Hallow's Eve, 1997: the witching hour
Halloween and I don't have any candy. How sad. Ah well, if I'd been smart then I wouldn't have eaten all those toffees so quickly ;) Ah, so they don't go ga-ga over Halloween here but I noticed that Alps (supermarket next door) put up CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!! No, seriously! One big tree-shaped thing on the front wall of the store. Crazy. I guess they want to milk it for all it's worth...
Saturday November 1, 1997: 10pm
Ah yeah, I finally tried a persimmon (passion fruit, whatever) - I picked one off a tree on my run... I figured that these passion fruit were only going to waste anyway (because the Japanese tend to put BAGS around the fruit they intend on harvesting - while still on the tree, and these ones didn't have any bags, etc). Of course, how do I know what a ripe passion fruit looks like? I had a sneaking suspicion they'd be yellow/orange, but it only seemed right that a ripe one would be orange/red, like a nectarine. See, I'd gone to the grocery store for the purpose of finding ripe passion fruit - not to buy, but to scope out so that I would select the appropriate fruit. Anyway, I couldn't find the darned things - or so I thought... I've since realized that the passion fruit were those things that I *thought* were yellow tomatoes. Well, at least that clears up the mystery of why on earth they would be selling yellow tomatoes!! I thought that was kinda strange...
Ok, back to me eating these passion fruit - are you supposed to peel them or what? Now, being a Canadian, I did the Canadian eat-as-is thing, which included the skin (the Japanese, on the other hand, would never *dream* about eating a fruit with the skin on - not even GRAPES...). And it was purdy darned tasty. Although next time I think I will eat it without the peel..
Sunday November 2, 1997: 10pm
Nice lazy hazy day. Played lotsa guitar - until my fingers couldn't take it anymore. I guess I haven't played enough lately if my fingers hurt. But anyway. And tomorrow, a holiday! Yay!!
Monday November 3, 1997: 9pm
*What* an incredible day! See, last Wednesday at calligraphy, Sensei had asked me how I was planning on spending my holiday, so I told her I wasn't planning on doing anything - so she invited me to go see this really fabulous rose garden near her house, and since anything with sensei is always interesting, I couldn't possibly refuse!
Anyway, I got to her house a bit before 11, I was early, so I caught her while her and her husband were still eating breaky. Actually, I think she assumed I wouldn't have eaten, because they kept on offering me tons of food. But, I was stuffed 'cause I'd already eated a big breakfast.
So I sat down and chatted with them for quite awhile. Always fun. Her husband is HILARIOUS! He doesn't necessarily *mean* to be, but he's getting kinda old and he tries to speak lots of English to me, but what it ends up being is whenever he knows a word in English, he says it. This makes for very funny conversation!
Oh and then Sensei (or was it her husband?) asks if I like kaki, or in English, passion fruit. Ah! Good thing I tried some a few days ago or I wouldn't be able to answer. So I say yes, I like it a lot, but really, I'm too full to eat any now... so she says, well, you'll have to take a bunch home. So I give her a "huh?" look, which I reserve for the special occasions when I find suggestions a tad odd (like, why does she have so many extra passion fruit that I *have* to take some home?) - and she replies to this quizzical look with a "Well, I've got WAY to many to eat because of our tree..." Oh, there goes my "huh?" look again, so she says - "go, look! In the garden" - and sure enough, there is a huuuge tree just laden with those yellow tomatoes. Wow!
OK, so sensei and I set off to go to Higashi Koganei Park - a very huge park that's quite popular. Hah, ANY park is popular in Japan, but this one has a darned good reason to be. Sensei said that it's the number one spot in Tokyo for "hanami" (cherry blossom viewing) and she showed me this one dirt path lined on one side by cherry trees and on the other by a brook - it was very cool.
OK, so the park is maybe only 10 minutes from Sensei's place. Oh, the weather was really nice and Sensei wore gloves to protect her hands from the sun, and she was also using a parasol. Only in Japan!
First stop was the sports club where she swims, because she'd told me about it before (and we're planning on going sometime together) and it was *packed* with kids because there was a huge swimming tournament (we're talking over 1,000 people here) going on. Wow, insane. But, quite the nice club.
