Yamagata go Home

I got there. Didn't get lost. Spiders haven't gotten me. Ok, we've taken care of those questions.

The geisha performance was held in an ancient house, a few hundred years old. The girls were actually called Maiko, which is we would consider traditional geisha. All dolled up with white makeup and silk dresses, they danced while an older lady played a samisen, a traditional Japanese guitar. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the performance, but I was able to snag some after. It's not your typical rock concert, but definitely still an experience.

After making it back to home sweet home, there was only a day until the local food festival. Sam and fam's specialty this year was cherry curry, using their own cherries. I spent the next morning chopping onions and garlic, making a huuuuge portion of the curry to sell at the festival. 500 yen a pop. I also helped out with the sign making. I'm sure my signs are really what attracted the customers.

The day of the festival was the hottest day in the history of ever. Unfortunately curry is one of the last things you want to eat on a hot day, but we still sold a good amount. Nao signed me up for a soba making class during the festival. For such a simple looking noodle, those puppies take a lot of effort to make. My kneading skills are a little rusty, but my knifework was top notch. The knife we used was pretty epic too. It's a shame that soba is the only thing you use it for, because that would make a great souvenir. After a sticky, doughy mess everything turned out alright in the end, and we all got to eat soba along with the curry for lunch.

That's not the only culinary adventure I had recently. The next day we harvested the potato fields. Sam and fam wanted me to cook something before I left, so I decided to take advantage of the fresh potatoes and cook some gnocchi. It was incredibly, amazingly mediocre (I think they might have been the wrong kind of potatoes for the job), but my improvised Alfredo went over rather nicely. I was just happy to finally eat some cheese. It's been too long...

In the days that followed I continued the last of my work. I weeded my last paddy, dug my last ditch, and cleared my last field. I took my last onsen, ate my last meal, and drank my last beer. I went to the rose garden one last time and finally climbed to the top of the nearby mountain that had a huge bell. I rang it to let all of Murayama know I'd be leaving soon. Not sure if I was supposed to do that, but I did it anyway. What are they gonna do, kick me out of town?

I said goodbye to Sam and the fams, finally giving them my invaluable gifts from America: a picture of the Balboa fun zone and some jelly bellies. I also spent a while trying to explain what ranch dressing is to Sam, and defending the glorious meal of pancakes and bacon. Maybe someday he'll get over to America and figure out that we aren't all crazy. Just some of us. I'm going to miss them (maybe even Jerry a little bit), but its time to go home. So that's it, I'm about to leave the Yamagata prefecture and get on the bullet train bound for Tokyo one last time before I jump across the pond. Stay tuned for a final update in the coming days!

Scaring Children is Mountains of Fun.

There's no shortage of things to do on the farm. I could talk about the weeding, the different kinds of weeds, and hoe one looks exactly like a rice plant. I could talk about the different kinds of rice, how you grow them, or how you drain the paddies, but that's a rather dry subject. I think I'll talk about the local festivities and all the leisure activities I've been up to instead. You can thank me later.

Ok, I take that back. I WILL tell you a bit about one of the homemade specialties here on the farm, the umiboshi. They are these small pickled plums that you leave out to dry for a few days. They're really orange, salty, and sour. I can't eat more than one. Apparently they're healthy for you, but I swear they contain a week's worth of salt in one bite.

Ok, now work is out of the way. A few days ago this little town had a festival. Not just any festival, but a haunted house festival. They close off the main road so vendors can sell food and they convert one building into a haunted house everyone can go through. As luck would have it, Yoo was in charge if the while thing. What did that mean for me? Why, I could go drink beer and scare the children.

I went up to the second floor dressing room of the haunted house, and the only costume that would fit me was a many eyed Godzilla like costume. Seemed like it would get the job done. I proceeded to hide around the corners of the haunted house and jump out at unsuspecting children. It was perfect. I stood outside for a while too and acted like a monster. The kids caught wind I was from america, so they all came to check me out.

