Sunday, June 28, 1998

I woke up in the guest room of the house of the Nishina family. The futon on which I slept was comfortable for one night. I am glad that I do not have to sleep on it every night.

I joined the Nishina adults in the study for a nice conversation and a light breakfast. Emiko and Mamiko joined us so that I could show them my home page. The girls were amazed that anyone could type so much.

Although they acted interested in my home page, what they really wanted was to look at the Leonardo DiCaprio home page. At first, I started searching for sites. After a few minutes, one of the girls typed in the URL. I had not understood that the girls visit this site often and did not need my help to find it. I was interested to see what the Leo home page would offer, but I never found out. The site was too busy to accept our connection. I guess girls all around the world were busy looking at Leo or trading gossip about him.

Well, with the Leo search over, Nishina-san informed me that we would join Carol and the Takami family for lunch at Sushi Maru. I was eager to eat some sushi as I had eaten very little since arriving in Japan.

Sushi Maru is a fast food Sushi place. the cooks stand in the center of the room. Surrounding them are the counters needed to prepare the sushi. Above the counters was a giant conveyor belt. Whenever a cook had finished creating a small plate of sushi, he placed the plate on the conveyor belt. On the other side of the conveyor belt were about fifteen restaurant booths. We took our seat.

I sat with Carol and the two women. In the other booth were the men, Teppei, and Teppei's grandmother. The way this meal worked was that each diner leaned over and grabbed a plate with whatever kind of sushi seemed appealing. The only catch was that each plate had a price on it. The prices ranged from ¥100 to ¥300. I think that the more expensive the plate, the better the variety of sushi.

I tried almost every variety that I could. I had vegetable rolls, tuna, shrimp, cucumber, several kinds of fish that I could not identify, and the dreaded fermented bean.

I had just boasted about my willingness to try anything once. The two Japanese women were impressed by this and had me try a number of plates to prove myself. I was undaunted as I tried a few varieties of fish. Then, the women looked at each other and suggested that I try a pretty little roll that was headed towards me. The roll was indeed pretty until I got a closer look. Inside the roll was rice on the bottom. On top, was a spoonful of brown pudding-like stuff and a raw egg. Now, ordinarily, raw egg would stop me. Today, however, I was a man with a mission. I picked up that roll and popped it whole into my mouth. I began to chew. The women stared at me. After a few seconds, I realized that this tasted gross. I did my best to look like I was enjoying it and finally swallowed. My stomach turned. I had visions of sushi being forcibly ejected.

I took the second piece of this evil roll and pushed it towards Takami-san. She ate it without flinching. I made it through the rest of the meal without getting sick.

Now that the meal was over, I surveyed the damage. On our table stood piles of empty plates. The women organized them by price. We had an impressing stack in front of us. I looked over that the men and grandma. They had about twice the number of plates on their table. Wow.

After lunch, we drove around to see several sites in the area.

First, we hit Entsoji. Entsoji is a beautiful, mountain-top temple. It is famous for its thatched roof. The thatching goes over the standard Japanese roof. Because the main building was being renovated, it was difficult to learn much.

A statue of Buddha at Entsoji	Nishina-san, Emiko, Mamiko, Amiko, Me, Dr. Nishina

 

Dr. Nishina, Teppei, Takami-san, Carol, Teppei's grandmother, Nishina-san

I thought I could learn more about Entsoji by examining the goods at the temple gift shop. Apparently, Entsoji does not get too many foreign tourists because all of the books and signs were in Japanese only. So, I do not know too much about this great temple.

I did have a chance to ring a giant bell. I am uncertain of the significance of this bell, but it was cool to ring.

After Entsoji, we visited an observatory atop the next mountain. We parked just below the summit at the gift shop. We walked up a steep, paved path to the observatory. Although we could get inside, the observatory was closed and there was little to see. Back down by the gift shop, we could look over the side of the mountain and get a gorgeous view of Tameshima and the surrounding area.

By this time, it was getting late. We returned to the house of Nishina for a final conversation and rest. Then someone drove Carol and me back tot he Kurashiki Kokusai hotel.

Back at the hotel, I found out what happened to Ami. The phone call that she got the morning before was from her husband. It seems that her father had a massive heart attack. No one knew if he would be ok, so Ami went home. By the time I had arrived back in Kurashiki, Ami was waiting for a flight at Narita airport near Tokyo.

The whole group wished her and her father well.

next entry