Saturday, July 3, 2010

At long last.

Finally got all of my Japan photos uploaded to facebook (I still have more that I got from the other WWOOFers that I haven't sorted through yet). I had to spread it out across 5 new albums (facebook has a 200 photo limit per album) so here are the links. Sorry it took so long, please enjoy. And please feel free to comment here or on the album itself.

Album 1
Album 2
Album 3
Album 4
Album 5

They were uploaded in alphabetical order by picture name because it was easier then trying to sort them all out chronologically. So sorry about that, you'll just have to deal with a little bit of time leaping.

~Daniel

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Some delays

Ok, So I'm back on US time and in work mode for the summer, which means getting up early and working Monday-Thursday (Hurray for paychecks!). I spent many hours this weekend going through all of my photos from the trip and selecting the ones to show to people. I trimmed it down to about 10% of all my photos. That being said, it is still 1,006 pictures. (It took a long time, and I didn't even look in the folders that I got from other people. They are all from my camera alone.) So this morning I started the long process of uploading them to photobucket because I didn't feel like creating 8 new facebook albums. (Facebook albums have a 200 photo maximum). Upon my return this evening I find that I have reached my storage limit on photobucket and that only about half of the photos actually got uploaded. You can view what actually made it here on my photobucket album I'll figure out what to do with the rest of them..... some time soon. But probably not during the work week. Until then, enjoy your summer days.

~Daniel

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Transfer

I have just started transferring 109GB worth of my japan pictures from my laptop to my external hard drive. That is a lot of pictures. I'll be going through them slowly and posting them up either here or somewhere else that I will link to. And now that I'm home, hopefully I'll be able to post up some of the videos I made. It's going to take a while though, so don't expect anything immediately. I am also still rather jet lagged. My body is still waking up at 7:00am Japan time. which is like 3pm here. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it within a day or two..... Hopefully.

~Daniel

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Home!

Due to the lack of free internet at the Tokyo airport, I was unable to do a large post like I had planned. However, I am now safely home and that large post is going to be put off until more pressing concerns are taken care of. Like unpacking and laundry and filling out paperwork that needs to be filed before I start work.

~Daniel

Monday, June 14, 2010

Up since 3:30, but totaly worth it.

I just wanted to share a couple photo's that I took at the Fish market this morning (you have to get there really early if you want to see the cool stuff).

So here we have an enormous tuna.
(Click to embiggen)

And here I'm having fun with my sushi. My delicious, super fresh, and rather inexpensive sushi.

(Click to embiggen)
Behold my Sushi Mustache!

Heading home in the morning. First hurdle is making it to the airport with all my gear.

~Daniel

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Tokyo!

Just wanted to let you guys know that I'm too busy having fun here in Tokyo to do a long update. Expect one from the airport tomorrow though.

Friday, June 11, 2010

First time

So for the first time in my life, I have traveled totally on my own by some way other then car bike or by foot. I am now safely in Tokyo in K's House backpackers hostel (Though how I'm traveling isn't really backpacking at this point, I've got way too much stuff for that). It was not a direct trip here though. No that would have been too easy. Though my detour was pre-planned and much looked forward to. Allow me to explain....

So rather then taking the bus from Minami Alps straight to Shinjuku in Tokyo, I had Kazu drop me off at Shiozaki station (the local station). As I stared blankly at the ticket machine I realized how poorly planned this venture of mine was, as I had neglected to look at the train routs or schedules. I was in fact backtracking my route of arrival 2 and a half months ago from memory. I purchased a ticket from the little machine in order to get to Kofu station which was just two stops up the line. I apparently purchased the wrong ticket though, but it didn't cause much of a problem. (the conductor just put the cost of what I had already paid for the wrong ticket towards the price of the correct one.) From Kofu I took the local line to the Fuji station, where I transfered trains and headed for Shizuoka station, which was my intended destination.

Upon my arriaval at Shizuoka I shoved my bags into a coin locker (an ordeal unto itself) and immideatly realized that I didn't have the coinage necessary to lock it. So I stood around with one arm shoved into the locker holding my bags in place and waited somebody to pass by that was likely to have change. My help came in the form of a group of old ladies. They kindly exchanged my 1000 yen note for a 500 yen coin and five 100 yen coins. I shoved the locker closed, put in the coins, and got the key, and then proceeded to thank the ladies. Now down to just one bag instead of 3, I set out for what I was seeking. After asking the information center I found that it was one station back at Higashi Shizuoka Staion (East Shizuoka Station. It is common for large stations to have smaller ones near by that run the local trains.) So 140 yen got me up the line to where I needed to go. And at last I was able to lay my eyes on something I've been wanting to see, but thought I had missed entirely. THIS
Do you see those legs and the set of arms in the scaffolding? That is the start of the Gundam Statue that I so despratley wanted to see. It previously stood on Odiaba Island in Tokyo bay. And I dragged my dad all the way back to Tokyo mainly so I could see this thing. But once we arrived we found that it had been dismantled, but was going to be rebuilt here. When Dad and I were headed to the Orchard from Kyoto I picked a route that brought us through Shizuoka station, only to find that it wasn't going to be up until July. But what I didn't know was that they had to actually build this thing piece by piece like you would a building. As it turned out, they started construction about 2 weeks ago. Many thanks to Tim for sending me the link alerting me to its present construction and allowing me to make the most of the opportunity. So even though it is incomplete, I can now cross "see the life sized gundam statue" off of my list of stuff to do before I die.

