This morning, Jeni-Bomb, Caleb, and I went with Kerry to a festival at her elementary school in the village of Shingo. There were about 40 kids, and lots of adults. When we first got there, we socialized with the kids, and they recited to us the greeting they'd learned:
"Hello. My name is *****. How are you?"
"Fine, thank you. And you?"
"Fine, thank you."
"Let's shake hands and be friends."
After that, we watched them perform a little skit about the Japanese legend of Momotaro. Then we all made mochi, which was amusing, to say the least. To make mochi, you take cooked rice and beat the living crap out of it with a big wooden mallet until it forms a pasty dough. By itself, mochi has no taste at all; but if you prepare it with bean paste or soy or in soup, it tastes much better. After that, we played around with the kids for a while. This involved marbles, cards, walking on stilts, origami, etc. A little girl named Kasumi kept grabbing my hand and taking me to all the different games. She was much better at walking on the stilts than I was. After that, we ate the mochi, and left to come back to Misawa. Overall, it was a really fun morning, so cheers to Kerry for inviting us along.
1 comment:
There was no cuter sight than seeing little Kasumi and Curtis making friends. What a charmer. And I was proud of all of you for learning your lines well in order to avoid confusion in the "Hello, how are you?" conversation. Oh, and people die every year from choking on this mochi stuff, so don't try it at home kids.
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