I had the seat of my pants worn out by not using the grocery bags or garbage bags on the seat. The plastic bags also tended to give elders a "shiny hiney" so to speak. It is interesting to note how important a good bicycle is to an elder or sister. This has been a major discussion topic, and I think that it resembles farmers and cowboys determining a good horse. Another message was the the ode to The Mighty Elder Williams. This should encourage you to get a good helmet and course on bicycle safety prior to sending Elder Kenji out into the field. Have fun!
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Any oriental market worth their salt should have Mugicha around. My wife is still trying to figure out why I drink so much of that stuff during the summer. If you really can't find any and you really want some give me a shout and I'll get you some.
For those in the 'north of Salt Lake' area I have found it in the Oriental Market in Riverdale (near the Roy Harmons)
As for the Mugi itself. I remember being told to eat it during the winter months from Sister Christensen. What I figured out was that mixing it half and half with rice and then adding a little brown sugar would hit the spot.
I sure hope the Hombu wasn't purchasing from the local zoo...... Not sure if you can really find a similiar product for sale here. What you might have to do is get a good wheat grinder and make your own. It was basically a cracked wheat anyway.
Wilcox - I don't remember you eating mugi that often, but you were still pretty green when we were together. You must have picked it up later on :) Email me is you find any for sale.
Scott
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Well, to put all the rumors to rest...mugi is crushed wheat and is really good for you. (With about 5 cups of brown sugar.) If you wanted to make your own you could just put your wheat storage wheat though the grinder on the med course setting and whalah you have mugi. Another recipe that is really good to make with your food storage wheat is whole wheat pancakes...just pour about a cup of wheat in your blender and add milk to the consistency of regular pancakes. Makes a filling pancake mix.
As far as bikes are concerned...When I was serving in Shinkotoni, I ran into the back of a parked car while bringing home a box of BOM (this was right before the new translation came out and we were trying to pass out as many of the old Book of Mormons as we could. If I remember correctly my companion and I passed out 96 in one week.) So with my bike out of commision and no one going home for 3 weeks one of the sister missionaries (Fifita Shimai, I think) offered me a bike that was outside of their apartment to use until an elder with a mountain bike went home. I had so much fun riding that bike, but I was glad to get my mountain bike back. Stick to the knobby tires and you'll be fine. Also make sure you know how to fix your bike, your companions will love you to death.
Last Item--does anyone remember a story of an elder that would actually ride through a tunnel and loop upside down while going through. I remember such a story from my mission, but never verified it. Help me out.
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Bowes Choro's reply on bikes is the only one I could relate to. I was in Hokkaido in 1983-84. I never bought a bike and don't remember any missionaries who did. Bikes were donated by members or investigators or whoever. Every apartment had it's own set of bikes that the missionaries had "morau"-ed from somewhere or other. When you showed up, you inherited the junkiest bike at that apartment. When someone with a better bike was transferred, you would get the better bike--based on seniority at that apartment ("better" meaning not as junky).
If you could not wait until someone transferred and your bike was beyond repair, you just kept on the lookout, or let the members know you needed a bike and soon a bike a bit less junky could always be found. Never a new one, just one less junky.
I never took a bike on a transfer, and one was always waiting for me when got to the new apartment.
We even got bikes while tracting sometimes. Someone would see us doing a quick bike repair and say something like, "My son got married and moved away and his old bike is there next to the house. It has not been ridden for years and may not work, but you are welcome to it if you think you can fix it."
We would take the bike, fix the flat tire, and it would work fine, or it would at least supply parts to fix up other bikes at the apartment. Many offers for free bikes were declined because we had enough at the apartment already.
In Shiroishi the Chikatetsu ran through the middle of our area. We bought a month's subway pass to cover our area, then started collecting bikes until we had two bikes locked at the bike racks of each subway stop. We would ride bikes from the eki to an appointment, then if the next appointment were closer to a different eki then the one we were near, we would ride to the nearest eki, lock the bikes, use our passes to get to the appropriate eki, unlock our other bikes and ride to the appointment. It was VERY sweet!
