The recent posts about the language have probably been a bore to those of you not fascinated with Japanese like I am, so here’s a different line.
Another Music Cafe tonight—the first of the year, since we took January off. The official coffee of Music Cafe has for a long time now been the Shimoyama Blend, sold by none other than Mr. Shimoyama.
Who is this mystery man? Originally discovered by Jeremy (quite by accident, I hear), Mr. Shimoyama is a born-and-bred Okayama native who runs a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop downtown. The shop is small to begin with—it’s easier to catch it by smell than by sight—and the barrels of coffee beans stacked inside make it even smaller. Everything is painted with the aroma of a plethora of coffees (the Central American contingent is strongly represented), and your clothes take on the same smell as Mr. Shimoyama measures, roasts, and grinds your chosen beans.
Today was my first visit to the Shimoyama shop. I played interpreter as best as I could for Matt while we waited. Fortunately Mr. Shimoyama speaks slowly and clearly (perhaps a lesson he learned from hosting Jeremy) and without much of an Okayama accent. We talked about everything from what Matt and I will do when we go back Stateside to the new church building to the judo class Matt is taking now with Yamashita-san and Chin-san.
Matt said today as he has said before that this is the part of missions that he likes the most—just chatting with the people who live here. Spending thirty or forty-five minutes in a tiny coffee shop and talking about anything and everything while you inhale the fragrances of a dozen different coffees is probably not an experience you’d get by staying in the U.S.
Comments
matt shipp wrote on February 17: