Golden Week Gathering 2013

"Fu Wei zai na li?"

"Fu Wei zai jia"

the most famous line

at this year's gathering

Golden Week came and went this year. However, keeping up to the long tradition which started more than a decade ago, the annual Golden Week gathering was held again this year. More than ten years ago, the seniors studying in the universities came out with a brilliant idea to organise an event to welcome the new juniors to Japan. Back then, it was just a small barbecue gathering and no more than fifty people joined the event.

A few years later, some of the seniors graduated and returned to Malaysia, while the ones who remained here were in their final university year. There was nobody available to continue to organisation of this annual gathering. Fortunately, the forth-year kosen (technical college) juniors came to the rescue. They volunterred to take over the organisation, and that was the point where this gathering has been organised by the forth year kosen juniors every year. On most of the years, it is almost a lus non scriptum for the forth-year juniors from Kisarazu Kosen to be the main organiser, including this year.

The fresh third-year juniors who just came to Japan last month, along with the forth-year juniors who are the organisers.

For the past five gatherings, the venue had moved to Otizawa Youth Centre (2008, 2009, 2010, 2012) in Machida city, and the University of Electro-Communications (2011) in Chofu City. Finally, after a six-year absence, we finally returned to the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Yoyogi, Tokyo. This is the very same venue where my batch members attended our first Golden Week gathering seven years ago. 

Yup, seven years ago. Sounds like such a long time, ain't it?

Basketball is almost a must-have sports every year.

Guess what all these boys have in common? They are Malaysians. Haha, lame I know.

A group photo after the sports session, before heading to the next venue.

This year, they gathering point was at the University of Electro-Communications as they played some sports in the morning session. Basketball and badminton, played in the huge university gymnasium they rented.

Later in the afternoon, they moved to Yoyogi Park for some games sessions. From the photos I saw, I guess they played Frisbee and break-the-opponent's-ballon game.

The term Frisbee, often used capitalized, to generically describe all flying discs, is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company.

The inventor of Frisbee, Walter Frederick Morrison had the frisbee idea as a teenager throwing lard popcorn tin lids with his girlfriend.

Basically, in this game, each group members will form a line and they will attempt to break the opponent's balloon.

Look's simple but I bet it is not as easy as it looks.

As you can see, some even resorting to use their kung fu flying kick skills to win the game lol!

After the games session, it was time to head to the main venue - the National Olympics Memorial Youth Centre, located just next to Yoyogi Park. Here is where the ice-breaking session, self-introduction, more games and networking happens between the newbies and the old birds like me.

The most awaited session however, is surely the self-introduction session by the new juniors. This is the only time where we get to interrogate them with whatever questions we like. The most common question always is whether they are available or no. But this year, it seems that everyone was asked their hobby. Not sure if this was done on purpose or not haha!

The fantastic MC of the night - Mugu. This joker really did a great job entertaining us with his jokes.



But first, dinner time! No extraordinary food this year though, as we had bento dinner from Hotto Motto lol!

Another HY Ong joining us this year. One thing for sure, he is definitely not as siao as the siao kia HY Ong we already have haha!



Crystal senpai, the most senior person at the gathering this year, introducing herself. She came to Japan in almost two decades ago.

From my observation, it seems that most of the juniors this year are from the northern states like Perak and Penang. There was almost no juniors from the popular states like Kedah, Selangor and Sarawak this year.

Anyway, the night continued with Bingo games. The prizes are mostly snacks, biscuits and cakes, that the game eventually turned into a group game. Every time someone wins a prize, his friends sitting around him would make him open his prize and start enjoying the food together. So, in the end, nobody lost the game. Everyone there was a winner.

Working hard to get the chance to shout Bingo.

Someone was proud to win a pair of pink sandals lol!

No luck for Bin Wei this year hahaha!

And just when I said that, Bin Wei suddenly did a ballet dance. Did he hit Bingo? No idea lol!

The winning group of the games session in the evening.

I love this group a lot. It is arguably the most rojak batch in the history of PPKTJ/KTJ 'coz we have Melanau and Bidayuh in this group as well.
 

The batch one year my junior. Yew Keong sesat into that group since he is in the same university year as them.

My batch, seven years ago in 2007. Our batch used to be one of the biggest batch.

And now, we were trimmed to only four members. Some had gone back for good, some had moved to other parts of the world, and some just got MIA.

Lastly, the group photo!

During this gathering, I was told that technically, the batch that are scheduled to come to Japan next year will be the final batch, as there are no more new intakes for this technical course to Japan anymore. In that case, it also means that it will be the last time we will get the chance to have this annual gathering in 2014.

