Thanks-Liz-giving

As Matt was rolling out our pizza dough last night, we were joking that this is our Japanese Thanksgiving, but as it was my last night at Sen, Matt re-titled our evening ‘Thanks-Liz-giving’!

In addition to leaving behind some pizza dough-making knowledge, I also feel like I’m leaving a piece of my heart here at Sen.

Matt and Nori have become great friends and basically like family to me.

I’ve cooked and baked more in their kitchen than I have anywhere else in the past five years.

My last breakfast for Sen guests, pumpkin cinnamon rolls and pumpkin walnut bread!

I’ve also met some incredible people, as we have the most interesting people passing through the guesthouse on a daily basis.

My last days here have been bittersweet. We ate well of course yesterday, Japanese for lunch and pizza for dinner on my last day.

Probably my new favorite Japanese meal! Thank you Nori!

This place has been life-changing for me, probably in a way that I won’t truly appreciate for several more years to come.

I am truly lucky to have gotten to live here for a chunk of 2014.

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A Ferris Wheel?

Being a foreigner in Japan (or in all of Asia, perhaps) is so vastly different from being one in Europe, or in Russia as I was for several years. Most of this stems from the simply fact that here I do not and never will blend in.

Though this has its obvious downsides, there are some surprising silver linings, one of which I discovered this past week in Matsuyama: free Ferris wheel rides for all foreigners!

First time on one of these things since I was about 16 and in Chicago…

All I had to do was flash my passport on the ninth floor of the fancy Takashimaya department store in downtown Matsuyama, and the Ferris wheel lady ushered me into a little car all to myself!

The first time my American passport saved me 1000 yen and got me a scenic view!

With the nine floor below us adding to the height, the views were pretty awesome from the top, even on a not-so-clear day like Thursday was.

I used my 15 minutes in the air wisely, taking as many pictures as I could. And yes, I finished that book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that day, it’s amazing, read it.

The same park where I sat under the cherry blossoms back in April during my first trip to Japan…

Later I grabbed a picnic lunch and headed to the castle park in the center of town, where I plopped down on a bench, ate, read and thought about how much I enjoy Japan.

I sat on the bench reading until I happened to turn around and see a huge storm cloud coming in strong. I made it home with just a few sprinkles, and later ventured back out to what is becoming one of my favorite places in the world.

Ishiteji shrine, the temple where I started walking the pilgrimage back in September. What a great ride these five months in Japan have been.

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A Walk in the Rain

Sunday I had a day off from the cleaning routine, and decided to take a long walk to a hotel onsen on the outskirts of Matsuyama.

I haven’t talked much about onsen here, but now that the weather is turning cold, I find myself looking forward to soaking in the hot springs whenever the mood strikes me.

I took my camera along on my hour-walk to the onsen because I realized that I haven’t done any documenting of mundane Japan. What the country looks like from its un-photographic side, remembering things I noted at first, but now have become normal.

The Japanese love sculpturing their trees….and their bushes and everything else that is prune-able.

There are also no bodies of water that aren’t confined and surrounded by concrete. Which makes sense in the rainy season, but also isn’t the prettiest.

Stone-laden stairways lead to tiny mountain shrines no matter where you’re walking. In the rain they look magical.

The cars are all small and quiet. And Honda or Toyota.

Japan doesn’t mix its gas stations with its convenience stores. Off in the distance above you’ll see a Lawson’s convenience store. I would estimate that the average Japanese person eats a meal at a convenience store at least three times a week.

Japan is mountains. You can’t escape them, and most of the time, you don’t want to.

People are polite. As in slowing down as they pass an odd Western girl walking along a mountain road, so their cars won’t splash water on her as they pass.

The hotel onsen was the best I’ve ever been to. There were multiple baths, with differing temperatures outdoors, facing the side of mountain where the leaves were changing to bright red and orange.

The air was chilly, but after five minutes in the steaming sulfur water, it felt refreshing, and the rain continued while I was there, which was just marvelous.

