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.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

text!

The connection isn't stable enough for pictures right now, so just a text update tonight. Yesterday My roommate Greg left early in the morning. (Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with the comings and goings of the other WWOOFers very well.) Greg was from Belgium, although he was born in America and attends a College in New York. He could speak English, French, and Japanese. (Maybe one or two others, but that's what I heard him speaking while he was here.) He was the first person who was a native English speaker, so it was nice to be able to talk to him. The European couple also spoke English, but I wasn't roommates with them, so I didn't talk to them quite as much as I did Greg.

The European couple was pretty awesome too. Jess was from England, and Anthony was French. I had never actually had the chance to talk to a native French person at any length before. Most of my previous impressions of them were pretty stereotypical ones that I got through the media and Eddie Izzard. It was nice to be able to form my own opinions (granted it's a small sample, but they're all positive opinions). I'll try to get pictures of everybody up in the next couple days. Maybe I'll do some WWOOFer bios or something. I don't know.

As for work yesterday, we were thinning apple blossoms all day. Normally this would be fine, but it was made a little more difficult due to bad weather. It was drizzling all day which meant wet and cold hands, as well as a bit of mud on our ladders. But we all had rain pants and jackets, so we were dry at least. (Except for our hands of course.) Today was also apple blossom picking and pollination, but the weather was much better. It was actually warm today. Although it got windy in the afternoon and got cold. (Fortunately I carry my trusty orange snowboard jacket, as well as the fleece that was given to me at Christmas with me in my backpack.)

Well, once again its bed time (On time tonight)

~Daniel

Friday, April 23, 2010

Fun in the Rain

I thought that would be a nice way to open this post. Anyway we had yesterday off due to rain and got to go around with Keichi (Or maybe it's Kenichi, I'm not sure at this point) and see some stuff in the area. Our first stop was a town done in what was apparently Swiss style after an anime called "Heidi, Girl of the Alps". The place had a very impressive tulip garden. It was mostly an outdoor place, and since it was raining it was just us. Unfortunately I kept getting raindrops on my lens so lots of my pictures aren't that great.



After our trip to the Swiss alps, we had lunch at Dennys. Now when I first saw the sign I thought to myself "Dennys? Really? I do this at home all the time." Well, as it turns out, Denny's in Japan is way more awesome. To start with, the menu is 15 pages long, mostly of Japanese style food, but they had some super delicious looking stuff that stood out. I went ahead and ordered two of them. One was this crazy chocolate sunday, and the other was mango pancakes. They were both incredibly tasty. Here are pictures, try not to drool on the keyboard.



After that we headed to the big shrine located near Yamanashi University, who's name I've totally forgotten. It was a nice place but what made it for me was the little museum located on site. Inside was some old Samurai armor and weapons. (I love this kind of stuff) of course there were scrolls and riding gear and fans and stuff, but I was too busy staring at the Spears and helmets to really take much notice. Unfortunately no photo's were allowed inside.

That's Rachel with her little stuffed chicken outside the Gate to the shrine. (You can also see Keichi standing under the gate) I found this picture particularly appropriate because there were chickens hanging out inside the shrine itself to get out of the rain.

Oh yeah, This was also outside the museum. Now I know Hello Kitty is popular, but I didn't think it had made it so far as to earn a statue at a shrine. This thing was carved out of stone and sitting right outside of the museum at the shrine.

After the shrine we headed to the big shopping mall. From the outside it looked way bigger the the Santa Rosa mall. But I think that was mostly because the parking structure was attached to the mall. (It was actually on the roof) But judging from how long it took me to get around inside, it was only a little bit bigger the the one at home. But still, I got to see some nifty Japanese style shops. The clothing stores are basically the same, but all the rest was pretty interesting. Got some gifts for people and some stuff for myself.

The rest of the day involved going to an onsen and then dinner back at the Orchard, followed by relaxing at the house. I spent some time showing Anthony some AMV's (anime music video). Turns out that he's a manga fan, so I showed him some that involved his favorites. He hadn't seen any before I don't think, but it seemed like he really liked them.

Before I end this for tonight, I just wanted to mention what was going on in the news here yesterday. The big story was this: Some farmer got their box of bees stolen. Today there was a Some kind of City wide announcement over loudspeaker by the bee company and it seems like everybody had to take their bee boxes back for inspection or something. It was hard to translate with it echoing off the mountains combined with the sound lag between the different speakers. But yeah, bees are serious business.

