I had a really good day today. Sitting down this evening to write this post, I am trying to think what made this day different from yesterday or tomorrow; but I can't think of anything specific.
This morning saw my return to Shikaoi Yochen. The children and I get along very well (as evidenced here), though I am doubtful much English gets learned, but the connection is strong. The kindergarten teachers went to the person at the office that does my schedule and asked that I attend, and thus it was granted. Wow. Yes, I get paid to do this. We made Mochi, a great, abet sticky, winter season foodstuff made from rice. Context? Mochi is quite an old technique of processing cooked rice to make it last longer without refigeration. Then one all has to do later is reheat it again to get a gooy rice like snack. Coming to what I learned to: mochi started first in the north, but now is available all over Japan.
You start by taking a certain type of rice and steaming it. Next, you put said rice in a special large stone or wood bowl. I will refer the reader to the image on the left. This bowl has to be big, strong and heavy, because you will be hammering it with a large axe-like mallet. This completely crushes the grains of cooked rice into the same consistency. The factor that brings about any sort of difficulty, but also makes eating mochi so fun, is that the rice becomes very sticky. The secret weapon in this regard is simple - water. If you don't keep things damp, you will pick up the mallet with a large glob of mochi stuck on with a death grip. That is what the second teacher in the picture is doing: keeping the part of the mochi that is being struck damp, the wooden mallet wet, and also turning the growing lump of mochi so that it is evenly mixed. After about 15 or 20 minutes of this process one has mochi. 
There are a couple of ways to eat mochi, none of which I really would really kill someone for. I prefer it simply served with soy sauce and dried seaweed. Basically what was offered today, besides what I have already stated above, was mochi in dried soy bean, mochi in unko (sweet bean, note to dad: that is not sweet!), and mochi in ground black sesame. It was a lot of fun and the kids were just enthralled with the pummling of the rice. Each child, over the one and a half that we did this activity, was able to give 5 or 6 good whacks to the mochi. I caught a good shot of one of my little students just about to deal a death blow to the mochi. What a titan effort. らいしゅ！Because kids that are only 5,4, and 3, are not strong enough to really mix the rice well, adults had to mix it first to a relitively finished state. Only one close call with the sticky mochi later. I had been sitting on the floor with some four year olds, eating a tiny sample of finished mochi (most of it was being saved for today's lunch) and having the children tell me what it is, how its made, was it fun, and some of its basic history. Suddenly - and such things are hard to predict - one, and then all of the kids, decided now would be a good time to hug me. After having just eaten mochi I was sceptical that everyone's hands were completely void of leftover mochi. My feelings proved correct as I felt mochi get into my hair. Can't be mad - such things are the norm in my job - it made me chuckle. We found the culpret and ended that particular game for the moment. Luckily, it wasn't much mochi nor did it decided to make my head home.
Sadly, I couldn't stay for lunch to enjoy our hard work because I had another engagement with my kids in Tsumei Sho. In a previous post I had written about my experiences harvesting the school's small plot of soba, by hand, with my students (seen here). Today was the pay off. Lunch was delicious, some of the best soba I have every had. It was a pleasure to eat something we had worked to take out of the ground months earlier (the delay was due to the need to dry the buck wheat). I had missed, because I was at the kindergarten, the students making the actual noodles. You could tell that the noodles were hand made because you could see that all the noodles were not perfectly uniform. Quite a lot of people that live in the area, plus the local kindergarten, came to sample the crop as well. My kids were thrilled I returned to share the harvest. 
To cap the day; it was great weather! A beautiful day. A balmy 3 C. Just look at the shot below. Gorgeous. I just got back in from a run and it's still quite nice outside. Yes, a run. I had let that slide a bit during NaNoWriMo (only twice) and it felt great to round the track again. It was a bit short, but I didn't want to be stiff tomorrow for a full day at Shikaoi Elementary School. It felt so good I will probably do a full run on Thursday night. Saw two of my students and the ran with me for a while and I played soccer. Their father looked happy that I took them off their hands for a while. I start badminton on Friday night. Can't wait, but I'm nervous since I haven't played in three years. Sigh... Time to read and then to bed. I can't wait to wake up to another day tomorrow.
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