Last Friday night Ian and I invited friends over for a good old fashioned Lenten fish fry. I assumed that everyone knew what fish fries were and how they operated because even if you're not Catholic, at home EVERYONE has gone to a fish fry at some point in time. I sent out an email inviting everyone and saying that we would fry up all the normal fixins': fish, onion rings, homemade french fries, etc. So when I got responses back from Sara balking at the amount of fried food and asking if there would be any vegetables, I turned my head in confusion. Normally I would also complain at the amount of fried food. I don't eat as healthily as I once did, but I still know that consuming the amount of grease at a fish fry is not good. However, it's a FISH FRY. People don't normally go to fish fries to count calories. When everyone arrived last Friday night, we started talking about fish fries back in the States. As it turns out, Sara, who is from Hawaii, had never been to one and had absolutely NO idea what I was talking about when I was referring to Lenten fish fries! *gasp* Melissa B and Margo, both from Washington, said that the northwest doesn't really have fish fries either. *double gasp* (Luckily Devin and Mollee are both from the south, so they knew what was going on.) Therefore, Ian and I had to show them what it was all about. We fried the fish, onions, and potatoes before throwing in Oreos. :) To pacify those who had balked about the amount of fried foods, Ian had prepared coleslaw, and I made fruit salad. We all ate and enjoyed!
Mollee stayed the night, and the following morning she went hiking with us. I found this hiking trail while I was riding my bike the other day and asked Mollee, who is an avid hiker, if she'd like to hike it with us. Ian, Mollee, and I piled into our car and drove the five minutes to the trail head.....or at least what seemed like the trail head. Okay, so the hiking trail turned out to not be a hiking trail....it was more like a road to no where up the mountain, and the whole day was more like a nature walk than a hike. We didn't care, though, because the weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was one of those pre-spring days in which there's still a crispness in the air, but the sunshine and buds on the trees promise that spring is just around the corner!
Shortly into our hike, we reached a fork in the road. To the right the road was still gravel, but to the left it looked sightly washed away and much less used. Ian quoted Robert Frost and said that we should "take the road less traveled." (I told him, "You know that poem is about suicide, right?") I was glad that we did, though, because it proved to be quite the adventure!! We think the road once was a logging road, but it's clear that no one had used it in a long, long, LONG time. In places the road was pretty much washed away. In other places the mountain was reclaiming it with sprigs of bushes and trees growing through the dirt. At a couple of spots, the road was deeply cracked and literally falling off the mountain. (I actually tripped and fell in one of said cracks! Yikes!) My favorite spot on the road was the giant log heap we had to cross. I'm not exactly sure how it got to the middle of the road, but for about the length of a football field, the road was covered with tree debris: sticks, twigs, limbs, and logs all tangled together and presenting a hurdle for us to cross. We followed the road as far as we could up the mountain, hoping that it would come out at the top, but sadly it did not. The road eventually just dead ended. We think that it washed away at some point in time.
.....but did we give up? NOPE! We hiked back down to the fork, found a nice sunny spot, and took a break. The sunshine felt amazing. While resting, we noticed something pink caught in one of the nearby trees. At first we thought it was underwear and laughed as we each concocted stories about how said pink underwear would have gotten to the higher branches of the tree. Ian went to investigate it, but Mollee and I stayed behind. I found a few round rocks, set them in front of me, broke a stick in two, and began to beat on the rocks, saying "Hey, Mollee, look. I'm playing Rock Band!" Ha, ha, ha. Mollee started gathering rocks and random sticks, piling them into an old tire rim that we found. She created "modern art." When Ian returned from his pink-underwear-seeking adventure, he saw Mollee constructing her creation and me deeply concentrating on Rock Band and made fun of us. (side note: The "pink underwear" turned out to be an old birthday balloon.)
On the second leg of our adventure, we continued up the original gravel road. I was thinking that it would eventually become a hiking trail, but it never did. I was also hoping that eventually it would lead to the top of the mountain, but that also didn't happen. That road reached a dead end as well. However, we did make friends at the top! Shortly before we reached the dead end, we stumbled upon an older couple cutting greenery....off of some random mountain road.....at the top of some random mountain. I think they were as shocked to see us as we were to see them! As weird as it was for us to see the couple sitting at the side of their van cutting leaves off of some plant, I'm sure it was even stranger for them to see the foreigners in the middle of nowhere! They asked what we were doing, and we said hiking and continued on our merry little way.
That night we made cheese fondue. Someone had mentioned Switzerland earlier in the day, which made me think of fondue, which made me think of cheese fondue, which made me think that it had been a LONG time since we'd eaten any. I was suddenly craving fondue, and I didn't care what meal options were proposed for that night. I. WAS. GOING. TO. MAKE. CHEESE. FONDUE. It was worth it! Even though good cheese is hard to find in Japan, I found a recipe online that only required cream cheese and Parmesan, which can easily be found at the grocery store. Add homemade Irish soda bread, chicken breast, fish to dip into the fondue, and we had a FUN-due party!
......and that was all for our weekend adventure time. Now that the days are getting longer and warmer, I'm hoping that we'll get to have more weekends outside. Ian and I were just talking about all of the mountains we want to climb before we leave: Kirishima, Nakadake (the tallest mountain on Kyushu), Ichifusa one more time, and the 3,333 stone steps of Misato. All of these hikes will most certainly whip us into shape and give us good practice for the ultimate goal.....FUJI!!!
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