I've had a couple days off so far, and wouldn't you know it, I decided to climb some mountains. The first one, Yamadera, was only a couple hours away by train. There's a big path on the mountain that people climb up to get to the temple on top. Once at the top, the view is stunning. It's high enough to see the whole town below, but close enough to still see individual people going about their daily lives. There may be a few spiders and snakes along the way, but it was definitely worth it.

The second of my two lovely mountains is called Haguro-san. This one required one train and two buses to get to, totalling at about 4 hours. This was a more intense mountain. The 2446 stone steps had 33 little carvings of random items on them. If a pilgrim finds them all, it is said their dreams will come true. I searched for them, but let's just say my dreams aren't coming true any time soon.

At the top is a plethora of shrines, but the real treat lies in Saikan, the temple turned guesthouse. I opted to spend the night at the top of the mountain, and there were only 4 other guests. While you're there they treat you to dinner and breakfast if traditional monk food. It's about 12 plates of random mostly vegetarian chow. I had no clue what most of it was, but it wasn't half bad. There was some sort of savory flan, and what I believed to be white asparagus of sorts (I later confirmed this was the case. If you know how I did that, urine on the secret).

I'll leave it at that for now. I left the guesthouse at the top of mount Haguro to try and meet Sam and fam on the coast for a geisha performance. Will I get there? Will I get lost? Will the spiders finally get me? Tune in next time, when all these questions, and more, are bound to be answered!

Rice Guys Finish Last

The Japanese take their rice farming pretty seriously.

After getting all gear up in my rice paddy boots, hat, and long sleeve shirt (you need that otherwise the plants irritate your skin), Sam turns to me and asks "Do you have any leeches in America?" I guess leeches like the rice paddies. Luckily for me, they also love gaijin. Hooray. I've seen a bunch so far, but no direct contact yet, knock on wood. Well, I would knock on wood, but I don't want to disturb the spider city outside my hut.

I'll go ahead and us that as a transition to talk abut the arachnid situation. There are no spiders in my hut, but there are a certified metric ton right outside. There are too many to kill (I'd only make them angry), and I don't want to destroy their webs lest they try to seek shelter in my home. I'm at an impasse. Forced with no other option, I did what I had to do. I started naming them.

One spider in particulate occupies half of my doorway. I can only open my door halfway, otherwise we'd run into each other. I decided to name him Jerry (Jerry. Rice. Get it?). Every morning before I head to work I give Jerry a proper good morning. It helps me think he's less evil than he really is.

Back to the paddies. The view there is beautiful, albeit way too hot. Their paddies are located on the edge of a mountain, right next to wild forest. Although it makes for a pretty image, being next to the forest also means there are more weeds and spiders. Again, Lucky me.  This is weeding season, and there are a ton of weeds that grow in a rice paddy. One variety looks just like the rice plant itself. I'm not sure how these people do it...

On occasion I'll get the afternoon off. Murayama is a pretty small town so there's not much to do (not quite as bad as Canberra), but one thing they've got going for them is the rose garden. In the valley of the nearby mountains, just a short bike ride away are the rose gardens. This massive area has tons of rose varieties, and they have speakers playing music box-Raquel music nonstop. It feels like you're in a videogame of sorts. June is rose season, so at the moment the place is pretty peaceful. I go there every chance I get.

I'm getting into the swing of things now. I can't say I'm fond of the hard labor in the humid heat, but it's been good so far. Let's just say it's reinforcing my decision to go to business school. I've got a day off tomorrow, so i think I'll ditch this town and find some temples somewhere. You can do that kind of thing here.

Murayama - Spider Capital of the World

Well, I managed to find my destination somehow. After leaving Tokyo on the shinkansen I was supposed to ask around for enerugi no sakai, or the gaijin farmer. Turns out not many people know where that is. I asked a kid at the bus stop, who asked a train station employee, and eventually somebody overheard us and offered to take me to where they thought it was. I forget the guy's name, but he had his son with him and he loved the red hot chili peppers. That's what I gathered through our limited communication anyway.

