An Afternoon with Mr. Ogura

Meet Mr. Ogura.  He is one of our faithful Sakata eikaiwa (English class) students.  He has a great desire to learn English.  He studies hard and is getting quite good.  He is a kind and good man who we have come to love.  He loves to garden and talks a lot about his garden.  He rents a plot of land and plants a garden every year.  He rides his bicycle about 20-30 minutes every morning at 6 am to work in his garden for an hour or so before he goes to work.  We told him we would love to see his garden (Ken loves gardening, too.)  He invited us to come to Sakata and spend the afternoon with him and he would take us there.  So, last Saturday, that is what we did.  It was a delightful afternoon!

 He first took us to a very nice restaurant.  We talk a lot at eikaiwa.  He's been listening.  Weeks ago we talked about favorite foods and Ken mentioned he liked Tonkatsu (breaded roast pork with a special sauce.)  So, he took us to a nice Tonkatsu restaurant.  They first bring you a mortar and pestle of sesame seeds and you grind your own sesame paste. 

Mr. Ogura grinding his paste.  You then mix the paste with the sauce of your choice and put in on the tonkatsu.  It is delicious.

The Tonkatsu was delicious.

After lunch, he took us out to his beautiful garden.  He grows a variety of vegetables.

Eggplant

Lettuce

Potatoes he harvested for us.  This Idaho girl is ashamed to say I had never seen potatoes harvested before.  I didn't know there were several under each plant.  Probably shouldn't have admitted that.

He then took us by the big Epson plant.  If you own an Epson printer, it may very well have been manufactured here.

He then took us to the Sakata Art Museum.  They didn't allow pictures inside, but we saw a lot of beautiful art. 

The featured artist right now is a Japanese lady who makes animals out of little pieces of felt.  She takes pictures of real animals, then recreates them in felt.  It was fascinating.

Outside the museum, we found a statue of our daughter, Michelle!

He then took us to Hiyori yama Park, which overlooks the Sakata seaport.  It has the oldest wooden lighthouse in Japan.

And a very old ship on display. 

It is a beautiful park.

He then took us to an onsen (hot spring.)  It was a very cultural experience.  Winter and summer alike, Japanese people love to come here and soak their feet in the hot water. 

When in Rome . . .

Mr. Ogura then took us to his beautiful home.

His wife served us some delicious cake and mugicha (wheat tea.)

This is his beautiful wife.  When Mr. Ogura introduced us to her, we were amazed that he remember everything about us, even how many grandchildren we have. 

We visited for about 1 1/2 hours.  Unlike most Japanese homes, it was mostly in English!  Yoshi!

He sent us home with lots of delicious vegetables from his garden.

On another occasion in eikaiwa, Ken mentioned we like this delicious Japanese granola for breakfast.  He presented us with a big bag of it as we left. 

It was a delightful afternoon with Mr. Ogura!  Thank you very much, dear friend!

Addendum:  At eikaiwa this Thursday, Mr. Ogura brought a paper explaining the origin of the name of the Hiyori yama park and taught Ken about it and the kanji for it.  He had taken time to write it all out for us.  When we were there, we had asked questions about it.  He remembered and researched it for us.  This is not the first time he's done something like this for us.  This is typical of our Japanese experience.  We are here to serve, but find we are often the ones being served.

Thank you, Mr. Ogura!