Next we walked through a big grassy field where everyone was picniking, flying kites, walking dogs, etc and then we walked through the prime cherry blossome area, and also all these plum trees. Neat.
Ok, so that's when we got to the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architecture Museum, which is a really great museum to see some older Japanese architecture. There were farmhouses and a liquor shop, and a bar, and a kimono-maker, a stationary store, etc. It's kind of like a Japanese version of Upper Canada Village, but smaller. It was quite interesting, especially because Sensei could explain things and tell me facts I couldn't otherwise have heard.
After the museum we began to walk back to her house, and that's when we stopped off at the rose garden. Wow, now I usually say taht I'm not really a flower person, but these roses were fabulous! I mean, it was a garden with just LOADS of roses. I didn't know they grow so tall! 4 feet at least! And I've definitely never seen so many colours and shapes. Plus, they HUGE - really beautiful. Sensei was telling me how the garden is famous all over Japan!
So now we went back to Sensei's place, and when we got there she heard voices in her back garden so instead of going into the house, we headed there. And that's where we found a couple (good friends of the Kitagawa's) picking passion fruit. So neat, I got to see picking in action. Ha, Mr. Kitagawa was ON THE ROOF, throwing the fruit down from there.. of course the guy isn't exactly spritely, so we all thought he'd fall, and we managed to convince him to get down. Anyway, the couple filled up 2 whole boxes (computer box sized), so I'm wondering what on earth you DO with that many passion fruit anyway!
Next on the agenda was tea and coffee, with Sensei, Mr. Kitagawa, and the couple. Ha hahha, this was so much fun! I couldn't understand everything (understatement), but it didn't matter. They were all just hilarious.
At maybe 5 or so, the couple left and Sensei and I set out to make TEMPURA! Although I didn't know this before I came over this morning, I was going to get a cooking lesson! Cool. Especially because it was tempura - a really famous Japanese dish that I'd never had.
So I found that it takes quite a long time to make the stuff... maybe 2.5 hours! Of course, we made a LOT. Actually, I shouldn't really say that "we" made it because I was basically just watching.
Ok, what tempura is is fried whatever, in tempura batter. See, I think tempura is usually fried shrimp, but since I'm a vegetarian, we used all these veggies instead (the *strangest* vegetables, I swear!). With all the deep-frying, it's probably not too healthy, but boy was it ever tasty! Ooo, I just stuffed myself silly. And, I also got to try Miso soup which I've heard lots about but never tried. Neat. Fun!
Oh, I got to witness a bit of the infamous Japanese matchmaking! It was hilarious. They (Mr. Kitagawa & Sensei) were talking about their friend Shinya (the architect dude I played tennis with in July) and how he was over 35 now and not yet married. Then Sensei explained how the age of 35 is usually when Japanese men want to marry becaus they're tired of cooking and cleaning themselves (oh yeeeeah, this is the Japanese system here) and the women don't want to get married until they're 27 or so, because they enjoy getting their own money from work and stuff (and when they get married, their husband usually asks them to stop working). So, back to Shinya. Sensei says that when she spoke to him last weekend, he said he'd like to get married this year. BUT, the girl would have to be pretty. AND, she can't be a teacher because the hours are bad. AND, she can't be a receptionist. Hmm. It still strikes me as odd, how the Japanese consider marriage to be more of a convenient arrangement, rather than something you do for love. Weird. Anyway, so Sensei says "We should look for someone".. and that's where it all starts. Crazy!
Ok, so I left at maybe 9 or so - Sensei drove me to the station. She also loaded me up with passion fruit and food... wah, what am I gonna do with it all? Ah, no problem..
Tuesday November 4, 1997: 8pm
My dictionary has the words "scatterbrain", "smorgasborg", and "moxibustion" (?!?), yet it doesn't have "tomato". What a *stupid* dictionary.
Wednesday November 5, 1997: 9pm
Wow, tonight I was really on a roll with my calligraphy. It was "Aki hukai yama", which means kinda "the mountains of deep autumn", like, the mountains of fabulous reds and yellows from the trees. Cool, because I LOVE autumn colours so it was quite fitting I think. Anyway, even my first one was pretty good, I'd say, and my last one I really like! Sensei thought it was pretty good too, I'm so proud!
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