RYLA... and stuff

Saturday (April 18) I went to RYLA. RYLA stands for Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. We were told about it in our district meetings at the beginning of the months. Each of the exchange students had to pick a food from their country and we were told we would be teaching a group how to make that food. It didn't really sound too fun, to be honest. Even the rotex people said they didn't think it was going to be very fun.

... but it was awesome!

We all met up at Kanazawa-hakke station. Well, that was the plan. A few of the other exchangers were late and met up with us a bit later. From there we went to the center RYLA was being held in. It was pretty much a big cafeteria with a huge kitchen. The ingredients for each meal were out on tables. Each of us had been assigned to a group of about 12 people plus an outbound to our country. Vincent and I had been told that we would be working together because we were both from America, but they ended up splitting us up. We just combined our groups. Let's be honest, hamburgers and cheeseburgers are practically the same thing. We had planned on doing them together anyway.

Eventually all the RYLA participants show up. This RYLA was for 17 to 30 year olds (as opposed to the RYLA I went to in America that was for high school students). Perfect. I get to teach a group of 24 people, all of whom are older than me, how to make hamburgers (which I have never actually made myself before) in Japanese. ...all right. The groups were seated by tables and they introduced us to our tables one at a time. When I was going over to my table I heard a couple of the girls at it say "oh, kawaii!". That kind of made me laugh...

My table with our food. That is Maki across from me.

Anyway, the guy in charge kind of babbled on for a really long time explaining each of our meals. He took like 3 minutes to explain what a hamburger is. Then another 3 to explain the cheeseburger. Just in case someone didn't know... Finally we all get into the kitchen. Vincent, Kouhe, Maki, (Kouhe and Maki are both going to America this year) and I look at each other. Now what? ...

Vincent, Kouhe, and me. I'm not sure where Maki was...


After a slightly awkward pause with everyone staring at us, I go... "Okay, we are going to need people to cut vegetables, people cut the buns, and people to make patties..." I was mostly just thinking out loud in Japanese, but people started doing what I said. It was amazing. I was totally in charge! haha! After some group effort to find all the knives and cutting boards and things they just got to work. They would ask me how I wanted the various veggies cut and then they did it. Wow, I love being in charge of big groups.

Don't get me wrong, this was a team effort. Technically, Vincent was just as much in charge as me. But he has this idea that he can't speak Japanese so I was the one talking to the group. Kouhe and Maki were really good for helping translate or explaining what I was trying to say. Vincent did an awesome job of giving them examples of how to cut stuff and how to make the patties. I really didn't do much at all. There was just nothing else to help with so I supervised.

French Fries!


And the burgers.

In the end we made some delicious hamburgers and french fries. Seriously, they were good. The other inbound's meals were all good too. I tried them all! And ate way too much. I got to try ceviche for the first time. Iliana (Mexico) and Felipe (Ecuador) both made it. Iliana also made tacos. It was really good! I really love my rotary group here. I can't believe that this was our last activity all together. Iliana and Felipe will both leave early next month.

What a fun group


The camera man got to have one too. Well, there is a reason the camera man is eating our burgers. Vincent stole one before we were done. It was a doulbe decker. He tried it and said it was really really good, and that I had to try it. The camera man sees Vincent trying to stuff this huge burger in my face and comes over to take a picture. Next, Kouhe got to have some. Then we asked the camera man if he wanted to try it. He ate the rest. hahaha
I hope we get copies of his pictures...

Because Iliana is leaving so soon we decided we needed to have one last sleepover before she goes. Saturday night I stayed at her house. It was really nice. We got to talk a lot and I had the best night sleep I have had in a long time. Her bed has a real mattress and we slept in until 8:30!

On Sunday we went to an Odori at the National Theatre of Japan in Tokyo. My rotarian, Mr. Yoshida, invited me to go see it because his wife was in it. He gave me 3 tickets and told me to bring 2 friends along. I brought Iliana and Katja with me. It was really pretty cool. I am glad I got to have that experience. The dancing is very slow and the music is very traditional, but it was a really good cultural thing to see. The kimonos and costumes were beautiful! I enjoyed it. His wife was in two of the songs, including one with the huge wigs like in the picture below. I couldn't take pictures of the actual performance, for obvious reasons, so I found this online.

This dance is called the Renjishi. They are playing lions.


From there Mr. Yoshida and his daughter took us to Kaiten-zushi!! (conveyor belt sushi, which is pretty much the best invention ever.) Katja had to go home early so she couldn't join us there, but it was fun to see her during the day. I had a very busy, fun weekend.