Hanami BBQ

April 3, 2017

Dear Virtual Diary,
Spring has arrived and nature on the island is becoming more beautiful as each day. I still have not gotten used to how beautiful the island gets on clear sunny days.

I recently got together with some island locals and enjoyed a barbeque. There were supposed to be sakura, but as a result of the longer than usual winter they hadn’t bloom as of yet. We had the BBQ right near the banks of the inner sea. There were around 30 to 40 people there along with children from one of the schools I teach at. This was all hosted at a house right on the inner sea. At the back of the house were long sets of levees. The house itself looked like it was used for hosting local community events.

Kurahashi-cho is such a fishing town that the levees were draped in seaweed that had been placed out to dry. Most of the people that attended this bbq worked locally on the island, some owned and /or are working at gas stations, schools, fish/butcher shops or made their living off of the inland sea.

One of the locals here on the island works at the butcher’s shop and handled all the business in procuring the meat. While I will admit that I am not the expert when it comes to meat quality I have to guess that the meat we used was of high quality, because it tasted like heaven and was as soft as clouds.  Our butcher also created some delectable dipping sauces for our pieces of meat. I got him to teach me some of the ingredients used in some of the food he was cooking…I had to take notes. Of course, the culture of this BBQ differed from the ones in Canada, more than that though, most of the time I meet Japanese people they are quite introverted, even though they may be someone who is extremely extraverted. When first meeting a Japanese person, they seem pretty much the same, even though we all know that is not the case. In a country where most of the time people show more awareness towards foreigners than Japanese it was interesting and slightly refreshing to see all of us laughing and having a good time and having even the shyest folks come out of their shell to enjoy a day of mirth and other pleasantries.

Also, Japan has easily turned me into what I would call an alcoholic. I went to work the next day and just wanted to be put out of my misery. It felt like my brain was trying to escape being in my head by breaking through my skull.