I don't know if I ever even saw a mountain bike in Japan!
I realize this natsukashii reply provides no help in the traction v. comfort v. reliability debate because we never really had any of those luxuries. It was all about minimal function, but those bikes had a lot of personality and got us where we were going!
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I also would recommend getting a two piece rain suit. The mountain bike is the way to go if you end up anywhere outside of Sapporo, and even in some of those areas the hills are bad, i.e. Makomanai, Moiwa, etc. And Watts, I never saw you an a Chari, but that would have been good to see you and Dillon riding down the street on a couple of Charis. I regret convincing my greenie Neal Hatch to buy a psuedo Chari with (3) gears. We were in Makomanai and he had a hard time keeping up going up the hills, especially coming home from church. I know everyone else on a bike is probably the same but, I figured up one day that I logged in at least 5,000 miles on my bike. (10 miles day for 600 days) It would have been a pain to try and ride that many miles in one gear which is all that a chari has.
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I had completely forgotten about the plastic bags over the seat. Only senkyoushi... I actually used them to prevent chaffing. My seat was much less sore thanks to the grocery sack.
A note about the mugi - a Japanese friend of mine called me after I made that post. She said they sell it in most of the oriental food shops and cooking rice with a little mugi mixed in is kind of an "in" thing now.
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I am not sure where you can purchase it but Mugi is barley. My wife and I cook barley in our rice cooker with rice to give it a little variety. Usually about 25% barley. You should be able to pick it up at most supermarkets. However, the quality will be better than what we ate on our missions so it might be a little more expensive.
For those looking for mugicha, most Chinese/Oriental supermarkets carry tea that is exactly the same as mugicha.
Enjoy your mugi!!
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I believe that Mugi is actually "cracked wheat". My grandpa used to feed it to us and I didn't like it then, so never learned to like in while in Japan. As for availability - not sure where you can get it, but I believe some health food stores carry it and you can buy whole wheat kernels and make it yourself.
Hope that helps.
Mike Thompson
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I have to disagree with it being "brown rice".
It MAY have been barley - however barley is generally only used for malting and feeding livestock. I stongly believe that it was wheat.
In japanese wheat is called komugi. A wheat field is mugibataku and wheat tea is mugi-cha. Missionaries refered to it as mugi - but I believe that it was cracked wheat. Like I said earlier - try Zoom. It tastes the same.
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Hogle Zoo, huh?...maybe dog food is cheaper. ;-)
Sure. Most of the Asian markets sell it. In Salt Lake, you can get it at Sage Market on Main between 1300 and 1700 S, or Pares on Redwood and 3300 S, or the Asian store on 700 E just south of Trolley Square.
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Things sure have changed since I was there from 1976 to 1978. There was no shortage of bikes for the asking! Each apt. usually had 2-3 extra bikes and none ever went on a transfer. We would get bikes given to us all the time when we were out knocking on doors. I can't imagine being a missionary and having to buy a bike in Japan. This is not a slam against current missionaries, it's just so different from my jidai. We could move into a new apartment and pretty much furnish it in a good week from everything that was thrown away on the side of the roads and streets, combined with the good hearts of the people.
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"But seriously, I'd like to find it. I eat oatmeal for breakfast now because I can't find mugi - at least not in the form that we got it from the honbu - was that rolled wheat?. "
I believe mugi is either barley or rye. My wife says that mugi is sometimes called "brown rice" in the U.S.
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Maybe everyone had a better bike shop than I did but I had a hard time finding a bike that fit me very well. I am 6'2" and most Japanese aren't that tall so most bike shops don't carry many larger bikes. That said I paid almost $700 for my bike! That goodness my dad shoved some extra cash in my pocket at the airport!! Also a full 2 piece rainsuit would be a smart thing to take over with you. I found one that fit me but it was extremely lucky! When you are riding your bike in the rain it's nice to stay somewhat dry.
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Hmmm, If I remember correctly.. THe rumor was that the Honbu got it from the local zoo...
You might check out the Hogle Zoo there in Salt Lake.......
