kyushoku at Taisha Chu

kyushoku at Taisha Chu
Originally uploaded by Jason In Japan.

"Kyuushoku" means school lunch and in my schools, all the kids eat the same lunch everyday. On a few occasions every year the kids bring their own lunch ("obento") to school, but most days they prepare the trays and distribute the food and eat together with their home room class. There is no cafeteria.

Kyuushoku for me is a roll of the dice everyday. Since I don't eat any fish, and fish is a huge part of the diet here, it oftens means I eat very little at lunch time.

Here is a typical school lunch - some kind of soup or stew - notice the tentacle in today's offering - rice or bread, and some fruit for dessert - today a mini orange called a mikan and then some main dish and salad - today a whole fried fish. So this day I ate the plain rice with some soy sauce I keep stashed in my desk and the orange and drank my milk. Milk is the only beverage offered and many of the kids don't drink it so I guess they go thirsty, since there are no water fountains in the schools.

I pay monthly (about $3 a day) for school lunch and I pay it because it's really just more convenient overall - altho I would estimate that I only eat about 45% of the food.

You can click on any of the pics and be taken to a few more examples at my Flickr site.

One week this year I'll take a picture every day from Monday to Friday of the lunch and you can get a better feeling of a typical week's offerings.

Are you hungry?? :)