Siteseeing & drinking in Morioka

Yesterday we biked down to the Morioka Children’s Science Museum. It was interesting to see how different it was from museums in the US. The entire museum was hands on. There were exhibits where kids could control robots, make really completed puzzles (we didn’t complete ANY of them, even with Andy working for 10 minutes on one), play balloon volleyball by controlling balloons with a stream of air, and ride a bicycle to turn on different lights and music. The bulk of the museum was focused on physics with exhibits about gravity, the properties of light, and magnets. We figured out how to use most of them, but a few alluded us. Even though it was clearly a children’s museum with everything designed to be touched or manipulated in some way, the level of science being explained was a lot higher than anything we’ve seen at home. There was also an indoor play area with oversized legos and an outdoor playground, so Catie got to run around a bit. She’s been begging us to go back to the museum this morning, so she must have liked it.

the museum playground- actually the best playground we've found in Morioka so far

Last night was our introductory dinner with the E-Club. E-Club is a group of former, and occasionally current, host families who have some tie to Earlham. I think they are all retired and therefore have some extra time to devote to Earham, without actually taking hosting a college student. They get the E-House apartment ready for the faculty leader, attend the Japanese spring festival at Earlham, and help out with some of the SICE activities. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t a raucous nomikai (Japanese business drinking party)!

The 11 of us met in a Chinese restaurant downtown. We started off with a round of beer for those drinking and juice or non-alcoholic beer for those not drinking with a few small plates of food. After the introductory toast and speeches, the food and drink just kept flowing! The shear amount of food was staggering. Granted it all arrived in small portions, but there must have been 15-20 different foods offered- with 3 plates of each type of food so that every person could reach each type without worrying about passing plates up and down the long table. . We ate everything from simple chicken, vegetable, and pork dishes to steamed dumplings and fried egg rolls to spicy shrimp, fried octopus, and squid in tangy, astringent sansho marinade that made our lips tingle for hours. It was a FEAST!

The beer and sake flowed freely as well. It’s interesting that while there is pressure in the form of constantly refilled glasses if you are already drinking, there is no pressure to drink if you are not. There is pressure to eat however. I could not believe how much food was consumed. And then, at the end when I thought it was finally over, they all ordered bowls of ramen! I declined. The meal ended with small dishes of ice cream.

Andy got to avoid 30 minutes of feasting when he had to take Catie outside after to her 50^th announcement of “I want to go HOME!” Several of the women in the group had brought small snacks or toys for Catie and I’d brought snacks and her coloring book, but apparently a nomikai is not for her. She was exhausted after her busy morning and the museum and then refusing to nap. Luckily she perked up outside and enjoyed the ice cream enough that we all made it through to the end of the party. In spite of Catie’s whining, Andy & I enjoyed ourselves and got a new positive impression of E-Club.