Omishima BBQ Trip

Josh Aresty
Assistant Language Teacher
Matsuyama city, Ehime Prefecture,

On Friday, May 14th, I boarded a bus with Matsuyama Kita High School's homeroom seven third year students to travel to Omishima Island on the Shimanami Ocean road. The forecast indicated clear, beautiful weather, and it was my first time ever to visit Omishima Island, so I was excited. While waiting to board the bus, I had the chance to meet and speak briefly with some of the students I would be spending the day with, and I was touched by their warm, friendly, smiling faces. The bus trip was a short 1 and a half hour ride, and on the way we talked about Hojo Ice Cream, favorite foods, panda cookies (which I had never tried before), and other odds and ends.

Upon arrival, everyone carefully arranged their things, sat in perfect lines, and waited patiently for the teachers to give instructions. When students were given permission, they grabbed their things and headed off down to the beach to stake out good places to cook and eat. And what a beach it was! Looking out on the wide, peaceful sea, you could see countless islands stretching off to the horizon. I felt, at once, very small in a vast world and, at the same, time connected to everything I could see. I followed a few students along a raised stone breakwater at the edge of the ocean, and saw them picking up snails that had attached themselves to the stones. I overheard them talking about eating the snails, which got me thinking...

I had seen a couple of people carrying fishing rods. I had also seen a bag of vegetables or two. But one thing that I still hadn't seen so far, was meat. Since I hadn't been to many barbecues, I imagined that the plan was to barbecue whatever we could find or catch and eat it whole... Having seen some television shows recently where people cooked and ate squid whole, I felt a bit queasy. I wasn't sure if I could eat a whole fish. But, thankfully, I was very wrong. People had brought their own meat, and lots of it.

In order to cook that meat, we had to burn charcoal. Everyone picked up their charcoal, put it into their respective grills, and tried to light it. I say "tried," because it wasn't that easy. People used lighters, paper, fans, and even blowtorches in order to get the charcoal burning. Everyone eventually got their grill burning, but different groups ate at quite different times. When I was called back to eat with the teachers, I had already been kindly fed some nicely seasoned beef by one student, and a couple of pieces of agedofu by another student. Looking at the vast amount of food spread on the table, I knew I was going to have to stuff myself. I ate onions, peppers, eggplant, beef, pork, and two kinds of onigiri. I drank coffee and tea. I was very very full. Nonetheless, that did not stop me from having a marshmallow that one student toasted for me, and also being treated to one of the very legendary panda cookies that I had been told about on the bus.

Before returning home, I took one more walk around the beach. I had the good luck to run into a boy who loved english class, and we talked for some time. I also spoke for a while with a boy from the baseball team, a member of the mountain climbing club, and a large group of boys.

At last, we got on the bus to head home. It had been a beautiful day despite some cloudy weather, and I felt content. On the way back the bus I'd had a nice long talk with a couple of girls about Hagane no Renkinjutsu-Shi and other Anime that I love to watch. On the way home, we stopped to take a picture and a short break at the end of the Shimanami bridge. We also stopped one more time to buy ice cream, where I got into a long conversation and ended up making the whole bus wait for me - sorry! I am very grateful for having had this chance to go on the Matsuyama Kita High School 3rd year Ensoku this year. It will definitely be a memory that I will cherish forever.