SEAWEED FROM THE SHORES

Today's the first of May...

Called my mum early this morning before cycling to work...

Her loud voice emitting from the telephone startled my missus...

She is 83 and still sounds so strong eh... murmured my wifey afterward...

On the other side of the line, back in my kampong, my sis-in-law wondered why I am working on first of May...

But this is Japan, I replied...

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While all of Japan goes wild traveling here and there and getting caught up in traffic jams during this holiday season called 'golden week', we decided to stay home and tend the garden...

Just watching at the plants grow and listening to the birds chirping and the frog croaking is heavenly enough...

Hosted a large group of friends last Saturday...

Most of them are respected senior citizens in the local community...

My missus was initially worried about our 'spartan' facilities...

We have but a few chairs, not too much crockery, an insufficient number of glasses and cups...

But luckily, all worked out well...

What more, we did not have to prepare much food as they brought them all...

One even set up shop in our garden, much to our surprise, and began to fry tempura from fresh bamboo shoots and wild vegetables...

Everyone wooh-ed and waah-ed at the fragrance and then, the taste...

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On Sunday, we went to harvest seaweed from the shores...

Almost four big bags we harvested...

We (my missus, actually) have to boil them, and then dry them under the sun for safekeeping...

Had a meal full of freshly harvested seaweed for dinner...

Red miso soup with seaweed, vinegar-ed cucumber and seaweed, braised fresh bamboo shoots and seaweed...

The taste was, I'd say, ooh laa laa... excellento... sooo crunchy and absolutely delicious...