Good night,

~Daniel

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Arcane arts

We have today off due to rain, and it sounds like we are going to an onsen and some other places in about 20 minutes here which is nice. Unfortunatly Viola is also leaving today which is dissapointing. She has been here longer then me so far, and functions kind of like the mother of all the WWOOFers because she has the best Japanese. (She can actually hold a full conversation with Obaa-chan) She is also the oldest out of the group, though she does not look her age. At any rate, she didn't tell me when she was leaving until yesterday morning. And I wanted to get her a gift before she left, but there was no time to go out and find something to buy, so I figured I'd have to make her something. Given my limited resources, this is what I came up with.:
Now, I haven't made a dream catcher since I was a kid. And even then I always made them from kits that came with a steel ring, leather, feathers, beads, and twine. This was my first time making one from scratch. The frame is reeds that I yanked off of a bush on one of the abandoned farms in the area. The string was out of Obaa-chan's basket. (Not exactly ideal material for this, but it worked. Thanks to Rachel for helping me tie some knots) The stone in the center is out of the garden in front of Kazu's house. (It was dark when I was looking for one, so I had to feel out for one that would work. I think I got a pretty good one though.) Lacking hawk feathers or anything like that, the feathers at the bottom are actually out of one of the feather dusters we use to pollinate the trees with. (There is actually still a bit of pollen in them.)

If you don't know what a dream catcher is, I'll give a brief explanation. They are a Native American craft meant to protect against bad dreams. All dreams pass through, but the dream catcher is supposed to catch the bad ones and store them in the stone in the center.

At any rate, I'll miss having her around, but now she can have a bit of Nakagomi Orchard watching over her as she sleeps.

~Daniel

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Clear at last

Well, Mostly anyway. We finally had a nice view of Fuji while I had my camera on me. I wish Raime were still here though, because I'm sure she could have showed me how to take a better picture of it. (She had the exact same camera, but with a better lens. The main difference though was that she actually knew what all the camera's functions and settings were) Still, It is by no means a bad photo, so enjoy it.

(Click to embiggen)

On this same day I came across a first for me. A Japanese snack food that I didn't like at all. They were made by Fritolay, and looked a lot like Funions. However, this particular snack's main ingredient/flavor was mayonnaise. Yeah..... I wasn't too thrilled with these. Near as I can figure, this package reads "MAYO MANIA".



I would also like to take section of this post as a reminder to myself to always bring my camera with me whenever we go anywhere here in Japan.
Just today we went to what was described to us by Keichi as a "second hand store". Well they do second hand right here in Japan. This wasn't some little thrift shop. This was a 24 hour a day mega store of merchandise that happened to have been owned by somebody else at some point. And I forgot my camera in my room. I have some photo's that I took with my phone. (I had forgotten that it can do nifty stuff like play movies, music, and take picture and video until yesterday when I used it to listen Dr. Tran while I was working alone.) But the quality probably isn't very good, and extracting the photo's from my phone requires removing the battery and sim card. (I don't have the cable with me, so I have to copy them to a card.) There were about a hundred things that I would have loved to take pictures of If I'd had my camera with me. Hopefully I'll get to go back before I leave and be able to spend more then an hour there. (I didn't even get to explore the whole place in the hour I had)

As an added bonus Keichi bought us Crepes. That guy is awesome. I wish we were able to communicate more. But his English is mostly limited to giving directions and information regarding work on the orchard. And my Japanese is about the same at this point. (I have determined that Katatsu means Ladder in Japanese. We use them a lot.)

But yeah, the lesson is, always carry the camera. Because when you do, you get to catch fun stuff like this.
At least those mayo rings were good for some laughs. (Actually everybody else loved 'em. Asian's seem to love Mayo. As I have mentioned before, I do not.)

Monday, April 19, 2010

Some stuff.

I haven't found those photo's yet, but Yvonne did post one of the ones I wanted. I thought I would share it with all of you because its just that awesome.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many reasons I'm not planning to shave my beard.

In other news: Chopsticks are the ideal utensil for eating salad. You never have to deal with those pesky bits that lay flat on the plate that you can't seem to pierce with your fork. If you feel like eating just a cruton, you can, and you don't have to worry about splitting it in half. I suppose tomato's could pose a problem, but you can always just stab them with the chopsticks.

