#Ishisaki Fisheries

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Hokkaido Day 3 Part 4: Playing in the snow and visiting Tomikawa Junior High My first snowman: Tomio-chan. As someone was rolling a huge ball for the base, I jumped in and made the middle and head. Look how wide the arms are -- like she wants to give you a great bug hug! The name was thought of by someone else in following the name of the junior high we would visit right afterward -- Tomikawa. Somewhere between arriving to eat lunch with the elders, and putting away our outside shoes in Tomikawa Junior High, I lost my glasses (I had them in a pocket). It was probably with Tomio-chan or when making snowballs...  The last three pictures are of the entrance of Tomikawa Junior High. I want to make a more detailed post later on the games we played (karuta and making origami) and the questions asked by the third year class. That'll have to wait until later, though.

[gftales]

Hokkaido Day 3 Part 3: Lunch with the locals near Ishisaki Fisheries. The guy who cooked the crab here is also the same guy who did the demonstration to the kids (the day before at the cooking lesson) of how a full cod is cut up into different pieces to eat. He's apparently 73 years old. This was first time actually eating these types of seafood for me. Eating crab was particularly interesting -- it was the first time eating a whole crab for nearly everyone. The old ladies helped us with that. First you tear the body/head in half with your hands and eat the stuff in the head. Eating crab brain was interesting. It tasted like sea water and eggs. Then pick around the main body to push the flesh out. You use the head as your plate as you do this. Finally, you move on to the legs -- what most people are used to -- and pick out the flesh there. Gruesome? Messy? A bit. There was also onigiri and takuon (pickled daikon) along with the seafood. There are a few cats on the premises. It didn't come through the door even with the prompting of the owners, but we saw it looking in multiple times.

[gftales]

Hokkaido Day 3 Part 2: At Hidaka prefecture fisheries. Specifically, Atsuga Fishing Port and then Ishisaki Fisheries. We actually were supposed to see the loading docks and then go on a fishing boat for a ride around the area, but it was cancelled due to the weather. By the way, that huge octopus that greeted us when we walked into the second fishing port is approximately 40 or so kilograms (around 90 pounds)-- as estimated by one of the workers there. "This is what I would look like at a murder scene if I had no bones. 100 pounds of jelly." That strange thought crossed my mind.

[gftales]

Hokkaido Days 2 and 3

A brief preview/summary of the next days we spent there. There was so much, that I have to split pictures and explanations into pieces. I thought it would be nice to write my impressions in one short post first. I saw and experienced many things in the time we spent in Hokkaido. The people of Hidaka were very warm and the days spent there will remain in my memories for a long time. The food we worked together to make in the cooking class was delicious, but I think my favorite moment was the after-dinner activities when we could interact with the children. Playing the gesture game (charades) with the kids and then seeing the wadaiko performance was both fun and exciting. These same kids who we cooked with earlier were performing something on stage that requires hours of hard work. It was an exciting performance and I could feel the joy and determination from all the members. The next day, we saw the fishermen at work and enjoyed a wonderful lunch by the people at Ishisaki fisheries. It was my first time eating such fresh seafood and the atmosphere was so warm as we sat around the low tables with the cold winter blowing outside the little building. I created my first snowman and threw my first real snowball (the little ice-fragment ball four years ago in San Antonio doesn't count!) there. From there, spending the last moments in Tomikawa junior high school, I was touched by the lively students who were trying hard to communicate with me. We played Hokkaido style karuta -- the one where the first stanza is read and attacked instead of the first stanza being read and second stanza being memorized beforehand to attack-- and made little origami hina dolls. I know that the memories I made in my time here will be held dearly in my heart.