navy blue bowlers hat, white cotton gloves and a sash proclaiming that we are Asaguchi City International Representatives finishes the look. We look five kinds of ridiculous but the 6 strangers crammed into the office with us watching us change tell us we look "cool". Yeah right. We had not one but TWO TV cameras shoved in our faces while we sat on the couch waiting fo rthe ceremony to start. We were exchanging varius smart arse comments and attemtping to avoid having our faces caught on camera the whole time. They don't even ask, or introduce themselves, they just start filming! Then an extremely nervous reporter from local TV came in and asked us some very stupid questions like "What is your impression of the firefighter's ceremony?" to which I replied "Well, we haven't seen it yet have we?" and she backed off fairly quickly. Mean, perhaps, but come ON it was way too early in the morning to put up with that kind of stupidity. Then the wives of a couple of the official type dudes came in and started taking pictures of us. Somehow conversation turned to my experience with crime in my house and the older ladies said that it was "Just beacuse you are so pretty, everyone wants to have a look at you" What?? Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is it supposed to be a compliment? And it is also kind of insinuating that if I am goodlooking I should expect, and deserve that kind of attention. Oh yes I am so flattered that a cretin with a penchant for ladies underwear has chosen me as his amour.

Anyway, after those few comments we were ushered upstairs and onto the stage and placed into seats on the second row on the right side of the stage. The left side was also set up wth seats which filled up with various old men dressed in ill fitting navy blue uniforms, some with a rather alarming amount of gold braiding hanging off their shoulders. One bloke, the BIG VIP, even had a couple of bodyguards with him! We foreigners were introduced basicaly straigtht away and had to stand up and salute (which I "forgot" to do). We then had to turn and face the Japanese flag and sing the national anthem. Have you ever heard the Japanese anthem? It is very somber and a bit like someone's funeral and in the end it kind of just trails off like applause at a half arsed show. Weird. Then all the handing over of awards and so on started. It was SO dull. Everytime somone got up to talk or to present an award (which there seemed to be a million of) they would have to bow to both sides of the stage, bow to the flag and then start talking, and when returning, the whole procedure in reverse. Ridiculous. One funny thing was how some of the older guys would try and do the official feet turning thing like they were soldiers on parade or something. But they clearly were unused to it and being fat had poor balance so they would swivel around and wobble like a gymnast who isn't going to get a medal, huffing and puffing. Another funny thing was how they all kept falling asleep! At least we weren't the only ones to find it boring.

An hour and a half later it was all over and we were allowed to leave the stage (supposing our legs could still work). On the way back to the small office where we had started this whole charade out we were handed a bag witha largish foam box in it that was quite heavy. We were told that it contained "kaki". Now kaki can mean either "persimmon" or "oysters". I translated it as persimmon because frankly it never crossed my mind that they would give us a box of oysters. But boy did I get a surprise when I opened the box at home! About 2 dozen oysters, as big as my hand! This should be a good thing Iguess, because oysters are expensive and all that, but I have NO idea how to cook them. As I was getting out of the car Hirai went to great pains to explain that we must COOK the kaki. At the time I thought it was odd because cooking persimmon seemed odd... but cooking oysters - I thought you ate them raw too? I put them all in my fridge and thought about it for a few hours. Eventually I decided to have a crack at getting one open - no luck there. So I shoved it under the grill for a while and it cracked open. I thought that it might made me sick if it wasnt cooked properly, but THEN I thought that if it did make me sick I could get the Monday off of work... so I ate it :) I was fine, clearly, but have left the rest of them in the fridge. Today I'm going to look up a way to make them taste better on the internet and have a feast tonight.

So not your average weekend!