Alex and I went to a place called Naoshima Island on the Seto Inland Sea, unofficially known in Alex's circles as the "art island." The island has a handful of art galleries and a wealth of experimental architecture, including a series of concept houses like the one pictured above, which has a room filled with a pond that's lit up by digital numbers. An attendant in the number-pond house very politely told me that photography is not allowed in the art houses, but luckily I had already gotten my shot.
The day was rainy and cold on the art island, but Alex and I had a great time anyway. It was a very tranquil, beautiful place, water all around and even falling from the sky. The rainy weather also meant that there weren't as many tourists clogging the queues for the art houses, another plus.
A piece of drift wood hangs on the outer wall of one of the art houses, constructed of corrugated metal and containing a two-storey high replica of the Statue of Liberty as well as clear floors with thousands of random snapshots and news clippings underneath.
A portrait of Alex in front of an illuminated wall in one of the art houses, which I suppose was supposed to evoke a waterfall or something, maybe being behind a waterfall, I don't know. At any rate, I want one of these walls in my house, and I wouldn't mind having a number-pond floor either, though that might be difficult to keep clean.
Alex's friend Kapo took us out to the country one morning to make mochi with her friend Daisake's family. Daisake is a carpenter and a thoroughly proficient mochi pounder. You make mochi by hammering steamed rice to a pulp in a mortar that's dug into the stump of a tree; at least that's the traditional method. Most people now make their mochi in machines. This was the first time Daisake's family had made mochi in the traditional way in ten years. This is a picture of some chives growing in Daisake's garden. Most rural Japanese families maintain vegetable gardens, and they're constantly working their gardens in the afternoons.
Daisake (hands on the left) helps his mother (hands on the right) rip off chunks of the pounded rice. You shape the chunks into disks with your hands and then let them harden. You can also stuff the mochi with anko, a sweet paste made from beans, or any number of other things. My favorite mochi accompaniment is ground sesame seeds.
Kids dig into the left over mochi in the giant wooden mortar. Japanese kids are insufferably cute.
After we finished making the mochi, we had a good old fashioned barbecue, complete with a couple of kegs of ice cold Asahi beer (my favorite part). Daisake's family and friends all came over for the event, and we had a really, really good time, although I was ready to go to sleep at about noon because I'd already drunk about four beers (people kept filling them up when I wasn't looking, see evidence above) and was totally stuffed on fried chicken and okanomiyaki, an omelette-like dish made by Daisake's father.
One of Daisake's friends fries god knows what on a traditional Japanese barbecue. It was a little bit windy that day, and the smoke kept blowing in his face no matter which direction he turned. His kids also kept climbing on his back, but he was a good sport.
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