As far as things on the Orchard are concerned, I picked up a notebook to keep track of the Japanese that they have been drilling me on. It helps me to be able to write it down. Unfortunately my spelling is bad in Japanese too. (Not as bad as English though. There are much fewer possible spelling mistakes in Japanese due to the syllable alphabet structure.) But fortunatly there are plenty of people around to help. They are also writing in the Kanji where appropriate, so I'll be able to start learning that as well. The hardest part will be memorizing the stroke order. (That's right, not only do you have to remember how the characters look, but also what order and direction you draw each line in.)

We have a few new people on the orchard right now. Phina and Nick left the day before yesterday, and have been replaced by a European coupple. The guy is from France, and the woman is English. And I mean proper British English. We also got a guy from Belgium who is now my room mate. As it stands I am the only person here who can speak only English. Its weird being the only person who doesn't have a second language (Or third or fourth).

Well, I'm gonna hand over the computer to the Europeans so that they can check and see if they have a flight home on Saturday or not. This volcanic activity in Greenland is shutting down the planes all over Europe.

~Daniel

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Grr.....

I was planning to do another edition of "Another Perspective", but the photos I was intending to use seem to have vanished off my computer. I am a bit perturbed by this so I will forgo posting any more for tonight, and we shall see how I feel tomorrow.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Great director, and an awesome place too.

So while we were traveling, I wanted to head south int0 Kyushu because most people never go there when they tour Japan. Dad wanted to go to Beppu for the hot springs, but I wanted to go further and see what was out there. We quite literally had no idea where we were going, but we got on a train and went. We wound up in a city called Miazaki (Which is also the name of a famous Anime director, hence the entry title.) I think I wrote a bit about this place in an earlier entry, and its already late so I just wanted to post up some pictures of our time there. So here ya go.

They were conducting some kind of service within the main shrine, so we didn't actually approach the main building. but from the secondary gate that you can see in this picture, you could see a shrine maiden doing various chores in the main temple. After a short while the Shrine maiden was joined by a Shinto priest to usher in the guests and run the ceremony (I'm guessing its Shinto by the shrine style and the garb, but I'm not positive).



This is a shot of one of the stalls set up at the garden market thingy that we stumbled upon. Keep in mind this is in a vacant parking lot on a rainy morning. Its not a permanent nursery or anything.



Definitely a highlight of the trip for me. There were some maintained and better yet, Open to the public, traditional style houses. Normally stuff like this is fenced off, but I was actually invited to take my shoes off and step inside by the only other person there. (They were doing some cleaning when we arrived, but apparently had finished there task and left Dad and I alone to enjoy the buildings. I guess these things don't even need to be supervised, they just trust people not to mess things up. Apparently it works because the place looked amazing.)

On our way out we ran into what appeared to be a bride and groom about to have their wedding ceremony. They were kind enough to let us photograph them, and even posed for us. We also got our picture taken with them, but you can see more of the outfit detail in this shot.


Anyway, Sorry for the delay in updates. I actually wrote this yesterday but I wasn't able to get the pictures to load properly. So I've been trying to figure that out since then. It turns out that I was just trying to upload too much at one time, So I had to upload them individually rather then all at once. Now I know ( And knowing is half the battle. G.I. JOE! (....... maybe this is the wrong crowd for that reference, oh well.))

~Daniel

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Another day, another Onsen.

Today I got to do something that I’m rather familiar with. We got to use weed whackers to clear weeds and grass away from the base of the trees in the area that we call the “Cat House” (because it’s where Mini Mike and Brandy live). The first part of the day however was thinning apple blossoms. Unfortunately it was cold and starting to rain so it made things a little less then optimal. I’m really glad I bought those rubberized over pant things from Good to Go. The area we were using the weed whackers in has a canopy that can be raised or lowered. So even though it was raining, we could safely work with the machinery.

Our work day actually ended early today, so in the afternoon we had another opportunity to go to an onsen (Japanese hot spring). This time we went to the local one where Obaa-chan goes every day. Well, it certainly was local. I’m guessing every person there was a farmer by the looks of it. This one was much smaller than the others we’ve been to, and it didn’t have an outside bath like the others. (Which is my favorite. I like sitting in the hot water while I’ve got some cool rain coming down.) At any rate, I’ll probably pass if they’re going back to that one. It’s just not worth it for me without the outdoor bath.

