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!