I don't think I could have found this place on my own. I had to rely on others to help me, but that's ok. When we work together there's no limit to what we can accomplish! Well, we didn't really work together, he did all the work finding this place, but you know what I mean.

I had arrived at my destination. The farm I was destined to pour my soul into, one grain of rice at a time. I walked into the house and met my new family of 10. There is the great grandfather, the grandparents, Nao and Yo, their children. Yo is married to Ikumi and they have two babies, Beijan and Nikko. Sam is married to Nao and they just had Hannah, their first child. Sam has been my correspondence this whole time. He's a former Brita of all things, and he looks exactly like Eminem. He and Nao are the only ones who speak English. Life has been interesting so far.

After introductions over a dinner of homemade cherry curry, Sam showed me to my guesthouse. A quaint little shack outside the main house which stays surprisingly cool in the 100+ heat. But there are about 50 spiders right outside my door.

Murayama must be the spider capital of the world. They are everywhere. Anywhere I walk I need to duck because I'm afraid of hitting a spiderweb. Normally the walkways are fine, but I'm about two feet taller than anybody, and the spiders like to hang out just above a normal person's height. I've never hated being so tall before. The bathroom is outside if the guesthouse, and naturally the road is paved with spiders. I'm too scared to go the bathroom, but being scared makes me have to go to the bathroom. It's a vicious, vicious cycle.

The first day of work wasn't so bad, aside from the 6 oclock departure time. My first day consisted of weeding the soybean field, removing rocks, and protecting all the peaches in their orchard. It was about a 12 hour day. The hours are long, the work is tough, but the people are great. People make all the difference in anything you do. Sam is under the impression that everyone in America is a lunatic with a gun (he hasn't had a lot of US visitors) so I'm on my way to deflecting that stereotype.

After the first day of work we had an extravagant birthday dinner for everyone born in July. They have 3 born in this month, and of course I had to join in. They sang me happy birthday as we feasted on Hokkaido sausage, Yamagata beef, roasted vegetables, and of course rice. Sitting out by the hills and rice paddies at sunset drinking a beer with a huge Japanese family is one of the more interesting experiences I've had the pleasure of enjoying.

Tomorrow is rice paddy work. The real deal. This was apparently the most relaxing day I will have. Better rest up...

Sayonara Tokyo

Before we left the ryokan, Hagi's parents made us a traditional japanese breakfast. A whole fish, cabbage, spiderweb beans, and other goodies. It was exactly what you weren't craving after a night of drinking, but it was still good in its own way.  Hagi dropped us off at our final hotel in Shibuya. As soon as we pulled up, he laughed to himself. Apparently Tyler had booked us a hotel in the gay district of Shibuya. Not only that, but it was an infamous love hotel where people can come and rent a room for a few hours with a significant other for, well, "sleeping". And our hotel, called the New Urban Time and Space hotel, had a convenient acronym. We were staying in a gay love hotel called Nuts. This is the last time I ever trust with reservations.

Fortunately, there were some other gaijin staying here that apparently also didn't get the memo, so our stay wasn't too bad. We rested up a bit and got ready to meet another one of Tyler's connections. For somebody who had never been to Japan, he sure did know a lot of people.

We met up with a lady named Naoko. She's related to the Sony family. You might have heard if them. We went to an Italian restaurant of all places, which was actually pretty good. Naoko ordered for all of us since the menu was in Japanese. We had some pesto mussels, foix gra ( however you spell it), and carpaccio. Horse carpaccio. I can't escape from it. I really can't...

Accompanying us were some sort of politician from the southern prefectures (who thought I was fluent in Japanese because my accent is so impeccable, no joke), and the former foosball champion of Japan, ranked 31st in the world in his heyday.

This guy was crazy good. We found a foosball bar after dinner, which in pretty sure he owned, and played a few rounds together. He does things on a foosball table I've never seen, and his shots are so fast you can't even see them. He introduced the sport to Japan many years ago, and since then he's been involved in international foosball organizations and charity work. Nice guy. And now I've played foosball with the former champion of Japan, and I even scored a goal on him once (just once). I can scratch that off my bucket list.