After dinner we got to go to “Max Value” which is one of the super markets in the area. This one is located in a bigger shopping center, and right next door was a clothing store that we also went in to. As I expected, basically nothing there fit me. Not even the belts. However I did pick up a beanie (Its been cold in the mornings, and my bandana doesn’t always cut it.) and a couple shirts at the request of a friend. (Hopefully they’ll fit.) I also tried on some sunglasses, but as usual nothing looked good. Once we got over to the supermarket, I picked up some of these delicious seeds that you put on rice, and some more KitKats of different flavors. (I’ve made it my mission to try as many different kinds as I can find, and bring back some of my favorites)

I’d also to take a moment to thank Rachel for locating my toothbrush. I lost it for about a day and a half. It turned out to be between the couch and my futon. I hadn’t even thought to check there, it was just such an unlikely spot. So, thank you Rachel.


As for Pictures, I uploaded some more stuff to my Photobucket. Its mostly stuff from days 2&3 of my trip.

Well, I think that’s all for now. It’s past my bed time (As usual).

~Daniel

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Fish Slap

I think I got beaten by a fish. I developed a stomach ache this afternoon, and i think it was due to the fish I had at breakfast. It had nothing to do with how the fish was cooked, but rather how it was presented. Whole fish, head, tail, skin, everything but the eyes it looked like. sliced up the belly and laid out so that the dorsal fin was in the center of the two halves. Kind of like some bizarre aquatic butterfly. I walk into Yoko's this morning and before I even get into the kitchen i can smell the fish. I walk through the curtain and see this thing staring at me from the plate.
(Photo Provided by Vioal. She ate part of hers before taking the photo, but you can see an untouched one across the table slightly out of focus.)

Now, I know full well that people in Asia eat fish like this fairly regularly. I've seen it it movies and Anime many many times. But for some reason, coming face to face to my food like this actually kinda scared me. I flipped it over as soon as was polite and began to pick at the meat. Having never eaten fish like this, consuming it was a very slow process, made slower by the use of chopsticks. (Actually I hardly ever eat fish in America. I'm not a huge fan of the taste. I'd say 95% of my fish intake is through sushi, which for some reason I find delicious despite my dislike of the cooked product.) But the Image of that fish's hallow eye sockets stayed with me all morning, and when it came time to eat lunch I had a stomach ache and couldn't eat very much of my lunch (which also happened to have fish).

Fortunately I got over my stomach ache with the help of some medicine from Yoko, and was back to full capacity by Dinner. And to counter my fear of more fish, I entered the dinning room this evening to find a plate with a hamburger patty covered in some sort of sauce. Not quite how you would eat a hamburger in America, but still, it was a ground beef patty for a little taste of home.

Well, sorry for any Haunting imagery I may have used in this entry. In compensation, here is a photo of Mini Mike and Brandy I took this afternoon, as well as an image of what our lunches sometimes look like.

That's right, several pounds of SUSHI!

~Daniel

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Another Perspective (Part 1)

So I have probably mentioned how much I'm loving my new camera, but I also need to acknowledge my new laptop. This laptop is what has been allowing me to keep up to date on my email and other internet things when I can find an internet connection. And when I don't have an internet connection I can still type stuff up and save it for later like I was doing on the trains during the first part of my trip. My little blue laptop with its blue squid sticker has been keeping me in touch and entertained since my arrival in japan. This thing is also housing my language software, although I haven't been using it much (Sorry Dad), but that's because I get to practice with real people every day instead.

But one of my laptops most important functions so far has been as a storage space for my pictures. The images I'm taking are all over 5MB (megabites) each, and even though my memory card is 8GB (Gigabites) I would still have filled up my card 5 times over with pictures alone (I have a bit of video too). And in addition to my own photos, I have also been collecting the pictures of the other people who come and stay at Nakagomi Orchard. Which brings me to the title of this entry. I figured it would be fun to post some pictures that other people took with their own cameras. Todays batch is from Ramie (I spelled her name wrong in my earlier entries). Although her camera has exactly the same body as mine (well, it has a different name plate, it was marketed different in the US for some reason) Ramie has two different lenses. One is like mine but with a much better zoom, and the other is for portraits and close up stuff. She also actually knows what she's doing when she messes with the camera settings, so she can get some really beautiful photos. Here are some of the ones that I liked. (With Captions!)


This was at the Suntory Whiskey factory that we visited on our day off. This is a photo of one of the workers re-charring a barrel. The tour was in Japanese so I cant really tell you anything more about it though. Its a great picture of fire though.

