Ryan and Mommy ROADTRIP....to Noto Peninsula!

As has become typical, an upcoming adventure is often my motivation for writing about our most recent adventure.  Since we leave in approximately 8 hours for our holiday trip to Thailand, I am now... somehow ... motivated to write the blog about our Noto Hantou (peninsula) trip that happened in late November.  Interesting timing, but alas...

Our same "Mr. Kevin" of the rice harvesting adventure again posted an offer for people to join him on a driving, camping, exploring trip of the Noto Peninsula.  He had to scout a few roads for work (he runs bike trips through rural Japan) but mostly just wanted to make a fun weekend out of it.  I read a little about Noto, and it seemed to be a relatively unspoiled area of coastal Japan.  And from the questions I got from most of my friends in Tokyo, it also seemed to be an area that many Japanese have not traveled to.  Perfect.

So again, we jumped at the chance.  We were the only ones who responded, and I am really not sure why no one else seems to see the fabulousness of these opportunities, but what do I know?Anyway, the four of us were all set for a little family adventure - and we were excited about it.

And then we learned that Ethan's soccer team had a big tournament on the same weekend (and for the record, this was NOT a case of us NOT understanding something until the last minute; for reasons I do not understand, the games and tournaments seem to be announced at the last minute ALL of the time).  When the team learned that we were going to be out of town for the weekend, several families offered for Ethan to stay with them while we were away.  It was a moral dilemma for Ethan, and he struggled with the decision for several days and finally decided that he should be there for his team.  That was all fine and good and a very responsible decision by Ethan.... but Ryan and I still wanted to go ... and we had already committed to go.  So, Kevin and I used the "divide and conquer" strategy - I took Ryan on the Noto trip and Kevin and Ethan stayed in Tokyo for a bachelor weekend and the soccer tournament.  It was unfortunate that we couldn't make it a family adventure, but we made the best of the situation.

Since our party of 2 now became a party of 4, we decided to invite our friends, Mayuko and her daughter, Ema, from youchien.  There were forecasts for snow and we planned on camping, so we tried to pack for verrrrrry cold weather.  Fun times!

Ryan and I left early on a Friday morning (11/22), met Mayuko and Ema on the train platform and headed to Nagano by shinkansen.

Waiting for the bus to start our adventure...

Ryan and Ema...

Ryan and the bullet trains...

Mr. Kevin picked us up at the Naoetsu station, his van loaded with bikes and tents and gear for us all.  Roooooaaaaaadtriiiiiipppp time!

Noto is famous for all kinds of seafood, especially crab - it is a peninsula, after all.  We headed up the coast and stopped at a few roadside stands for some sustenance and exploration.  After a delicious lunch of kani chirashi (crab on rice), we continued on our journey.

Noto's famous crabs...

Ryan had such great memories of catching frogs on our last adventure that he was
intent on catching a crab on this trip.  Unfortunately, this was as close as he got to catching one.

Squid hanging to dry at the market...

And some tasty octopus, too.

It was cold and rainy and we had planned on camping that night, but we thought better of it because of the weather.  So, after several hours of driving, we ended up in Himi, where we stayed at a small guesthouse.  Nothing fancy (and it was freeeeeezing in our rooms) but we did have quite a splendid Japanese breakfast in the morning.  Delicious - fish, crab, rice, miso soup as well as salad, eggs, and sausage, and natto (fermented, slimy, soybeans - a very common breakfast in Japan, especially for kids, but we are not huge natto fans, so we had only a little).

Ignore the red lines - I borrowed the map from a Japanese cycling website... but you can
see Himi, where we stayed the first night, Noto Island (obscured on the map by Wakura Hot Spring) where we camped the second night, and Wajima, where we stayed the third night...

One side note: we did have a rather unfortunate incident.  As we pulled to a stop at a red light, suddenly the bike rack came crashing on to the windshield and then bounced on to the hood of the van before landing in front of us on the street.  We were all shocked - and were trying not think about what might have happened had it come off while we were on the expressway.  But everyone was fine - the bikes and rack did not hold up so well, but we managed to pull them out of the road and convince a car dealership to hold them for us until we could return in the morning to pick them up and figure out what to do.

