The Dynamic Duo

Well, UltraMom fans, good news. We are going to get back to our Japan posts, and, hopefully, finish the darn things. Actually, just finished reviewing pictures preparatory to writing this and brought back many good memories and warm fuzzy feelings. Also fuzzy are many of the details, which I guess will happen when you write 4 months after the fact…4 months…,is that possible? Seems like only yesterday that Heather and I were…..

This was the day we had long been anticipating with curiosity and apprehension. Today we were going to see Motoji’s garden. Many of Bob’s Motoji-to-us translations concerning the garden had indicated we would be expected to weed a field and dig potatoes. Knowing Motoji’s sense of humor, and UltraBob’s quirky and whimsical translations, we weren’t really sure what to expect.
We all (UltraBob and Girl, Heather and Myself) arrived in Yokuska at the Suzuki house around lunch time, and were treated to Motoji’s famous noodles. He had made these noodles for us when visiting in Idaho several years ago, and they were just as tasty as I had remembered them to be. Not so much to our liking was the rubbery squid. I ate mine, but Heather had to make a big fuss about hers. She claims I was given a little, tiny piece, while hers was gigantic, but we all know that, being UltraBob’s sister, how prone to embellishment she is.
Yuri was looking very smart in a red sweater decorated with trailing leaves. It seemed she and Tomoko were headed out for a meeting of some sort. I know I asked, but now cannot remember what it was for; something municipal, I think. UltraBob headed upstairs to figure out what was wrong with his ‘server’, and that left Motoji free to commandeer a little slave labor for his gardening tasks. We would not have a translator present this time, and we would have to communicate through Motoji’s broken English, our practically non-existent Japanese and the time-honored art of gesturing. Motoji handed us gloves and beckoned us to follow.

Yuri and Motoji

UltraMom and very nice cousin Yukiko (also a black belt karate master!)

It was a little bit of a walk, winding mostly uphill through some a very scenic neighborhood. After a bit, Motoji pointed out some tennis courts. Just next to them, as it turned out, was a large garden area, sectioned off in plots. One of them was Motoji’s.
The gardens were all masterpieces of space utilization and completely weed-free. So apparently, the ‘field-weeding’ had been Motoji’s little joke! But we were going to be required to do some digging, we soon saw, as Motoji opened his little garden shed and found some trowels. He handed me one and bowed slightly. “A present,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Uh, thank you,” I replied, wondering if he was indeed making me a gift of his garden implement. Then, following his lead, I carefully began digging out small tubers, resembling Jerusalem Artichokes. After a bit, Heather asked me if she could dig for a while, and I gladly handed her the spade, stood up, and stretched legs cramped from the unaccustomed squatting position. As Heather and Motoji continued to harvest potatoes, onions and greens, I wandered around with my camera, recording this wondrous garden for posterity. At one point, Motoji exchanged greetings with a friend gardening in an adjacent plot, and was given a large daikon (Japanese radish) from the other man’s garden. These have a milder flavor than the small reddish ones we grow here. I always assumed vegetables were more or less universal, but this clearly is not the case.
After the harvest, I was relieved when Motoji reclaimed ‘the present’ and neatly stowed all implements back in the garden shed. We hadn’t been able to make much small talk, but hadn’t done too badly in the communication department. We walked back to the house, harvest in tow.

Harvesting the crop

Daikon!

Beautiful Garden!

Now it was time to clean and prepare the vegetables, and I helpfully offered to wash the dishes stacked in the sink. Motoji showed me the proper technique. Earlier, Yuri had shown, and then given me, some dishcloths crocheted by her or perhaps by her sister. The claim was that these would clean your dishes well without the need for dishwashing soap. Motoji took one of these magic cloths in hand, scoured an oily bowl and handed it to me for inspection. It seemed clean and grease free. My turn. I picked up a small plate and scoured. It still felt greasy. Tried again, same thing. Finally, glancing surreptitiously at Motoji who seemed occupied with the potatoes, I squirted a little dish soap on. Ah, that was better. I washed a few more before Motoji strode over and took the dishcloth from me. “No soap,” he said. “Scrub hard,” and he demonstrated once more. I guess I wasn’t being as covert as I had imagined! I tried again with the same results. Finally I had to give up. “I can’t do it,” I announced, abdicating my spot at the sink. “Still feels greasy.”

UltraMom “helps” with the dishes

The potatoes when prepared were served in a bowl with soy sauce for dipping. The golf-ball sized potatoes had a thick peel that was easy to slide off. They were really tasty, especially when dipped in the sauce. Not that I ever had to actually peel one myself; Motoji kept me supplied with potatoes ready for dipping until I couldn’t eat anymore.

Delicious Potatoes

UltraBob, by this time, had his server up and running again, and offered to drive Heather and me into the city for a little more souvenir shopping. We ended up at a huge mall/department store and had a great time picking up a few more things. I needed to look at teapots, as a friend “back home” who collects them had asked me to bring her one back. While I was at it, I got a charming, simple little white teapot for Panther (wedding/Christmas gift) and one for myself. I really love mine and find that I use it almost every day.
The ‘boar’ was a common theme in the shops as 2007 is the Year of the Boar, and I purchased a couple of ‘boar-bells’ and boar-decorated cards and dishtowels as gifts. It is said to be lucky to have something in your home featuring ‘animal of the year’. I was particularly drawn to one poster of several happy boars, obviously in a Christmas frame of mind. “Make a reckless rush dashing,” proclaimed the poster in bold type.

