Joshua and Silas setup the shot
by Joshua Garcia – Junior Film Production Major
Saturday began as any other day at ARI. Morning exercise at 6:30 sharp (I was late), morning chores (wiping the dining hall tables), and morning foodlife (weeding plant beds). It was after breakfast where the schedule differed as we had an interview schedule with an ARI graduate about thirty minutes away. Teams AMPACK and CATPIG geared up, loaded the bus, and we took off.
Once we arrived at the graduate’s farm, we split up into our teams, one doing the main interview and the other getting B-roll of the farm and of the graduate. CATPIG was assigned to the interview and that was when we were faced with the challenge of the language barrier. The graduate’s English wasn’t bad but there were times where he couldn’t fully express himself as he wanted. Thankfully, our ARI guide Takashi-san helped us express our questions in a better manner to the graduate and we were able to successfully do the interview.
On the bus ride to our lunch reservation, the back of the bus became a photo session area. Adrian and I got into talking about photography which led to us trading lenses. Kate got a hold of my camera just to have fun and we messed around with portraits of each other, catching as much as the scenery blurring outside our window. The laughter and conversations of my new friends around me made the bus ride feel like it went by fast as we pulled up to the traditional Japanese restaurant.
Walking into the restaurant, we were greeted by the sushi chef shouting something that my ears could not decrypt. We were taken to a room with four small tables low on the ground. After taking off our shoes, we had to sit down with our legs crossed or find a position that felt the most comfortable for each of us. In front of us, there was already a small pile of tempura-fried veggies and shrimp that were very good. The next round of courses were brought to us stacked, forming a tower of delicious Japanese cuisine that we had to tumble down. This was an easy task as everything we ate was new to, not only my eyes, but to my Mexican-American taste buds as they experienced new flavors of simple ingredients complimenting each other in subtle ways. If anyone was having a blast here, it was Takashi-san laughing at us as we ate these beautiful delicacies with horrible chopstick skills and embarrassingly unrelated combination of foods like Silas’s shrimp rice taco where he took a shrimp sliced in half, put rice in the middle of it, and topped it off with some soy sauce.
After arriving back at the seminar house after buying our bullet train tickets, the group split up for either rest or some went to hit the ATM because everyone has gone over budget (and we’re not even in Tokyo). For dinner, a small group of us biked to a Japanese resturant that reminded us just a lil’ of home…KFC.
So here’s the deal. KFC in other countries is better than the KFC in Amercia. That’s my working theory. I can’t say I’ve been to multiple countries to test my theory but I’ve been to Ecuador and the KFC there was my savior. The KFC in Japan isn’t bad but the fried chicken had a different type of flour which resulted in a greasy mess (similar to the U.S. I suppose). The chicken sandwich on the other hand was very tasty with a special sauce. They also have a flour similar to a tempura fried chicken. Other sources have stated that the KFC in India is superior to all other KFCs. Further testing is required.
Following our expedition to the KFC, Silas and I split from the group as we had planned to cook our fellow team members french toast as a way to raise morale. Eating breakfast at the ARI is good but there’s only so much rice one person can eat. So the original plan was actually pancakes but after consulting with each of our moms, french toast was way easier to make for a large group of people. So after thirty minutes of stressing about food quantities and prices, we got the milk, bread, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and then we were asked to leave (more like kicked out) the store because they were closing. Leaving without all our ingredients, we had to go to a different store to buy whipped cream, tea, hot chocolate powder and strawberries. We loaded up the bikes and with the help of Ryan we transported everything back to the guest house even with all our eggs being in one bike basket and my bike having chain issues. We were all ready to cook for tomorrow morning.
Sunday came around and I’m waking up at 6 a.m. stressed by the fact that Silas and I will have to cook for 15 people in a couple hours. I let Silas get his beauty sleep and we start cooking at around 7. We got up and prepped the eggs, milk, and bread where we encountered our first disagreement. I discovered that most people make french toast by making a mixture of the egg and the milk in one bowl. The way my mother has always done it has been with two bowls, one for milk and one for the eggs. I’m not sure if this improves anything but it has too right? Once we settled on the technique, we got into a groove of pumping Michelin-starred French toasts out like they were nothing. It wasn’t until we ran out of milk where we ran into our second disagreement of the morning. We had two available solutions to the milk shortage. The first one was to have Brenton go to the nearest grocery store (which was at least a 20 minute trip) on bike. He promised that he could do it in 10 so Silas was his number one supporter. My idea was to steal a perfectly unopened carton of strawberry milk and make a strawberry milk french toast special. This plan sounded more fun, experimental, and saved time but no one was backing me (it was mostly just Silas and Kendyl being a loud minority that were SUPER against this). In the end, Brenton went to go get the milk and he took around 40 minutes leaving everyone back here waiting. Sooner or later, we just started eating the available French toasts and luckily Brenton made it back. just in time to make hot fresh toasts for everyone. Silas and I were cheered endlessly as we were immortalized as heroes by reinvigorating everyone with a sense of purpose and content taste buds.
Eventually, Silas went to church and I took the rest of my morning to contact my girlfriend back in the states. By lunch, I came back to the house, collapsed on my bed, took a fat nap, and woke up at 3 to everyone already eaten lunch. Luckily, Court (CATPIG’s producer) was nice enough to buy me a seaweed rice wrap from a gas station for a little snack before our schedule interview started.
By dinner, we had planned celebrate Mike’s two years of sobriety by making him a custom cake. We were able to surprise him with the cake, vanilla ice cream, and some hot chocolate for everyone. It was nice to see him so grateful and happy.
That was the tale of the weekend for the Japan May Term trip go-ers. Quite the journey. It was honestly a blast hanging out with this entire group and I’m looking forward to our time in Tokyo and to see how amazing this documentary turns out to be. Sharing these experiences with these people will travel with me for the rest of my life and the memories will soon become engrained in the photos and videos we all take. It’s good to live in the moment but it’s also important document life because we never know how fast it can pass by. I’ll end this odyssey now with a haiku that I’ve come up on the spot.
Morning exercise,
sushi, laughs, sweet memories.
Thank you, Kyle-san.
