Weekend In Yanai

As is becoming my routine in Japan, I've had a huge busy weekend that I almost need another weekend to recover from. We got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to pack and were on the first train to see Christine in Susa. Sarah drove down from Tamagawa. Christine made us a gorgeous brekkie of banana and choc-chip pancakes. The Japanese have really adopted the breakfast culture of America and you can get a huge range of premixed hot-cake powder and syrups. At lunchtime we went down to the Susa elementary school where they were having the cultural equivalent of a kiwi bbq. I have no idea what you call it, but the communal summer meal here is huge bamboo poles cut in half lengthways and laid out propped on trestles so that it forms a little trough. You tie a hose onto one end and run water through the long narrow trough. Then you drop handfuls of cold noodles at one end and watch them race down to the other end (where hopefully someone has put a bucket!) Everybody stands at the sides of the trough with little bamboo cups and try to catch the noodles with their chopsticks as they go down. It is a huge amount of fun and very yummy, you put delicious noodle sauce in your bowl and add other ingredients like spring onion and chopped ham. It is the most refreshing summer food! I will hopefully scan photos of this soon so you can see what I mean.
We played some games with the kids and then we jumped into the car and drove 3 hours to the southern coast of Yamaguchi. In Yanai we met up with Ellen (Melbourne) , Kirk (US) Kathryn and Lauren (UK). They took us out for dinner in the mountains of Kuga, at a place famous for its yakitori - barbequed chicken. It was really good. I also discovered gyoza, little dumplings of pork that you dip into yet more delicious sauce. (I found gyoza at my supermarket and guess what we had dinner tonight!) After dinner we went to karaoke which was crazy as usual, I am starting to lose my inhibitions and do some singing, but I still find it strange. Mostly I just laugh at the terrible, terrible Japanese video clips that go with the songs.
We headed home after a stop at the 7/11 for some donuts (you would not believe the bakery food in Japan. Whoever said you lose weight in Japan was an idiot. They are worse than the Greek bakeries in Melbourne, mum!) .
The next morning I whipped up hot-cakes for us all and we headed out for some heavy duty shopping. Luckily I had every woman's ultimate shopping accessory to carry my bags - Dan :)
For lunch we went to a yaki-niku style restaurant - Vietnamese barbeque. This is the best of all! You buy a platter of shaved beef and cook it yourself on a little round gas bbq inlaid into the table. We had salads with it and it was divine! The summer meat sauces here are to die for. Come over and I'll show you!
After yet more shopping we realised it was 4pm and the last train from Susa to Hagi leaves at 9pm so we got back on the road. It wasn't til we got to our bikes at Hagi station that we realised we had a lot more bags than we left with! Because we stayed with other JETs and carpooled it was a really cheap weekend, plus it was a lot of fun. Can't wait to head off next weekend, we are planning to drive up the coast to Masuda, leave the car there and hop on a train to Hiroshima to see a baseball game with the other JETs. We are hoping to have enough time to get to the peace museum, other JETs say its pretty amazing. The 60th anniversary of the bombing is Aug 6th 2005 so we are hoping to go to the ceremony next year.
I was told I would get my car this Thurs/Fri, but we have had another complication getting the inkan certificate. Mabye next week! Don't know whether to laugh or cry sometimes. Thank God our friends have cars and we are having a rockin time!