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This Wednesday I was invited to go to a kindergarten in Arakawa and help with “mochi tsuki” for the morning. Mochi is a very popular rice cake that is pounded into a soft dough, usually stuffed with anco, a sweet, red bean paste. I’m not sure why I was invited to this event, but I had lots of fun and met many new people. Although it was a kindergarten, the first graders from Wakamatsu Higashi Elementary (that I taught at last week) also came for the morning.

Here are the kindergarters lining up to say thank you to the visiting first graders. They all yell out “Yoroshiku onegaishimau” at the beginning of the day and at the end they yell “Arigato gozaimasu” and bow to each other. It’s so cute.

Here is the rice cooking over an open fire and all the obachans and ojisans (old women and men) supervising.

After the rice is done, you have to do a taste test, of course!

Then you put the rice and these stone bowls and get to beat it with wooden sticks. The trick is lots of water! These first graders are getting a little help from the adults.

“I can do it myself!”

I even got to try!

Then the adults get in there to finish it off. They alternate hits and yell “oish” for each other.

Now that the mochi is almost ready you can take it to the floured pans to be molding into shape.

The obachan pulls the mochi into little pieces for the children as they anxiously await their chance to play with the dough.

I get to make mochi too.

How’s this one?

This is a little first grader girl who I practice karate with on Tuesday nights. I taught her at the elementary school last week so now we’re good friends. She always wants to hold my hand.

They get quite the assembly line going and pump out a lot of mochi.

Some helping hands…

Three kindergartners in their cooking aprons and bandanas.

Afterwards we all sat down and had a great lunch together. The kids performed a little dance too.

Aren’t they adorable?

I got to take a lot of mochi back to the high school and share my awkwardly shaped lumps of dough with my co-workers. I’m not a big fan of mochi, especially not when it’s filled with anco, the red bean paste, so I was happy to give it all away.

Also this week I got a new bike from Asagami-san, the dentist. Isn’t she beautiful? I haven’t ridden it yet because it’s been raining whenever I have the time, but I’m looking forward to using it a lot come spring.

Love, Sierra

My Norwegian ex-boyfriend, Harald, just got back from a month in Brazil and sent me this picture of him with his friends’ daughter, Saga. She’s wearing a Brazilian outfit he brought back with him. He also got his hair in braids (!!) which reminds me of when we did that together in Acapulco, Mexico. I can’t wait to see what he sends me!! =)