Three years ago we went to visit surfer friends in Chigasaki and took us paddle boarding on the ocean. It was great experience and I really enjoyed it. What I loved is that you can surf waves if any, otherwise you can just explore places and move around basically like on a canoe. Since then we’ve been thinking of buying a paddle board but given the space we have and the car we have, it has never been further then looking at a few websites… we then start looking for places where to paddle in Isumi and found the little SUP club and their initiative to clean the Isumi river. Once a month they organize a SUP cleaning cruise so we finally registered for the October one. Honestly, rivers in Japan are not looking too clean: I have serious concerns about the chemical quality of the water and I don’t think that there is an actual check and I would not swim in any except for mountain streams. I may be wrong, and hope I am. Nonetheless my target was not to fall in the water at all. The Isumi river is a beautiful winding river in a quite deep gorge sometimes with no real accessibility, so boat, canoe and paddle board are the only way to discover its surroundings and it’s really nice to have a different perspective. Just after the rain has stopped we gathered at the SUP club and we headed to the river bank all equipped. 7 people, 3 boards and a canoe. The trash along the river is just infinite and the cleaning we’ve done is a drop in the ocean. And they clean every month… cleaning properly would take forever and many more people… yet it was fun and interesting to join that event which I highly recommend and I think we will definitely go again. The people at the SUP club were really nice and it was a great fun.
After that we felt quite hungry and tired and skip our tennis practice for once, but we didn’t skip the 5 o’clock tea with a little reinvigorating snack: crepes. Crepes are the easiest and fastest snack to prepare and it is easy to make just a few. Here is my recipe.
Crepes (makes 4 25cm crepes)
– 70g of flour
– 1tbs of sugar
– 1 egg
– 1/3l to 1/2l of milk or whatever liquid you want (water works too)
– butter to grease the pan
– filling of your choice: chocolate, sugar, butter, jam, lemon juice, honey…
In a bowl mix the flour, sugar and egg, then add the milk little by little to obtain a rather liquid and smooth texture. If not enough liquid add a little more (this will depend on the size of the egg).
Heat the pan and grease it with butter. When hot pour a thin layer over the all pan. Cook at medium to high heat, flip once, add the filling and fold, serve and eat. Repeat.
