Shimakawa Sensei and Edible Plant Hunting

Shimakawa sensei is awesome.  My relationship with him is something that I will dearly miss when I return to the states.  Why I haven't been blogging more about our adventures I will never know, and I have already forgotten many of the things we have done, but luckily I have many taken several pictures of our journeys.  I will devote the rest of the day today and my day until 6:00pm tomorrow going through the thousands of pictures and trying to remember the stories that go along with them.  And the reason that I am only going to blog on this until 6 tomorrow is because that's when he's picking me up in his camper and we are going to the tallest mountain in the Ken with arguably the best powder skiing/snowboarding in the world, according to This Website.  We're spending the night in his camper, skiing all day Sunday, then going to this onsen afterwords. Some of the stories will just best be told on a comment on a Facebook picture, but some of the stories will too awesome for a comment so I'll make a couple blog entries.  I've already started posting a few pictures on Facebook and you can see the pics here:

FACEBOOK PICS  - For those curious, the title of the album is 嶋川先生と大冒険, or "Shimakawa sensei and Big Adventures"

Our relationship began rather slowly.  We had worked together already for a year, but with my inability to speak Japanese and my yet-developed-ear for hearing English with a Japanese accent, we really didn't speak much for a good year.  As my Japanese improved I noticed him try to speak to me a little more.  One day at basketball club (he's the assistant adviser for basketball club) during a water break, he starts talking to me about eating plants, which just so happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.  However, all of my plant eating always is preceded by a trip to a grocery store.  He starts telling me about some random plants and mushrooms and how delicious they are.  I had no idea what he was talking about but it was pretty obvious that he was inviting me to do something with plants at Mt. Eboshi (big mountain in Noheji).  And so with no idea what I he was talking about, I obviously agreed to be picked up that Saturday to go do something with plants in Mt. Eboshi.

The stories of our edible plant hunting are explained pretty thoroughly in the Facebook album.  We ended up going out maybe 5 times and during fall of last year I literally didn't have to buy any vegetables from the supermarket, and I usually spend lots of money on vegetables.  Not only are wild plants healthier and more delicious, but they're free :)

Now that alone would make for a great friendship but that's where the story only begins.