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- Continued from Flour Days: Kneading and Living in Tsukiji (1)

The Tsukiji Soba Academy is just a stone throw away from the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market,. I cannot deny that the proximity to the world's biggest fish makret was one of the good reasons why I decided to enroll in this school.

Tsukiji Metro station - Hibiya line

Every morning, I rode in the packed Metro, feeling like a canned sardine. But  you can put up with such temporary discomfort if you know your destination is Tsukiji. It is like visiting an amusement park every day, even though it was nearly closing time when I got there in the morning at around 900 am.

Crosswalk in Tsukiji near Honganji temple

The wholesalers (oroshi gyosha) and buyers (Nakaoroshi-gyosha) of the market were in cleaning up mode by the time I got there. Jyonai(the inner market) closed earlier, around 11 am but Jyogai (the outer market) stayed open till about 2 pm. For the regular shoppers, there was still plenty of action to catch, good fish and other things to buy.  I used to come to the fish market with my mother a lot.  She always bought way more than she needed but that was the price you paid for coming to the world's best market for fish.

Typical fish market shopping basket

January 18, 2010

I woke up at 6 am. It was the first day of my soba course. It is always the loud sound of television that wakes me up when I am at my parent's home in Tokyo. But I wasn't about to ask my father to lower the volume for me. My father is hard of but otherwise, in pretty good shape for a nearly 88 year old person. He monitors his diet carefully.  Never eats after six. Walks everyday. Poor hearing is a minor problem in the scheme of things.  My 80 year old mother, on the other hand, had fallen ill after a bad fall three years ago, and has gone blind. She is under nurse's care and sleeps most of the time. Each day, my father selects a cd for my mother to listen to.  Sometimes, he puts on something jazzy and cheerful like Gershwin. Other times, it's a quiet hymn. My mother seems oblivious to my father kind gestures.  

I opened the window to bring in some fresh morning air into my mother's bedroom, even though it was quite chilly outside. My mother turned her head towards the window, sensing the change of light. "Open your eyes," I asked her.  It's one of the things we routinely ask her to do, even if she cannot see. She wrinkled her eye lids and tried really hard to open them. Her eyes seemed to have gotten lighter in color than they used to be. I held her hand and repeated "Good morning"  She whispers back but it is hard to decipher what she is saying. I  told her I am starting my soba course today. She appeared suprised, then nodded her head. My mother always supported me when I told her about my dreams. I knew she was trying to wish me good luck. 

My father made buckwheat pancakes for breakfast this morning. I hear him complaining that the pancakes are going cold if I don't eat them soon. When I  sat down to eat, he offered to reheat the pancakes. It was ironic that I am here in Tokyo to make soba - buckwheat noodles and what I brought back from the US is a package of buckwheat pancake mix. But that's what he always asks for.  I poured some maple syrup on my pancakes. Father has put some butter out for me.  It's been softened in the microwave so I can spread them over my pancakes easily. My father enjoys having me around. He calls himself, "the butler." Father turned the volume of the television down so we can talk.. But when I told him I had to go to my soba class soon, he was not to happy about it. He asked me the same question as he did the night before.  "Why are you enrolling in a soba course?" The only answer I can give him was what I gave him the night before. "I want to knead." 

-to be continued Flour days: Liiving and kneading in Tsukiji (3)