Mayu's Got Crabs!

Yesterday, as I explained in one of my recent videos, Mayu went off to meet two of her former coworkers for dinner, and an overnight stay at an onsen restaurant in Miyama. It was a brief 30 minute drive to Miracle-Tei which is on the other side of the mountains that you see in so many of my photos, behind my house.

She met her friends about 5:00 in the afternoon. They talked, had baths, had late dinner, she gave them massages, they had baths, talked again, she gave more massages, they ate, they ate, and they ate. She said she got three hours of sleep.

The meal consisted of a large variety of traditional foods, including tempura, sashimi, some other various dishes, sukiyaki, soba (buckwheat noodles), mashed rice dango (dumpling), grilled fish, kani (crab) rice, frozen kani "pickles", dessert, and more. Then the chef brought out that crab you see at the beginning of my story. Mayu thought it was for all of them, but the other women told her that it was JUST FOR HER! So after many mouthfuls of crab after crab after crab, she was absolutely stuffed!

But look at the size of what she ate!!! (the photo above doesn't tell the entire picture.) The blue tag indicates that it came from Ishikawa. If it was Echizen-gani, it would have had a yellow tag. (Note on pronunciation: crab, by itself is pronounced, "kani" with a "k" sound, but when it goes with another word like Echizen, the k sound softens and becomes a "g", thus kani --> Echizen-gani.)

Apparently the seas are not "giving" their bounty nearly as freely as they used to. The kani that come from the seas off of Fukui (known as Echizen in the Edo period) are called Echizen gani. They are very well-known across the lands, and command a very high price. One this size at a restaurant usually costs over $100.00 for the crab alone!

Well, apparently the chef at the Miracle-tei restaurant could not get the Echizen-gani, but he was able to get one from the prefecture next door to us, Ishikawa. They are the same crabs, but when they come from NOT off of the Echizen coast, they are less expensive. It's kind of like getting Kobe beef. If it is kobe beef it is very expensive here, but if you get it from across the waters where they grow it, it is less expensive as it does not have that name.

After jumping into the early morning onsen bath and soaking at 7:00 in the morning, Mayu got ready for work, and headed out to a full day (including the evening volunteer work at the hospital hospice where she massages and talks with terminally ill cancer patients).

So, Mayu lucked out and apparently the chef was able to serve an even larger kani than originally planned for the price that Mayu's coworkers had booked for her!

Holy Kani, Batman, that's a whole lotta crab!

I love you!

Cam