Here is Ramie and Obaa-chan. Ramie actually walked down to the 7/11 and got this printed and pasted it into the guest book.


Here is Ramie and Fakhran posing in one of the orchards. Normally the trees in the background would be full of flowers, but we spent the day picking the blossoms for pollen, so its a bit sparse.


This is Nick and Phina. They are a couple from Taiwan. Nick is kinda quite, but Phina is hilarious. she loves to mock people. They are both pretty goofy. Its kind of hard to see, but they are actually posing in front of mt. Fuji. (It's blending into the clouds. Click the image to see it better)



Here I am taking it easy with Mini Mike. This was take on our lunch break. I'm not actually asleep, but the sun was shining pretty brightly.


I found out that the holes in the side of this crate looked like a huge smiling face.
Can you see it now? Because once you see it, you cant un-see it!


~Daniel

Sunday, April 11, 2010

WWOOF



So it was brought to my attention that I never actually explained what WWOOF is. WWOOF stands for "World Wide Organization of Organic Farmers". The organization exists to connect hosts with volunteers. The hosts originally were farmers practicing a totally organic lifestyle, but these days it has extended to any organic minded establishment or family. From organic restaurants and farms to nature tours and ceramics shops, WWOOF covers a large variety of hosts. The volunteers are fed and housed in exchange for doing whatever work needs doing. No money is exchanged between host and volunteer, which is convenient and also avoids complications when applying for a visa. So that's a brief explanation of what I'm doing here. Here is the link to the WWOOF Japan home page if you're interested.

Also, For your view pleasure, here is a cat in a basket.
(Click to embiggen)

This is "Mini Mike" he is one of the two cats that lives on Nakagomi Orchard. during lunch the other day he decided to crawl into one of baskets we were using to pick blossoms and take a nap. The girl holding the basket is Phina A.K.A. "Niko Niko-san" A.K.A. iPhone. (From what I understand Niko Niko-san literally means "Miss Smiley". Obaa-chan gave her the nickname and it has stuck.) and blurred out in the background is Yoko, Kazu's sister-in-law.

Anyway, that's all for now.

~Daniel

Saturday, April 10, 2010

cold mountian, warm jacket

Today we started using some of the pollen that we have harvested from the flowers and started manually pollinating plum trees. We also spent some time thining the buds on the apple trees so that they will produce less fruit. (But the fruit produced will be bigger and sweeter because more energy will go into each apple.)

Today It was clear enough in the afternoon that we could see Fuji. It was still partially covered by clouds for most of the day though. (And of course the few minutes it was unobstructed, I wasn't near my camera.)
(Click to embiggen)

Also, in an unexpected turn of events, Kazu managed to locate a hanten for me to buy. A hanten is the traditional cold weather coat worn by Japanese people that I wanted to buy, but had gone out of season. As it turned out, the parrents of one of Kazu's old students (He used to teach English at a local college) owns a futon shop here in town. (Apparently futon shops are where you buy these kinds of things.) and this shop happened to have a few that they hadn't sent off yet. And what was better, is that they had one very big one (By Japanese standards anyway).

So after work Kazu, Nick, Phina (the girl who's name I couldn't remember), Rachael and I all walked down to this futon shop. It was about a 20 minute walk. Nick also wanted to buy one. The girls just wanted to go for a walk I think. While we were walking Kazu let them know we were coming, so by the time we got there, they already had the Hanten set aside. The largest one they had fit me perfectly. The Color was also quite good, it matches the rest of my Japanese clothing. The price on the tag was 4980 yen which converts to $57.05 I was totally ok with this price, but because Kazu brought us in, they gave us a discount that amounted to about $11 off for me. Rachael also bought one. although since Nick and Rachael's were smaller, they were a bit less expensive. What makes this purchase even sweeter for me is that my hanten got Obaa-chan's (Grandma's) seal of approval. Getting an elderly persons approval on a traditional piece of clothing just makes it that much better. Anyway, here is a picture of me in my hanten.
I'll try and get a photo of all three of us in all of our hanten together. (I'd say "hantens", but Japanese doesn't have any plurals, so I don't know if it would be right.)

