Fukushima Ondo! (& Mochiko Chicken)

Ever since I moved to Oahu in 1997, I’ve longed for that old feeling of excitement and fun from a bon dance song that us Hilo hicks only ever refer to as “becho”. I’d been to a couple during summers when I’d go home and last year I went to one in Wahiawa, one in Manoa Valley, and another at Pearl City Hongwanji. The Wahiawa one was a wash, no becho to be found. Same with the Manoa one, which turned out to be more of a little Japanese carnival in which they got you to pay incredibly ridiculous amounts of money on scrips for food or neon fans or towels. I called up my dad and asked him to call up his friend Reverend Bruce and see if these silly Oahu folk simply don’t do becho, but apparently they do. It’s just they either play it after I leave or simply don’t, I dunno. We finally went through the hassle of parking in a really dark and muddy area under the freeway to go to the Pearl City Hongwanji dance and they played a version of becho and I was somewhat happy.

Final Fantasy began their Sunbreeze Festival today and it means Tarutarus dancing around in their yukatas with music playing at night. This led me to YouTube where I found the following:

THAT my friends, is the becho I know from a decade ago. And now I finally know the name of the song, Fukushima ondo! Oh I feel so good today! 😀 If you’ve never been to one, I urge you to go. You don’t have to be Japanese. You don’t have to know how to dance. You can just go to watch, to eat the good food, to hang out, to watch people honor the dead. It’s a great experience!

Ok so on to the bento. I totally pigged out at our Korean food luncheon so I weighed almost 129 today. Gah! I took home vegetables and packed them into today’s lunch. The bean sprouts namul was really really good, but it’s probably really bad for a WW dieter cause it’s like, laced with sesame oil. Hee. Extreme close-up!

We had mochiko chicken last night, so that is what is in the middle. I’ve included furikake rice, corn, and some kim chee. My veggies below are the sprouts I mentioned and some cabbage:

I may end up listening to this song all day… it brings back so many great memories. Also reminds me that times change. Last year my aunty told me Hilo Hongwanji held their bon dance indoors. What the… Half the fun is when you get rained on dancing becho. Oi yoi yoi!