Boars Dashing!

The shopping, and especially the driving/busy traffic negotiating took quite some time, and we arrived back at the house to find everyone ready to go out to dinner. Mitsuhiro was going to treat us to a meal at the Ramen house. Now you may remember that Johnny spent several months in Japan, and preparatory to my trip I had asked him for must-see or must-do’s. The two things he most highly recommended were Ramen and Karaoke. Today we would do both.
Now, when I say “Ramen” you are probably imagining those little cellophane noodles with flavoring packets with such catchy names as “Texas Beef Ramen”, “Cajun Chicken Ramen”, or “Spicy Shrimp Ramen.” You can pick them up in any US grocery store for @ 15 cents each. At a quarter apiece, they are one of the biggest sellers in my prison store. The Ramen we had this evening was a totally different animal; that is to say, noodle. I can’t even really describe it, except to say it was totally delicious. I ordered, um, sort of a “combo-ramen” that came with a lot of meats and vegetables and, of course, noodles. It was an enormous bowl, but I did as much justice to it as was humanly possible.

UltraGirl with a bowl full of Ramen

Lots of Yummy Ramen

Now it was time for the evening’s entertainment. UltraBob was taking us to his favorite Karaoke Bar, “Karaoke Look.” He had become well acquainted with the owner/operator of this Hawaiian-themed establishment, and UBob once gotten a ‘perfect score’ on a karaoke rendition of a song, though UltraGirl claims the machine was broken. It was just Heather and me and the UltraKids to start with. Motoji, Yuri and Yukiko (UltraGirl’s cousin) were ready to call it a night. UltraGirl’s brother Mitsuhiro, would be joining us a bit later.
As I mentioned in my karaoke/Tokyo post, these type of establishments are very popular in Japan, with good reason. Johnny was right; this evening was definitely a highlight of our trip. We were shown into a fairly large, private room that could have easily accommodated 3-4 more people. We ordered in drinks, and Ubob showed us how to peruse the catalogs and make our karaoke selection on the small electronic machines. UltraBob started us off. I don’t remember what the song was called, but I was blown away. That kid of mine has some pipes! (I still want that CD of you singing, UB; maybe for my birthday?) The catalog had a large, varied selection of English songs, so Heather and I were mostly able to find ones we liked and thought we, perhaps, might be able to sing. Sometimes we were wrong. We totally butchered “Big Yellow Taxi” (you know the one, “Pave paradise, put up a parking lot”?) It always seems so easy to sing along with that one on the radio! UltraGirl did her standard, one of my very favorites, “Top of the World”, originally by the Carpenters. She has a beautiful voice, and I especially love hearing her sing that one. When Mitsuhiro showed up, the party really got going. He immediately grabbed the tambourine and kept rhythm to something Ubob was singing. There was also a maraca, which I used sometimes. Mitsu also has a very nice voice. His selections were mainly popular Japanese songs; I was particularly interested in one that had seemingly random English words thrown in here and there, like “Baby.” We were well into our evening when suddenly the lights went out, the door opened, and the owner came in carrying a mug filled with poky sticks and lit sparklers. “Welcome to Japan,” he said setting the mug on the table. It was SO cool! We got him to take a photo of us grouped around this centerpiece.
I happily made my song selections, as Ubob had shown me, picking a few Carpenters tunes, Bette Middler’s, “The Rose” and a few other things. It seemed like my turn came around fairly quickly. Afterwards, UltraBob complained that many of his selections never showed up. He accused me of canceling his, since I had so many, and that just may have been true, since I wasn’t all that familiar with the ‘song-selection machine”. But not on purpose, of courseJ I am trying to remember what song UltraBob and I were singing when we got totally out of control. As we were going off, Heather suddenly grabbed my mike and finished the song, saving us, as it turns out, from ourselves. Thanks, Heather.
Mitsu had been planning to stay for only a short time, but ended up leaving when we did. I think we karaoked for 2 hours, and I could have done 2 hours more. We ended the evening with an UltraBob-UltraMom duet of “One Tin Soldier”, a song I used to sing to the kids when they were small. Back at the reception desk, we asked the owner if we could take his picture. He disappeared into the back room, and reappeared wearing a Santa hat and sporting a couple of hand puppets. He had designed some Christmas postcards featuring original art and the logo of his establishment, Karaoke Look, and let us select several to take with us. These personal touches really made our evening more special.

Four silly kids

UltraMom and Heather sing a sweet ballad (or maybe butcher Big Yellow Taxi)

UltraBob likes to sing loud!

Christmas Puppets!

We arrived back at the Suzuki house, riding, as we had been doing all week, in Mitsu’s car. As the car came to a stop, Mitsu said to us, in very clear English, “Get out of my car.” Heather and I looked at each other, startled, then laughed. The words were clear, and we hastened to obey! Of course, soon we were right back in his car (loaned to the UltraKids for the week we were visiting because it was much roomier than their own car) headed back to Zushi.
I will post pictures later, but wanted to get this out today.
Next time, HAKONE/SWIMMING/BLACK EGGS. You don’t want to miss this one, so stay tuned!

UltraMom