IrishOboe

Wednesday, May 3^rd I spent a leisurely morning before Shimizu sensei and her husband and son picked me up at 11:30 for a day at her in-laws’ place in Sutama. Yuko also met us at my apartment and we all drove there together. It was good to see Shimizu sensei again, though the conversation on the ride there was mostly in Japanese.

We stopped on the way to enjoy the view of Yatsugatake, the South Alps, and Mt. Fuji. It was a beautiful, clear, warm day. When we arrived at the Shimizu’s home tucked away in the folds of a mountain and surrounded by farmland and trees they were already pounding mochi. The mochi rice was grown nearby, the weed for seasoning the mochi was taking from the front lawn, the nuts that we rolled the mochi in were from the tree in the backyard, and the anko (sweet bean paste) was made by hand. Later we had miso soup with miso made by grandma Shimizu. It was great to be in such natural surroundings eating natural, local food! Their house is a very old, traditional house that has the original hand-hewn beams blacked from 100 years of internal fires (made in the summer to keep the silkworms dry!). It was beautiful. Once again I was reminded that I was in Japan. This is the Japan I love!

After making different kinds of mochi in assembly line fashion we sat down to a lunch of – you guessed it – mochi (coated in three ways: anko, powdered soy nut, and walnut and sugar), miso soup, potato salad (with apples in it – you should try it sometime, it was delicious!), and tempura. I stuffed myself because mochi is very filling and I had to try one of each kind! After lunch we went for a drive to look at the historic schools. Side by side there are three schools each from a different era in Japanese history. The oldest (that was rebuilt) was from the Meiji era and was originally built in 1875. Even though the building was new, the museum in side was full of cool old things! At that period in history Japan was importing a lot of Western ideas, including schoolhouse architecture. I chose not to think about making a value judgment on that and just enjoyed looking at all the old Western gadgets from a gramophone (which they played for us!), to a star gazing machine that projected the constellations onto the room, to old telephones, to pump organs. We were allowed to play with most of the stuff, which was even cooler. The old artifacts were either behind glass or could only be operated by an attendant, but they had refurbished the school room with mostly things kids could get their hands on. I played the school song on their pump organ at the front of the classroom. It was a cool little museum!

After that we went to look at a local shrine, which was very old and beautiful. Supposedly there’s a tree there that’s 2,000 years old. It looks just about dead, though. The carving on the shrine looked as impressive to me as the carvings in Nikko. The Nikko shrines were in better condition, but I once again thought that local stuff is just as good, if not cooler, than the famous spots! Maybe I don’t know what I’m missing, but the same could be said the other way around.

Anyway, we then went to a local festival and I saw perhaps the most convincing evidence yet that Japan doesn’t have lawyers. We parked behind the house then went through the farmland to climb the mountain to the little shrine where the festival was. There must be another way in because there were cars up there, but we didn’t go that way. We climbed up a little bit then followed a foot wide path between a drop to the farmland and an irrigation ditch (yes, in the middle of the mountain side) to a long set of steps that led up to the shrine. I’ve been in Japan long enough to know that shrines often have a set of steps that are sometimes quite long, but up until now the steps have been accessible from some drivable road. After looking up at the 300 steps up to the shrine I was told to look down at the twelve steps that led to – nowhere! When they build a new road I guess the steps were just in the wrong place so they just chopped them off! This was truly where the sidewalk ends! There was not a bit of warning either.

After the hike we discovered that we basically had missed the festival. We saw the very end of some dancing and were able to join in on the scramble to collect the mochi they threw out to the crowed, but that was about it. It was a little disappointing because this festival was even smaller – by a lot – than the Ryuo festival. The clearing for the shrine was about 20 square yards. It would have been fun to see such a community event, but it was a good day nonetheless. We ate wonton soup (don’t ask me!) and some gel with sweet miso (I don’t remember the name) and were given (or bought?) yakisoba, which thankful we didn’t try to eat there. I was so stuffed still from lunch! On our way back we managed to make the right turn climbing down the steps so nobody fell into nothingness. When we arrived back at the house we were presented with more food, but I politely declined since I wanted to be able to eat the sushi dinner we were going to have!

I’d never had this kind of sushi before. We set the table with strips of sashimi, nori (dried seaweed), and a pot of rice, then each person took a sheet of nori, put some rice on it, placed a few soy sauce-dipped sashimi in the middle and rolled it up to eat. I guess it was like Japanese burritos. Luckily I had enough room to enjoy the meal and the tasty fruit salad dessert. It was quite the day of feasting! We were sent home with more mochi than an elephant could eat in a day, and the yakisoba from the festival. Then we were told to come again! The Japanese sure do change the definition of hospitality.

It was a lovely day filled with just the kinds of things that make me love being a local in a foreign place. Traveling is loosing its shine as I see how much cooler it is to live in a place for a while!