The previous two days had been hot and sunny, but on the third morning, we woke up to rain falling outside the windows. May really is the perfect time of year to go camping or to sleep in an old house with no heat or air conditioning, because it’s not too hot and not too cold. By about 10am the rain had stopped, and my phone rang with a call from Nikolai. He said he’d picked some “tara no me” (google tells me these are the buds of the angelica tree) up in the woods the day before and Chan and Koko at Chan Cafe were going to make it into tempura for lunch.

Sofie’s grandparents popped up from Anan for a visit too, and they brought a bunch of maki-zushi and some sweets, so that made a nice addition to the party. Mr. Sato brought a big tofu salad and an egg dish too. Everyone pitched in one way or another. Koko told me that my job was just to keep snapping pictures. There are a bunch of my Chan Cafe pictures up on the Kamiyama Photo Album now from that day, as well as a bunch of pics of Yamani House.

After lunch, Sofie went to play with her grandparents while Tsutomu took a nap, and I did some computer work at the Kaizen Center. There are plans in the works for hooking Yamani House up with some Wifi internet, but it wasn’t ready in time for our visit. Sometimes it’s good to get away from the computer for a few days, even if it means there’s some extra work to do once you get back.