Oh my. Much time has passed since we actually had this rural Japanese adventure, but it is one of my favorites so I'd like to share it with you despite the time lapse (we had this adventure in May 2014).
You may recall that last fall (actually fall 2013) the boys and I ventured to the village of Sakae-mura to help with rice harvesting. It was fabulous.
We had grand plans to visit again in the spring to help with the rice-planting in the field of our new friend, Mr. Kevin, but unfortunately he decided not to plant rice this year. Mr. Kevin tried to find a friend who might like some "help" with their rice planting, but since most of the village are 80+ year old Japanese farmers who are very serious about their rice, none of them were interested in the "help" of some random Americans. Not that surprising, really.
So instead of planting rice, Mr. Kevin invited us to attend the village "festival" celebrating that everyone in the village had finished planting their rice. Not a bad deal for us. We just joined the party without doing the hard work of rice planting. It's called the Takenoko Festival and everyone (and by everyone, I really mean "men") goes into the mountains to harvest the young bamboo, the bamboo is prepared, and then everyone (and by everyone, I really mean "women") make huge pots of sansai (wild vegetable stew) with the freshly harvested bamboo. It's then a village potluck that includes a lot of sake! All to celebrate finishing the hard work of rice-planting.
So, we made the trek to the small village of Sakae-mura and made a weekend of it. First leg of our journey was by shinkansen, and last part was by small rural train. Beautiful ride through villages, forests, and along the river.
When we arrived in Sakae-mura, we were planning to have lunch at the one restaurant in the village, but alas it was closed, forcing us to try and create a weekend of meals from some very limited provisions at the corner store (as in, less than 1/5 the size of your average convenience store). That was a challenge, but no one went hungry so it worked out ok.
We headed to set up "camp" in a clearing in the woods near some sort of village shrine structure. I'm not exactly sure what it is/was, but Mr. Kevin took us there so we rolled with it. As is par for the course, Ryan was searching for frogs and other such creatures while Ethan soaked up the fun of camping.
After our makeshift camping dinner, we walked to the village bath to get cleaned up and soak in the hot water. Not a bad way to end our first day of camping... and the boys love going to the public bath (it's waaaay more fun than taking a regular bath at our house).
Early the next morning, we headed to the village shrine to meet the village men for takenoko harvesting. We hitched a ride in the back of a neighbor's truck and headed up the mountain to an "easy" harvesting spot. We got the instructions from Mr. Kevin and headed out to harvest some baby bamboo!
After filling our bags with bamboo, we headed back to the village shrine and joined in the bamboo cleaning process. This was my favorite part!
After a bit, the soup was ready, everyone started to gather with their potluck goods (Mr. Kevin's wife very graciously made 2 dishes since we were joining them), and we all sat on the ground and started the potluck party.
After the delicious soup and other assorted Japanese village delicacies, we knew our time in Sakae-mura was quickly coming to an end. We wandered through the rice fields for a bit before we had to catch the mid-afternoon train (there are only 2 trains per day) and head home to Tokyo.
Yet another fun-filled exploration of a different part of Japan!
You may recall that last fall (actually fall 2013) the boys and I ventured to the village of Sakae-mura to help with rice harvesting. It was fabulous.
We had grand plans to visit again in the spring to help with the rice-planting in the field of our new friend, Mr. Kevin, but unfortunately he decided not to plant rice this year. Mr. Kevin tried to find a friend who might like some "help" with their rice planting, but since most of the village are 80+ year old Japanese farmers who are very serious about their rice, none of them were interested in the "help" of some random Americans. Not that surprising, really.
So instead of planting rice, Mr. Kevin invited us to attend the village "festival" celebrating that everyone in the village had finished planting their rice. Not a bad deal for us. We just joined the party without doing the hard work of rice planting. It's called the Takenoko Festival and everyone (and by everyone, I really mean "men") goes into the mountains to harvest the young bamboo, the bamboo is prepared, and then everyone (and by everyone, I really mean "women") make huge pots of sansai (wild vegetable stew) with the freshly harvested bamboo. It's then a village potluck that includes a lot of sake! All to celebrate finishing the hard work of rice-planting.
So, we made the trek to the small village of Sakae-mura and made a weekend of it. First leg of our journey was by shinkansen, and last part was by small rural train. Beautiful ride through villages, forests, and along the river.
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| The 2 car train... but the train splits at some point so that only 1 train car travels to Sakae-mura. |
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| Wildflowers on the short walk from the train "station" to the village |
We headed to set up "camp" in a clearing in the woods near some sort of village shrine structure. I'm not exactly sure what it is/was, but Mr. Kevin took us there so we rolled with it. As is par for the course, Ryan was searching for frogs and other such creatures while Ethan soaked up the fun of camping.
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| Our fabulous new friend, Mr. Kevin (he's from Michigan), who has been living in this village for years (with his Japanese wife) |
After our makeshift camping dinner, we walked to the village bath to get cleaned up and soak in the hot water. Not a bad way to end our first day of camping... and the boys love going to the public bath (it's waaaay more fun than taking a regular bath at our house).
After filling our bags with bamboo, we headed back to the village shrine and joined in the bamboo cleaning process. This was my favorite part!
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| Fresh bamboo soup in the making... |
After the delicious soup and other assorted Japanese village delicacies, we knew our time in Sakae-mura was quickly coming to an end. We wandered through the rice fields for a bit before we had to catch the mid-afternoon train (there are only 2 trains per day) and head home to Tokyo.
Yet another fun-filled exploration of a different part of Japan!
What a great adventure - thanks for the post! I can't wait to take the kids camping, but I'm afraid all my camping gear will have to be upgraded from 10 years ago!
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