The other morning I noticed some marine ducks out in the port quacking away. "Ohayo!" I yelled to them from my window. They looked at me and, much to my surprise, started swimming in my direction. Figuring they must be hungry, I went out and served them a slice of bread. And this is how I inadvertently started the Duck Cafe. We now have ducks flying in for breakfast! Not only that, some of them land on the road and walk over to the Duck Cafe. This is because they know that if they swim, the others in the water will beat them out of their "American breakfast." I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't be serving salad on the side. Or what about a filet o' fish "setto" for lunch? The only problem I have serving bread for breakfast is that I worry the ducks might choke to death on those giant Japanese bread crusts.
It's no surprise that so many ducks are flocking to our island, though -- the islanders are crazy about ducks. The other day when I was having a beer with the postman, he suddenly said, "Ah!" as Japanese people do when remembering something important. He whipped out his mobile phone, thumbed through some digital photos and said: "Look! Kawaii, ne?" I leaned closer, expecting to see a photo of his new grandson, but no, it was a tiny newly hatched duck. "The chick was right behind his mother. They crossed the road right in front of my bicycle this morning," he said excitedly.
While I serve breakfast at the Duck Cafe, a local "o-jii-chan" feeds the ducks dinner. He is the neighborhood duck master: Manji-san. Every evening Manji-san arrives on his bicycle at the waterway behind the port and unpacks a plastic bag full of food scraps from his bicycle basket. All the ducks crowd around him. Manji-san is known to feed all kinds of animals, thus a virtual parade of them is always following him around.