Death Traps

Japan really has some amazing ways of collecting, draining, and channeling water. Considering the amount of water that pours out of the sky during the rainy season or a typhoon, it is necessary to be a little inventive when it comes to water control within the city. Nearly every street has an open concrete ditch running beside it which can be anywhere from 40 cm wide and fairly shallow to a meter or more in width and depth. When you go into the countryside, the canal systems get even more elaborate so that farmers can divert water from reservoirs, rivers, or lakes to flood their rice fields.

Judging by all the little rice fields tucked here and there between houses and buildings, I always get the feeling that Fukuyama is just a country town that happened to get big. Houses in the older central neighbourhoods like ours seem to be built around the existing channels bringing water from the Ashida River to farmer's fields. There just happen to be way less of those fields now! 

How do these ditches have any influence on our daily lives, you might ask? Well, firstly you must always pay attention to them when you are biking, especially when Theo is riding his bike. I have visions of him flying over the edge of one of the deeper, wetter ones and breaking his bike and landing himself in the hospital while he's at it. Theo has skinned his knee and lost two water bottles to the ditches on his way home from school. The streets in our neighbourhood are notoriously badly lit at night and I am surprised I haven't walked or ridden into one accidentally myself. With streets so insanely narrow, virtually no shoulder, and a 50 cm drop off on either side of the road, can you blame me for being a little hesitant about driving a car in Japan? 

Secondly, the little piece of the street and the ditch that wraps around our house is considered our responsibility to keep clean and free of debris. I feel like every high schooler passing by decides this is the prime place to throw their empty drink boxes and ice cream wrappers and every smoker seems to think our ditch looks like an ideal ashtray. I also have to clean up leaves and toys that the boys throw over the fence, but I just don't have the same animosity toward our children as I do strangers littering in front of our house. Lowering myself down into a narrow, mossy, slick ditch to scrape up leaves, mud, and cigarette butts is very rarely my idea of a good time. Maybe that is why our ditch doesn't look as sparklingly clean and pristine as most of the obaasan's do? 

Lastly, the deeper ditches that have at least some water all year long are wonderful for watering plants. You don't need to waste water or money by filling up watering cans with a hose when you can just collect some of the water from the ditch next door. The water is not contaminated in any way, I wouldn't exactly brush my teeth with it, but it is more than okay to use it for plant watering. Since it is mostly rain and river water I think it is probably better for your plants than using the treated water from our taps. I was lucky enough to find and old but useable long handled dipper in the space underneath our house which came in really handy when we still had our community garden plot! 

The Beat Goes On

Last week we had two more reasons to celebrate: New Year's and Theo's Birthday. On the 31st, we were invited by a friend to a mochi pounding party. Traditionally, mochi is made by pounding special glutinous rice using a large wooden hammer. There are actually two people involved, one to pound the rice with the hammer, and one to wet the rice, making sure it doesn't stick to the bowl while turning and flipping it. The timing of these two people has to be pretty precise or the rice would cool too quickly, or someone could get their hand smashed by a massive hammer. It forms a smooth, soft, stretchy ball after a while which is then shaped into smaller balls for eating. This is a popular New Year's event, and we really enjoyed getting into the festivities.

The mochi that day was made in a more modern way with the rice first being steamed in tiered wooden stacks, then put into a pounding machine, placed in another machine for cutting the newly formed mochi into smaller pieces, and finally being rolled in a little rice flour and lined up to cool. Some of it was filled with sweet red bean, which is Theo and my absolute favorite. Truthfully, Theo loves all mochi to excess and was in his glory when he was allowed to eat all he wanted.

First, the rice was steamed in this large wooden contraption.

It was then placed in this machine to be pounded into a soft, stretchy mass. A few weeks ago, Theo had told me all about a mochi pounding robot that he wanted to build so that he could have mochi whenever he wanted. He had no idea that something like that already existed, and was speechless and amazed when he saw the pounding machine.

