Camping

There was a miscommunication and me Al David Jenny joined Jeff Dorrie Dyl Jess Jessie Becca at Oku-Nikkawa camp-site with no food to cook for dinner. Trains don't so much stop as hesitate at Oku-Nikkawa train station and there was a long mountain dirt track pocked with pot-holes, a pile of traffic and the dark between us and the nearest shops. So we piled into the only building apart from the house where the drunk farmer lived- the restaurant.

'Restaurant' is quite is quite misleading though, and to look at the place, I'm not sure anyone would call it that. More a mountain retreat with a side in selling food. A place where you never really get to drunk since there's no-one else around to see you drunk, least of all yourself in the toilet mirror or the bottom of your glass.

We caught them off-guard and they warned us it would take about an hour and 45 minutes til they could could feed us a hearty curry rice, steaming and wholesome grub on a drizzly night that'd shrubbed out the morning sunshine. They had to get another batch of rice on the go in the rice cooker.

We were welcomed by three Tokyoites, a mother and two children who sat peeling baby bamboo shoots into a cardboard box. There wasn't space to sit since the other tables were occupied- one surrounded by four country-types who cooked meat on a portable hot plate in front of them, the other strewn with empty Super Dry bottles and scraps of 竹の子(baby bamboo) shells, green, wet, scattered. It looked as if a large group had just left, although I think the smoking lady who took to Jeff immediately might have been solely responsible, judging by the lilt to her voice. The Tokyoites soon left, making way for us. Apparently they too were clientele, although we'd all taken them for proprietors or at least friends or relatives.

Two plastic trays of baby bamboo were thumped down in front of us, spilling sprouts like pencils rolling free. A squirt of mayonnaise for each tray and entreaties to eat, eat eateat please soon followed. There are places tucked away in cities too in Tohoku (north-east Japan), at which there's no need to order, instead sit back and await the food that is brought you, anything they have, or anything they want to give you. 山菜 (SanSai) mountain vegetables with bonito fish flakes and soy followed, then accompanied the rounds of bamboo.

In spite of a heavy night before and to spite the bad weather, inevitably it came to beer for us. One of the country types leaped to the chill to fetch us bottles of Super Dry and asked 1 2 4 5 how many. He ambled back along the narrow gloomy corridor- bitten into with stuff and piles of stuff and stuff collapsed on stuff on the floor- that reached away from our table and handed us our beers. A little later, he too bid the owners goodbye, apparently just another punter helping out.

Becca returned from a foray deeper into the restaurant in search of the lav having first found the owner's living room instead. Jeff strode to the table strewn with empty bottles, his hand was clasped between two, warmly, and he and three of the locals, or perhaps more transient Golden Week vacationers started up joshing one another in clipped Japanese I had no ear for. We all et up our curry. A grand old time was had.