Today, along with the two Russian girls and the Afghanistan girl who are also currently training at Tokai, we went to the girls' judo club's manager's house in Machida (ouf, that's a lot of possessives, hope it makes sense). The manager and his wife wanted to cook a meal for the 4th year girls from Tokai who will be graduating officially tomorrow and we were invited to help with the cooking. I was all excited, thinking we would learn how to cook some Japanese dishes like
yakisoba, or
tempura. But in the end, we mostly helped to plate the food which is an art in itself in Japanese culture. We had to place the chopsticks a certain way and layer the meat slices and vegetables beautifully to produce a beautiful visual effect.
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| Hard at work |
When it comes to making food for a group of people, the Japanese are incredible. The table was full of plates of meat, salad, soup, dressings, rice bowls, etc, and the food just kept coming. See for yourself:
It's a bit impolite to refuse food in Japanese culture as I'm told but towards the end, I just couldn't eat anymore.
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| The manager's granddaugther lending a helping hand |
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| A group picture of the graduating girls, the managers and the coaches |