From there, I paid another 140 yen to get back to Shizuoka station, grabbed my bags and purchased my ticket to Tokyo. I grabbed a bento box and some bread for lunch and hauled all my gear up to the platform. The train ride was pleasantly uneventful and I got a good amount of reading done. However as I was pulling my bags off the rack as we pulled up to Tokyo station misfortune struck in the form of my beloved bracelet breaking, dropping many of the beads. Most of them landed on the seat below but I had to scrounge on the floor as fast as I could for the rest. (The trains do not stop very long so I was pressed for time). From the train station I took a taxi to the bank that is very near the hostel I'm staying at. (It's around the corner fortunately, So I didn't have to lug all my crap very far.) Upon arriving I checked in, showered, and purchased a small coin purse in which to keep the beads from my broken bracelet. I seem to have lost at least two beads. This is unfortunate because I do not know where to get replacements of the same type. I suppose I shall have to repair it with beads of a different sort, and that will serve as a reminder to what happened on this trip, making my bracelet a little more interesting.

At any rate, so begins my brief stay in Tokyo. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with one of the girls that was at Nakagomi Orchard for a few days. and she is going to show me around Shibuya and Harajuku, It should be fun. Tanoshimini shitteimasu (Translation: I'm looking forward to it) I'll be home in 4 days.

Monday, June 7, 2010

A brief segway

I had forgotten that Asians have uniformly straight hair. Apparently the three girls from Hong Kong had thought that I had gone to a salon to get my hair curled. They were also wondering how I had managed to keep it curled for 2 months without ever going back to get it worked on. They didn't believe me when I told them "This is just what my hair looks like normally". So as proof I didn't brush my hair after my shower the following day and showed them. They were rather amazed, which I found funny since for me it's so normal.

At any rate, here are some of those kitten photo's I promised.
(Click the images to embiggen)

As well as a couple other ones I took on our last day off. I got to go back to Heidi's Village, but this time it was warm and sunny so I was able to take a bunch more pictures. No tulips this time though (I guess they're out of season now), they were in the process of planting roses. However I did get to ride this....
Yeah, that's a segway. I got to ride it around the place for 45 minutes, and it was awesome.

Here are some other photo's of the fun that I had.

WEEEEEEEE!
This was probably specifically forbidden by the sign posted at the front. But I cant read Kaji, so i took advantage of my position as a "Gaijin" (foreigner) and went ahead and did it anyway.

This is everybody that went with on this little outing.
Left to right, top to bottom: Leah, June, Sasha, Charlotte, Sara, Nataly, Aki, Daniel (Myself), Nicolas.

The roses were quite nice and smelled great.
In fact, they smelled good enough to eat....

I uploaded a bunch more to my new facebook album. (because facebook only allows 200 photos.) so feel free to go and check those out. And don't be afraid to leave comments. (Here or on facebook) I like reading them.

~Daniel

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Chisai neko

The kittens have been growing rapidly and have been getting playful. The crate they were in was too small for them too. So now that the weather is nice and warm, we have moved them out to the Cat House (One of the cherry green houses named so for the wooden structure that Kazu's other cat lives in) We barred the door and opened up the roof and set the kittens in there. The Cat House is about 6 times bigger then their crate so they now have enough room to play around. Mini Mike can also now watch over them. Once he realized they were there he just kinda plopped himself down in the box and watched them. He licks them whenever they wander close enough, so hopefully he'll be teaching them how to clean themselves fully over the next few days. They have been eating less frequently lately (Which is what is supposed to happen) and are capable of eating solid food. As in true Japanese, style the first solid food they have eaten is fish. (I need to tell Kazu to pick up some kitten food or something.) Due to customers for the past two days, we kept the kittens inside the Cat House itself, but today I think we might be able to let them out and explore. I'll post up some photos once I get around to pulling my card out of my camera and uploading photos.

~Daniel

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Ninja Stroll

I just took a nice night time walk to one of the vending machines up the road by myself. It was nice just kind of walking by myself and listening to the sounds of the canal and the occasional car. The sky was cloudy so I couldn't see any stars, but the air was pleasantly cool. The kind of weather that you could be comfortable in anything between long pants and a light jacket to shorts and a t-shirt. And now I'm enjoying the evening with a cold soda and the cool breeze wafting in through the screen doors to my room. It's a nice evening here in Yamanashi.

