Day Four

May 4th

Today was the day to head to the mountains. We would spend the day at a cabin owned by the Saito's. Toshie (Mrs. Saito) has visited mom a few times with Yuki, one of her daughters. It has been exciting to see the change in Toshie since she became a Christian. Yuki is also a Christian and has been studying this last year in Canada at Victoria, British Columbia in a Christian high school. She and Sarah will be starting college together this fall at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington where my sister Mary Ellen's children (Micah and Danya) attend.

It took about an hour and a half to wind ourselves up the road to the the Saito's cabin. Talk about narrow and winding! It reminded me of the roads in northern India where we used to live. I was impressed to see large convex mirror strategically placed at places in the road that were so windy you couldn't see properly without them. I was also impressed to see the greenery and beauty of nature. Some of that green was green tea farms which are scattered throughout the area.

Once we got to the cabin we soon started to do what we would do all day: EAT!!!
Toshie is such a good host and cook. She served us all day. And her husband (a prominent lawyer) worked hard all day providing us with an experience none of us will forget.

When I say "cabin," please don't think this was some run-down small shack. It was a wonderful 2-story log-type cabin that smelled like you stepped into the middle of a cedar forest. I kept thinking that this would be a great place for a retreat.

Mr. Saito is a prominent lawyer with many demands of his time, so he enjoys coming up to the cabin to relax during the weekends. In fact, his first name in Japanese means "to relax." He has his own garden and also loves to do pottery. I feel so burdened for him to know Christ and pray that would happen through the influence of his wife and youngest daughter.

Toshie was busy in the kitchen most of the day, preparing all kinds of dishes for us. They seemed to keep coming, and coming, and coming, and coming. I'll just mention a few of the interesting dishes we had. We made our own "mochie" which is a rice paste used somewhat like dough to make these sort of dumpling things. We actually made the paste. We pounded the steamed rice to a pulp (not a real easy job!) and then spread the paste on a sheet which we then used to make our own mochie. It was a lot of fun.

Another dish we had was tempura, which is a deep fried dish of either vegetables or meat. We provided the vegetables for the tempura. We picked off these sprigs from a tree close to the cabin which were then used for the tempura. I was wondering how in the world these things would taste, but they were actually pretty good - kinda like green beans. One other interesting food was a dessert which was cinnamon and bananas deep fried in a wonton skin. It was delicious!

We also experienced a kind of picnic outside at a sort of barbecue pit Mr. Saito made. We cooked food out there over coals and ate all kinds of dishes including several fruit and vegetable dishes. Toshie is very conscious of serving "healthy" foods and I would agree that most of the food was healthy, other than some of the deep fried dishes.

Oh, I also inaugurated the little bath house they had there to experience my 2nd Japanese bath. This one was much smaller, so I went in by myself. I'm getting braver and braver with this Japanese bath thing.

We had so much fun all day, but needed to head down the mountain back to the city of Shizuoka. We were all so full but we were also full of joy having experienced a wonderful time together.