Recently an old friend of mine came to Japan for a trip with his partner. We had not seen each other for about 12 years, but he got in touch and wanted to catch up. He decided to spend 3 nights in Okayama during one of my weekends. While we were friends in university in New Zealand, he was originally born in England and has been living there for almost as long as I have in Japan. It was interesting to see how he has changed since we both moved away from NZ. We had a great time and were able to visit many places.

On their first night here, it was a workday for me. I was only able to meet them at night. We went out for dinner and had yakitori downtown. They looked exhausted as they had climbed Mt. Fuji only two days earlier. Nonetheless, they were happy to go to a local place for dinner rather than a chain or somewhere well-known. The next day, we did a lot of Okayama tourist activities. Okayama castle, Korakuen, and Bikanchiku. Sadly, it was rainy in the morning, but we spent some time inside the castle and managed to get to the garden when the rain had settled a bit. On that day, the lotus flowers had started to bloom so it was lucky timing. While in Bikanchiku, I took them to an udon shop. This trend of getting them to experience different Japanese foods continued throughout the weekend as that night we went to a yakiniku place. On our last day, we had sushi and tsukumen.

On our last day, we did not spend much time in Okayama. We went over to Himeji. Himeji castle is probably my favorite castle in Japan, so I wanted to show it off to them.  At the time we were planning to go, the England vs Mexico world cup game was live, so my friend insisted on watching it during the train ride. Amusingly, the other foreigners we saw on the train and even the platform at Himeji were also staring at their phones and watching the game. Despite raining in the morning again, it managed to mostly clear up once we reached the castle. My friends were impressed by the size, scale and craftsmanship. We managed to spend a lot more time there than I expected so we ended up just coming back to Okayama, doing some shopping and having dinner.

Overall, it was a fun weekend, and a great chance to catch up with an old friend. He said he hopes to visit Japan again in the future. Hopefully I can someday visit England as well.

I went small boat bottom seine fishing on Sunday (小型機船底びき網). Typically, this is a type of commercial fishing in the Seto Inland Sea. Every summer, my boar hunting group charters out a boat and we “help” the crew and divide the haul up between the group.

This is a kind of net trawling, but instead of dragging the 300 meter (984 feet) wide net along the bottom, the boat pays out a 1000 meters (3200 feet) of rope on one side only, drops the net and then drives in a big loop while letting another 1000 meter rope out on the other side. This encloses the fish into the net and then both ropes and the net are hauled in.

We got on the boat on the border between Kojima and Mizushima, only about 45 minutes from my house and basically at the bottom of the hill from Washuzan Highland amusement park with a perfect view of the Seto Ohashi bridge that connects Honshu to Shikoku.

We cruised less than 30 minutes to an area south of the Mizushima industrial port area, dropped the net 3 times to get a full haul and were back in port eating sashimi and freshly boiled fish less than 3 hours later.

We mostly caught two kinds of タイ sea bream, マダイ red sea bream and クロダイ black sea bream or black porgy and some other types, one of which might have been ニベ Japanese croaker. I ended up going home with over 50 fish in my cooler.

Not having that much freezer space, I shared the wealth amongst some friends and descaled, gutted and froze the remainder.

My hunting group usually does this trip while I’m in the States for my summer break, so this was my first time to be able to join in. It was an interesting experience, the three man crew (including a young guy from Indonesia) did most of the work, we just helped haul the net a bit and carry giant baskets of fish to the giant cooler in the back.

私はあまり外食に出ませんが、その代わりに人が誘ってくれるとホイホイと出かけます。今回は少し前に誕生日を迎えた友人の希望で、高梁市にある豆富（豆腐ではない）料理専門店へ予約を取って行ってきました。その名も「雲白（くもじろ）」。こじんまりとした、お昼にだけ営業をされている、年配の方々が働いている、遠い高梁にあるお店です。ですがミシュランプレートに掲載されたとあって駐車場には県外ナンバーもあり、予約なしには入れない状態でした。

お料理はどれも美味しい、大豆の味が濃く感じられるものばかり。でもわざわざ高梁まで片道１時間半かけていくにはなかなか遠いです。

ですがその友人はこう言ってくれるのです。

「あ～、川の景色に山の雰囲気がきれいで、それだけでもここまで来た甲斐があったわぁ。今日はお付き合い、ありがとうね。」と。彼女とはもう２５年程のお付き合い。でもいつもこういった可愛いことを言ってくれるのです。

そういえば、お隣のテーブルには作業服を着た中年男性二人組が美味しくお膳を頂いていました。日曜日にお仕事をされているんであろう、でも予約を取り、男二人、決して安くはないランチを食べに来ていることがなんだかいいなぁと思ったのです。

そう思いながら岡山市内に帰着。美味しくお高い豆富料理を頂き、健康的な胃袋になったあと、その友達とドーナツ屋に寄って、胃袋を油でコーティングして帰りました。

I watched Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai many years ago, and although I enjoyed it, I found it very long and a little hard to follow. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, but I didn’t fully appreciate it.

After discussing Kurosawa films in class a few weeks ago, I decided to try watching a few. The movie I chose last week was Sanjuro, the director’s 22nd film. One of many  Kurosawa films starring Toshiro Mifune, it’s technically a sequel to another picture called Yojimbo.

The talents of both men are on full display here. Kurosawa was deep into his career at this point (Seven Samurai had been made almost a decade before), and he was already famous for his carefully composed scenes and beautiful use of light and motion. Every frame is a painting, as they say. Meanwhile, Mifune plays the brilliant but aloof Sanjuro with the poise and rugged charm worthy of a samurai - or at least a ronin.

There’s a lot to discuss about these old movies. If anyone has seen them before, post a comment here or let me know in class sometime!

P.S. I was secretly hoping I’d find a connection to this Sanjuro:

Source: www.okayama-kanko.jp

…but sadly, Kurosawa’s film has nothing to do with the beloved lord of Bitchu Matsuyama Castle.

At the end of last month, I went to Fukuoka for a concert by a singer called Rekishi. He is a Japanese singer who, as his name suggests, sings songs related to Japanese history. His songs are based on historical figures as well events, places, and even sometimes traditional Japanese objects. They are generally upbeat pop songs but also include comedic elements. I had the chance to see him live last year at a summer music festival. He was my favorite performer at the event, so I wanted to go to one of his concerts.

The concert I went to was not a regular concert, however. Rekishi has collaborated with a lot of musicians throughout his career, including some quite famous ones such as Shiina Ringo. This tour was a collaboration tour with the famous jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara. This was their second tour together, though the first time was over 10 years ago. The theme of the concert was that Hiromi was interrupting his concert and making his songs into jazz pieces. Listening to his songs as jazz pieces was a unique experience, and it gave the songs a new fresh sound.

One of the most fun things about seeing Rekishi’s concert is getting to learn about famous people and places throughout Japanese history. He covers a huge range of periods of Japan’s history as well. While his music is very comedic, it is always fun to listen to it. When I talked about him to students, most had never heard of him. Yet he has been around for about 30 years and has many fans around the country. I think for most Japanese people, his lyrics would give them a good laugh.