Day of Fantastic Adventures!!!!

Storms' a brewin

Today, I had a brilliant and completely unexpected adventure. It all started at noon when I set out on a two hour drive to Kanazawa for the JET beach party. When I was only an hour away I received the news that it had been canceled due to storms from the imminent typhoon (scheduled to hit Saturday night through Monday). I was very close to Nanao, so I decided I would just go shopping for a bit and then head home, that way my trip would not be a total loss. So I drove into Nanao and went to Uniqlo, a popular clothing store in Japan, which was having a fantastic sale today! I also messaged one of my JET friends in Nanao to see if anybody in the area had made alternate plans for the night since the beach party was canceled. She said they had and would start with dinner at 6. I still had an hour and a half to kill, so I pulled out my handy Ishikawa sightseeing app and looked for places nearby I could go see. 

One of the recommendations was a street called Ipponsugi, famous for having many shops dating back to the Taisho and early Showa periods. That sounded interesting, so I headed that way.

I found Ipponsugi street and a little spot to park and then set out to wander in and out of shops. There are several interesting shops there, offering very traditional Japanese goods. I found a really neat Shoyu (soy sauce) shop that sells difference sauces and beautiful dispenser cups as well. I talked to the owner for a bit, and learned a new word from her, "beppin," which is another way to say beautiful girl/woman, a word she used to describe me. :)

Soy Sauce dishes!

Toconomas

Next I went across the street to a shop full of beautiful golden toconamas. Toconamas are the little shrines that Japanese families often keep inside the home. While there I met the couple who own the shop and they were very interested in learning about me, and also showed me pictures of foreign students that had come to visit their store while on trips to Japan. During our conversation the topic of cooking came up, and I showed them pictures of bento that I made, and they thought it is great that I love Japanese food. Then they got all excited and asked if I would try some of her cooking, an offer that I of course accepted! They scurried off to the back and then brought out iced tea

My treat from the kind lady

and a dish of rice for me to eat. It was very similar to inari sushi, except the outside had a more spongy texture. I told them it was my first time to eat it and that it was delicious, and the lady informed me that she was happy too since it was her first time to serve that dish to a foreigner. While we were talking, the man asked me if I had visited the matcha shop down the street, which I had not. So then he offered to take me there. It was raining heavily so he pulled the car around, I jumped in the backseat, and down the street we went!

We parked in front of the tea shop and went in to meet an old man grinding tea with a handmill. He showed me how you put tea leaves on top and then grind and matcha powder comes out of the bottom. While I tried my hand at it he explained more about it and told me that it takes twenty minutes of grinding to get 20 milligrams of powder, enough to serve tea to just ten people! After grinding tea for a bit he let me sample it. First he had me prepare a traditional sweet, you put matcha powder onto a little sugar-log-type of soft candy and then cut it into pieces to eat. Then he told me how to properly prepare a cup of tea. While I drank it he explained to me some parts of traditional tea ceremony. For example, turning the cup three times before you drink it to avoid the front. I think because the front of the cup is ornamental...? Anyway, it was a very interesting experience and I am so glad I decided to go walking down that street!

By then it was time to go meet my friends for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We had a great little dinner and I got to catch up with people I had not seen since orientation two weeks ago. After we finished I decided to head home early in case the storms worsened through the night. 

On the way home, I failed to follow my GPS' instructions fully and missed an exit. Its punishment was to lead me down the SCARIEST back road I have ever seen in my life. It was an extremely narrow road, just wide enough for one car to pass, and shrubs were encroaching on it from either side, which leads me to believe it is not an often traveled road either. The road was lined with either gaijin traps or sheer drop offs the entire way. The 6 km I spent on that road I was in constant fear of meeting a car from the opposite direction. You might think 6 km is not a long distance, but due to the conditions (night and rain) I was only able to travel at 30 km per hour, a very slow pace on this dark winding road. Finally I made it back into town and was back on my way home!

And this was not even a scary part....