Sunday, October 18, 2009-

This weekend was just what I needed.

I was lucky enough to stay at my friend Miki’s house from Friday night until this afternoon. My host parents went to Tokyo for the weekend to some family member’s wedding (I saw pictures, it looked gorgeous. Everyone is black, elaborate kimonos or suits except for the bride who wore all white). Anyway, Miki’s parents own a barbershop and it’s a place where someone is always coming, going, chatting, laughing, cooking, eating, or drinking. The family includes Miki (age 27), a younger brother away at university, her mother, father, and her mother’s two parents. It’s a legitimate hoot, emphasized by a handcrafted ceramic owl overlooking their living/dining/kitchen-room = ) Such rooms are common in Japanese homes and make for cozy family time.

I won’t bore you with every last thing we did, but it was such a relief to finally have someone my generation to interact with while still having grandparents who made jokes, cooked, cleaned, and doted over you. I gave them a few small thank you gifts Friday night at dinner and ever since then the presents just kept piling up. I walked home with: homemade Devil’s Tongue (which I helped make from scratch!), stationary, a hand-carved Japanese bamboo ear cleaning kit (it is so bizarre but it works amazingly well), candy, a CD, Miki wrote out some of the new vocabulary words I learned this weekend on a piece of paper so I wouldn’t forget them, a new Nike sports towel, and to top it all off: a brand-new Yukata (the summer version of a Kimono) from what Miki described as one of the top designers in Japan. I think it’d be like being given a Ralph Lauren jean jacket, but only not so denim-y.

Miki has quite the résumé built up already, as she lived and studied in Tokyo for several years before coming back to Tochigi. She was the announcer for one of the traditional Kabuiki Theaters famous to Tokyo. It is an impressive and demanding job to have. Yet she also managed to teach private Japanese etiquette and Kimono classes to some of the city’s elite including a newspaper editor, a company CEO, and a weatherman, all of whose business cards she keeps proudly in her purse. Her mother also teachers Kimono lessons and I think that is how they were able to give me such a rare Yukata.

I am rambling, I can tell. So I’ll sum up the weekend in just a couple more highlights. I slept in a bed for the first time in 52 days; I looked it up on the calendar. I was allowed to cook again, something I have yet to do at the Sato’s. Her grandpa took us to a tower on top of a hill where we caught an awesome view of the plain below before walking through the surrounding forests. And best of all, the random trips out of the house that Miki and I took on our bikes: to a local market I had never been to before, the 100 Yen store, a cool book/DVD/CD store that I didn’t know existed, a library that turns out to be less than a 10 minute walk from my house, and to her relatives farm out in the countryside where we ate several very country style treats. It was a wonderful, happy, and youthful weekend and I finally felt like I was part of a family rather than just a guest in someone’s house. I have officially been invited back anytime I want (specifically by Miki’s grandma, so I know it was a real offer!) and I hope to return soon.

PS I calculated it out the other night but forgot to tell everyone. I realized that I have now biked over 250 miles since I came to Nakagawa. Crazy, huh? = ) Poor Lance Legstrong, I don’t know how he does it.

One of Miki's relatives working in the countryside

The Tower...and Miki...

Miki and Ojiisan (Grandpa)

The view and me being quite happy

A list of Tochigi Countryside delicacies: Green tea (okay that's normal, right?), pickled cucumber (that's nice), sour pickled plums that make me gag (getting worse), some kind of soy and vinegar soaked garlic roots (woah...), and to top it all of, strings of seaweed soaking in a dark sauce made with the heads of Ayu fish! (GAHH, get me out of here!)

A sweet koi pond and garden Miki and I walked to (that's her on the bridge if you look closely)