Wasp Dinner

I can’t believe that I forget to write about this. I guess that’s a sign that I am getting used to being here, because when I first arrived I would have came home and immediately told everyone that I knew. I guess that’s just what happens when you get used to being somewhere. I was in class for 30 minutes today until I realized that one of the girls had a shirt on that said something about how she was a playboy girl, and it had a big Playboy bunny on it. I think she was probably around 10.
Last Sunday I went for dinner at one of my principal’s houses. He is always very kind to me and invited me over for dinner. Of course, I could not turn him down. Usually in Toei I eat bachelor style, and every chance I get to eat good food, I take it. Anyways, during our excellent meal of Sukiyaki, he asked me if I had ever eaten wasps (bees). I told him that in fact, I had not, but I had heard that the mountain people of Toei like to eat the creatures from time to time. This was not the case with the people in Tahara, but there I had seen sake with Japanese wasps in it to add flavor. It tastes like you would expect—sake mixed with bugs.
After some prodding from the 84-year-old grandfather, I said I would try some, and did. They didn’t taste bad, but didn’t taste that good either. The grandfather mixed his with rice and said that was the best way to eat them, probably because the rice covers up the taste of the wasps. I’m not sure if these were the huge Japanese Hachi, the really dangerous wasps that can kill you if they sting you in the head, because the ones we ate were babies and larvae. I don’t imagine they improve with age.
If I have learned anything from being here, it is that when you are out to dinner, you never know what is going to be served. Also, you never know whom you will find.
Last weekend we were all in a liquor store in Toyohashi because it has the most amazing selection of bourbon that you have ever seen. I would say they have three times as many kinds as Liquor Barn, and some that are much more rare and more expensive. While in the shop, we asked the owner if he had ever been to KY. He said no, but pointed to another guy in the shop and said that he had. We met the other gentleman and found out that he has a bourbon bar in Toyohashi, that he has been to KY 10 times, and that he knows everyone in KY personally who knows anything about bourbon. He asked me where I was from, and then proceeded to tell me about Georgetown. He did the same to Nathan and Owensboro. Small world.
I am already on cruise control to come home. I have one more week of classes to teach after this Friday, and I am ready for them to be over. I have enjoyed being in Toei and back in Japan, but it will be so nice to be home!
I hope that you are going to spend the holidays with family and friends. I can’t imagine not having others to share this time of year with. Christmas is a special time and around the world it just isn’t the same as it is at home.
I hope that you appreciate all that you have this year, and that you don’t take it for granted. When you think that you can’t eat turkey any more or you feel like you don’t want to eat any more sweets…just imagine someone serving you a big plate of pickled wasps…and those leftovers won’t be so hard to stomach after all.