Lift Up Your Hearts!

This was a much more relaxed day. Both Janet and I have personalities that require time for rejuvenation at home, and she is discovering how stressful it is to be the one responsible for planning an event. She's been a fabulous tour guide; everything has gone so well and been so much fun! But I know that when anything looks smooth and easy, that only means a tremendous amount of planning and effort have gone into it. Emotionally, Porter could keep up the schedule nearly indefinitely, but his foot was giving him trouble on the walk into Kofu (Achilles' tendon problem acquired/exacerbated by working on our roof), so the rest was good for all of us.

I was up early again, however, inspired by the hope of seeing Fuji-san again. Indeed, she was there, though her top was shrouded, and the clouds had covered her completely by the time Porter arose, so it was worth the effort. I took advantage of the extra time to make my first blog post from Japan. It still amazes me to be on the other side of the world and yet read e-mail, talk on the telephone, and post to the Internet just as easily as at home.

We enjoyed a relaxing morning at home, and I took the opportunity to do some laundry. Janet's washing machine is on the balcony. It provides only cold-water washes, and is small, but otherwise is like most washing machines—except, of course, that the instructions are in Japanese. As I mentioned before, clothes dryers are not commonly used in Japan, but Janet's compact, hanging clothespin device, combined with the kerosene heater (since it was cloudy outside) did the job admirably. Much to my surprise, the dried clothes were soft and smooth. I am accustomed to that with air-dried clothes only when there is a breeze to keep them moving as they dry; in my experience, clothes dried in still air end up stiff and uncomfortable. Perhaps the laundry detergent had some fabric softener in it; the label was incomprehensible.

This seemed like a good day to do some grocery shopping. We visited the little store where Janet buys her fresh produce and bought some wonderful fruit. I've never seen less than perfect fruit in Japan; perhaps that's why it's so expensive. Another reason might be the packaging—our strawberries and kiwi were packed with individual protection, like eggs in a carton. Terribly wasteful—but oh, they were beautiful strawberries, and the flavor was prime, as well. Janet had mentioned that she doesn't buy cantaloupe in Japan, because it is so expensive. The price that inhibited her was $10 per melon. Wanting us to experience the shock, she led us to the melons at a store in Kofu, and was blown away herself by the one with the $60 price tag! Granted, it was the most beautiful cantaloupe I've ever seen, perfectly formed, not one blemish, obviously hand-picked, with the neatly-cut stem still attached, and nestled with a lovely presentation in a gift box…but still!

There's a small sushi restaurant in Janet's neighborhood that she'd never been to, and this seemed like a good occasion for trying it out. It was a great experience! The menu pushed Janet's Japanese to the limit, as it was all in kanji, but she was able to communicate with the chef who made a suggestion. Not only was the sushi delicious, but the chef kept giving us gifts! (We were the only customers.) The soup was good, and our assortment of sushi even better. I particularly enjoyed one type of roll (I don't know what it was), and the chef subsequently prepared a whole plate of that roll as his gift to us. And as we were leaving, he gave each of us a set of beautiful chopsticks. Going by the menu alone, the restaurant is a bit pricy, but the experience was priceless. As always, it pleased me so much to hear Janet conversing in Japanese. She is far from fluent, but her communications skills are high. She appears to have a gift for languages, but the term "gift" is deceptive. This is the person who hated Spanish so much in high school she quit after the bare minimum two courses. Not that she wasn't successful in the classes, but the way it was taught turned her off completely. One friend of ours lamented over her, "There's another parochial American, with no interest in other languages and cultures." I'm happy to say that prophesy was dead wrong! Many things have contributed to Janet's apparently unusual facility with language, and perhaps I can guess four: her musical training, which sharpened her ear and developed her auditory memory; her American Sign Language classes, where she learned much about the art of communication; her unusual educational background, which gave her confidence in her ability to learn as well as an unusual set of learning tools; and most of all her enthusiasm and desire to learn.

After lunch we rode our bikes to Janet's Ogino grocery store, a very nice trip if you don't have too much to carry home and it's not raining nor freezing. We also stopped at her landlord's house so that she could pay her rent. Have I mentioned that Japan is largely a cash-based society? Of all the places we visited, only one took credit cards. This was not a problem for us, as Janet had plenty of yen for us to spend, but it reminded me that our almost exclusive use of plastic back home is a relatively new phenomenon. I resisted for a long time, but was gradually enticed by the convenience of pay-at-the-pump gas stations, then the relief of being able to buy groceries without keeping a mental tally of the cost in order to avoid exceeding my cash supply, and finally by Internet purchasing. I'm convinced we spend more money when we don't see the outlay dollar by dollar, but for now the accounting convenience alone is worth the price. We never pay any interest charges, or it would be a different matter altogether.

But enough about money! We next indulged in some entirely free entertainment, riding our bicycles along the river, enjoying the blossoming sakura (ornamental cherry) trees, and revisiting the park we'd discovered earlier in the week. (Did you know that Washington DC's famous cherry trees were a gift from Japan?)

A friend of Niko's came to pick us up for dinner, as Niko was busy with the meal. And what a spread it was! The central masterpiece was chirashizushi, or "scattered sushi," rice with raw fish and other ingredients layered on top, but there were many other delicious dishes as well. Our "simple" dinner invitation had turned into a small dinner party, and we enjoyed the company of Niko's uncle, one of her former students, and the student's mother. Janet discovered that the student's brother will be in her class this year! That's more surprising than you might think, since high school admission is not automatic, and Shirane is not the closest school.

"You can't out give the Japanese." I came up with that idea on my own, but I might have been quoting a common expression. Not only was the dinner magnificent, but we were showered with gifts, including bottles of a local alcoholic beverage made from potatoes, special sakura desserts, paper sakura flowers, and "happy (happi) coats" with the city firefighter's crest on them for each of us. Next time I go to Japan, I'll need to figure out a way to bring more gifts…but there's clearly no point in trying to compete.