The rest of the day was pretty good to. Nicolas and I finished all the weed whacking that needed to be done. We set up some tent structures that will be used by the customers. For dinner we had sushi and soba noodles. And then I got to sit on the couch with the girls and laugh at the funny photos I've taken of them.

Yeah, today was a good day. I'm kinda sad that I only have a week left of this life. But I suppose evenings like this are what make this short time so memorable. That and all the photos (So many photos).

Well, we have tomorrow off. Not positive what I'm going to be doing, but may end up going back to Lake Kawakujiko. Who knows. But for now, probably bed time. Good night.

~Daniel

sub note: The title of this entry belongs to whoever it is that runs 'Anime Hell' at Fanime and is not an original creation (Sorry, just don't want to be sued for copyright infringement or something).

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Photo filled update of Doom.... and stuff.

Ok, so......
I've got a ton of pictures to upload and I'm hoping that the connection will stay up long enough to complete them. Out of the 600 and something photo's that I've taken since my last batch, I chose 54 to share. I'm uploading them all to my facebook album (It automatically compresses the files so it doesn't take too terribly long to upload, even on this connection). I will however share and talk about a few of them here for your convenience and my own satisfaction of being able to write about them. As always, Click the image to embiggen.

To start with, This is a shoe box that is in the entryway to Yoko's house.
The implications of this shoe box in Japan are probably significant and certainly confusing.

These are the three girls that we had from Singapore. They were only here for three days, but they were a ton of fun. It took me two days to get their names straight though. (The girls from left to right: Cindy, Ashleigh, Cassandra (I'm pretty sure I got that right))
As you may have guessed, this photo needs a bit of back story. In case you don't know me personally, I'm fairly strong. A lifetime of lifting plants and pottery for my mother's business, combined with my size allows me to lift up quite a bit without too much effort. This is apparently not common in Asia. It seems any time I pick up something heavy, the people watching see it as some kind of amazing feat of strength. (I have actually been called Hercules since I've been here) In general I tend to think of women as being fairly light (at least for my standards) but Asian women tend to be smaller then the American girls that I'm used to, so I find them incredibly light. I found myself wondering how hard it would be to pick up all 3 of these girls at once. They didn't think I could do it. They were convinced that they were too heavy. I thought otherwise. They were kind enough to let me test it. (And of course I wanted to get it on camera.) Although the picture doesn't show it, I am lifting all three of these girls off the ground. One of them is latched onto my back, and I'm lifting the other two with one arm each. They seem to be enjoying themselves, but I can't be sure....

The cherries are getting riper and riper every day
Some of the cherries are actually ripe now, this picture is a week or so old. We have had a few samples and they are delicious. The orchard is also now accepting customers. We had our first ones yesterday.

This is just a nice cloud shot I took.
We had spent all day working in the grapes at the base of this picture, so this was a nice little reward after the days work.

We had a nice lunch in the shade with a view of Fuji.
We also had a lawn chair that I took full advantage of. (There was a nice breeze going on too)

Once again my beard became a temporary home for a few flowers.
It was a group endeavor.

Same day as the last two pictures. Yet again, a nice view of Mt. Fuji.
This one was taken from the balcony on the second floor of Kazu's house in the morning, before breakfast.

That's all for now, If you want more check out my Facebook album. (Now up to the 2oo picture maximum. I don't know if i got lucky and met the exact number, or if it deleted some of the old ones. Let me know if you notice any pictures missing.)

~Daniel

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Wrap this one around your head.

So It looks like It's still going to be a day or two before I get the time to do a huge update. I've just been having a bit too much fun to want to sit down and work on the computer for the 2 hours necessary. For instance, Today we spent an hour or two trying to get this thing on my head.

The girl in the picture next to me is a Sikh from Finland named Sara. (She belongs to a very very small religious minority in Finland. Its a small fraction of that tiny little 'other' wedge of the pie chart) I have never had the oportunity to talk to a Sikh so I've been asking her a lot of questions. (Mostly about the turban) Apparently It takes like 6 months of practice to be able to tie it on your own and still have it look good. I asked if she could show me how to tie it, and she very kindly agreed. The process took about 10 minutes. After attempting to tie one on myself using my sarong she offered to loan me one of her pieces of cloth (Her's are about 5 meters long and 8 inches wide my sarong is about 5'x3'). However since I don't have long hair, I couldn't tie it in the same way she did. Her hair is actually wrapped into the turban, which is what keeps it in place. Lacking that anchor, we didn't have much luck getting the cloth to stay in place while we were wrapping it around my head. After many failed attempts by myself and Sara and about 3 other people I finally managed to figure out something that worked. After we got the one end firmly attached to my skull, I let Sara finish the wrapping which resulted in the above. Obaa-chan was much amused.

