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.