The next morning, while Mr. Kevin went back to retrieve the bikes and rack, Mayuko, Ema, Ryan, Mona (Kevin's 4 year old daughter), and I explored the town of Himi.

Ryan and Ema on the Himi coast

Searching for crabs and other critters ... with no luck.

By mid-morning, we loaded into the car and continued on-wards.  Our goal was to make it to Noto Island for a night of camping.  We stopped a few times along the way - including for lunch, where some very kind men sitting next to me and Ryan starting bequeathing us with all sorts of gifts - juice for the kids, sweet red bean desserts, Noto buttons, etc.  It was quite amusing, to say the least...

We made it to the campground, after several wrong turns and a few routes that were a little more "scenic" than we had intended, but all's well that ends well.  We set up camp, watched the sunset, and then went to the onsen, before coming back to grill our dinner over the fire - grilled onigiri, grilled crab, shrimp, and onion skewers, followed by smores of course (and a failed attempt at popcorn)!  And the weather was surprisingly warm and we had quite a pleasant night sleeping in the tent (especially with a little extra snuggling with Ryan to keep warm).

The view from our campsite...

Taking a break from biking...

The sunset...not as spectacular as we had hoped...

Swinging while waiting for the sunset...

Inside the tent

Breakfast the next morning - the whole gang!

The next morning (Sunday) we loaded up the van again and headed towards Wajima.  Mayuko had heard about the Wajima morning market and was keen to go there so we drove straight through to arrive there before the market closed at 12 noon.  And it was well worth the drive!  I love markets of all sorts, and this was the 3rd largest market in Japan.  It was great fun to wander the street and check out all the stalls (and the samples, too).  And somehow, I ended up with quite a large number of purchases - a salted, cured sashimi type thing that was wrapped in a tube made of straw, some delicious marinated squid (and I don't usually like squid, but the free samples were surprisingly yummy - I bought TWO whole squid), some dried eel for Kevin, and a few other random things.

Crabs and more crabs...

Very, very kind crab ladies - Ryan wanted a single crab claw to take home, and when I asked
if I could buy one, they gave us two whole crabs to take home and dry so he could have the whole shells...

Yep, that's eight legs alright...

The abalone guy...

$84 for 100g of abalone - a specialty of Noto - and they had samples, too. OOO-LA-LA.

This is the cured sashimi thing - you had to unwrap the rope and straw and the cured fish was hidden inside...

After thoroughly enjoying our Wajima market time, we headed a little bit further north to Senmaida ("One Thousand Rice Fields").  Because of the mountainous terrain, the terraced fields of rice are a sight to see.  I assume these rice fields are still harvested by hand, as the small field size would seem to make using a machine quite a pain in the derriere.  It was a spectacular view of the coast and we enjoyed a local lunch while soaking it all in...

Not the happiest moment for the little rascal...

We headed back to Wajima to spend the night and prepare for a very early departure on Monday morning.  Ethan didn't have school on Monday, so he was staying at a friend's house and I was trying to get home as soon as possible to pick him up.  Only problem was that we were a loooooong way from home.  We left around 6 AM, drove 7 hours to Nagano station, where we got on the very next Tokyo-bound train.  Still didn't make it to pick up Ethan until almost 5 pm.  Luckily, we have very, very nice friends.

Our Noto Hantou dinner back in Tokyo
- on the left is the cured fish and on the right is the marinated squid - deeelish!

And in case you're interested, Ethan's team won FIRST place in the tournament.  He had 1 goal, 1 assist, and 1 saved goal off the goal line due to amazing defense.  I got to see it all on video, which wasn't quite the same...but alas.

Stay tuned for more adventures (and a belated Holiday Card)!

In the meantime, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Harvesting Rice in Rural Japan - A New Experience

Grandma and Grandpa and Aunty Susan are on board to do a blog post about their visit to Japan in September, but due to the TONS of things they had going on as soon as they returned home, their most entertaining and enlightening blog will be slightly delayed.  In order to keep the readers of Konnichiwa Adventures happy, we'll move forward with some of our latest antics.... and wait in great anticipation for the Narimatsu series.