So yeah, Fun stuff this evening. If you know about my tendency to wear bandannas, they you can probably guess how happy this made me. It was one of those times where my cheeks were hurting because I was smiling too much. But rest assured, on my next boring night I'll give you guys lots of pictures, and a long update. But I have no idea when that will be, so please be patient, sorry.

~Daniel

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Isogashi

Sorry for the slow down in posts. Lately I've been using my evenings to socialize rather then do computer work. Just spent some time looking over the 480- something pictures I've taken in the last week. So I'll probably have a fun photo filled post in the next day or two. (I make no promises though.) I will however leave you with this photo that was taken for the short amount of time when we had 10 WWOOFers. (The most we've had so far. This number was only maintained for about 4 hours.)

(Click to embiggen)

P.S. The title of this entry is the Japanese word for busy.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Grapes

So I've been working on grapes for the past couple days. Mostly taking the vines that are growing and taping them down to the wire grid that they rest on. The work isn't hard, but the height of the grid changes sometimes. Most of the time its the perfect height for me to stick my head through and work at roughly eye level. But sometimes it gets lower and I am forced to either crouch a bit, or adopt a very wide stance to lower my height a bit. The other problem that happens is sometimes the vines are too close together and I can't find a place to stick my head through and I have to work from underneath. But all in all, its pretty minor. At the end of the day I feel fine, so I'm happy. I feel kind of bad about the others though, If your shorter then me you have to look up all the time, and it must hurt their necks.

Anyway, Just wanted to do a quick update to prove that I'm still alive and well. But I'm tired, so I'm off.

~Daniel

Saturday, May 22, 2010

KITTENS!




Because I know people want to see these guys, here are a couple photos of the the kittens.
They haven't been officaly named, but I have names that I call each of them. Meet: Domino, Geo (Or 'Terra' if its a girl, I'm not sure), Shamisen, and Spot (Or 'Dot' if its a girl, I'm not sure).

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Fresh Work.

I've had an interesting couple of days in the best possible way. I got to do several different kinds of work that kept me busy but weren't exhausting. The first of which was spraying the grapes like in the photo on my last post. Although that jug of the chemical was fairly heavy and that strap wasn't exactly great for distributing the weight on one shoulder. After a few minutes I fastened it around my waist instead (It was far more comfortable that way). Kenichi saw what I did and asked me how I did it. Apparently his shoulder was hurting from it too. (He'd been at it longer then me so I can only imagine. It seems my improvisation brought about a small change in how this activity will be carried out in the future)

The next job I got to do was hanging nets up inside the greenhouses. (they aren't really meant for temperature control, they are for keeping out the rain and birds) Even with the netting all around the outside of these houses, sometimes birds still get in, so we hang nets from the ceiling so that they can be caught and put outside the net again. (Its hard for them to get out if the manage to find a way in.

The last and most interesting job I got to do was helping to fix the roll down plastic covering on the roofs of the houses. It Involved climbing around on the roof of a structure that could have been modeled using k'nex, and a lot of tape for covering up small holes. This job took a while because you can't move very fast on the roof due to footing. It was fun though and it allowed me to find a good vantage point for some pictures (I'll upload those later).

Oh yeah, I also got to drive on of the trucks on the city streets for a while. Kenichi had to return a rented tractor so I followed him to the rental place and we carpooled back. It was fun, I took a video too. Unfortunately its too large to put on youtube. (perhaps I should look into reducing the recording quality on my camera temporarily)

We had today off and spent most of it relaxing. I introduced Akemi and Wing to Firefly. They said it was exciting. Unfortunately Akemi is leaving tomorrow so I won't get to show her any more. Wing still has a few days though. Other then Firefly, we went to an onsen for a short while. Because we went in the middle of the day it was virtually empty. I actually had the water to myself for a while.

We got 3 girls from Singapore this evening. They all speak good English, and one speaks some Japanese. Didn't really get a chance to talk to them much though. They're only gonna be here for 3 days it sounds like. Sounds like I won't be working with them tomorrow during the day either. Guess I'll have to talk to them at breakfast and find out what their story is. Also their names would be a good thing to learn as well. (I'm so horrible with names)

Anyway, time for sleep.

Oh yeah, since people keep asking me, I will be returning to the US on June 15th.

~Daniel Hattem

Monday, May 17, 2010

Photo dump

I just wanted to put up some pictures that I've taken in the last few days. So here they are in no particular order. As always, Click the image to embiggen.

Got to do some work on the grapes. This stuff is the chemical that makes grapes seedless.

Yet another unidentified Insect. Let me know if you have any idea what it is.


Putting the 'Dan' in bandanna. I bought myself some new head wraps.