Anyway, my roommate has fallen asleep, so I'd better get to bed too. (Oh yeah, I have a roommate for the next 2 days. I'll write more about him tomorrow probably)

~Daniel

Friday, April 9, 2010

Himeji Castle

Thought I'd post some pictures of the castle Dad and I visited. It was a bit of a rushed tour because we got there close to closing time. On the bright side, we got to see it before the scaffolding goes up for its 3 year renovation.
(Click to embiggen)

Since we were moving so fast, I didn't stop to take many pictures. I only have 13 Images of the castles from the outside, and most of those are from outside the entrance to the castle grounds. This second shot is out of a window on the top floor, overlook the city of Himeji.
(Click to embiggen)

As far as things here on the orchard, today was more blossom picking. However I did get to drive one of the little trucks around for the first time today. One of the other WWOOFers got a picture, I'll have to see if i can get a copy. The vehicle it self is small enough that I have to roll down the window and stick my elbow out in order to operate the wheel comfortably. I also got to drive one of the trucks that was a manual transmission. I don't think I'll ever be able to drive that one comfortably. Not enough leg room, and the seat doesn't move back at all. On the plus side, I didn't stall or lug out or anything. (I don't have a lot of experience with stick shifts yet)

OK, Bed time.

~Daniel

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Shrine in bloom

The cherry blossoms are in full swing here in Yamanashi right now so I figured I'd post a couple pictures. Myself, Aiyana, and Yvonne walked back to the the local shrine for some photos and some time to just hang out and enjoy the scenery before they left the orchard. (We did this two days ago, and they left yesterday morning)

(Click to embiggen)
Quite pretty isn't it? I certainly think so. At any rate, work moves on. We have been picking blossoms so that we can harvest the pollen and use that for all the other trees later on. Lots of ladder work and looking around checking for places you haven't already picked. Work wise, not to entertaining, but today after work was fun. We took a walk to some nearby shops to try and find me a Japanese style coat like the one Kazu has been wearing. (I love traditional Japanese style clothing) I don't even remember the name, but it's one of those garments that you look at and say to yourself "Man that looks warm and comfy." Sadly it seems that it is no longer the season to buy them.

On the up side, The new WWOOFers we got think It's great that I came here to learn Japanese and are helping me. We spent this evening going over some stuff from my text book. I translated a conversation (with a little help from the dictionary) and I got quizzed on some vocabulary that I haven't studied since December. Also, one of the new girls has made it her personal mission to make sure I can recite the days of the week on command in any order. She'll walk up to me and just say a day of the week, and I have to respond with Japanese translation. (I still have trouble with Monday and Tuesday)

Oh yeah, I guess I need to introduce the new guys. We got a boy and a girl from Taiwan and a girl from Hon Kong. The boy's name is Nick. So far he's been pretty quite. He doesn't speak Japanese, but he knows English well enough. It seems the name of the girl from Taiwan has already escaped my memory. I remember it seemed like more of a sound then a name though. She speaks Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and English. (Apparently the national language of Taiwan is Chinese not Taiwanese. So many Taiwanese people don't actually speak Taiwanese.) The girl from Hon Kong is named Remmy. She speaks Chinese, Japanese, and English.

So since Rachael and Viola are also from Taiwan, all the other WWOOFers speak Chinese as their native tongue. This is not quite what I was expecting, but its kind of cool anyway. (Its sort of problematic for my goal of become more competent in Japanese though.) They have taught me a few words of Chinese, and apparently I have very good pronunciation, enough for them to have surprised looks on their faces.

Well, once again I've stayed up later then I should have. Time for sleep. Oyasuminasai. (That's Japanese for "good night")

~Daniel

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Cooking up a storm

And I'm not talking about the wind that's howling outside my room either. (Made work today a little troublesome.) Last night we ended work early so that we could help Yoko-san cook dinner. And by help I mean the girls wanted to learn how to do some home style Japanese cooking. They seemed kind of surprised that I was interested in learning as well. However with Aiyana, Rachael, Viola, Yoko, and Yvonne in the kitchen there really wasn't much I could actually help with, so I wound up playing photographer instead. (Now I have a comprehensive photo record which will probably more helpful to me in the long run anyway.)
(Click to embiggen)

This particular nights meal was tempura. Lots and lots of tempura. I didn't even recognize some of the stuff they were using. As you can see there was a lot going on. What they are working on above was actually the side dish. I don't even know what it was called. The best way I can describe it would be to call it sea food pudding. Shrimp, Scallops, a mini spherical hard boiled egg (quail perhaps?), and something that I could not identify. All this went into a cup, and then had egg mixed with.... something poured over it. Some veggies got added to the top, then they covered them up and put them in a steamer (or maybe it was a boiler, I really don't know).
(Click to embiggen)

