Thanksgiving Rice Balls

No Turkey in Japan, our Thanksgiving was both ironic and a bit sad. We awoke early (it was fRiday here) and took a train to Hiroshima. Our morning ritual has been grabbing two rice balls (rice, seaweed, and whatever is inside) from a convience store before hitting the train. Very good but not exactly a subsitute for turkey day. IT was a two hour train ride on the shinkansen (super express) from Kyoto to Hiroshima. Arriving in the city, you would find it hard to imagine that a mere sixty years before the whole city had been reduced to rubble by an atomic bomb that killed hundreds of thousands of people. There is one remainding building that has been preserved in order to show visitors a small piece of the atrocity that was committed on the city of Hiroshima-but besides that, it looks like any other built up Japanese city.

Before visiting Hiroshima, I hadnt taken the time to consider or really learn about the events leading up to the US dropping a nuclear bomb on Japan, and dropping it on Hiroshima in particular. The museum contained probably more information than I wanted to know about why Hiroshima was the target, but it was information that every American should be knowledgable of. Of course we learned that the Japanese were responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and perhaps the public sentiment at the time was retaliation at any cost to the Japanese. However, it just doesnt make sense and there was and will never be an excuse to drop an atomic or hydrogen bomb on any innocent civilian population. THe amount of people who were killed either on the day the bomb was dropped, August 6 1945, and the people who died as a result of the radiation, burns and such after the fact in the wake of the bombing totals over 400,000 people. Yes, HIroshima was a military town in the sense that it housed facilities and factories for building weapons, but it was also a bustling prosperous city home to innocent people going about their daily lives. IT is just sickening to think of the propoganda used by the U.S. government to try to justify the bombing, no matter what kind of atrocities Japan had committed in the war. Reading all of the top secret letters between government officials regarding the attack, it seems as if America only wanted to scare Russia and maybe justify the billions of dollars the government had spent on building a nuclear weapon. Its pretty sickening really.

On a lighter note, we are now in Osaka and are staying at a very neat hostel. We met a nice English friend who showed us to a local bar by our hostel which literally consisted of 3 1/2 stools(the top of mine kept falling off) and was only protected from the elements by tarps. As you may guess, our hostel is not located in the most posh part of town. very neat nonetheless, and we were able to get a taste of a couple good local restaurants. Today we went to the aquarium which was very neat, and tomrorow we will head to Kobe for one night before working on another farm. SHould be a different experience from the last farm we worked on, and we are all excited ot stop spending money!

Finishing the harvest/Polluting

Today we spent the morning finishing the harvest. I am very happy to have finished the harvest because I could not take hearing our host say the same two phrases about picking apples again. He points to an area, says "All harvest" (which means pick all the apples in that area), and "No Needle" (which means dont poke the apple on other branches when picking it). Where he got the word needle to explain not to poke the apples is a mystery to me, but I am happy not to have to hear it again.

In the afternoon, we burned a hole in the ozone layer. Our host took us to the mountain that he owns and gave us a tour of the different springs you can drink from, where wasabi grows, where mushrooms grow, etc. Then, we proceeded to take any plastic and rubber materials (including tires and basketballs) that he no longer had use for and burned them in a huge bonfire. Side note- we are supposed to be working on farms that are organic and very mindful of the environment. So that was actually pretty bad, and one of the other WWOOFers was very heated about it and may say something if we are asked to pollute again tomorrow.

On a happier note, our host took us to the hot springs which are very popular in this part of Japan. It was a very interesting experience (one in which i do not prefer to blog about. please see mimi or willys blogs for more information).

It is time to go to bed now, have to rise at 8am for another day of work that hopefully doesnt involved aiding global warming!