This is the last picture I have of Brandy and Mini Mike together. curled up on Kazu's Jacket at lunch.
My weed whacking get up after a morning of work. If you look closely you can barely tell that the pants I'm wearing are in fact Camouflage.


Sunset in the clouds over the mountain range that translates into 'Eight Peaks'. Taken from Yoko's porch.


One of our delicious dinners cooked up by Yoko.


Wing looking out at Mt. Fuji. I really like how this turned out.


Well that's it for now. Sorry I don't have any kitten photos. They generally require both my hands in order to feed one and keep the others from escaping at the same time. So I haven't gotten a chance to photograph them. But they are getting bigger every day and drinking plenty of kitten formula.

~Daniel

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Going Good, Considering....

The kittens are doing fine. Kazu picked up some kitten formula and is feeding them regularly via syringe. They are strong enough to suck the milk right out of it, rather then needing to push down the plunger to expel the milk into their mouths. They are currently sound asleep and have been so for a few hours.

In other news, We got to try some grapes that were grown here and kept in refrigeration storage or something like that. The were enormous and delicious. We also found out today that they are incredibly expensive. After finding that out, just eating them made me feel rich. I took a short video illustrating my point. It's not even 2 minutes long but due to the connection its going to take like 3 hours to upload to youtube. And due to the unstable connection I keep getting "The upload failed due to an unknown error." So who knows when I'll actually be able to get it online and viewable. But as soon as I do, I'll let ya know.

Just a brief update for now. Once again its past bed time so I'm out.

~Daniel

Friday, May 14, 2010

Bad news

So we have some bad news from the orchard today. Brandy, the mother of the kittens was killed last night. Judging by the marks, my guess is that it was a dog. As unfortunate as this is, we now have the larger problem of four motherless kittens. we've moved them into the house and have been feeding them milk from a spoon and a straw. (So far only one of them can actually lap it up out of the spoon, the rest still chew on the end as if nursing) Seeing as how I have no idea how to take care of kittens that are this young, (and I doubt Kazu does either) I could use some advice. I'm going to suggest that we take them to a shelter or animal rescue center or something so that they can be properly taken care of, but in the mean time we're still responsible for them.

Currently they are in a crate filled with straw, a hand towel, and a sweater. I put a towel over the top to keep it dark since the cat house where they have been so far was pretty much comepltley dark. It doesn't seem like they are used to opening their eyes yet. There is a bit of light coming in from the sides of the milk crate so they can adjust a bit more slowly then being right out in the open.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Clear skies over Fuji

Today we had unusually clear weather and had a great view of Fuji. I decided I couldn't let the oportunity pass and took a bunch of photos. Unfortunately I forgot to change some of the settings so a bunch of the pictures have a much lighter background and Fuji isn't as clear because of it. Still good pictures regardless.
(Click to embiggen)


On top of being uncommonly clear, it was also really really nice weather. The kind of weather that is so good it puts you in the mood to go outside and do stuff. Since we were already outside, I got right to the doing stuff part, grabbed the girls, and took some silly photos involving one of my favorite activities: Picking people up.


(Click to embiggen)
The girl in the first Photo is named Wing. She's from Hon Kong, and apparently hasn't been picked up like that since she was a small child. The girl from the second photo is Apple. She's from Taiwan and was convinced that she was too heavy for me to do this. Clearly she doesn't know me very well. I then proceeded to run down the road with her on my shoulders. This was met with much screaming and laughter.

So yeah, I had a good day.

~Daniel

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Meet. Love. The End.

So I since I have had to be up by 7 every morning since I've been here, my sleep schedule has been pretty well set in. In fact I've actually started getting up earlier then my 7:00 am alarm. Most of the time I wake up and realize that its before my alarm and just go back to sleep. For some reason though, when I do that it gets really hard to wake up at 7:00. So I've recently just been getting up when I wake up naturally at around 5:50 and just kinda sitting around. This morning I realized that there was actually something productive I could be doing with that time. From this point on my mornings are going to be Rosetta Stone time.There is nobody else on this side of the house, so me saying phrases over and over into the microphone won't really bother anybody even at this early hour.

In other news, we had yesterday off and I finally had the chance to go to the second hand store WITH MY CAMERA WORKING. The scope of the place is a bit too much to capture in a few pictures, so instead I will share with you the huge sign over the entrance.
(Click to embiggen)

I love this sign. It has absolutely nothing to do with whats inside, which I suppose works to the point of: "This place is totally random and awesome!" There is other stuff written on the building but its all in Kanji so I can't really make sense of any of it. (Well, I recognized the symbol for "book", but that's it.) So yeah, this place is Like a mega thrift store that deals in Clothes, books, games, movies, cards, electronics, sporting goods, music, instruments, figures, and cell phone dangle thingies. So yeah, this place rocks. I took a long video inside, but its too big to upload to youtube, and photobucket didn't know what to do with it. Oh yeah, I wanted to share this message that appears on the ash tray thing outside of this store, and is the reason for the strange title of this entry.
(Click to embiggen)

Well I need to eat breakfast and get ready for Today's work (More weed whacking).

