August 10 - 5:00pm at the Oshimas

Today was a relaxing day, which was good because I slept for about three hours.   

Mr. and Mrs. Oshima picked us up at the Onos’ at 10:00 (right on the dot) and we went off with them.  Yohei was going back to school today, so it was really goodbye with him.  He gave us both a big hug and told me not to cry - I swear I was okay before he said that!!!  But once he said that and I realized it was really goodbye, I started tearing up.  We’ll see Ryoko when she comes to the station the day after tomorrow to see us off. 

We went to the Oshimas and had a little more than ½ hour before we needed to leave again.  We went to Rotary at the Sendai Hotel Plaza.  The program was a man speaking about a certain city’s Obon Matsuri - one of the four most famous Obon festivals in Japan.  There were a lot fewer members - they now have 150 -9 members (I have no clue why they had it written as “150 - 9”).  Tokiwa was there.  He looked sillier than I remember.  He had died his hair jet-black so he looked even odder.  He came over at the end of the meeting and said “Hi, it’s been a while” but left when I just raised my eyebrow and looked away.  Ha!  I think it was good that he was there because I realized he was short enough that I could easily kick is ass. 

After Rotary, we came back to the house and I fell asleep.  I think Dan did, too, but not for as long as I did.  While we were napping, there was an earthquake - our only one of the trip!  It was a 5 on the Richter scale at the epicenter but only a 2 in Sendai.  Darn! 

After waking up, we came into the main room where we eat some corn that the Oshimas had purchased (since Dan liked corn - that has been a running joke the whole trip since Dan’s first Japanese word he learned was トウモロコシ (toumorokoshi), which means corn).  It was so good!  Dan even said that the only other corn he had eaten that was even close to that good was some his parents had gotten at a sweet corn festival in Iowa.   

Just now I learned about kappa and Mr. Oshima gave me something to give to Jill: a cute little kappa carved out of wood.  Then he gave Dan and I a copy of a picture of a kappa that he took off of his wall!  A little about kappas: kappas are little bird/frog looking monsters that live in rivers and on riverbanks.  They like cucumbers and are very mischievous.  They also have a water dish on their head.  As long as the water dish is full, the kappa keep their supernatural powers.  But once the dish is empty, they become weak and must go back to the water. 

Tomorrow we are going to the cow museum and, if we have time, to go near where they purchased Jill’s kappa.

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Before dinner we (Oto-san, Dan and I) went to Daishin Do It Yourself, a Japanese hardware store.  Dan found three grades of Japanese water stone (砥石 toishi, which means “grind stone”) for sharpening knives.  About 80 dollars, but we thought that was okay.  Then Oto-san bought it!  No one lets us pay for anything here! 

We cam back to the house and ate.  After dinner Oto-san made copies of his journal from our wedding to give to us, my parents, and Jill (who they stayed with for my wedding).  No we are talking flowers, trying to figure out what plant it was that I saw at Daishin that I liked so.  In Japanese the name is 初雪ｶｽﾞﾗ - hatsuyuki kazura - or first snow vine.  No idea what the English name is.

On to August 11 Journal Entry

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