Third Day on the Farm

Last night our host took us and the other part time farm workers to a restaurant/bar for a "Welcome Party". I think he just wanted to escape from his wife and drink. Anyways, he ordered us all liter-sized beers, which we had rounds of, and then some sort of Japanese alchohol that we mixed with water. A new WWOOFer arrived yesterday named Bob just in time for the welcome party. He is from Scotland and is very nice. At the restaurant, I tried raw seasoned chicken and raw squid. The raw chicken really wasnt as bad as you would think-the squid was disgusting.

Dinner was fun, we drank alot, and continued the party back at our little house where we are staying. Our host, Nagata, stayed up and drank with us. He still doesnt know Willy or my names, so he takes to calling us all "Mimi Three Person" which is pretty histerical. He also began calling us "honey girls" because we pick apples that have honey inside of them. Also very funny.

I have picked up a few japanese phrases since being here- the typical hi, bye, thank you, etc. It is nice that we work with only Japanese people because we have a chance to learn a little of the language.

Today we picked apples again. It was nice because it did not rain. Yesterday rained all day and we were completely soaked by the end of the day. Hopefully it doesnt rain again. Tomorrow night we are going to go to the hot springs which are about 10 minutes away in the mountains. There are wild monkeys that go in the springs with you. We are all very excited about the hot springs.

Willy is cooking dinner now and we are about to eat. Oh, this morning I ate white rice with egg yolk and soy sauce mixed in it. Actually very tasty. Lots of white rice. I thought I would lose weight here because everyone is so thin and I thought it was attributed to their eating habits. However, at this rate with all the drinking and eating that is not going to happen.

It has been a few days and now we are at our first WWOOF host and just spent the day harvesting apples! Yesterday we took the bullet train from Tokyo to Nagano (home of the 1998 winter Olympics) and ended up spending the afternoon there because we couldnt get in touch with our host. Our host Nagata was at a funeral (we learned later) and was not able to access his cell phone. We finally ended up getting in touch with him and took the train to Suzaka which is where we are farming. The host is a very nice guy who owns a software company in China and just has WWOOFers because he enjoys meeting people from all around the world. He and his wife have a very traditional and very beautiful Japanese house with ponds/coy fish and the like. There are two other WWOOFers here- a guy from England and a girl from Japan. They are really nice and it is especially nice to be able to talk to someone in English! The most interesting part about Japan so far is how little English they speak. I assumed that most people would at least be able to understand us but it is not the case at all....many gestures have been necessary.

Anyways, we are staying with really nice people and they like to drink! We tried a few different types of Japanese beer (all very good) and the host even came over and drank with us. He had us try some special drinks and the six of us finished a bottle of Jack Daniels that he brought out! He showed us his Samuri sword and let us hold it, and we basically ended up hanging out with him and the two other WWOOFers until very late! Today we spent the whole entire day harvesting apples. It is a really beautiful place with moutains all around us. Not a bad deal considering we are given meals and a very nice accomodation for free. All in all, we are very happy to be here and we think apple picking is a good way to ease into our farming adventures.

Konnichiwa from Tokyo!

We arrived into Narita National Airport yesterday around 4:30 in Japan- so almost 24 hours of straight travelling! The flight went very smoothly-the beauty about Asian flights is that wine is free. I was able to sleep for probably 80% of the flight, only waking up to eat or go to the bathroom. I dont think that Mimi or Willy were able to sleep much.
At the airport, we were greeted by some Japanese paparazzi, and saw a japanese pop star/movie star..not really sure but it was kind of entertaining. We took a train and the subway to our hostel which is located in a little area outside of Tokyo. When we arrived, we had a little trouble finding our hostel which is not well marked and pretty much hidden from the street. It is a very interesting place- I thought hostels in Europe were small. Our room has four beds (2 of which are built into a closet and definitely not long enough for anyone over 5'2 (perk of being short). there is not enough room to even put our backpacks on the floor so luckily we have an extra bed. It is a little smelly but overall pretty clean, and the shower was warm!
We are about to venture out into Tokyo for the day after a very looongg nights rest.

Sayonara,

Ashley