Can you tell I’m already getting nostalgic?

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A Kochi Jaunt

Last week, Nori and Matt shut the guesthouse down for four full nights, a pretty big deal in the world of Sen Guesthouse.

The two of them headed off for Hiroshima and an island north of Shikoku, called Shodoshima, while I headed south, to Kochi.

The Kochi castle!

Kochi is the only town of any note on Shikoku’s very rural southern half, and is best known, as I learned, for fresh vegetables and its laid-back atmosphere.

I spent two nights down in the south, at a very cute indie guesthouse, owned by a friend of Matt and Nori’s.

The highlight of the trip was a visit to a temple on the ohenro pilgrimage, #31.

I spent almost two hours just wandering around the gardens of the temple grounds and watching the bus pilgrims saying their prayers.

I didn’t know it then, but the days I spent in Kochi were some of the last few warm days Japan will see this calendar year. The nights have gotten much cooler this week, and fall is definitely here.

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The past week at Sen has seen an abundance of Westerner walking pilgrims, and a lot of excellent food cooked by the three of us.

On our return from our vacation last weekend, Nori made my new favorite Japanese food – udon noodles, with homemade lotus root tempura. Which I know sounds incomprehensible and not even vaguely delicious to most of you out there. I’m linking to lotus root here, but I don’t think it’s widely available in the States, just in case there are any adventurous eaters out there!

Nori is my Japanese cooking sensei (teacher in Japanese)!

That same day, I was inspired by Nori’s efforts in the kitchen at lunch and for whatever reason went all out on our supper plans. I had pretty good success with my first-ever experience with foccacia, an Italian bread with a very sticky dough. And then I decided to take advantage of the copious (and cheap!) eggplants still available to us here in southern Japan. This was delicious.

We made a flatbread pizza of sorts out of the foccacia and had an excellent salad to boot!

Last night, to celebrate the arrival of some walking pilgrims who have been on the pilgrimage for more than a month now, Nori cooked up a really delicious vegetarian Japanese curry with brown rice for us all to enjoy.

Nori’s still smiling at the stove, even though Matt signed her up for a night in the kitchen….!

As our Japanese curry expert, Nori did the bulk of the prep work, but the three of us all teamed up in the end to assemble the final product, with cheese and egg broiled in the oven before serving to our 13 guests!

The night was definitely a success and got a lovely bunch of guests together at the same table, all sharing a meal and conversation. In the picture below, you’ll see guests from Israel, France, the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia and the States.

Sen Guesthouse has truly been an excellent experience for me in the last five months. I’m already getting a bit teary-eyed at the idea of leaving in 10 short days.

I’m fairly confident that I’ll be back though, hopefully not too far off in the future!

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Travels in Ehime Prefecture

Since my return to Matsuyama and to Sen Guesthouse, I’ve used my days off a bit more proactively than I did before my ohenro walk.

My first day off, I took the train about an hour south of Matsuyama to two small, well-preserved Japanese towns, Uchiko and Ozu.

Of the two, Uchiko was my favorite by far, mostly because of the historic district that the town has taken great pains to keep intact. I rented a bike and spent several hours going into the small tea shops and visiting vegetable stands in this district. The atmosphere was slow and quiet, with little kids exploring the streets on their walk home from school.

The ohenro pilgrimage walk also went through these towns, so I got to see some pilgrims and be a bit nostalgic about the walking I did earlier in the month.

Of course I’ve also returned to the kitchen at Sen with a vengeance!

We deviated a bit from our storied pizza nights last week and made calzones instead.

Quite successfully, I might add.

Plus, Matt and Nori suggested that instead of just baking for the two of them, I might try to bake some breakfast items to sell to our guests one morning.

Last Sunday I gave it a try and baked a loaf of cinnamon raisin swirl bread plus some banana coconut muffins.

Total income was about 2100¥, which definitely made up for what I’d spent on ingredients and then some.

I’m gearing up to give it another go this week, it looks like this could be the official start of my nascent baking career!

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