Imoniki- A Perfect Day on the Beach of the Sea of Japan

An Imoniki is a Japanese tradition- but only to this, the Tohoku region of Japan.  An imoniki is a party on the beach (can be an ocean beach or a river beach- we've seen both.)  Large pots of a special imoni soup are prepared.  Imoni is similar to a potato.  The soup has that and other vegetables and meat in it.  Depending on which part of Tohoku you are from, the soup has either a miso base or a shoyu (soy sauce) base. 

Our little branch held their annual imoniki on  September 24th.  We all gathered on Yura beach at 10 am on that day.  We were the first ones there.  The invitation said it would be under the bridge, but we didn't realize that would be literally under the bridge.  But that's where it was- right under the walking bridge that leads to the little island.  The bridge provided some nice shade.  It was a perfect, beautiful day- with just a light breeze.

The men got busy and built two fires in the sand- one to cook the shoyu- based soup and the other to cook the miso- based soup. 

The cutting of the vegetables had been done the day before at the church.  So while the fires burned and then the soup cooked, we visited, skipped rocks on the sea (it was as calm as a lake), walked over to the island and went beach combing. 

This is some of the pottery, sea glass, and shells I picked up.  As I combed the beach, I came up with this amazing, fascinating story about how the pottery was broken and thrown into the sea in China during the revolution (they really did do that.) and now it has made it's way across Japan Sea to our beach.  I shared my theory with others, but they only scoffed.  But I'm sticking to it.  You can see how the pottery and glass have been polished by the waves, water and sand. 

I'm as bad as my grandchildren.  I couldn't bear to part with my treasures and brought them home.  Now if I only knew how to turn them into beautiful jewelry.

Shoyu- based soup

Miso-based soup.  There is quite a discussion about which one is best.  If you are from this area, your tradition is the miso base.  If you are from the Yamagata region, you grew up having the shoyu base.  I think. 

Our wonderful Relief Society presidency: Miharu, Miki, and Ritzu.  We love these special ladies.

Ayaka- our branch president's wife and their baby

Skipping rocks

Elder Hinton visited with a scout troop who came to clean the beach

Miharu and Ayaka

Newlyweds Kaoru and Takahiro

This is a fine, fine man- Brother Sugawara

Elder Price catching some rays

Ren kun and his favorite church buddy, Katsumi.  Katsumi is his primary teacher.  He is our only active Primary-aged child in the branch.

This was a BYOR (Bring your own rice) party.  Above is the Japanese version of a sandwich.  It is cooked, cold  sticky rice with something inside.  The rice is like the bread and the fillings vary greatly.  We didn't bring any, but several people offered us some.  This one was given to me by Ritzu and it was absolutely delicious.  It was filled with fresh salmon.  Before you eat it, you wrap it in the nori (seaweed) sheet.

As I looked at the people on the tarp that day, I had the same feeling you have when you peek in on your sleeping child.  You have so much love, you think your heart will burst. 

Have you ever seen a more beautiful group of people?  Us either. . . well, except maybe our family.

Just as they do in their homes, everyone removed their shoes to step out on the clean tarp

We took invitations to many less active branch members and gave them to all of our English students.  We were thrilled when one of our English students from Sakata (over an hours' drive) came.  This is Jiro.

After- lunch resting.  I took this from the bridge above.

W

We love this picture.  This is Sister Abe surrounded by her children.

This man was "fishing" for octopus.  He had an artificial crab on the end of his pole and would shake it in the water, hoping to attract and hook an octopus.  There was another man actually out in the water doing the same thing. 

Love this man.

Panoramic shot

Don and Ada- this is the same place where the waves were crashing so violently when you were here.  Can you believe the difference?  Calm sea of glass that day.

Same place- looking down

It was a beautiful, absolutely perfect day on the beach of the Sea of Japan!

After the party, we drove back to the church and helped scrub the very blackened pots and vacuum and clean the tarp and put it away for next year.  We are sad we won't be here for next year's imoniki.