The commuting volunteer, Ito-san, is a retired Japanese gentleman who lives up in the mountains surrounding ARI. His houses sits among small rice paddies, patches of bamboo forest, and 19th century family cemeteries - the perfect image of rural Japan. Before beginning our sushi feast, we got a tour of Ito-san's garden / home farm, where he grows onions, beans, taro, broccoli, cabbage, and other kitchen veggies on the quarter-acre of land surrounding his house. (Related side note: One of the striking things about Japanese development is the way the Japanese incorporate agricultural land into their towns and cities. Because land is very scarce, agricultural land is not separated from residential or commercial land the way it is in the U.S. - rice paddies abut major highways, family garden plots sit next to restaurants, even larger commercial farming enterprises can be found under overpasses or next to residential neighborhoods. It makes for an interestingly mixed landscape.) After the tour, we got down to the more important work of making and eating temaki-zushi, or hand-made sushi rolls, using nori (sheets of seaweed), sushi rice (white rice mixed with a little vinegar), slices of raw fish (tuna! mackerel! salmon!), wasabi, and pickled vegetables. And then, after three hours of eating and talking, Ito-san's wife performed a casual tea ceremony, offering us macha (powdered green tea) and seasonal mochi (rice cake) sweets. ほんとにおいしかたです (really delicious!).
After dinner, feeling wonderfully stuffed with fish, we drove down to one of the rivers around ARI and set up camp for the night. We pitched some tents (although one tent turned out to just be a rain cover... ahem), pulled some bamboo out from the woods for a fire, and settled down to an evening of talking, eating smoked garlic bread, and enjoying the warm summer night. Just like camping in the States, except we ate rice balls instead of bagels for breakfast.
Mori (Japan)
The view from our campsite
Nami (Japan)
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