Nagaoka's Obake Parfait

At the beginning of every schooling year, the Malaysians in Nagaoka Kosen will find a suitable night for us to have a get-together party; and at the same time, to welcome and get to know the new juniors who have just arrived. Two years have passed since my seniors brought my batch mates and I for the first time to this popular shop - MOCA's Karaoke and Food Restaurant, situated just two blocks away from the train station.

It is read as O-ba-ke Pa-fe.

The arrangements of the interior decorations was a bit different from my last visit here.

Sylvester squeezing poor Tweety Bird.

Some of the toys can be scary.

Stepping into this restaurant at the first floor will give you a retro impression. There are many toys, antique and modern ones decorating the shelves at almost every corner of the restaurant. At the end of the restaurant, there is a karaoke room for anyone who wish to karaoke. Besides that, there is also a tortoise, Kametaro swimming in the aquarium just next to the cashier.

It certainly give a mysterious and strange feeling when you are inside the restaurant.

Kametaro the tortoise.

This restaurant is managed by a pair of husband and wife.

The husband in particular is an interesting guy to talk to. Not even once that he will never fail to praise our Japanese, and how he enjoyed his vacation in Malaysia many years back whenever we pay a visit to his restaurant. He has been doing this business for the past 45 years and it's open all year long, 365 days a year.

With the proud restaurant owner.

This restaurant is famous for its Obake Pafe, literally Ghost's Parfait. I have no idea why it is given such name, but I guess it is meant to let it have a mysterious feeling on how the parfait looks like. One thing for sure is, the obake pafe is humongous. I have never seen suge a huge amount of ice cream for a serving at anywhere else besides this restaurant. So, our visit to this restaurant is to let the new juniors experience the obake pafe. However, let me explain the three main rules before you order it.

1. Obake Pafe is only open for orders if there are five or more people in a group.
2. For each person, they have to order at least a side menu, most of the time drinks, to accompany the obake pafe.
3. A cover charge (席料) of 400 yen (RM 15) will be charge for those who choose not to order any side menu.
   

Usually, most of the people who come in big groups usually will only order the obake pafe alone. Taking that into consideration, it will be pitiful to the restaurant owner for them to only order that single thing despite the big number of people in the group. That explains why rule #2 and #3 are set up.

"Rather than paying for the cover charge, it would be more worthy to order at least a drink because the price doesn't differ much," according to the owner.

This the the drink I order almost every time I go to this restaurant - ice cocoa.

There are various sizes of obake pafe that we can order, ranging from level 1 up to level 5. Most of the time, we will order level 2 to 2.5 depending on the number of people we got. This time, there were 18 of us and we got a level 2.5 obake pafe, a serving meant for 25 people. So far, we have never an order as huge as level 5 because that will be too much for us. Besides, an order of that magnitude requires us to make reservations at least a day earlier.

Four of the five new juniors.

Yan Kuang, playing with Azie's camera.

It usually takes roughly half an hour for the guy to prepare the obake pafe. So, we used this time to start the event of the night by having the juniors introducing themselves. It was from this session that the seniors found out why they kept calling us senpai, instead of just our names during the first week.

The seniors were kinda curious too why they still call us senpai because honestly, I personally don't feel comfortable to be called in such manner. It is like placing a gap between the juniors and seniors, and we aren't Japanese who emphasis a lot on this thing. Respect towards the elderly can be shown in many other manner. Rupa-rupanya, it's because they didn't recognise our names and to play it safe, they called us senpai in turn.

When we asked the next question why they chose Nagaoka, all gave the same answer - because Nagaoka Kosen has many seniors. So we tried asking whether they knew anyone before coming here, and nobody knows any of the seniors. Damn sweat, right? Our plan to play some naughty games on the juniors were interrupted because our obake pafe was ready to be served. Here comes the order of the night.

Pouring various kinds of colourful syrups and chocolate milk onto the ice cream.

Obake pafe level 2.5

Here are some interesting figures of the ice cream.