For our last day in Tokyo Tyler and I saw some more sightseeing at the imperial palace, met some locals to karaoke with, and Ian flew into town. Ian is taking my place for Tyler once I leave. They head south while I head North. Right now I'm sitting in Tokyo station waiting for my bullet train to arrive so I can finally get to the heart of my journey.

I'm not quite sure which train is mine, and once I get to Murayama I'm not too sure what to do. I'm supposed to ask people where the gaijin farmer is and make my way there. I'm almost certain there will be a few stumbles along the way.

Atsuo what I'm talking about.

When we last left our heroes, they were broken and tired after a long pilgrimage up the mighty Fuji. After seeking shelter with Atsuo, they were granted access to a washing machine and a much needed shower. Even though sleep still eluded them, they felt refreshed.

Atsuo welcomed us into his house with open arms. Although he had a family of 6, he still managed to give Tyler and me a room to sleep in.  His father in law, who also lived in the same house, was a professional chef, and he made us an incredible dinner of tempura and sashimi. No horse meat!

Tyler and I went to bed fairly early, as we were tired from a long day and had to leave at 6 the next morning. Atsuo spoke wonderful English (a nice break from Hagi), and his family was friendly, but our time with them was unfortunately slim. At the crack of dawn the next day, Hagi came to pick us up for more nonstop action.

We were headed off to Kusatsu, a few Rod Stewart filled hours south of Tokyo. This was Hagi's hometown, known for the best hot springs in all japan, and we were going to partake in some sort of local festival. I'm still not sure what the festival was about, but there were a lot of noises and drinking.

First, Hagi took us to another mountain. I'm not kidding. Apparently Fuji wasn't enough for this guy. Luckily this one was small, but after climbing Fuji, another mountain is theadt thing you want to see. Unless you're Hagi. Hagi is crazy.

He took us to his parent's ryokan, a traditional Japanese bed and breakfast style place, where we partook in the local bathing customs. After getting squeaky clean Japanese style, we went into town to see a traditional water cooling show. I have no idea what it was about either, but I volunteered to do it also, in which I got a certificate with a stamp. After 5 stamps I apparently get a free prize or something. Nothing made sense, but it was fun!

Ok, now the real party was starting. We dressed in traditional Japanese festival attire, and headed to the center of town. We had to buy these weird toe shoes, but other than that it was all free. We headed back down to the center of town and proceeded to stick out like a couple of gaijin thumbs.

After meeting the mayor, the owner of a golf club, a geisha, a member of the yakuza, and somebody from Canberra of all places, and helping the locals drink all their sake, it was time to work. Tyler and I were tasked with helping to carry a mikoshi. The heaviest thing on this God forsaken planet.

Apparently this festival was broken up into teams, with each team denoted by uniforms carrying a different mikoshi. These were basically just heavy floats carried by 20+ people at a time on their shoulders. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but when you're a foot taller than everyone else, you tend to bear a little more weight than average. A lot more actually. And you have to bend down to be ay level with everyone, but then you step on people's feet. In short, it was a disaster. Nevertheless we survived, and are one step closer to samurai because of it.

Now we're heading back to Tokyo, my final stop before the main event. We've got a couple days to party it up before I become unofficially employed by the rice community of Japan. Just as long as we don't encounter any horse meat, mountains, or heavy objects I should be fine. But as always, we'll just have to wait and see...

I'll sleep when in dead.

We woke up at 7 am the next day to get ready for Fuji, but there was one catch. We weren't climbing Fuji yet. Tyler's family friend, Hagi, picked us up from Tokyo for what we thought would be a Fuji day trip. Nope. We were going to Fuji at night, ad in climbing through the night so we could reach the summit by morning. Well, we should probably just rest the whole day to get ready to climb the country's largest mountain. Wrong again.