The last few days Grandma and Grandpa were here, I came upon an interesting offer on a Tokyo Parents group:

Is anyone available anytime from Sept 30 and Oct 6 and interested in coming out to the countryside to help harvest rice? Older children can use the cutter, smaller kids can help with picking up rice or just catching bugs for fun.
All needs to be done by hand...Any help would be appreciated. Hot-spring five minute walk away. 

Ummmm, yeah.  We'd love to do that.  Who wouldn't?

So basically, we got on a train to the middle of nowhere (didn't even realize how much in the middle of nowhere until we got there) to help a complete stranger harvest his rice and had no idea where we were staying, how we would get to where we needed to go, what we needed to bring, if we needed to bring food or sleeping bags or what?  Oh yeah, and it was just me and the kids because Kevin was in the US for a 2 week work trip (or as I like to call it - an "all English, car-driving, portillo's and Al's and Mexican food eating, can-read-all-the-street-signs, all expenses paid party with a few meetings thrown in," but that's just me).  The kids and I kept it calling our "adventure" because we truthfully had no idea what to expect.

And you know, it was a FABULOUS weekend!  It was a piece of Japan that we had never really seen and had definitely not experienced.  Rural Japan is a completely different universe.

One other mom and her 7 year old took him up on his offer, so we planned to meet on the train platform and travel together.    And, of course, it was pouring down rain when we left our house at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning.  By the time we got to our train station, the kids and I were all soaked.  When will I ever learn that there are indeed times when paying for a taxi would be well worth the money?  This was one of those times. But we survived and changed the wettest parts of our clothing while waiting for the train and were on our merry way.

First we traveled to the main Tokyo station to catch the Shinkansen to Nagano, where we then changed to a small, one car train to Morimiyanohara station.  It was classic.  We were by far the youngest people on the train, though, like I said, there was only one train car, so there weren't very many people anyway.  The train wound through the countryside with the occasional train "station" as not much more than a few 2x4's nailed next to the tracks to serve as the "platform."  No ticket machines, no turnstyles, not much at all.  The train tracks even felt smaller - only one track, in and out of small tunnels, cruising next to a large river.

The single track meandering through rural Japan...

View from the train window...

One of the larger train "stations" on our journey - it's a far cry from Tokyo!

As we gazed out the window, I realized two things: 1) the houses are HUGE in the Japanese countryside, much unlike Tokyo, and 2) our house is very much in the same style as many of those we saw from the train window- which pleased me in a way that surprised me.


We got to Morimiyanohara station around noon, and I was glad that our "host" Kevin was there to meet us.  It was a small platform and a little stationmaster office - the stationmaster's house is across the street and he just comes over a few times per day when the train arrives. Somehow, in the hustle and bustle of getting off the train, I left my purple bag sitting on the train seat.  Luckily, I realized it only a few minutes later.  When I told the stationmaster, he immediately called to the next station and then said "matete kudasai" (please wait).  Within 3 minutes, a train was puffing along the tracks with my purple bag in the hands of the train driver.  I'm not sure if we were near the end of the line and it was the same train on the return trip or if this was an entirely different train, but either way - I was amused... and impressed... and thankful.

We loaded into Mr. Kevin's van and headed to 1 of the 2 restaurants in the village to get some sustenance before heading to the rice fields.  After a steaming, spicy bowl of tantanmei ramen, I was actually ready for a nap, but no such luck!  Off to the rice fields we went...

Step 1.  Grab the clump of rice at the base.

We got a few instructions and then dived into the work.  It's rather simple really, but that doesn't mean it's easy.  The rice is grown in small clusters, so you sit on your knees, grab the group of stalks near the base, wack it off with a small sickle shaped cutter, and then lay it on the ground nearby.  After stacking a few cuts together, the next cluster is set at a diagonal and stacked on top.  This makes it easier later when you have to tie the bundles together and hang the rice to dry.

Step 2.  With one fast movement, use the small cutter to cut the
rice near the base.

Step 3.  Tie 2 clumps together so that they are overlapping.

