Imonikai at the River

Hirose River

What is an imonikai?  It's something that's special to Tohoku.  If you've only been to Tokyo or the Kansai region of Japan, you've probably never experienced imonikai.  Imonikai is basically like a picnic or bbq usually held in the fall season next to a river.  But instead of eating sandwiches or meat, they main dish is soup.  Soup in a big pot with potatoes, lots of veggies, and pork or beef.  Sendai's thing is pork and miso.  I love imonikai, because I love food.  And it's the closest thing I can get in Japan to having hibachi at Ala Moana Beach Park.

Making the soup!

This year, ACC Fileo threw an imonikai next to the river that runs below the church and my apartment.  I'd actually never been down there, so it was a nice adventure going down there.  Especially in the fall, the trees were nice with brown and orange leaves.  Still, it was cold.  I couldn't wait for the soup to be cooked!

While chefs were at work preparing the soup, the rest of us played some games.  Tomowari marked several rocks on the river bed with red and green X's.  It was our mission to find the rocks.  This was very similar to looking for a needle in a haystack, because the whole bank was nothing but rocks of many sizes.  I found one rock, and it was for the wrong team.  After finding rocks, we had a stone skipping contest.  I'd never skipped stones before.  There really aren't many places to skip stones in Phoenix and I had earlier made a joke to Aaron that throwing the rocks into the river was not pono.  Hawaiian word for "righteous."  Aaron showed me how to do it and I managed to do it during the practice round.  The whole time I kept thinking of this scene from Harry Potter.  (Yup, nerd alert!)

But of course, during the real contest, I got a plunk!  The others were very good at it.  Aaron was really good at it and I managed to capture it on video.  (Let's see if I can get that on this thing!)

Finally, after skipping stones, the soup was ready!  Yum.  I had 2 bowls.  I was surprised Aaron only had one.  I was even more surprised that we managed to finish the entire pot!  I think it was a really nice time.  I think Aaron really liked it too.  It's a Sendai tradition that I love!

 

Everyone enjoying the hot soup on a cold day.