I'd Hit That

Recently, I've been hanging out with my nearest foreign neighbors and my Japanese friend. Which means we've been eating out a lot. A lot a lot. Often we go to a restaurant  eat a ton, then go to a second restaurant to eat more. Needless to say, my wallet is unhappy. We also tend to order the ridiculous menu items like the ten-patty burger or the secret king-sized gyuudon.

But on one fateful night a few weeks ago, we decided to go a small restaurant by my base school I used to frequent because I don't know how to cook. Since then I have given up and just rotate between McDonald's, Mos Burger, and the convenience store. However, on this night, we decide to go there. It turns out there are a bunch of Japanese people drinking there. At first we were ready to leave, but they invited us to join them.

Needless to say, they didn't speak English, and my friends, while they have made tremendous progress, came to Japan knowing almost zero Japanese. But everyone seemed to be able to communicate. The Japanese people took a great liking to us. They continued to give my friend tons of their finest alcohol.

Towards the end of the night, we were taking pictures (which they claim they brought to my school for me) and talking, and they told us about a mochi pounding event nearby. I was super excited. I thought I had had missed my chance when I was traveling for New Year's (I did get one offer to pound some mochi, but they told me about it well after I had left). They insisted they we must come, and I was definitely very excited to do so. I didn't quite understand how to get there, but they gave us the name of the place in kanji and I figured I would figure it out later.

Fortunately, that wasn't foreshadow, and I was able to figure out where it was. Though we did get a bit lost trying to reach it. We arrived right about on time, and they were super happy to see us. They told us they were glad we protected our promise. They also kept their promise that we'd be on TV.

Incidentally, I'm not pictured in any of these.

The arrows protect the tree or maybe the whole area from spirits.

They let us pound some mochi, which was fun. My technique was pretty bad the first time, but I mastered it the second time. One of the girls was pretty entertaining to watch because she looked like she was going to fall over every time she swung. We were being recorded for the 5:20AM local news. We were also interviewed. I expected it and answered the single "how was it?" question I got, as did my friend, but the girls were asked additional questions, but didn't understand and also gave botched answers or "I don't understand Japanese." I was a bit jealous I only got one question.

Then they let us roll the mochi. I was pretty bad at it and I still don't completely understand what I was supposed to do. They let us eat one, but it tasted pretty plain. (Later they let us eat some strange super sour version of mochi, which was interesting, but I never want to eat again...)

The women hid under newspapers and rolled mochi all day.

Tons and tons of mochi.

You were supposed to take a small piece of mochi they gave you and put it inside the bigger chunk and roll it or something, I never figured out how to do it right.

For some reason, at some point they decided they needed mini-mochi so they started making those, too.

They continued to make mochi for forever. Hours and hours.

They kept going for like 8 hours. But we were freed up to go on a temple tour. One of the priests (I think) lead us around the temple and showed us stuff. We even found old WWII bomb shelters in back.

Apparently they closed off the tunnels to keep kids from getting lost in them. They didn't look like they'd provide much cover though really.

They erected some weird face they erected in front of the temple.

They decided to make some kind of super strange and super sour mochi.

The ingredients that went into it, I have no idea why anyone would ever come up with this combination...

Then came the food. And more food. And more food. Also, alcohol. They kept filling my friend's cup. They were pretty impressed with him.

The BBQ was delicious; they kept trying to feed us so much. And they introduced everything as "This is Japanese... [item]!" "This is Japanese... RADISH!" "This is Japanese... TOFU!"

I stumbled on some ceremony.

They brought out the Fall festival cart thing to show us. They insist we come to the festival, but I'll be gone by then unfortunately.

They eventually started making strawberry mochi, which is pretty good. And a lot less plain.

Eventually, because one of us was sick, we had to leave. They invited us to more events. It was great we luckily met such great and fun people.

Seeing as it aired at 5:20 in the morning, I didn't watch it on TV, but a teacher recorded it for me. And for the past week I have been getting a lot of "I saw you on TV!"s from coworkers. These people need to sleep more!

The teacher that recorded it had her husband do it, so when it didn't work, she didn't know how to fix it. Fortunately the recording is still saved, so I'll have to figure out a way to record it to something more permanent later.