We tried to communicate to Hagi that sleep is something you need to function, much less live, and at the very least to climb a mountain.  Well, he had other things in mind. Instead he wanted to show us around more of Tokyo, so we visited the Sony building, got the absolute best tonkatsu I've had in my life, and walked around Shibuya for a few hours. Then, around 5 Hagi picked up his friend Tanaka-san and we headed to dinner at the base of Fuji.

I think I'll take a moment to tell you a bit about Hagi. This guy is a piece of work. He's 60, but he never slows down. He takes Michael Jackson dance lessons, climbs mountains, drives like a maniac, and apparently only listens to his Rod Stewart CD. All. The. Time. He's a great guy, but Hagi-san wa hen desu. He's a bit different.

We ended up at this local noodle house shaped like a dome, where I promptly hit my head on the entrance. My good luck didn't stop there. The menu was completely in Japanese, so our local friends ordered food for us. A big bow of udon noodles, some rice, and raw horse meat. That's right, it came back. As soon as I saw seabiscuit staring at me from the plate, I knew that somebody up there didn't like me very much. But that's fine. I've galluped down that culinary path, and I wad through. Until Tanaka challenged me to eat one. I couldn't back down from that. America was riding on my shoulders. So I saddled up and did my duty. I ate raw horse for the second day in a row.

With full bellies we started our descent to the summit of Fuji around 11 pm. By the way, I brought no mountain climbing clothes whatsoever, so I just wore my flannel short and jeans. That screams "mountain man", right?

Apparently it's a holiday weekend here, and everybody and their mother decided to climb Fuji on the same night. The trails were packed, but that didn't stop our pilgrimage.  After 6 hours we reach the summit (mountain climbing is what the vowel averse might call srs bsnss) to see the sun rise over the Japanese countryside. Was there a word for how beautiful the orange soaked landscape appeared that morning? Probably, but I was too exhausted to formulate words, so I just sat and watched, occasionally fiddling with my camera.

I just want to emphasize this one more time. We didn't sleep that night. Instead we decided to climb a mountain. Not just any mountain. Mt. Fuji. As ridiculous as that is, and believe me it was, it kinda puts certain things into perspective.  It's kinda strange what you can accomplish with a little willpower, perseverance, and a 60 year old Japanese man that doesn't give you any other options.

After 12 straight hours of climbing and descending, the deed was done, the mountain was conquered, and we were incredibly, incredibly sleep deprived. But wait, there's no time for sleep! Hagi had to take us to Atsuo's house near Tokyo. Atsuo is a family friend of my family's friend. I could probably make some sort of Kevin Bacon joke there, but I'm just a tad sleep deprived. I'm sitting in Atsuo's house as I write this. We just arrived and I have yet to meet his family. I just know I'll be looking forward to a nice warm bed tonight...

Trompin through Tokyo takes time. That's true.

Alliterative title aside, Tyler and I have had two VERY long days here in Tokyo. Our flight took off around 1 am at LAX, and our plan was to take a 5 hour energy and stay awake as long as possible to preemptively crush our Japanese jetlag. It worked for me, as I was still wide awake around 5, but little Tyler couldn't stay up past 3. I guess that separates the men from the boys.

Eleven hours later we touched down in Tokyo town at 5 am local time, sufficiently exhausted. We navigated through the metro to our hostel, which wasn't for another few hours, so we had to lug our luggage lugariously (that's not a word, I'm just trying to maintain my alliteracy, which is also not a word) for a few more hours. After our first meal consisting of a deep fried pork hot dog and a strange melon cream soda, we were free to drop off our luggage and explore the temples of Asakusa.

Here's where there's a little twist. After checking out the temple, I realized I had actually been here before. Long time readers might remember Hoshi, the American loving Japanese man who lost his life savings playing pachinko (weird Japanese slots) and took Grant and I to a revolving sushi bar. Well, it was right next to this temple! With a little expert intuitive navigation, I was able to track down the very same restaurant I went to, and four years later, I had another successful sushi meal. Arigato, Hoshi-san!

