An excursion with Usui san, a primary school, and side-dish recipes - Mon 23 Apr

A guest turned up at yoga today, for the first time since my first morning at Shalom Hutte.

That same guest had a good ridiculing at the hands of Usui san. From the midst of another couple of guests an hour later, he targetted her for all the questions he asked on the eco tour, and ribbed her mercilessly about not being able to answer them. He started off saying that the questions were answered easily enough by primary school children, and landed on a theme of the joy of the blank canvas.

It was a cold morning out this morning. Happily, being the second time around, I got some more of the detail of the eco tour, but I still don't know how he got the double glazed windows for free.

Kaoru san is sick today with achey joints. Hope I don't get sick, we're all in pretty close quarters and there's been lots of chopsticks going into serving dishes.. Eek, the germs are coming!

I vacuumed to more Evolution 80s playlist, thus escaping toilet cleaning in the restaurant so far. (I know which I'd prefer!)

There was some pita bread in the breakfast. Japanese uses the French word for bread, 'pain', pronounced near enough like the English bad joke 'pun'. I spotted a very good opportunity for a dad joke when there was mention of "pita pan". Usui san suggested I might spend a day at a local primary school, as a bit of a cultural exchange for the kids (unrelated to Peter Pan discussion).

My post-breakfast morning was spent with Usui san, obstensibly as his helper, though he didn't need much help. We drove to a Walmart-like megamarket for glue to try to fix my glasses frame, which I snapped on the bridge a couple of days back. Usui san treated me to a self-inking calligraphy brush.

He drove to his other place, a lodge with mainly western rooms, bought one year ago.

There was an earth mover clearing trees on the property while we were there. The tilled fields in the areas we drove through on the way there would soon all be flooded seeasonally for rice, he explained.

We dropped in to a primary school for 20 minutes, to meet Minemura sensei and suggest my guest appearance. It was nearing the end of recess. I was an immediate celebrity. The grade 6 boys were very impressed that I spoke Japanese, and peppered me with questions about whether I knew of this cartoon character and that. One asked me whether I was poor. When I asked why, he pointed out I was wearing the plastic sandals from Shalom Hutte. (He spared me mention of the socks I was wearing with them, which would merely have indicated poor taste.)


I later spotted the boys in what initially looked like a snow fight, but it's spring in Japan. The seasonal projectile isn't snow, it's recently fallen cherry blossoms.


The school was very beautiful, if I compare it to Aussie state schools, and flowering annuals were everywhere, clumped in big patches in the gardens, and in buckets outside the classrooms.

There was a bunch of very cute really little kids all in white hats in the yard, holding hands in pairs, then squatting at the instruction of their teacher.


Also entertaining was a young class learning to cross road in pairs under the their teacher's instruction. Holding hands in pairs, they crossed with their spare hand raised above their head as a warning to any traffic. Usui san confirmed that they actually do this when crossing the road.

We dropped in to the 100 Yen Shop. They had better things there than the $2 Shop back home, and everything was actually 100 yen as promised. I bought lots of chocolate and chips to supplement my recent monstrously healthy diet.

On the way back to Shalom Hutte, there was very varied architecture, from traditional Japanese brown tiled roofs and eaves, to log cabins and strangely shaped apartment buildings. I always find buildings are interestingly varied in different countries.

We passed a great collection of carp flags. When boys are born, a carp flag is strung in their home, symbolising a hope for the boy to grow up strong as the carp that swim upstream to breed. After the flag has done its time in the newborn's house, it gets added to this mass of flags above the river.


When we returned to Shalom Hutte, more wall prep, bolting wood together as retainers to pour walls into. We made another excursion out to a lumber yard with an office somehow like a children's storybook gingerbread house.


I helped with dinner. I'm not good with timing and portions with large groups.. We made soba (buckwheat) noodles, which I often make at home, but also other side dishes, including BLOODY mountain potato to mix with the soba while eating. It took an AGE to grate one damn hard mountain potato against a grating bowl, and I was sweating freely and had very itchy hands from the mushy sticky mess left as an aftermath. To pour salt on the wound, I didn't eventually like the texture of the stuff - it was frothy in the mouth, icko. I was so tired at dinner, my Japanese skills left me and I couldn't be bothered to even try.

After dinner, Nobi kindly went through the recipes with me for some of the sides we'd eaten. I'm determined to pick up some more Japanese cooking skills while I'm here.

I had a shower, standing up western style, in the Japanese bathroom today. My tiredness made me want a reprieve from the constant departure from my familiar customs, such as not squatting and washing myself with a wet towel.