Student experiences new foods, familiar activities

Editor’s note: For three weeks, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman will share student perspectives on cultural exchange in Japan through the Palmer-Saroma Sister City Program, in honor of the 35-year relationship. Look for additional coverage on the Saroma delegates’ stay in the Valley July 10-17.

SAROMA — Konnichiwa, my name is Ethan Copp and this is my Saroma experience.

Everyone in Saroma treated us with such kindness. I just wish I could have stayed longer.

My favorite experience of this trip was probably the amusement park at the end of the trip. It was a great bonding experience for me and my classmates. Also a great bonding experience was with my host mom and dad.

Climbing Mt. Horoiwa was also extremely fun. I climbed with almost everyone involved in the Sister City Program. It really brought us all together.

And I really loved the food.

Japanese food

My favorite Japanese food was Miso Ramen. The broth was made of miso soup and white onions. It contained real Ramen noodles, which are just heavenly. It was mixed with two to four pork slices and green onions.

The garnish was lightly salted seaweed, which you could eat. The dish was eaten with chopsticks and a large spoon. I encourage everyone to try it.

My favorite drink was a delicious banana milk. It was served from the many vending machines around Saroma. I tried it because my friend, Zane Carter, bought it from a vending machine after the Mt. Horoiwa climb and said it was delicious. So I bought the banana milk and it tasted heavenly. Now my classmates and I call it “the heavenly drink”.

My favorite dessert was a candy called Hi-Chew. It came in tons of different flavors and it was similar to the Starburst candy, but didn’t stick to your teeth like Starbursts do.

I ate curry rice and thought it was similar to most American versions of curry rice. They did have a good flavor of curry, which was slightly tart.

I tried this Melon Fanta drink and it was a strange bright green color. So, I tasted it and the flavor was amazing. I wish they sold it in Alaska.

Another good food is rice topped with pork lightly coated with Panko crumbs. I had it when I first arrived in Saroma with the mayor and some of the city’s leaders.

I also helped make some Japanese dishes with Tanya Lang, who teaches at Sherrod Elementary, and two Saroma High School students — fried chicken with a rice cracker crumb batter on it, a small melon salad and prepared rice cooked with a seaweed stock. I helped by crushing the rice crackers with my hands and cooking the rice. After all the hard work, we all ate our delicious meal.

Surprises

One of the things that surprised me is that they have a public bath in Saroma. It is very unusual to me because there are almost no public baths in Alaska.

The Japanese toilet is also interesting. It has tons of buttons, and it was an adventure trying to find the flush button. It also has features such as seat warmers and bottom washers.

One other thing that surprised me was the small amount of students in the schools compared to Palmer. In the middle school in Saroma there are 150 students, compared to our 600 students at Palmer Junior Middle School.

And the elementary schools are so small. Hama-Saroma Elementary School has only 23 students from first through sixth grade, yet the school was about the size of Sherrod Elementary, physically. Wakasa Elementary had 41 students. Saroma Elementary had 185 students.

Adventures

One of my favorite adventures with my host family was when we were at the Asahikawa Zoo. It was a surprisingly big zoo for a smaller city. It had giraffes, hippos, tigers, lions, brown bears, polar bears, penguins, seals, emus and more. I thought the polar bear exhibit was really cool because you could look up in domes of the exhibit and be super close to the polar bears.

Another favorite activity I did with my host family was visiting the Aquarium of the North Earth. It was located just outside of Kitami. It was fairly small but had lots of interesting fish.

One exhibit had huge fish at least two feet long, and I even got to see them eat. Another one of the exhibits has fish that clean your skin. Another has eels and a school of piranhas. It was a great second-day bonding experience for me and my host family.

The Japanese prison museum was very interesting, too. I got to see what the past prisoners ate and how they were treated.

Overall, this has been a great experience for me. I even loved just being at the school. The students there are very kind and make awesome friends.

Watching the different clubs after school was fun, and they let me play their games. Going to and from school on the bus was just great because I got to talk to the students and make lots of friends. This exchange trip was unforgettable and it was extremely heartbreaking to leave just as everyone started feeling like a family.

Ethan Copp will be an eighth-grade student at Palmer Junior Middle School this fall.