Monday, October 16, 2006
I was awakened this morning at 4:45 a.m. by the people in the room next to mine. The walls are so thin that I could hear everything they said, and they were up getting ready at that time. Ugh. I am going to be glad to get back to the Tokyo hotel. It is so luxurious. Anyway, I walked down the street to the post office this morning to mail my box home. It will probably be there before I will. I feel much better about my packing situation now.

Our first stop of the day was to a factory where they make Soka Sembe (rice crackers). We actually got to try it ourselves. It was much harder than it looked, and I nearly caught mine on fire. Everyone was remarking on my burnt toast and wondering what was up with me and my burning of food. I told them that this was why my husband does most of the cooking! Anyway, here's what we had to do. The dough was already prepared, so we took the circle of dough and put it on a big grill-type of thing. The key was to keep turning it and then when it started to swell, we had to press it down with a presser. The hardest part was turning it with chopsticks. Yes, chopsticks. One lady almost dropped hers down into the fire. At least I didn't do that. I just had trouble turning them fast enough with the chopsticks. Finally, I adopted a two handed method that worked pretty well. It was also very hot over there by the grills and I was sweating like crazy. After the sembe are cooked, then we had to brush soy sauce on them. They are very crispy, and are actually not too bad. We then got to take a tour of the factory and see the machines make the crackers. They used to be hand made, and I can't imagine doing that all day long. The fire was intense.

Our next adventure is to stay at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese style inn with mineral springs. Ours was in the mountains, which was nice because our experience has been very city for the most part. Three of us shared a room, which was fun because there's not much else to do at a ryokan except relax and socialize. It was nice to have this "down time" after the hectic pace we'd been keeping for the last few days. At the ryokan we all wore yakatas. These are like an easy robe version of a kimono. It was pretty comfortable, and we looked very cute in our matching yakatas.

Dinner was at the ryokan and they prepared a traditional Japanese meal for us. This was my most challenging meal of the trip so far. Many items were raw and there was a fish that was whole (yes, the head and tail), and it looked as if it were screaming. There was no way I could eat that fish. People who know about my picky eating habits will understand this. I did manage to eat more of the meal that I thought I would when I first saw it. There was rice, of course, so that's always a mainstay of my diet. I also managed to eat some of the other fish items. We had small little cookers for cooking some of the other items, so I cooked my raw fish in the cooker. It worked out wonderfully. After dinner we all sang karaoke again. It was just a lot of fun, and since we're coming down to the end of the trip, it was good to spend some time with each other.

At the ryokan, we all slept on futons on the floor. I was so tired that I fell right to sleep. It didn't even matter to me that this was the equivalent of a sleeping bag.