• 1.5 kg of raw cream.
• Total weight of 5 kilograms.
• Serving for 25 persons.
• The cost of the ingredients is nearly 5,000 yen (RM 150).
• We only pay 1,980 yen (RM 55) for it.
• At the back of the menu written two other types of obake pafe - 裏お化けパフェ (back obake pafe) and お化けパフェレジェンド (obake pafe legend), weighing 10 liters and 15 liters respectively.
  

Banana choco.

There are also a few kinds of side serving that comes together with the ice cream like plates of fruits, banana choco and chocolate flakes. First timers will usually start eating the ice cream at a fast pace, only to feel full and slow down very soon. That is why it is better to start slowly and take breaks in between. On average, a person can eat about two to three bowls of ice cream before feeling full.

This time, I think I ate nearly five bowls of ice cream.

His happy face says it all.

We had difficulties to finish the whole thing last year but this time, having a junior like Bai will offer extra options in making sure the whole bowl of ice cream is completely finished. At the end of almost more than an hour stuffing our stomach with ice cream and cream, we threw in whatever remaining of fruits, choco flakes into the huge vase and have Bai to finish it, which he did proudly.

Last but not least, a group picture of all eighteen of us in front of the restaurant.

One big family of Nagaoka Kosen.

This time, everyone was inside the picture.

The Last Hanami In Nagaoka

Hanami is considered one of the most popular event during this season. Literally, it means flowers-sightseeing and in this context, it refers to cherry blossom or simply, sakura. Crowds of people - family members, friends, groups from companies usually sit under the fully-bloom sakura and have a picnic celebration. The picnic fare usually consists of a variety of food, snacks and drinks like sake and juice. For some people, they would bring their barbecue set there, in addition to the sakura viewing. Since it is spring, it is never too hot to sit under the shade of the sakura trees during the afternoon. This event usually starts in the morning and will continue until late evening.

Enough on the basic introduction about hanami; you can always get more detailed information from other sources.

This isn't the main entrance to Yukyuzan Park, but it's the nearest entrance from our college.

This years marks the third spring that greeted me since I came to Japan more than two years ago. And just like two previous years, the international students in my college went for hanami last weekend at Yukyuzan Park, a public park located just ten-minute walk from my college. But something happened before that which I would like to mention first here. Initially, it was planned to be an event among ourselves the international students and several Japanese students. However, at the eleventh hour, we were informed that the Malaysians from Nagaoka University of Technology nearby also wanted to organise the same event at the same place on the same day.

We have no problem with that because we can always just help them claim a spot early in the morning since we are staying so close to the park. The only thing I can't understand is how they can make a decision at one in the midnight and then expect everyone to attend the event the very next morning. Besides, they said the event will start at nine; I repeat, nine in the morning.

I took the new juniors there in the morning.

The spot we reserve for the people from our college.

And after our job was done, I sunbathed under the sakura trees.

The new juniors, accompanied by one of two seniors are usually in charge of bringing the plastic sheet to the park and reserve space for the event. I planned to to there early this time and I went with four other juniors roughly at eight. The park was still empty, so we got to pick the spot of our choice. Then while waiting for the rest to arrive, we wandered around the park.

As expected, nobody from the university came when it was nine. At ten plus, the rest of us from the college who were busy preparing food in the morning arrived and we went ahead with our own hanami, ignoring whether or not the university people would come or not. By then, it was almost eleven and they told us they will arrive at nine on the previous night.

Yes, MST (Malaysian Standard Time).

By noon, the park is already packed with people.

Tents for those who are afraid of the sunlight.

Children having fun at the field in the middle of the park.

This should explain why Japan is so good in baseball.

Same thing happened last year; the junior went to reserve spot and waited there for almost two hours before the university people started to come one by one. By the time the event started, the college students got fed-up of waiting already and most of us went back early. We are doing a favour by reserving spot for them and this is what we got in return.

The juniors are not obliged to go there early in the morning to reserve their spot; we are just doing it out of courtesy. However, it seems that some people just can't be bothered by taking things for granted. They have lived in Japan longer than we juniors and it seems that they still don't understand the term "punctuality". I mean, I can still tolerate it if they are ten or twenty minutes late, but two hours?

