I am the insect king

(I don’t always look like this, only at night when I have to tape these things over my eyes to protect them during my sleep).  Well it has been three days since I got my myopic eyes Lasik-ed and my post-op recovery seems to be going well.  Actually as part of the procedure I was given a pre-med of some sort of sedative so the surgery was not as bad as I thought it would be; the only unpleasantness was the bit where the sawbones fitted my face with a sort of adhesive mask which holds your eyes open forcibly; it rather brought back memories of the Travis Walton film!   I had an examination 24-hours after the operation, and everything checked out okay; my eyesight measured in at 1.5 each, which means I can get by without wearing any corrective lenses.  I have antibiotic and anti-inflammatory eye-drops which I have to administer five times a day, and I can’t really touch my eyes (hence the insectoid-eye masks for bedtime) which means I can’t bathe properly; this is probably the worst part of it all.  Since I have been wearing glasses since the age of 12 – and was essentially blind without them – it really is an odd feeling to be completed liberated of them; when I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is reach for the spot I would leave my glasses at night, and I still have the odd habit of pressing my finger to the bridge of my nose where I used to push the frame up higher. My next check-up is this Saturday.

One other thing is that I can’t go fishing for one month while my eyes recover; my next fishing trip is scheduled for 21st June.  Also solvents will affect the healing and my doctor said I should lay off the rod building  (in which I use a lot of oil of camphor and terpentine) for one week. 

Rod Latest

After the day at work I headed straight to my teacher’s workshop and did some work on my next rod, which will be a haze (goby) tebane rod.   My shirogisu rod is finally coming together, aside from the slightly embarassing parts where I mucked up the lacquering it still looks quite good, from a distance, and once the guides are wrapped on it is basically finished.  Before that it needs a polish and buffing all over, then the ‘eyes’ (where the leaf shoots sprout from) of the bamboo are painted in, and the joints and tip need a last transparent layer of lacquer to bring out the colour; I thought I had finished the lacquering but I discovered since my last session my teacher had added an extra layer of emerald green, with shakings of gold dust, to give the rod a little character.

 

As for the goby rod, I made a start on what is for me one of the hardest parts: wrapping the joints with thin cotton thread (this are later hardened with lacquer).  After practising in my spare time a little I have definitely improved since my first effort, but it really does my wrist and fingers in; I console myself with the thought that there are professional rod makers (or rather, their downtrodden apprentices) who have to do this all day! 

Bamboo

everywhere.  In my teacher’s workshop; this is just a small part of his stock.

My shirogisu rod should be ready in one more session; it is looking quite good now, apart from one or two places where I mucked up the lacquering.  I put one last layer of lacquer on the tip and joints, and  went to the Sakura Rod Co. shop in Kanda to buy guides – Fuji, the good stuff – and a reel seat to wrap onto the rod.   I also picked up a cotton bag to put the rod in.  In addition to the regular supplies, they have a lot of rare, secondhand parts, castoffs and ‘junk’ so the shop is a veritable gold mine for angling and rod building kit; if unfettered I could see myself spending a terrible amount of time and money there. 

Special Dish: Sakaboshi

Lit. “sake-dried” fish.  Shirogisu are filleted as for tenpura, but are cured in brine and then in good quality sake, before being sun-dried.  When done like this the fish can keep for days in the fridge, and make an excellent gift for friends and neighbours.  All it takes is a minute or so over the fire, and the fish whiten up and are ready to be consumed with a shake of shichimi (Japanese hot pepper mix) and it’s down the hatch!   For best results, these should be grilled over charcoal in a Japanese mini-brazier (called shichirin) but a gas stove is just as acceptable.

Another good day

at sea for me; I took a hatful of shirogisu but this time I gave almost all of my catch to my rod making teacher, who wanted them to make tenpura in his restaurant.  The weather was excellent, although the spring tide really made it difficult fishing (it’s a full moon tonight); my trusty slouch hat kept the sun off my face but my arms were not spared despite being liberally slopping on a heap of SPF50+ sunblock.  Removing my nenju Buddhist amulet revealed the extent of my browning.

Since I have no fishing photos, I thought this quite amusing: a double rainbow appeared while I was hanging up my washing last night.  I only wish I was at sea at the time, as a seascape is so much more pleasant than the concrete jungle of east Tokyo.

山菜三昧

モミジガサのお浸し

コゴミ入りのぬた

カタクリのお浸し

タラの芽・コシアブラ・カタクリ・ミヤマイラクサの天ぷら

コシアブラ・カタクリ入りの和風パスタ

Beautiful Niigata

 The water was cold, clear and quite delicious.

 Next time I will take my fishing tackle; however, this being my first time I was too busy making sure I didn’t die – such as by getting separated from the group, losing my footing, or picking the wrong sort of plant – to think too much about fishing.  But there was a fall just upstream of here which I was about 95% sure was holding fish.

 Coming down from the mountains through a sugi (C. japonica, ‘Japanese cedar’) forest.

  These lovely little flowers poke through the mulch on the floor; they are delicious eating and I picked a bunch.  In the old days the roots would be dried and ground, and used in cooking as the powder known as katakuriko; these days the stuff you buy in shops is made from maize or potato but even today cornstarch is labelled katakuriko in the shops.

 After a long day in the mountains, a soak in an onsen hot spring is the perfect way to settle sore feet and aching muscles, followed by a nap on the tatami floor.  The onsen we visited was called Komako no Yu, named after the heroine of the novel Yukiguni.

 My travelling companions were immensely keen on indulging this local soba, mostly because it is served in these wooden boxes.  In fact, regardless of its serving vessel the soba itself was quite excellent and aided most capably by beer and sansai tenpura.

Back from Niigata

in one piece thankfully, apart from my best efforts to slide on my arse down a mountain side, and later be swallowed up by a muddy swamp.  I took some sansai (lit. ‘mountain greens’) which will provide quite interesting eating over the next few days.  My teacher for the day sliced up a yamaudo there and then and we ate this with su-miso; the taste was unreal – almost like fruit – and I doubt if I can ever eat the packaged supermarket rubbish again.  There was still snow on the ground in patches where we were, but the colours of spring shoots and leaves was very beautiful.