Whassaaabbiii

Wasabi is that lovely green pasty stuff in sushi. It's a type of horse radish, and often brings that sinus-clearing nose burn. Now, true wasabi affienados claim that true wasabi is much more subtle, with less of the burn.

Real wasabi, the kind still in the original root, is quite expensive. For about $5 you can get a few inches of wasabi root. As I am a cheapskate, I have made do with the powder.

But!! When Aaron n I ate lunch at a soba shop in Kansai Airport, we were given an entire wasabi root to grate into the soba! The extravagence continues-- each table has a stack of little wasabi root-sized take-out bags! Yes, you can take home your wasabi root and continue the luxury. So cool. Probably can't get it through immigration overseas, though.

Train Send Off

Aaron n I had to catch a late train the night before his flight. We had the kaiwa class before leaving; obviously the last one for Aaron. Most of the class we ran as usual, but at the end a few students shared some of their memories.

Chika took us to the train station where we found more of the students-- our core group had all come down to wait with us for the train. There were quite a few presents, and some teariness.

When we left to board the train, they said to look out the windom when the train rolled past. We saw a line of our friends-- they'd all turned on their keitais and were waving goodbye to us in the dark.

Land Lobsters

I had taken a few days vacation, so June 25th Aaron n I were in Takeno. Julius had to go to school, and the weather was sketchy, so we didn't hit the beach. Instead, we finally hiked up the mountain. You can see this mountain from the beach, and it juts out into the water, a bastion of green.



It wasn't far to the first point, but there were several challenges. The trail seemed to be moving. Upon closer inspection, we discovered massive numbers of strange insects. Aaron n I term them "land lobsters" while Julius prefers "sea cockroach." There were so many that you could hear them skittering under leaves and over rocks. It was like being in an Indiana Jones movie, but without nazis or treasure.

Grillin Indoors

All my attempts to wrangle a BBQ near the Ikuno waterfalls came to naught, as Sunday was swimming in rain. Damn! I wanted to catch another giant salamander!

Luckily, one of the guest graciously offered his house, and the grill party became a grilled cheese party. Yes, I grilled up a mess of grilled cheese sammiches. Tim was magically on my wavelength, and showed up with a batch of his own.

It was a great time, and very relaxed. Aaron got to see and say goodbye to a lot of folks. A few of my favorite, party-shy people showed up, which meant a lot. And there was a lot of food, which makes everyone happy.

After the party, Aaron n I headed up to Takeno with Mari n Julius. Mari n I finally managed to beat the boys there, hurrah! Dinner was at the amazing okonomiyaki place, which was very full-circle and satisfying.

Himeji Yukata Matsuri

Aaron n I've been super busy recently, what with prep for his return to the states. Many nights were last dinners, and the others were desperate grabs for sleep to fuel the busy schedules. But that's not fun, so I'll skip to the fun stuff.

June 23rd was the Yukata Matsuri in Himeji. Perfect timing for Aaron to fit in one last matsuri, and I snagged free tix to the art museum, so the day looked set. And then Travy emailed me, and we set up a carpool with Travy n Ailey. Even better! People and matsuris! The four of us met up with Ailey n Travy's pals, and then the group of us headed into the matsuri.

It was scorching. And the afternoon wasn't too packed, as this matsuri is famed for night stalls. We searched around and discovered this crazy Italian guy, Mario, whom Ailey met on the beach awhile back. Mario seems to be the living, breathing stereotype of Italians. He leers and touches the beautiful ladies. He makes pizza. He plays the accordian. It was kinda surreal.



We also found a stall that seemed to be selling baby chicks. No idea what kind- the sign used a different word than the usual "baby chicken." The chickies were so cute, but methinks there will be a lot of bird deaths in the coming weeks.

The Prefectural Art Museum shockingly doesn't do weekend hours, so Aaron n I split off from the others in order to make the 4:30 final entrance. The exhibit was very Japanese in concept-- "The Beauty of the Four Seasons" For those of you who don't know, a fair amount of Japanese people believe that only Japan has 4 distinct seasons. I find this funny, as the two rainy seasons should make the tally 6... Anyways, the exhibit was very hit or miss. But it was nice to escape the heat and the crowds a bit.