Step 4.  Catch as many frogs as you can.  OK, this is a special step just
for Ryan, but he had at least 30 frogs in the 2 days we were there!

Ethan was a very diligent rice harvester, and he and I worked as a team.  He held the rice stalks near the base and I wacked it off with the cutter.  Ryan was a very diligent frog catcher and kept himself (and the other 2 kids) very entertained.  He also found 3 snakes over the course of the 2 days, but I didn't let him catch those.

After several hours of rice harvesting, one of our crew biked to the village store and came back with ice cream and beer.  Not a bad way to end the day.  We then loaded into the van and headed to the public bath - as do apparently most of the locals.  Nothing fancy, just super hot water and a social place to soak.

Keiko's house

It was now dark, very dark, and we wound our way through the mountain village roads to arrive at Keiko-san's house, where we would be staying for the night.  And what an amazing place it was!  A 150 year old Meiji era farmhouse - nestled right against the mountain.  Kevin had told us that Keiko had called him earlier in the day and told him that she wanted to make dinner for us.  But the spread she had prepared was faaaaaar more than we expected.  Fresh-grown rice, plates and plates of vegetable tempura, all from her garden.  Miso soup, fish, I can't even remember everything, but it was all fabulous.  And Keiko was such a kind, sweet, soul.  I'm still not sure how or why she was hosting us, but it was a wonderful night.  Ryan caught more frogs (and brought several to dinner in a small bug cage he had brought with him) and the kids all listened to stories of the rice ghost and did hanabi (sparklers) before crashing hard.

Our dinner spread...

The whole house - it looked like a mansion to us after a year and a half in Tokyo

The house was all nooks and crannies and hidden lofts everywhere.  Huge wooden beams, tatami mats, shoji rice screens.  A large square eating table built into the floor with a firepit in the middle.  And my favorite - the barn-type door to let the livestock into the house during the winter.

We were told that this village has the highest snowfall in Japan - all the houses have steep roofs to prevent snow damage, but people still have to shovel their roofs, it seems.

After a wonderful night's sleep, we awoke to extensive breakfast preparations - homemade rice bread, jams, eggs .... We toured around Keiko's house, she showed us her amazing garden, and her neighbor showed us his rice-milling machine at work.  Then, we packed up our stuff and headed back to the rice field.

Early morning view from Keiko's house

Keiko's neighbor showing us his rice milling machine...

Keiko showing Ethan her garden...

This time, Mr. Kevin had borrowed a friend's rice harvesting machine and so while Mr. Kevin and the kids were using the machine, the rest of us continued to harvest by hand.   On this day, I tried my hand at tying the bundles - you take 3-4 pieces of rice straw, wrap it around the bundle 2-3 times and then twist the ends of the rice straw together, tucking it tightly into the straw band to keep it all together.  It's hard to get the rice straw tight enough but not so tight that you are in pain trying to tuck the end of the rice straw into the other piece.  You then hang it on the drying rack, where it dries for a week or so before moving on to the threshing and milling process.

Step 4.  Gather all the bundles and carefully carry them to the drying rack.

Step 5.  Hang the rice bundles on the drying rack.

Ryan taking a break from frog-catching...

And having fun trying to carry as many rice bundles as his little arms could carry.

Mr. Kevin showing Ethan and Ikki how to use the rice harvesting machine...

Ethan taking a turn with the machine - let's just say it wasn't a very straight line of rice harvested...

After our last few hours in the rice field, we headed to the river to play for a little while before heading back to Tokyo - this time by bus and then shinkansen.  We tried to pay Mr. Kevin and Keiko for their amazing hospitality (again, we had never met them before), the lodging, the food, the gas, the homemade goodies prepared by Mr. Kevin's wife, but the most he would accept was 5,000 yen (and this was after much, much convincing).

By the time we got home, the boys and I were exhausted but so incredibly happy with our rice harvesting adventure!

Playtime at the river - with lots of rock-skipping thrown in...

Headed home on the shinkansen...

And look - who made the trek back to Tokyo?  One (and only one) of Ryan's many frogs.
He is now Ryan's pet and requires regular meals of live bugs that Ryan has to catch for him...