My lymph system on the right side of my neck and head is almost back to normal now. No coloring. It is not swollen. And not painful to touch, though it feels kind of “off” for lack of better wording. Anyway, the vacation is still on and just a day away 🙂
On Sunday we went directly to the harbor in Kobuchihama where we helped out with mekabu. This time it was for one company only and we were about 10 people. In the end we managed to do 500+ kg mekabu. It was fun work though I doubt I would stay sane doing this day in and day out for more than a week.
Anyway, before this trip I had eaten wakame without a thought that someone have to harvest it and prepare it before it ends up in the shops and eventually on my plate or in my soup. Now I could see almost all steps of making that happen, except the harvesting in the ocean and what happens after the wakame is picked up for transportation.
First the raw wakame is cooked quickly, just a few minutes. Then it is put into a giant top loaded laundry-like machine where it soaks in super-salted water for about 50 minutes.
Next the soft “hair” part of the wakame is separated by hand from its stalk. This was the part that was not really my strong side, but Ishihara-san and Chie was doing good 🙂
Once the wakame was separated from its stalk it is put under heavy pressure for some time. Then it is put into a tumbler before it is packed into boxes. Each box contain 15 kg of wakame and is sold for about 20000 JPY a box.
The final step is for someone to buy the boxes and come and pick them up.
Even though we were working we also had time to go out with one of the fishermen on his boat. We picked up some cages that they had put out the day before to catch sea shells and crab. We also visited where he was growing oysters but since everything was destroyed in the tsunami they were still too small to eat – may need 2 more years before they are ready to harvest.
At about 4 pm we were in our car driving back to Tokyo. It’s a 6-7 hours drive depending on how fast you drive and how long you rest. Luckily Chie and I shared to burden as all the work had made me tired… In a good way 🙂
This weekend we went to Kobuchihama and Fukukiura outside of Ishinomaki in the Tohoku area. We went together with Ishihara-san to deliver some donations and to help out making mekabu and wakame. Both are seaweeds or, rather, mekabu is the part of the wakame seaweed just above the root system.
We left Tokyo around 1 am on the night between Friday and Saturday. Chie and I shared the driving while Ishihara-san was occupying the backseat of the car. We arrived in Fukukiura early in the morning on Saturday and stopped at the temporary homes to meet our contacts there and to deliver some goods.
Once that was done we walked to the harbor where we helped out with separating the mekabu from the non-usable stalk of the wakame root system. You can see one of the locals doing this in the below video. Then you can imaging Ishihara-san, Chie and me along with 20 or so other volunteers doing the same… But in slow-motion 🙂
After our work was done someone came and bought the 1 ton mekabu that all of us have prepared. Loaded it on a big truck and drove off into the sunset… Well, it was still midday but it sounded so nice 🙂
We also had some time to have a look at where they were cooking konago that they had caught during the morning. Konago is a small fish, just a couple of cm or 3, and is cooked whole. Quite tasty in salads, soups and various other kinds of Japanese dishes.
In the afternoon we went to Kobuchihama and met Shinobu-san. We joined her families company where we helped preparing wakame. Basically separating the soft parts from the stalk. It was much more difficult work and I think I manage to make more damage than help here 🙂
In the evening we visited Kasuo-san’s home and he and his wife invited us for dinner. It was a great dinner and we could try mekabu and wakame in various dishes along with some tempura and other dishes. We had actually planned to have dinner in Sendai close to our hotel but this was much better.
Since somewhere in the middle of my trip to California my lymph system on the right side of my neck and head has been swollen. On the head it has gotten so bad that it looks like I have hit my head hard on a rock in 4-5 different places resulting in bulging red marks that are really painful to the touch. Most likely this is a result that I have for the last 5 weeks or more had a cold that I don’t seem to get rid of fully. This cold started with fever when I was snowboarding in Shiga-kogen a while back.
Now I am back in Tokyo from my trip to California and my neck and head still hurts, but not as bad as during the trip. The coloring has gone down and it is not so swollen anymore. Hopefully it will be fully gone by the time we go to Hawaii for vacation.
This week I have been in San Francisco and Napa on a business trip. First stop was at our office in Redwood Shores where we a work colleague from Lund and I) had some meetings with the “locals”. On Wednesday night we continued Napa where we checked into Silverado Resport for the Open Source Think Tank workshop.
Meetings in our Redwood Shores office were good and we got a lot of useful input both on our business as well how it is living and working in the SFO area. The Open Source Think Tank conference was really good and was great opportunity to meet many people working directly or indirectly with open source. We also had a great dinner at a vinery not far from the hotel.
The hotel though was another matter. It claims to be a luxury resort and the prices are thereafter. But the service is not. They were unorganized and, as I found out when I got back home and examined my bill closer, had charged me $380 too much for spa treatments and dinners that I have no memory of receiving. That is OK but not responding to my request to fix it is not, still waiting for an answer after more than one week. DON’T GO THERE!!!
We also experienced the worst rain and thunderstorms in SFO for many years. And it haled in Napa. No luck with the weather, until the last day when it was California blue sky again.