~Daniel

Sunday, May 9, 2010

missing

Before I came to Japan I loaded up my laptop with pictures of my friends and family. I did this so that If I missed them I could look at the pictures. Also, e-mail helps quite a bit. As a result I really don't spend time actively missing anything from home. Its all more of the passive missing feeling that stems from seeking something familiar and comfortable.

What I didn't prepare for before I left, and in fact hadn't even considered, was how I would miss the new people I would meet. In setting up this trip, my concerns were based on travel arrangements and lodging concerns. Do I have a plane ticket? Do I have place to stay for the duration? Check and Check, Ok, time to pack. I never stopped to consider the other people who would be guests here on the orchard. I didn't realize that I would be making so many friends here. Even though I have pictures of these people, I still find myself thinking of them often and missing them to pieces.

I think what might be doing it is the fact that I have no idea when/if I'll see these people again. For everybody back at home, I know that I'll be able to see them again once I return to the US. But I have no idea when/if I'm going to be able to make it to Hong Kong, Taiwan, or even France. Before now I never really had a reason to visit any of these places. Now I find myself wanting to plan trips so I can go visit these people and spend more time with them. But I know that's not going to happen until after I graduate. And even then, who knows. I guess I'll live on the chance that some of them may come to San Francisco and we can meet up there.

To the men and women (Ok, I'll be honest, its mostly women) Who I've met but have already left the Orchard: I Miss you and look forward to seeing you again sometime.

To friends family and acquaintances back home: I'll see you in June.

~Daniel

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Yasumi

Yasumi is Japanese for rest or break for those of you who are curious. We had today off and we spent most of it just relaxing. It was great. I watched an anime movie I'd been wanting to see for a long time. (The Girl who Leapt Through Time. Great movie in my opinion) I had some good communication with Obaa-chan. We went shopping at the mall with Yoko, Mari, and Kokona. (Mari is Kenichi's fiance, and Kokona is their 3 month old daughter) I spent most of my time picking out a pair of chopsticks. I'm going to need to make at least one more trip though, because one of the things I wanted was out of stock in the color I was looking for. Also Apple told me about an awesome water bottle she saw that I want to buy. We had takoyaki for lunch in the food court. (Fried octopus dumplings basically. They are delicious.) Our time at the mall totaled about 2 hours. We came back home and I spent most of the rest of the afternoon uploading pictures and chatting with friends.

It was pointed out to me today that despite all the pictures I've uploaded, there are very few of me. So the pictures I uploaded this afternoon are all ones that other people took that have me in them. You can view it on my facebook HERE so enjoy those for what they are worth. There are a fair share of silly ones, and even a few that some people might call "cute". (You have been warned)

Apple and I also went to the post office to put postcards in the mail and get 20 yen stamps. (Its 70 yen to mail a postcard to anywhere in the world. The usually sell stamps in 50 and 80 yen. We got the 20 yen stamps so we can use up all the 50 stamps we already purchased.)

Anyway, I'm going to finish out the evening by watching some Anime and reading my book. Good night people.

~Daniel

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Over due.

I apologize for the delay in updates, but I've been having far too much fun in the evenings to want to spend time uploading pictures. But since we had 4 people leave today, its much more low key and I've got some time now. So prepare for a really long picture filled entry. (Since putting it after each photo is going to interrupt my typing flow, remember folks, "Click the image to embiggen") (sub note: if you're wondering why I use the word "embiggen" instead of "enlarge", It's because my favorite author Patrick Rothfuss uses it on his blog, and I think its a cool word)

To start with, I want to show you guys this photo.
Despite the nice preview screen on my camera, I thought that this set of photo's didn't turn out very well. Obviously it didn't look nearly so nice on my camera as it does here on the computer and I was happily proved wrong. This is the view of the mountains that lie to the west (roughly) of the orchard. we had some nice cloud cover and you could see the sun rays shining down. I figured it was worth a few photos.

This one was taken on the same day. It's a little hazy but I wanted to get the blossoming apple trees in a shot with Fuji before we finished trimming all the flowers off. So here is that one.
From what Kazu was saying, the best time to see Fuji from the orchard is during winter when the air is crisp, cold, and clear. So I'm thankful that I can still see it despite the haze and clouds.

I'm also thankful that while I was taking the above photo I got a chance to photograph my favorite insect friend here on the orchard. Please allow me to introduce you to KUMABATCHI!
See that big flying black thing? That is Kumabatchi. (s)he is a really big bee that is apparently kinda dangerous (but not aggressive). But for some reason I love this thing. Literally translated, Kumabatchi means "Bear Bee". Probably because compared to the other honey bees around, this thing is like a bear. From what I can approximate, this thing is larger then any of the bumblebees that we have in California.

