Today, we had planned to go to Misawa to purchase a car. January 22 is the last day that the company will fund our rented 4WD Honda Minivan. (We had hoped to purchase a car sooner, but we had to wait until Tom completed a driver’s safety class – required if foreigners want to purchase a car in Japan.) Choosing a car and filling out all of the papers can take a while, so we asked Bethany, our pastor’s daughter to tag along to take the children to the Weasel’s Den, an indoor playground on the base.
Despite all of our preparations, however, we awoke to a snow storm this morning.
Bethany was right on time. I give her a lot of credit.
Determined to make the two-hour trip, we all piled into the van and set out in the snow.
We crawled through town on the ice and hoped that the toll road would be better. However, as we approached the highway, flashing red lights emerged through the blustering snow. Police were blocking the entrance ramp.
Unable to turn, we continued straight and the road conditions went downhill. If it wasn’t for the red poles marking the edges of the road every 15 ft, we would unwittingly driven into the ditch. The snowfall was so dense, it was as if we were driving through fog. All of the sudden, this yellow beast of a snowplow appeared out of nowhere. We slid to the side of the road, and they scraped by, taking up one and one-half lanes. After the plow passed, Tom did a three point turn and we headed home. Assuming the weather improves, he said we’d try the excursion again tomorrow.
Bethany has planned to spend the day with us – so Tom and I took advantage of having a babysitter and decided to go out on a lunch date :)
Before we left, Tom crossed the street to the mall in the blizzard with Thomas and Tabitha for some McDonalds sandwiches – a rare treat – for lunch. In the mall is a grocery store. A worker there was selling fish. She picked up the dead fish and showed Tom and the kids that they were sucker fish and demonstrated this by pretending to stick them to her hand. It didn’t happen to me… I wasn’t there… but it fit the bill for a day in the life of Japanese bizarro-world and it didn’t shock me at all to hear the story when they arrived home.
Tom and I went to the Skylark Gusto near our house and …. ate lunch without anyone spilling water, pranking the waitress “call” button, dropping utensils on the floor, crawling underneath the table to exit quickly for a potty emergency (or announcing to the entire restaurant what had just come out of them while in the bathroom), crying because they changed their mind about dinner before the order arrived, or spitting “spicy” food out in a masticated heap onto their plate. We ate steak, drank coffee and talked about grown-up things. Nearly three months without a date… oh how I miss them… dates, and my in-laws who were usually game for spur-of-the-moment babysitting.
After that, we went to the Superstore. It’s a Walmart type store where the aisle signs are in English and everyone speaks Japanese. 1/4 of the grocery side of the store is fish…. it’s wonderful. We bought a chankonabe mix and all of the vegetables, mushrooms and fish to cook in the simmering soup. We picked up some bottles of warm green tea on the way out the door.
Driving in the homeward direction, the roads were much icier. On the (Eastern?) side of the roads are metal barriers with angled slats that direct the wind and snow downward with such a force that it blows the snow across the road and prevents road-blocking snow drifts. We were on the side closest to the barrier, so there was zero accumulation – in other words, all ice with no snow for added traction. We noticed that the locals were driving with the left wheels on the gravel shoulder, where there was a little less ice than on the road itself. Two tires on the thick ice, instead of four. I held my breath as we drove over a bridge, with stop lights at the end, at about five miles per hour.
Bethany had told us about a local market in Goshogowara, and we decided to find it on the way home. She had described it as having strings of lights hanging from the ceiling, visible to the road because of the glass storefront. She said it was immediately after a large building. We found the large building – and could just barely see the lights through the windows of the market as the entire storefront was plastered with snow. Tom said, “I’ll hop — it’ll just be two seconds.” But then, he smiled. “Hey, it’s just me and you. Wanna come in?” I took hold of his strong arm and tiptoed on the ice into the store. Beautiful, large, fresh fish were there first thing that we saw as we came in through the door. It was wonderfully warm compared to the outdoors, and the large, snow-covered windows in the storefront brought to mind the greenhouse that melted Frosty the Snowman. Tom spotted a large salmon – for a mere 2300 yen – and the fish monger, a woman, grabbed the fish, placed it on the cutting board and filleted the fish, starting from the tip of it’s mouth, right in front of us. She wrapped up the fins, head and spine and included them in the bag – for soup, if we so desired.
We bought the salmon and walked around for a few minutes. There were local produce stands and many more fish stands. Oysters, clams, scallops, octopus, caviar, fish and more. As we walked by this huge tray of pollock roe – Tarako – the fish monger offered us a sample. He plopped a spoonful into each of our hands. It was soooo fresh and delicious. “Oishi!” The roe itself is very tiny, each egg about the size of a pinhead. It is commonly mixed in with pasta in lieu of tomato sauce.
Bethany needed to leave our house by 5pm. We pulled into the garage at 4:58 and giggled and kissed for the remaining two minutes in peace – worth mentioning, because for once in a looong time, no one could be heard screaming, “EEEWW! LOOK! MOM AND DAD ARE KISSING!!!” ;)