Planting and Farmer's Market - Wed 13 Jun

Seven o'clock start, hanging onions to dry. Tried out various ways of hanging to find one that was quick and fashionable.

Took some extra onions to the Farmer's Market - Kino prints price tags at the market.

The Market, inside.


Returned to the fields to do some planting - peppers. The dirt hole punching was fun.

But bloody hot work in the 28 degree heat. I was parched, and none too trendy about it.


We popped back to the house for a treat - little icecreams.

There were this many left, and then Kino ate the LOT and there were none for afters that night. But I'm not bitter.


Our finished effort of peppers.


Kino demonstrates that making flowers chains is "one of the basics of being a girl."


We popped back to the Farmer's Market to see how the onions had done - about half had sold. The boss of the market loves roses, and they're everywhere.


We stopped off on the way back and Kino showed me her wheat field. Beautiful!

The wheat is about as tall as I am.

Back at the field, we strung out another couple of nets and Mr Inami chopped weeds down with a mower. He likes machines.


As it grew dark, about 8, Kino and I went to the last field for the day to plant zucchini. The neighbouring field had a scrap heap of coffee grounds which smelt rather good.

Had my Japanese big bath, and swapped some music and photos with Kino before hitting the hay.

Big crop haul and some errands - Tue 12 Jun

Got another early start on my tshirt-tan this morning from 6am, picking snow peas, a TON of brocolli (appropriate to cry out, "GETTO-!" = "Score!", i.e. 'get'), and various salad herbs for three hours at a rapid pace with Kino and her mum. My lower back still bloody kills from yesterday's cropping and weed slashing.

Mrs Inami made chocolate bread for breakfast, yum.

After brekky, we washed and packed the choice brocolli and snow peas and the salad herbs into five boxes, 1800 yen in the pocket each after delivery costs of 700 yen per box. It didn't seem like much per box, considering all the labour gone into it just today in the picking, washing and packing alone, let alone planting and maintaining the crops, but Kino said it was much more than if it was sold at a farmer's market.


After pasta with sweet fresh brocolli and onion for lunch, I had what turned out to be a three hour nanna nap while Kino delivered some the excess snow peas and brocolli to the local hotel restaurant, making 27000 yen. When Kino called me to get up, I felt like I was getting up in the middle of the night. It might well have been the next morning that I'd overslept. I was dopey for ages..

We went to pick onions - Kino's best onion harvest ever -

and also trimmed and trained tomato plants. An earlier finish today, at 6pm.

The courier firm came to pick up the five boxes of vegies as we were bringing back the onions. I love their logo.


Then we all hopped in the family car and went on some errands, many for me. The car has a cool reversing camera plus digital overlay that shows the direction you'll head based on the current turning of the steering wheel. Very useful and a nifty gadget!


One of our stops was a 100 Yen Shop - it's cool cheap thing paradise.

Saw a love hotel with English-style castle walls and turrets, topped by what I think was the Statue of Liberty. It was dark by then.

We had ramen out for dinner. I was still on a quest to have a last meal of delicious super fatty pork slices with noodles in a milky soya broth, because I'd had absolutely delicious ones in Ueno in Tokyo and in Osaka. The two that I'd tried since coming back to Tokyo were nasty, disappointing failures. This third try was pretty good, and I can put the quest to rest.


We went to 'Book Off,' a CD and book/manga store, and I bought a J-pop gift CD for Jason's coming birthday.

We went to a supermarket. I have a particular foodstuff that I want to bring back to Australia. No luck at that supermarket. I did treat myself to a can of Kirin's Grapefruit Chuu-Hai booze, which I've grown quite fond of. For something like a dollar fifty, it gives you a nice little tiddle.

Last stop before home and a soak in the bath was a convenience store, to collect my bus ticket to the airport from a super-ooper-multi-self-service machine called Roppi.

Tomorrow, no cropping. A sleep-in till 7am! Luxury.

