Barbeque party - Japan

"Almost we go out on a Barbeque party at least once in three month” quoted by Mr.Uchida who is also a well wisher and friend of mine in Japan. Almost all our travel schedule in Japan has been drafted by Uchida san. I remember a weeks back he was discussing with me about the BBQ party, I said I was interested in participating. You know as a result he came out with a BBQ party announcement to all of our friends living in Japan.

Till that time I was not sure about the BBQ part of Japanese. The party was organized in a park called Shinozaki kouen in Tokyo. We reached little early in the morning about 8:00am because we were the ones carried the BBQ equipments like BBQ oven, grill, stove and some out door accommodation arrangement. As soon as reaching the park my eyes once again in Japan got stretched to express the surprise that I have seen. Initially I was thinking that the BBQ etc are western countries culture and Japan would have not into it. But to my surprise when we reached the park I found that park’s BBQ party area is divided into 27 boundaries, each hosting a group of people to conduct their BBQ party. And the important thing is that the days when we went, none of the boundaries were free and lots of people everywhere preparing the BBQ. The party place is free but needs to be booked in advance.

The aged people, middle aged person and kids were all part of the BBQ parties here; everybody enjoys cooking and eating etc. Since we reached little early before everybody I started putting the chairs and the oven etc in its places to make the BBQ stuffs ready before others reach in here. Even after we prepared the setup it was not time for other to participate, because as per the announcement the BBQ starts by 11:00 am, so I decide to walk around the park outside area to explore some photography opportunity. Another Japanese friend of mine told me that there is a river next to the park after crossing the Highway. In my next blog the details of my River valley walk will be discussed for your reading. Later spending some time on the valley I started running toward the party location, this time I could see a bunch of people were carrying bag of chips and a can of warm beer with the sun roasting hides. They were waiting for me, actually there were equal amount of Indians and Japanese were found on the party and for the Japanese and Indian we setup two BBQ stove and oven to make dishes from the two Asian countries. Uchida san have harvested fishes, meat and some vegetables for the party and brought those stuffs in his car. The Japanese friends started making their Fish and meat grills and some of my Indian friends demanded me to start the Great Indian Recipes to attract the Japanese around (I know the Indian recipes to an extent), decided to prepare Ginger Chicken to server with the Bread and Buns, actually it was good combination. In fact my cooking tuned to become crowd puller, as we were the only Indo-Japanese BBQ party people on the venue. Initially I told there were about 27 boundaries each hosting lots of people.

The park become fun filled and lots of out door activities happening everywhere around, kids playing with flying saucers, cycling and some people on the baseball practice with their family members and so on. I actually forget to customize my preparation for Japanese, some of them looked really sweat after tasting my food; you know they said it’s hot. I know the Japanese eating habit is not spicy and they liked moderate spicy taste. So I promised to that I will prepare my next item with less spicy and salt, This time I took Kerala Chicken malsala as my recipe and the pan started boiling with me on the hot sun. Oh, I forget to mention I did carry some Indian Spice to make the BBQ with Indian Style, those were brought from Indian during my travel here, I run my daily food with these spices brought from India. My friends were really enjoying the party as many of these folks from India had no experience in BBQ party. There was a guy in the group called Anwar click some best photographs of mine during my food preparations, Being a photographer in many occasions I have made good photos of others when It came to me for my own self portrait picture I always failed but this guy Anwar made few good pictures of mine. By the time I cooked the Kerala Chicken masala there were some kids demanding the food to them to be tasted. We offered my Kerala Chicken masala prepared with coconut milk in a soba paper bowl, you know in return to the single bowl the other BBQ party guys presented about eight number of tin beer and two cups of Japanese fried noodles LOL.

The party was happening with it fully swing and later we were jumped in to the ocean of Alcohol and started swimming, sailing and rowing on the few bottles of Sochu a Japanese made alcohol.

We almost reached the end of day and started packing those stuffs to the car, after the run set we had taken a ride towards Noguchi san apartment who brought man of the equipment. Actually we planned to go his house to drop that equipment, after reaching he invited to his apartment hence we accepted the offer to discover the Japanese house culture treating the guests. Actually it was a good experience and Noguchi san and His wife treated us nicely, we have offered with Japanese Tea, Cake and some snacks. They had a pet dog at their house and named the dog Rokhe. Initially it was scared of seeing me :-) (color problem) but later became my friend. After about an hour stay in their house we said bye and taken the road towards Shin-Egota.

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