 The soft and warm mass is then put into the top funnel of another machine that pushes it out while snipping off balls.

The newly formed balls are lightly coated in rice flour to keep them from sticking. Here, Theo is sporting a fresh mochi that he is about to devour.

After eating his fill, he helped roll more balls in flour and place them in neat rows. The white, half circle forms that look a bit like two mortars joined together are molds for making kagami mochi, a two tiered mochi that is a New Year tradition and decoration. 

I have no idea how much mochi they ended up making that day, since we only stayed for a couple of hours. It is their family's tradition every year to make mochi and give it to all of their friends, family, and neighbours for New Year.

The family owns a small factory that builds machines for making senbei. Theo had lots of fun poking around the factory, checking out all of the cool tools and machine parts.

They also roasted some delicious black soy beans for us to munch on.

Theo's Mario birthday cake

On January 2nd, Theo turned four years old. We had a relaxed celebration at home with pizza, balloons, and a cake decorated with his current favourite character: Mario. He absolutely loves the Mario Brothers and has been pretending that he is Mario and William is Luigi for months. His interest crossed the boundary into obsession a few weeks ago and now the first thing that leaves his mouth in the morning and the last thing that escapes his mouth at night usually has something to do with Mario. At one point, I asked him who I was, and he told me I was Princess Peach because I am so pretty. Awww...

This past Thursday was Theo's first day back at kindergarten after a two week break. Dustin is also back to work, so hopefully everything will settle back into our pre-holiday routine and I will be able to blog a little bit more about what is happening in our lives.

The Joy of Nattō

At least once a week, I pick a food product which I have only seen in Japan and try it out. Sometimes, when I feel the most daring, I go for something that looks utterly unappetizing. I must confess that I limit myself to interesting and bizarre vegetable matter and dried goods, and avoid trying the mysterious and creepy looking meats I have found. I am really not brave enough to try them, but I am sure that if my dad ever comes to visit us in Japan he will be all over the congealed globs and slices of questionable origin. Dustin, after one too many unpalatable failures, has gradually stopped trying any of the experimental foods I bring home.

A single serving natto box

A delicious soy product that I discovered a few months ago is nattō, or fermented soybeans. I bought it mostly on a personal dare, but it turned out to be wonderful and has become a new favourite of mine. Natto usually comes in individual serving square styrofoam boxes with little sauce packages inside. The sauces are usually a kind of salty fish sauce and sometimes a strong mustard. You mix them all together to create a frothy, goopy, stringy mixture and then pour it onto rice. I have also heard that it makes a really good toast topper, but I have yet to try it that way.

Fermented soybeans with sauce packet

I enjoy natto, but the fermented flavour and slippery feeling that it leaves in your mouth turns some people off. The smell is also fairly strong and unpleasant to some. I didn't outright dislike it on the first try, but it took a few times before I truly appreciated its tastiness. The flavour is really mild, a bit nutty and egg-like with a slight brewers yeast flavour undertone. It has a strong fermented smell but that didn't really bother me, maybe because I am used to the smell of Dustin brewing beer. What I struggled with at first was the texture. It is a cloying sort of slipperiness that coats the inside of your mouth in slime. Little gossamer threads of viscous ooze stretch from your chopsticks and drift onto your face if you are not careful, spreading the fermented smell onto everything they touch I am not sure that I am making much of a case for this food, but someone told me that you need to eat it 8 times to know whether you definitely love or hate it and there is definitely some truth in that. A few months of eating it later, and the texture does not bother me in the slightest and I adore it.

To make it even better, natto is really healthy for you, with lots of protein, vitamin K1 and K2, PQQ, and probiotics. It is said to prevent senile dementia, breast cancer, osteoporosis, blood clots, and aids in digestion. It has become a staple breakfast food for me but I have yet to convince Dustin and Theo of its wonders. If I end up outliving them by 50 or so years, we'll know why!

All mixed and on top of rice with green onions: delicious!