This fence borders one of the parking lots at the old church building. You can walk around the fence at the end (not very far to walk around) but Sister Sano decided to have some fun by climbing over it. BTW, look at the cinder block foundation upon which sits the fence. The foundation wall was all covered with moss. I spent most of my time scraping off all the moss. It was quite satisfying after seeing how nice the parking lot looked after a concerted effort by about 10 of us working together.
Making mochi the old traditional way. 2 people walk around a stone basin, gentle mixing of the rice flour / water by tapping with wooden mallets.
Then you pound the mochi with the mallet. It is like at a carnival and play that game of trying to ring the bell. They offered me a chance to do it, but because my shoulder problem, I had to decline. It looked fun and everyone oohed and aahed when you get a nice strike where you get a very distinct popping sound. In this photo it was Elder Sasaki swinging the mallet.
These 2 photos showed sisters inside the church wrapping the sweet bean paste inside the mochi. They asked me to try. So I did. The first one, I apparently rolled the mochi in my hands too hard and thus the bean paste squeezed out. You have to do it softly. Learned from my mistake and did much better the next two.
OK, here is photo of finished product. My first one is the 4th one from the left in the 3rd row. You can see couple spots where the bean paste started to ooze out. Right next to it (5th from the left) is my 2nd one, vast improvement over the first.
Best part of making mochi is the eating part. Here is a photo of zenzai, sweet bean soup. Just add one of the mochi into the soup, making it doubly sweet. Before coming to Japan, I thought I would lose weight, thinking I'd walking all over the place. Nope, I've put on a few extra pounds. It is hard to lose weight when you got all these goodies to eat.
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