Food! We all eat it!I have meant to post pics of the school lunches (給食, the same work kyuushoku, can also mean 'leave of absence' and 'job hunting' but with different kanji, apparently...) because I eat them 5 out of 7 days a week and I really like them. This is a picture of yesterdays lunch and it consisted of: rice with red beans, miso soup with veggies and mushrooms etc, fried tofu, pork, seaweed (kombu) and a rolled up pancake for desert.

On the ball with the food theme I cooked cottage pie with my English club last night (the pic is of me with my 1st year class). It worked well and the kids had fun and more importantly like the food. I only ate a tiny bit but it was great to taste British food again. I can't wait for my mum's roasts! The first year class is mostly girls and it went smoothly all the kids paying attention as I told them the various new cooking vocab as they cooked. The next class (2nd and 3rd years) was a constant battle. They are mostly boys and while they wanted to eat they did not want to cook let alone do the dishes. But I wasn't having the few girls do all the work so I had to bodily drag them over the the sink and use various means to cajole them into cooking and cleaning. When they discovered a bottle of awamori (local firewater) in the cupboard that added a twist to the class. After that class I treated myself to a cold beer from the fridge, I deserved it.

The next type of Japanese meal I shall showcase is Bento. This is a boxed lunch as you can see.
This example of a bento is the one you can buy on my island. Many of the labourers and fisher men eat them as they are cheap and convenient and pretty tasty. The one on my island is pretty basic, one gets allot more variety on the mainland. I get the impression it is also a pretty important skill for Japanese mums to be able to make really cute bentos for their kids (for school picnics etc.) with vegetables cut into animals shapes and things like that. I think the contents of this one are fairly obvious. Note the pickled plum (umeboshi) in the middle of the rice to look like the Japanese flag, cute.....or not. The green stuff in the top right corner is goya, a bitter gourd, which is a very okinawan veg. but has gained popularity throughout Japan. It is very bitter but very good none the less! I plan to take some seeds back with me ;).
And now it is time for todays kyuushoku! Yeah!

Cherio!