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.
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| The single track meandering through rural Japan... |
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| View from the train window... |
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| 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...
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| 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.
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Step 2. With one fast movement, use the small cutter to cut the
rice near the base. |
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| Step 3. Tie 2 clumps together so that they are overlapping. |
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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.
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| 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.
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| Our dinner spread... |
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| 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.
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| Early morning view from Keiko's house |
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| Keiko's neighbor showing us his rice milling machine... |
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| 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.
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| Step 4. Gather all the bundles and carefully carry them to the drying rack. |
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| Step 5. Hang the rice bundles on the drying rack. |
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| Ryan taking a break from frog-catching... |
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| And having fun trying to carry as many rice bundles as his little arms could carry. |
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| Mr. Kevin showing Ethan and Ikki how to use the rice harvesting machine... |
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| 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!
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| Playtime at the river - with lots of rock-skipping thrown in... |
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| Headed home on the shinkansen... |
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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... |
