Hayakawa Soba Festival

The Hayakawa soba festival is a pretty small event, as far as festivals go, but it's a big deal to the Hayakawans. It was a lot of fun for me, too, in a very relaxing way. As you can see from one of the pictures (maybe), there was a ring of tents. One side of the ring had soba stands (many of the different areas in Hayakawa had their own stands), and the other side had crafty omiyage type stuff. Mr. Yoda had a stand where he was selling some woodcrafts, Yuki from Kitasho's dad had a stand where he sold some artsy stuff, other parents had stands where they sold the Japanese equivalent of homemade jam (read that as I have no idea what the stuff in the jars and bags were), and the 4th grade teacher at Minamisho had a stand where she was helping to sell Hayakawa wine.

The highlight for anyone should've been the soba, but I was happier just wandering around. The Hayakawa JHS kids had put on a taiko performance that I missed, and were wandering around looking cool and trying to impress themselves or something. I said hi to tons of kindergardeners and elementary school kids, including the Kitasho kids who were selling oden at their stand (basically hand-picked daikon with some sauce... not in soup like it usually is). The soba was good, but homemade soba has a slightly weird texture and taste that I'm not super-duper fond of. I mean, it's good, but not great. The tempura on top was really good though.

I shared possibly the weirdest...cocktail? I've ever had with Mr. Yoda's extended family (family and friends). They were really nice. I spent the better part of an hour giving a guy an English lesson, and he returned the favor by handing me a big cup of sake with a whole fish in it. Yes, a whole fish. Of the fish-on-a-stick variety. Why? Can anyone tell me? I don't know. But he drank one, too, so either it was a huge joke on the foreigner or it's something they just do sometimes. I mean, who cares around grilled fish on the off-chance that a foreigner will walk by? I can tell you that seeing that cup of sake with a big fish-tail coming out the top was quite a shock. I like sake, but this was slightly fishy for my taste.

I was chatting with the Minamisho teacher, Rika, when a man came up and asked me in English if I would like to drink with him. He wanted to chat in English, but he actually could! I was kinda shocked, but then he explained that he actually taught English in Hayakawa for 9 years about 15 years ago. I told him that I taught there now and we had a good time sharing some Hayakawa wine and talking about Hayakawa and English teaching. I really wish I had pictures, but it didn't seem like a good time to take one. He was really nice, though, and I hope we meet again.

It was a beautiful fall day, and all I - my friends from various venues were mostly enlisted to work with parking, etc - had to do was wander around, enjoy some soba, chat with friends, and make new ones over some fish-sake and wine. Everyday should be like that.