After the seafood pudding was taken care of, the tempura ingredients were prepared (cut into appropriate shapes and sizes) and then dipped in the fryer. (Using fat free oil as Yoko-san was proud to point out) Lets see if I can remember everything we used: Sweet potato, green onion, eggplant, and some kind of tube that is apparently made out of fish. (A bizarre concept, but quite tasty.) While all this was going on I somehow managed to miss the Miso soup that was being made. There was also rice being made in the rice cooker that I failed to get a picture of.
(Click to embiggen)

As you might imagine, this home cooked meal prepared by these 5 amazing women was absolutely delicious. I even ate the eggplant (which is my least favorite food in the world) without any problems or hesitation.

It was a great meal, and I'm glad that I took 272 pictures to remember it by. Yeah, that's right, 272. (I'm loving my new camera by the way) Of course there are lots of shots of the same stuff, and several of them are blurry. But its still a ton of usable pictures. Oh yeah, I did a quick count of the images I've taken so far on this trip and found out I had more then I thought. Again, there are many photos of the same thing, and lots of blurry stuff because I was walking around a lot of the time, but still, its a ton of photos (and a few of them are video). Anyway, 5,313 is the number of files taken on this trip in my image folder right now. That's a full 2k more then I originally estimated. So please bear with me, because its going to take me a long time to sift through all those and pick out ones to upload. I know I won't get to all of it while I'm still here in Japan, but I'll try to upload some of the highlights. Until next time.

~Daniel

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Late night links

Its past my bedtime (again) so rather then an update, here are some links to videos about WWOOF that feature Nakagomi Orchard (Which is where I am). They were created by a WWOOFer who used to be in the film industry so they are good quality. You'll also get to see some of what we do here on the farm.

Link
to a youtube video

and

Link to some other video web site. (The first four videos have something to do with where I am now.)

Sunday, April 4, 2010

The job so far

Ok, so I realize some people may be wonder what exactly it is that I'm doing here on this orchard, so I'll give you a breakdown of whats been going on. We wake up around 7:00 so that we can have a home cooked Japanese style breakfast prepared by Yoko-san. (Kazu's sister-in-law). After that we do the dishes and then have a little while to get ready for whatever work we are doing that day.

So far we have done:
Weeding around the bases of young fruit trees.
Manual pollination of the plum trees.
Picking blossoms to harvest pollen for manual pollination.
Checking irrigation

We have a break for tea around 10:30 and then we get back to work until lunch. We usually have lunch at a place Kazu calls "The Cat House", which is an area where his two cats Brandy and Mini Mike, hang out. Lunch is generally something ordered from a local shop. Today's meal was Sushi. And when I say "Orderd from a local shop" I don't mean store bought. it just means that somebody in the town other then Yoko made our lunch and Kazu had to go out and pick it up. Lunch lasts for about an hour, and then its back to work until afternoon tea. I don't actually know what time we normally have this, I haven't bothered to check my phone for the time when we break. (My phone can't actually make phone calls in Japan, but I find myself using it's conversion tool quite often.) Our work day ends somewhere around 5:00.

After work we have been taking walks and having Kazu show us around the town. (I don't actually know the name of the town we are in. I know we are in the Yamanashi prefecture, in an area called Minami Alps. The train station I got off at was called either Shiozaki or Shizuoka, but I don't know if that is the town name as well. I'm pretty sure we are a short way east of Kofu though, in case you wanted to find me on a map.) Today we took a walk up a road that switch backed up one of the mountains where the cherry trees grow naturally rather then having been planted by humans. The view would have been great if it wasn't so cloudy. We are expecting rain tonight and tommorow. (We are actually getting the day off tomorrow since conditions are going to be too bad to work in. More on that tomorrow.)

Normally I'd want to add at least one picture here, but since it's already late and it takes quite a while to upload these pictures as is, I'll instead post a link to my Japan album on my Photobucket account. So here ya go! LINK TO JAPAN ALBUM!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Working on the Orchard

I've had two days of working on the orchard so far, and I'm loving it. It's late now, so i'm going to bed, but here is a picture of Myself, My dad, and the girls I've been working with.

(Click to embiggen)

~Daniel

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Made it

Dad and I are at the Orchard now. So far this place rocks. The internet connection at this particular spot in the house is not so good, and we need to get to bed so I'll update more later.