Kino Cafe - my final WWOOF host - Mon 11 Jun

On Sunday arvo, had what is hopefully my last multi-transfer train confusion drama for my Japan experience. Made it to my last WWOOF host, which will round out my three months here.

Kino came to pick me up from the station. She runs some fields, primarily by herself, and distributes to some hotels and restaurants locally and in Tokyo. Kino is 27, and at 173cm is very tall for a Japanese girl. After so long here, and being used to the height of Japanese women, I know she must have spent a lot of here life having people tell her she's tall, it's really a noticeable difference.


We started work this morning at 6am, picking organic vegies - snow peas, cabbage, cauliflower, {unfamiliar purple vegetable whose name I couldn't remember}, and brocolli. Picked until brekky at 9.


Then we washed and wrapped items to be couriered to Tokyo, and crated some others to be used at a local hotel's restaurant. Kino and her mum:


After lunch, we dropped the vegies off at the local hotel. We were required to wear these snazzy overalls and headwear to make sure we didn't make anything nasty.


I was pleased to discover that, unlike most families here, the Inami family have a sweet tooth. Generally, no desserts with dinner in Japan, it's devastating. We had iced fruit poles as a treat in the hot early afternoon. I'm doing a little bit of English teaching to the family, at their request, though they do seem to prefer it when I make out I've forgotten and we can just chatter away in Japanese. Kino has sore insides, so we had half an hour to rest. I had a nap, lovely.

After our break, we set up nets on frames for climbing vegies, then weeded until sunset. Sat another little green frog on my hand for a bit, and decided I love frogs. Saw a long skinny snake. We got back to the house about 8pm. :O Yep, about 14 hours out in the sunshine today, minus lunch and the nap.

A lovely Japanese curry for dinner.

To finish up, must share what may be my best Engrish find so far. I didn't know these were generally available prepackaged, but apparently, in Japan, you can get it by the boxful.

Last days of Tokyo - Sun 10 Jun

I did pretty well on my last-days-of-Tokyo wishlist. Ticks for:
- galleries
- architecture
- awesome nightclubs
- shopping (still more to go - stock changes killed some of my best gift ideas, darno)
- neon
- toystores
- electric city
- views - see below, endless nighttime skyline from Roppongi Hills tower, after a couple of beautiful and superbly curated exhibitions on the 40-somethingth floor.


PLUS
- an afternoon with Kawara, a great friend from Melbourne highschool, topped off by a karaoke trip down memory lane
- finding a magazine full of pictures of male and female bar hosts. It was too heavy for my already overstuffed luggage, but this is just a small taste of some of the fancy hairstyles sported by some young Japanese guys, and not just in magazines:


Missed out on
- live music - didn't have the brain power to figure out all that I needed to to make it happen (who's on, are they worth seeing, where they're on, how to get there).
- a flea market - rain and need of sleep.
- bunraku puppet show or noo dance drama - no bunraku was on, and the THREE HOUR noo show on Saturday would have taken too big a chunk of my schedule/life.

Not a bad effort at all!

I'm getting slack... a little catch-up - Tue 5 Jun

Hi folks!

I've been slack recently with the blog, sorry! Perhaps a quick rundown, so I feel like I've caught up a bit, and can keep up with newer news? No pictures, yukko, but I'll amend and extend a bit later on, will mention when/if I do!