I've seen enough of the way how they conduct events for the past two years and this year, I don't expect any improvement, which I was right. In fact, this year they went one step better. Not only they came late, because they were never there. We were later told that their hanami was called-off. Pure nonsense-lah. And apparently, they are going to do another hanami this weekend and they asked us to join them. I don't think I will have to think whether I will go or not.

Stalls are set up along the walkway.

No matter which park of Japan, the stalls are always colourful with huge banners.

Nemo and friends.

I used to have these kind of masks when I was younger.

Nonetheless, it was actually a blessing in disguise because we had so much fun having our every own hanami - just among the international students plus a few Japanese students. Besides, everyone was surprised to see two Japanese seniors who had just graduated from the college and now currently studying in Nagaoka University of Technology who joined us for hanami on that day - Ooshima, who went to Malaysia last summer on the school trip and Kira, whom I call him "kira-kira", although it sounds like "kura-kura".

"Kira-kira" in Japanese means twinkle.

This is definitely NOT how you greet your senior.

There is a mini zoo and also a castle within the proximity of this park. So far, I've been to to those places a few times. The zoo consists of monkeys, several kinds of chickens and ducks, plus rabbits and peacock. Recently, they have build new cages which I supposed to be used for birds. As for the castle, I have never been inside, so I can't really comment on it, though I guess it a museum about the history of Nagaoka.

When we were going to start the event, we realised that we didn't have even a single cup despite having several bottles of drink there. While waiting for one of us to get them from our college, the juniors were brought to the zoo and castle by their Japanese friends. As for the rest, we just relaxed under the sakura trees there and chit chat among ourselves.

The six new juniors this year, minus one junior from Gabon who couldn't make it.

It was like a olden days "lawatan sambil belajar"; they were taken to see monkeys at the zoo.

Hanami this year started with a brief self-introduction session by each of us there.

Ooshima, who among the few Japanese who can talk almost anything with the international students.

Twinkle twinkle is not bad too.

Oh, it's me.

One of the junior, Faiz when it came to his turn.

Makan time!

We then kampai-ed and everyone began to feast on the food brought there because most of us didn't take our breakfast and it was almost noon already by then. Manami, the little baby girl of Mr Haga was there with her mom too. We have seen her since she was born two years ago and she is the main attraction every time she joins our activity.

When she was still a little baby, she still couldn't recognise people and everyone can carry her. However, now that she has grown-up already, she won't allow any strangers to carry her. She will either cry loudly, or run away if we try to grab her. But if there's one thing that can get her attention, it will be electronic devices; mobile phone for instance.

Every one's eyes were pointed at Manami's direction.

Her mom even let the baby try the cucur kodok and sweet potato fritters made by the juniors.

The juniors were given the task to prepare sandwiches for everyone.

This stack of sandwiches finished within seconds it was served.

The rest of the time were spent talking among ourselves and sharing stories and jokes, including getting to know more about the new juniors, especially the non-Malaysian ones. In between, we took pictures and here are some of then many taken on that day.

Aki and Azie before they started to dance. You know I was just kidding, don't you?

From left: Salehin (Bangladesh), Aniza, Azie and me.

Sweet Mongolian couple; Sodo and his girlfriend.

If not for the two lamp post at both sides, this would have make a perfect picture.

From left: Hong Yao with his god-know's what's-that, Carine and Joann.

Juniors showing off their Japanese version of ais kacang.

Just before we started to pack our stuff and clear the place, came three people holding a stack of pamphlets and one of them wore a cardboard-made head mask while holding to a pole. Apparently, they were campaigning for the upcoming elections and he was asking us where we came from, and whether we can vote or not.

The candidate is the guy second from left. You can almost recognise him by comparing his wide smile and bright teeth to the one on the pamphlet he was holding.

And finally, one group picture before we headed back to our college.

I would say it was the best hanami I have had in three years.

But hang on a minute.

Do you notice who was the only Malaysian missing from the group picture? Yes, it was Yan Kuang, who was away to Tokyo to guide his friend around. However, while we were sitting down under the sakura trees, one of us spotted him standing in front of one of the stall just opposite from where we were sitting and all of us were shocked to see him there.

Look at the guy in green t-shirt.

Geezz, isn't that Yan Kuang?