I’d been avoiding opening my eyes to ignore how long I’d been sleeping when Ai knocked on the door. She told me that breakfast was ready so I put off my goal of bedsores and went upstairs. It was 10 AM and Ai and Reiko had already eaten, leaving a tray of food alone for me.
Today’s plan was to learn how to make Soba noodles. We packed into the car and headed out into the countryside to a place which gave lessons on their technique. This time, the Japanese countryside was actually rural. The houses and businesses seemed transplanted from the city, but with plenty of space around them and rice fields in between.
At the soba bakery, I donned an apron and headed to the preparation room. The ingredients are painfully simple: soba flour, wheat flour, and water. The rest is just kneading and rolling. The instructors spoke no English and I could not understand a word of their Japanese, but eventually I got it right. Cutting them into the right size noodles was the most difficult part.
After they were all cut, we headed to the cafeteria and ate our creation. Fresh soba are best served cold they said, though I really wished they were hot. I’m not certain I would make these noodles on my own without experimentation, but there is some appeal to the flavor of soba.
I spent the ride home writing the Kanji characters from license plates in my notebook and thinking about how fun the twisty rural roads would be in my WRX back home. The next stop planned was the toy museum in Arimas. At first I was not very enthusiastic but once inside it was actually very cool. One exhibit was focused on tops and other spinning toys with a lot of fun play areas set up. The best exhibit were the animated toys, which moved in creative ways when hooked to motors.
For dinner, we stopped at an all you can eat buffet in Osaka. I found a little extra appetite for some western foods which I hadn’t tasted in a week. A young girl about two or three years old was captivated by me when I passed and cautiously came up to me to shake my hand later on. She was so cute it was the highlight of my day.
To end the evening, we visited a store called Donki Hote. I asked several times to be sure and it is in fact named after Don Quixote. Ai told me it was a very strange store and she was correct. Some of the things they sold include: trashy underwear, bicycles, motorcycle helmets, star wars themed USB hubs, video games, groceries, winter jackets, beauty supplies, humidifiers, and cookware. Japan is a very strange place.