• Finished up at the bee farm with a fascinating final day, observing the bee sting therapy on a 24 year old male cancer patient. Boss pulled out a sting at a time from a living bee with tweezers, then applied it to the patient's skin as he writhed.
• Spent five nights in Osaka with Byron, a neuroscience researcher from Altanta, Georgia, in town for a conference. Bummed in a fancy room with him at ANA Hotel, Osaka, the best service I've ever had a hotel by a mile. Over the week, infected Byron with karaoke; checked out the view from the Umeda Sky Building at sunset; showed Byron the glittering Dootombori strip in Osaka; went to see ten or so relocated farmhouses demonstrating various historical architectural styles; had a really frustrating day of tourism in Kyoto with a myriad of mishaps, but managed to see a geisha dance performance and go on a geisha spotting tour.
• Returned to my dodgy business hotel in Osaka for one night, enjoyed watching a stream of Japanese guys pick videos from the semi-hidden bookcase of adult videos while I blogged and emailed.
• Had a highly successful day of sightseeing in Kyoto, despite pouring rain all day. Saw the things I'd wanted to and missed a couple of days back - Sumiya, a 400 year old entertainment/tea house; a cool "spy-house"-like Edo period home with secret staircases and hiding places galore; and the palace at Nijo castle.
• Had a last night of karaoke in Osaka with Take and stayed at Kinki Hotel. Yep.
• Narrowly avoided having nowhere to sleep on a Saturday night in Tokyo when my arranged host said I couldn't stay because "the house is a mess", before relenting. :O
• Spent Sunday arvo to Friday arvo at an organic farm with a family where the parents make pottery. Dad is Japanese, mum is Austrian, serious world travellers. Made a sake jug and sake cups, but they won't be baked for 3 months and I'm unlikely ever to get them. Did lots of weeding, and weed trimming with a somewhat scary hand-held rotary blade mower. Was kicked out of the house each day after dinner by tradtion, to my own detached room, in the name of mutual privacy, but it was a bit lonely and I got the keens up to be back with my lovely people in Melbourne. Re-read "Memoirs of a Geisha", looking forward to seeing the movie and spotting places I saw in Kyoto and being a know-all but keeping it to myself.
• Took up an invitation from a guest from my first WWOOF host, Shalom Hutte, Iwasa-san, to stay with her and her husband outside of Tokyo. Spent three lovely nights with them. They are fun, open-hearted folks. Calculated and recalculated my baggage maths after finding out that my Deloitte-legacy Gold Frequent Flyer status will get me an extra 10 kilos. Shopped more. There are kitchy little presents coming! Went to Harajuku, met up with 5 of my co-volunteer staff from Shalom Hutte in Nagano, and checked out what Gwen Stefano kept on about in her last album, GOOD photo ops. Left my luggage with the Iwasas and headed out with a backpack of clothes to meet with Hiroshi Kawara from BGS for dinner, before a little night out in Shinjuku and finally having my stay in a capsule hotel. I was stationed next to THE snorer, eventually gave up on being well behaved and just relocated myself to another capsule in the hope that it wouldn't result in me being woken by the staff and told off, and got away with it.
• Bussed out to Mt Fuji area. Fuji was invisible on arrival behind a not-infrequent modesty belt of clouds, and turns out to have very few buses toward the climbing areas and still fa-reezing temperatures, so not looking particularly climbable for an Oxfam flunky like me. Gave up on that nice plan. Plan B, am staying tonight at an 80s-ish resort with outdoor baths with a view over one of the massive lakes at Fujisan's feet, and Fujisan making occasional dim guest appearances through the mist. If my sleep debt doesn't interfere, hoping to wake to see if the mountain is feeling flashier after sunrise at 4:30 tomorrow. Depending on weather (cloud-muffler) conditions, will either go to a viewing platform by cable car or check out Edo-period inns and a shrine at a nearby area. Then intend to bus up for a hike around one of the 5th Stations (midway along the 10 station mountaineering climb). Apparently, the clouds are below the 5th Stations.

Plans to come:

• scrape in my last of Tokyo. Wishlist includes art, views, cutting edge architecture, megaclubs, live music, walking neon streets, clothes shopping and the last of my gift shopping, a flea market, toy stores, electric city, a cultural show if it's on (bunraku puppety or noo dance drama). I've got bugger-all chance of doing all that between Wednesday night and Sunday night, see how we go.
• Sunday night, off to my last WWOOF host at Yamanashi prefecture, a cafe and little farm. The real selling point for me is experiencing a small village.