Other Tokyo adventures so far include trying our luck out on pachinko ( we actually won money somehow...), the fish market where we almost died getting run over, and a "maid" cafe, which we'll just equate to a Japanese hooters.

Also, I accidentally ordered raw horse flesh for breakfast. I don't want to talk about it.

As I'm writing this we're sitting in our hostel waiting for Tyler's Japanese connection, Hagi, to drive us to mount Fuji so we can begin our pilgrimage. His English isn't the best, so it should make for an interesting car ride.

Trompin through Tokyo takes time. That's true.

Alliterative title aside, Tyler and I have had two VERY long days here in Tokyo. Our flight took off around 1 am at LAX, and our plan was to take a 5 hour energy and stay awake as long as possible to preemptively crush our Japanese jetlag. It worked for me, as I was still wide awake around 5, but little Tyler couldn't stay up past 3. I guess that separates the men from the boys.

Eleven hours later we touched down in Tokyo town at 5 am local time, sufficiently exhausted. We navigated through the metro to our hostel, which wasn't for another few hours, so we had to lug our luggage lugariously (that's not a word, I'm just trying to maintain my alliteracy, which is also not a word) for a few more hours. After our first meal consisting of a deep fried pork hot dog and a strange melon cream soda, we were free to drop off our luggage and explore the temples of Asakusa.

Here's where there's a little twist. After checking out the temple, I realized I had actually been here before. Long time readers might remember Hoshi, the American loving Japanese man who lost his life savings playing pachinko (weird Japanese slots) and took Grant and I to a revolving sushi bar. Well, it was right next to this temple! With a little expert intuitive navigation, I was able to track down the very same restaurant I went to, and four years later, I had another successful sushi meal. Arigato, Hoshi-san!

Other Tokyo adventures so far include trying our luck out on pachinko ( we actually won money somehow...), the fish market where we almost died getting run over, and a "maid" cafe, which we'll just equate to a Japanese hooters.

Also, I accidentally ordered raw horse flesh for breakfast. I don't want to talk about it.

As I'm writing this we're sitting in our hostel waiting for Tyler's Japanese connection, Hagi, to drive us to mount Fuji so we can begin our pilgrimage. His English isn't the best, so it should make for an interesting car ride.

Trompin through Tokyo takes time. That's true.

Alliterative title aside, Tyler and I have had two VERY long days here in Tokyo. Our flight took off around 1 am at LAX, and our plan was to take a 5 hour energy and stay awake as long as possible to preemptively crush our Japanese jetlag. It worked for me, as I was still wide awake around 5, but little Tyler couldn't stay up past 3. I guess that separates the men from the boys.

Eleven hours later we touched down in Tokyo town at 5 am local time, sufficiently exhausted. We navigated through the metro to our hostel, which wasn't for another few hours, so we had to lug our luggage lugariously (that's not a word, I'm just trying to maintain my alliteracy, which is also not a word) for a few more hours. After our first meal consisting of a deep fried pork hot dog and a strange melon cream soda, we were free to drop off our luggage and explore the temples of Asakusa.

Here's where there's a little twist. After checking out the temple, I realized I had actually been here before. Long time readers might remember Hoshi, the American loving Japanese man who lost his life savings playing pachinko (weird Japanese slots) and took Grant and I to a revolving sushi bar. Well, it was right next to this temple! With a little expert intuitive navigation, I was able to track down the very same restaurant I went to, and four years later, I had another successful sushi meal. Arigato, Hoshi-san!

Other Tokyo adventures so far include trying our luck out on pachinko ( we actually won money somehow...), the fish market where we almost died getting run over, and a "maid" cafe, which we'll just equate to a Japanese hooters.

Also, I accidentally ordered raw horse flesh for breakfast. I don't want to talk about it.

As I'm writing this we're sitting in our hostel waiting for Tyler's Japanese connection, Hagi, to drive us to mount Fuji so we can begin our pilgrimage. His English isn't the best, so it should make for an interesting car ride.