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!
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