"Family Party."
Thursday 18th October. Day 84. Weather fine and warm, blue skies.
Breakfast included toast, tea, etc., and a bowl of omelette with spring onions, lettuce and tomato with goma (sesame seed) dressing. Colourful and delicious.
Tonight there will be a party with about twenty people altogether attending.
The day passed mostly in preparations.
Shopping at the Hypermart.
House cleaning and dish washing.
The tatami room (where we had been sleeping) was cleared and two extra tables were passed in through the windows to augment the huge round one made from a slice of North American (Canadian actually) redwood. The round table stood in the centre of the room with an extra table on each side of the round one. Everyone would sit on the floor; so there was no need for extra chairs.
During the afternoon, Toshiharu found time to take Colin to a pachinko parlour, "Fortunate House".
Colin and Toshiharu sat down side by side at the machines. Toshiharu quickly explained some essentials of what to do, but, really, it was entirely mystifying.
All of a sudden, Toshiharu made Colin change to his machine whilst he continued with Colin's. Under Toshiharu's continued coaching, Colin's new machine disgorged an enormous number of tokens. A few came out of Toshiharu's new machine, too.
"That will do," said Toshiharu, and he took Colin to the winnings counter. Their tokens were exchanged for cakes and little prizes.
They went outside, to the rear of the parlour. There was a small stoutly constructed building at which Toshiharu knocked.
A hand, looking for all the world like "Thing" in "The Adams Family", came out of a trapdoor. The prizes were received and exchanged for money.
This strategem allows the parlours to avoid the prohibition on gambling for money.
In consequence of Toshiharu's kindness and skill, Colin came home with 20,000 yen.
This partially solved our immediate money problems which went right back to the theft of the credit cards in Paris, but, on our arrival in Japan, we had drawn money at Kansai Airport and thereafter had been unable to draw any more, because non-Japanese cards will not work in Japanese ATMs. There are a few ATMs in major cities that will accept non-Japanese cards, but a telephone call to the English language tourist help service revealed that, though there was a suitable ATM in Kumamoto City in the next prefecture three hundred kilometres north of Kanoya, there were none of these machines at all in Kagoshima Prefecture.
We were also helped by Simon and Margaret's friend, Michael Ratcliffe. He was working as an English teacher in Osaka, and he sent us 20,000 yen through the mail. The Japanese post office has a special system for the sending of cash. This 20,000 was to be repaid when we reached Umeda Station in Osaka. It all seemed perfectly simple, however there was to be yet another twist in the tale of plastic money.
Credit cards work perfectly in shops and in other POS transactions, so don't leave them at home.
Back to the party.
It's recorded in numerous photographs.
This is what you can see.
The three tables stretch perhaps sixteen feet. Twenty two people are seated or kneeling by the long table. A solid line of serving dishes extends from one end of the table to the other. Mixed dishes, meatballs, sushi, skewered meats, fishcakes, all sorts of things showing yellows, reds pinks, browns and whites attract the eye and the palate. There are bottles of shouchuu, coca cola, and cans of beer.
Toshiharu's sister, Itsuko cooked almost all the amazing variety and quantity of foods, and oversaw all kitchen activity.
Apart from all the relatives whom we had already met there was Takao's son Koichi who had come with Itsuko's son Taichiro from Kagoshima where they go to school. Koichi had to drive them both back to Kagoshima (two hours distant) for school the next day. Koichi was as slight and quiet as Taichiro was large and talkative. Taichiro was very confident in English, though you could not always tell what he understood because of his policy of always saying "OK" in reply to any statement or question.
Takao's daughter, Takako and her two small but delightful daughters were there, too.
We met Shouko's sister, Kiriko and her husband, Youji. He, full of jokes and laughter, sat next to Colin for a while, but Colin's Japanese was scarcely up to understanding anything Youji said.
Shouko's parents, Toshio and Mariko were there too sitting with Toshiharu's parents.
Once the shop had closed, Satomi and her husband Tadashi arrived bringing their nephew Keisuke. By chance, Satomi sat at a place provided with an enormous beer glass, and she became increasingly animated as the evening continued.
Everyone talked loudly and merrily, and ate and drank a great deal. Late in the evening, the survivors congregated in the dining room to drink, talk, and nibble.
It was after one o'clock in the morning when we got to bed, dumbfounded at the kindness and generosity of the Shimizu family, and after a few tears had been shed.