While I'm on the subject of Insects, I'd like to request the help of you nature/science minded people. (I'm looking at you Dad and Mr. Immel). Kazu found this bug on one of the trees. He recognized it, but didn't remember anything about it, like if it was bad for his fruit trees or not. Anyway, I'd like some help identifying it if you've got the spare time.
I'd never seen this one before so I had no help to offer Kazu. But it was a pretty neat looking bug. (I know, its technically a beetle, but "bug" just flows better.)

Still in the realm of critters, but lets move on to something more familiar. CATS! As I mentioned before in previous entries we have two cats that belong to Nakagomi Orchard, "Mini Mike" and "Brandy"
This is Mini Mike (the original Mike was a WWOOFer that found him as a kitten and brought him to the orchard I found out). As you can see, we're having a great time.
And this is Brandy, Taking some time to clean herself up. She values this time these days because of the following picture.
Yup, KITTENS! Brandy is a Mother now. (Mini Mike may or may not be the father, we really don't have a way of knowing. There are other cats in the area after all. But Mini Mike has been playing the dedicated father and keeping watch of the house where these little guys have been living the past several days.) Looks like there are four of them, but its kinda hard to tell when they're tangled and furry such as they are. They haven't come out of the cat house yet. We actually had to take off the roof in order to see them. So yeah, I'm sure these guys will be great photo material in the weeks and months to come.

And while we're on the subject of new life, I'd like to share with you the fruits of our labors here on the orchard.
The cherries that we spent so much time pollinating, plucking, and trimming are starting to show their fruits. Its pretty cool to see something that you spent time on start to grow into something that you know will be delicious in a few weeks. Though I'm the only Volunteer that worked on them that will also get to taste them. (Sorry Aiyana, Rachel, Viola, and Yvonne. I'll be sure to take pictures of the fully ripened ones for you guys.)

So yeah, the last few days have been good. The people in the photo I posted last time are all gone now except for Apple. The Americans Stefen and Tabi were great to have around. It was nice to be able to talk at full speed in English without having to simplify my speech or leave out any slang.

I really enjoyed having a Japanese roommate too. Even though Daisuke's English wasn't great, (probably better then my Japanese though) we got along great and had fun. Its amazing how much you can communicate despite the language barrier. (Having a good sense of humor helps too)

Maki is also gone. She was Apple's roommate while she was here. She was the first Japanese girl We've had at the orchard while I've been here. Unfortunately I didn't find out until 2 days ago that she actually knew some English. I didn't get much time to talk to her, and I would have loved to have gotten to know here a bit better before she left. Although when I finally did get to talk to her, I realized that Japanese people have no sense of the size of America. (To be fair, most Americans don't have a clue about the size of other countries either). They tend to compare US states to the size of Japanese prefectures (from what I gather, each prefecture is closer to the size of a large county or perhaps an east coast state). Knowing that I live in California, Japanese people automatically assume that I'm close to L.A. And then I pull out my map, point to San Francisco, and then L.A. and then I tell them 8 hours by car. That's when it starts to sink in.Although when I finally did have a conversation with her, I realized that Japanese people have no sense of the size of America. (To be fair, most Americans don't have a clue about the size of other countries either). They tend to compare US states to the size of Japanese prefectures (from what I gather, each prefecture is closer to the size of a large county or perhaps an east coast state). Knowing that I live in California, Japanese people automatically assume that I'm close to L.A. And then I pull out my map, point to San Francisco, and then L.A. and then I tell them 8 hours by car. That's when it starts to sink in. (On that note, how long does it take to drive from California to New York? I'm pretty sure somebody who reads this has done it.)

And to top off this nice set of days, tomorrow is a day off for us. (WOO!) Anyway, I'm off for now.

~Daniel

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Hanging out

My room is full of people, and that makes me happy.
left to right: Maki, Apple, Daisuke, Tabi, Stefan

I took this a few minutes ago, were all in here hanging out. Maki and Daisuke don't speak a whole lot of English. Apple is Taiwanese (they speak Mandarin as their national language) had English literature as her minor in college and Minored in Japanese, and Tabi and Stefan are American. (They speak a tiny bit of Japanese) As you can guess Apple does most of the translating. We're having fun.

~Daniel

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Nice days

The weather has been nice and warm these past two days. Really pleasant to work in (At least for me, the Asians seem to think its hot, for me its just warm) Had a nice view of Fuji today, as well as the other mountain range that is in the opposite direction who's name I can't remember. (I do know that the name translates into "Eight Peaks" though). I remembered to take my memory card out of my computer so I was actually able to take pictures today. I haven't uploaded them yet, so you'll have to wait for the photographic evidence of how nice the day was.