Just like this year, the Kisarazu team has been tasked to be the main organiser for the event next year. And here's hoping that the gathering next year will be a big blast!

Food Hunt Around Sendai

"All you need is love. 

But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."

Charles M. Schulz

I've been to Sendai twice. Once as a volunteer in the tsunami disaster area, twice for pleasure. 

This city in the northern region of Honshu island is blessed with rich nature and enjoys fruitful harvests from both land and sea. The region has produced unique delicacies since ancient times and its seafood has established a solid reputation for freshness. Fresh sushi and oysters from Matsushima Bay are among the most famous Sendai specialties. Sukiyaki made with Sendai beef and fish tempura are also both highly recommended.

Sendai Station, the landmark of the city.

The city is currently holding a campaign called "Sendai Destination Campaign" to promote tourism around the city.

In all, there are lots of local food to eat in Sendai. However, if you are there, there should be only one thing in your mind - gyutan (beef tongue). Sendai is so famous for this piece of thing, grilled over charcoal that you will find gyutan restaurants literally littered around the whole city. You can read my first time trying out this delicacy at the end of this post. 

Here, I would like to introduce several Sendai specialties that I got to try from a half-day food hunt around the city.

This is Zunda Saryo (ずんだ茶寮),  a famous brand that specialises on zunda-based mochi, cakes and snacks, found at the west exit of Sendai Station.

A huge varieties of zunda (sweet edamame paste) products, including fuki dorayaki (富貴どら焼) on the left.

There is a cafe which is next to the shop selling the zunda products.

Zunda mochi (ずんだ餅). One word to describe its taste - out of this world!

Next up was this small little hut hidden in between huge shopping malls. The shop has a simple name - Taikichi (鯛きち). Tai is a Japanese word which refers to sparidae, or more commonly known as sea breams. This shop sells taiyaki (たいやき), a type of Japanese pancake-like snack shaped like a fish and usually containing sweet filling in the middle.

What makes the taiyaki in this shop unique is the specially made gyutan curry taiyaki, which I believed is only found in Sendai.

Clis Road Shopping District, a pedestrianised and covered shopping arcade near Sendai Station.

The banner which promotes its popular menu - gyutan curry taiyaki (牛タンカレー).

Another one not to be missed is the maccha whipped cream taiyaki.

Caught this fish which has beef tongue flavour curry inside for 100yen.

Here is how it looks inside. The curry overwhelmed the flavour of gyutan.

Served chilled, this maccha whipped cream was good.

The next stop was at Abekamaboko (阿部蒲鉾) to try out another speciality - hyotan-age (ひょうたん揚げ). It is a Sendai-style corn dog with kamaboko (fishcake) instead of sausage inside. It is usually served together with spicy ketchup. 

Apparently, everyone from Sendai knows this shop, located along the famous Cris Road shopping arcade near Sendai Station. The hyoutan-age from this shop is really delicious, that it is common to see long lines queuing up to try it out.

The little shop at the corner of the shop lots, which sells hyoutan-age.

The size is relatively huge, and one stick costs 150yen.

However, if you are lucky, you can get another stick for free. Anyone who has his wooden stick with the atari (当り) carving will get another stick free of charge!

And guess who was the lucky boy on that day?

Food hunt continued and we stopped at this interesting-looking stall selling fried dango (揚げ団子).

Hot and chrispy outside, and sticky inside. The small piece of seaweed was the icing on the cake dango.

Another interesting snack called kashiwa mochi (柏餅), a Japanese traditional sweets eaten on Children's Day on May 5th.

Kashiwa mochi is a kind of steamed mochi made with glutinous rice flour, joshin-ko (上新粉) and shiratama-ko (白玉粉), wrapping sweet red bean paste inside.

Each of them is then wrapped with kashiwa (oak leaves).

Dropped by the souvenirs shops at the basement of the station to grab some souvenirs back to Tokyo.

Zunda is so popular in Sendai, that they even came out with zunda jam! The world's one and only it says.

Bought a box of zunda manju and okanemochi lol! To those who doesn't speak Japanese, okanemochi (お金持ち) can also mean "rich" hahaha!

Finally, after a couple of days, it was time to return to Tokyo.

Took the stylish green Hayabusa shinkansen home.

It turned out to be the wrong train. Look where it took us to! A very ayashi place hahaha!

That's all for my short Sendai trip. Hope you enjoy reading. And ohhh by the way, getting to see *ehem* comments *ehem* from my readers will always turn me like this ^.^