Seriously though, I couldn't tell you for sure, but if you're down in Provo ever, there's a place called "Chao's" on Center Street, and a place called "Many Lands" at about 1100 North and 500 West that are worth checking into.
(By the way, while Mugi was something I'd just as soon never see again, right up there with Nato, has anyone found a place that sells mugicha?)
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Wow, prices have gone up in the last 13 years....
In my first area, (Suehiro) we found a mom and pop bicycle place that had a sale going on. I wound up with a fairly nice Bridgestone mountain bike for about $250.
As far as what I'd recommend... Mountain bikes were good for all the hills in a lot of the areas that I was in. I'd never recommend the chari's, as you just can't get the "umph" to get up some of those hills. (Anyone remember Abashiri?) Although a good street/racing style bike wouldn't be a bad purchase either.
On the other hand, what I would recommend if he purchases a bike over there is that he gets one with the fewest breakable parts as possible. Missionaries put those bikes through an awful lot that they weren't exactly designed for. (In other words, go for the lever type gear shifts instead of the spring loaded quick changer, normal straight forks instead of the full blown suspension) But that's just my opinion.
If you do purchase a bike here, make sure that he has all the tools he'll need to do the repair work on it if it's a standard set. Everything over there is metric.
I'd recommend a good tire repair kit (lots of extra patches), a chain repair kit (little screw in thing for taking a link out of the chain so you can replace broken chain) and that sort of thing.
There are, of course, repair shops there, but it was a whole lot cheaper fixing things myself when I was there. (1000 yen for a flat repair. 2500 yen to replace a broken link in the chain.. New rims for the wheels were enough to make me want to cry)...
Then again.. Those that remember my luck with bikes in Japan are probably laughing thinking "You wouldn't have had so much trouble with the bikes if you didn't crash quite as often."
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Why would anyone want to eat mugi if they didn't have to? Back in the mid 70's while I was in Hokkaido, the only reason you ate mugi was because you couldn't afford to eat anything else!
Wilcox Kyodai, if you really want to eat true to standard mugi here in the USA, you will need to go to a feed store and buy a bag of wheat meal for Chicken Feed. That's all we could afford to buy while we were in Japan.
Of course, you will need to screen-out the cock roaches, wire, rocks etc. before you cook it (or maybe not).
We used to have a saying that went something like this: "You can always tell how long a missionary has been in Hokkaido. At the beginning of their mission, he/she will screen-out all of the foreign material they can find in their Mugi. During the middle of their mission they will screen-out only the big pieces. At the end of their mission they will just put a little more sugar on it and eat it as is".
Personally, I vowed to never touch the stuff after I returned from Japan - and I haven't broken that vow yet!
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You're not a Sapporo missionary unless you ride a Chari. It is more difficult to ride in the snow but that's part of the fun. They're far more comfortable than mountain bikes and the only time in your life that you will ride one without feeling like a fool is on a mission. Chari's all the way.
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I bought a brand new ten-speed bike when I got to Japan. After my first transfer, I found a set of mountain bike handlebars and put those on it. Then I found a wide seat with springs. Next I got a big basket for the front, and two collapsible baskets for each side of the rear.
Then I found a lighter-weight mountain bike frame, and moved it all over.
So, I ended up with a parts-and-pieces bike.
We'd put plastic garbage sacks over the seat, which repelled the water better. After more than a year of just putting more bags on the seat, the springs rusted through, and I had to get another seat.
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Expect to pay $500 for a mountain bike, which is what most elders ride. Most of the sisters and a few elders buy "chari" bikes. 99% of the Japanese people ride these. I was just in Japan in December, and these start at about $200 and are fine for missionary work. They are more comfortable because they allow you to sit upright and are less likely to be stolen, but may not work very well for you if you're much over 6'. The only advantage the mountain bikes provide is a little better traction in the snow. The extra traction is especially nice in hilly areas.
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There is a store here in Seattle that carries it called Uwajimaya. They carry most of those hard to find things we used to enjoy. I would check out their website.
Cheers - Deana :-)
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