As a bonus, we got off work an hour early and got to go to an onsen. We went back to one of the ones with an outdoor bath, so I was happy. I sat in the hot water for about 45 minutes and am now quite relaxed. According to Apple, you could see part of Fuji from the girl's bath, sadly the men's area didn't have quite the same view. Ah well.

To bring a damper on this nice weather, my MP3 player stopped working for some reason. No response from the buttons, nor when I plug it into my computer. So that sucks, but its not the end of the world or anything.

Well, I'm gonna go read I think. I hope things are going well for all of you people out there who are reading this.

~Daniel

Thursday, April 29, 2010

I break for Fuji

Since we had yesterday off we opted to go out and get closer to Fuji. By we, I mean Rachel, Apple, and myself. (Apple is Rachel's friend who came and joined us here at Nakagomi.) We took a bus from Kofu Station (Kazu was kind enough to drop us off there since he had business in Kofu anyway.) to lake Kawakujiko (I think that's what it was called anyway). Apple got off a couple stops before us because she wanted to go to an art museum that was dedicated to a particular artist who draws cats. Apparently Apple loves cats. Sadly it was cloudy when we got there and all we could see was the base of Mt. Fuji. We arrived around noon, and Rachel and I were supposed to meet up with Apple at 2pm. Well, Apple wound up staying at the Museum till 4pm, so Rachel and I had plenty of time to see what was around the lake. There were some nice temples such as this one.


This was one of those accidental finds. We were walking and I looked down an alley and there it was. I've got a bunch more photos of it too. But uploading stuff on this blog takes too long on this connection. So you get limited pictures for now.

Once Apple finally showed up (She and Rachel were in contact via text message, so we didn't actually just sit around and wait for her, we knew when she was coming) her considerable luck rubbed off on us and we finally got to see some more of Fuji. It wasn't a huge amount, but it was the best view we had all day.



Despite the limited view, it was a nice day off and I got a ton of neat pictures of the area, plus some nice ones of the girls, like this one.

(If you look closely you might be able to see Fuji next to the clock. The image is a bit bright though, so it blends in to the sky. Click the image to embiggen)


Anyway, its late and my new roommate is asleep on the chair (More on him later.) Until next time.

~Daniel

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Rain rain......

So it was raining today but since It's also going to be raining tomorrow we worked today and have tomorrow off. The girls got assigned the task of cleaning the house. Myself and Eric (our new French WWOOFer) however were tasked with weed whacker duty..... In the rain. Now there are waterproof pants and rain jackets, and rain boots available to us. So we have the means to stay dry at least. However for whatever reason neither Eric nor myself chose to wear the rain boots, and instead wore our leather boots. Mine are steel toe, and the rain pants I have are pretty baggy so I was fine My feet didn't get wet while we were working. However they did get wet when we rinsed off before lunch. And when I say rinsed off, I mean we got sprayed with a hose to get all the grass and mud off our jackets and pants. At that point even my mighty work boots were no match for the moisture, and my socks became rather wet. That wasn't until lunch though, and we only worked for about 2 hours afterwards so it wasn't all that bad from a comfort standpoint. My gloves on the other had were a different story. Because we were weed whacking, I wore my leather gloves. These didn't stand up so good against the rain, so I donned a pair of disposable surgical gloves underneath. Sadly my hands were still rather wet. After lunch I was given a pair of basically dish washing gloves. Surprisingly, these also didn't seem to help much. Its at times like this that I am thankful for my bodies considerable heat output. Despite my wet hands, the rest of my body was fine.

I would have loved to upload a photo of what I looked like after my day of weed whacking in the rain, but sadly I had no way to take a photo of myself in that state without covering my camera in mud and grass, and there was nobody to take the photo for me either. Ah well. After our hard work in the cold rain, Yoko rewarded us with cake. I felt like I just completed some test at Aperture Science (Minus the crazy death maze of puzzles ). And for those of you who have no idea what I was talking about in that last sentence: Don't worry about it, it was a video game reference. Anyway I think that's all for tonight.

~Daniel

Monday, April 26, 2010

Fail....

So I had another oppertunity to go to that second hand store just a few moments ago. I brought my camera this time too. Basicly I was just going so I could take some pictures. But as it turns out, I had left my camera card in my computer because I was about to upload stuff when Keichi knocked on my door/window to ask if I wanted to go. So I had my camera and no memory card. Lacking means to take pictures, I spent my time taking a closer look at the figurine section. I think I figured out their sorting system, but I didn't find anything else that I wanted (either for myself or a gift).

So lacking pictures of that store, I will instead bring you some photo's of the orchard. I've decided to take a picture of the cat house (the name of one of the cherry orchards) every day from the same spot so I can eventually make a kind of "as time passes" thing illustrating the change in the orchard from blossoms to fruit, so look forward to that. Here is one of those right now in fact.
(Click to embiggen)

This one is of one of the apple groves. We were working here pretty much all day today actually.