The rain has really started to come down lately, and tomorrow a new typhoon is threatening Japan. This year has had an unseasonable amount of typhoons, and I’ve gotten two days off work from them. That’s pretty nice.
The bad news is I have to take an umbrella in to work every day. Today somebody swiped my umbrella from the rack in front of the school, which is apparently a common occurrence. This is the first time it happened to me. I’m trying to think of a diabolical scheme to keep it from happening again.
After classes finished today Mr. Komuri had invited me to join him in making homemade soba noodles. We gathered a group of teachers, did some shopping at the local grocery, and made them from scratch. The base is a buckwheat flour that Mr. Komuri buys in Nagano. It was fun to watch, and amazing that noodles actually came out of so much kneading and hard work.
Afterwards we ate the soba in the traditional style, served cold and dipped in a soba sauce that we spiked with various vegetables and wasabi. It was great – an awesome meal. The key is having all the materials to do it – you need a big board, rolling pin, special buckwheat flour, etc, etc. I’d like to do it at home, but I think I’ll just wait until Mr. Komuri wants to make it again.
I came back home using a spare umbrella that I had stashed away for such an occasion, and bought some ground beef at Ito Yokado. I had a big taco meal with a couple of beers – they’ve started carrying Anchor Steam beers next door. At almost $4 for a bottle of the beer, it’s pretty pricey.
I did a little bit of studying, and then watched “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” on my computer, downloaded via the web. I also cleared off my back porch in preparation for the big one tomorrow. We’ll see if it lives up to the hype.
