Saturday 28 April 2007

Bulding, the end of high places, onsen, and carrot dumplings- Sat 28 Apr

This morning was very cold and bucketing with rain. For the eco tour after yoga, I rugged up in a self-fashioned scarf and the Tiger beer cap mum brought me from Vietnam for extra warmth.


Again with the high-place cleaning, then some plastic slipper wiping with Ai (and the odd bit of silliness).


I helped Usui san with some building today, using the electric drill to screw in supports for a wall surface - nice macho work.


The part-finished project, looking woody on the left. It's an enclosure to protect the pizza and break making oven from the occasionally strong winds.


When that was done, more high place cleaning. Today, I could finally say I'd cleaned ALL the high places available to clean. I got to have a look in all the different rooms in the pension while cleaning, each differently decorated with home-made objects and interesting old furniture, and named things like 'Mountain Boots' and 'Nepal'.

Yama chan and I got a letter from Iwasa san, a guest who arrived at Shalom Hutte the same day as us, and chatted with us in the car on the way to Shalom Hutte and over dinner and after the slideshow. She offered for me to come to stay with her and her husband in Tokyo - a very generous offer, after one evening! She said she's keen to talk to us both more about our experience at Shalom, and she's envious of our long stay here.

Kimi san made us some chai (sweet spice) tea with milk and honey. Our pizza del giorno was napolitana, held here by Nobi who couldn't hold back from the first slice.


During our 2-5pm rest break, my suggestion to go to the local onsen was accepted, and six of us headed off by car to Holiday You (their website has pictures here). This time I had a pal, as Saki san came along too - no guys came along to on our trip to Fine View Onsen after the night hanami. Holiday You were great baths, with outdoor rock pool baths with hot cascades, outdoor sun lounges for to sit on for respite, two massagey jets that fall from a high, and a sauna with a cold-water tub beside. One very bold man took the plunge into the bath - Saki san had been impressed that I'd been willing just to douse myself in some of the water. Saki san shouted us some iced coffees afterwards, from a vending machine with a crate next to it to take the glass bottles back to the vendor - clever.

Helping with the group's dinner tonight, I took down a recipe for carrot dumplings, a traditional recipe from Suzuka-ken in Nagano, made by Maki san. The dumpling shell is made from leftover cooked rice, flour and water, and the innards are mashed steamed carrot and miso bean paste. You steam then grill them, and they turn out with a shiny patina and a slightly sticky shell, and quite sweet due to the carrots, nearly a dessert.

My suggestion to go to karaoke tonight took hold, but was dashed by last minute consideration of how much work there will be tomorrow - there are twenty guests at the pension tonight. There is a tentative plan for a trip out for a drink tomorrow night, and talk of a visit to a soba noodle restaurant in the near future. My departure from my current home is near - only a few days now, on Wed May 2, then I'm off to Wakayama to travel a bit with Take, an internet friend who showed me around Nara and Kyoto over a couple of days when I was there a few weeks back.

So instead of yowling out the tunes, I wrote out some of my laggard postcards - don't forget to send me your postal address to my gmail address if you'd like a postcard and haven't already got one!

I scored a good back massage exchange with Nobi san before bedtime :) Sweet dreams!

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