京都市でのお花見 Flower Viewing in Kyoto

そして、大阪城公園に行った翌日に伝統的な京都市でお花見をしに行きました。祗園で舞妓さんを見かけて、桜もきれいだったし、とても楽しかったです。丸山公園の桜も満開で、人がいっぱいでした。

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Then the day after I went to Osaka Castle Park I went to traditional Kyoto City to do some more flower viewing. In Gion I saw some Maiko, and the cherry blossoms there were also very beautiful. In Maruyama Park, the flowers were also in full bloom so there were a lot of people.

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冬の気分 It Feels Like Winter

土曜日の夜雨が降っていたので、日曜日の朝に起きたとき、窓から外へ見て、雪が積もっていたのはすごくびっくりしました。今まで精華町に住んで、２年目の冬ですのに、初めて雪が積もることでした。約５ｃｍしか積もってなかったが、すごいけれいと思っていました。

そして、その冬の気分で、友達と一緒に京都市の西京極にあるアイススケート場に行きました。なんとか、今までの人生は一回もアイススケートをしたことがありませんでした。だから、初めてでした。一発目は怖いと思っていたが、頑張って三時間をスケートしたら滑れるようになりました。勿論、倒りましたが、楽しい経験でした。

This past Saturday night it was raining all night long so when I woke up and looked out the window to see snow covering everything on Sunday morning I was really surprised. This is the second winter that I have lived in Seika Town but this was the first time I have seen snow covering the ground. There was only about 5cm of snow covering cars and in the rice fields, but I thought it looked really beautiful.

So with that feeling of winter, my friends and I went to the ice skating rink in Nishi Kyogoku, Kyoto City. Somehow I have made it this far in my life without ever once having ice skated, so this was my first time. When I first stepped onto the ice it was really scary and I didn’t even see how I would start. But we were there for about 3 hours so by the end I was able to skate fairly well. Of course I fell down, but all in all it was a fun experience.

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楽農体験ツアー （稲刈り） Agricultural Experience Tour (Rice Harvesting)

平成１９年６月９日（土）に僕が初めて参加した「楽農体験ツアー」の話をこのブログに載せました。その時は精華町乾谷区内水田ほ場で田植えを活動しました。農業体験のない僕はかなり興味深くて裸足で田んぼに入って、昔のように手で田植えしてみました。そして、先週末その同じ田んぼに収穫しに行きました。山田荘地域農場づくり協議会事務局及び精華町役場事業部産業振興課が主催される毎年のイベントで、今年は約４０人が参加しました。若い子からお年寄りの方も来て、楽しい経験になりました。
On June 9th, 2007 I participated in the Agricultural Experience Tour which I have written about in this blog. At that time we planted rice at the Inuidani Farm. Having never had any agricultural experience I was pretty interested in trying it out, so I jumped in the muddy field barefoot and planted rice by hand like in the old days. Then last weekend I went back to the same field to harvest the rice that I helped plant. The Agricultural Experience Tour is organized by the Yamadasho Regional Agriculture Association and the Seika Town Industry Promotion Division and is held every year. This year there were about 40 participants ranging from young children to senior citizens. It was a fun experience for everyone.

今回も昔のように手で稲刈りをしました。以外としんどかったです。稲刈りしてから、コンバインに入れて、米が自動に袋に集まっていきました。終わった時に収穫出来た量にびっくりしました。その面積の田んぼで最もいっぱいとれると思いました。約９つの３０キログラムの袋が収穫できました。大体４人の家族の一年分と聞きました。そして、稲刈りをしながら木村町長が偶然にいらっしゃって頂いて、素敵なスーツの格好で思い切って田んぼに入って、皆さんと握手なさいました。
This time we harvest the rice by hand like they did in the old days. It was much more tiring than I would have thought. After cutting the rice plants by hand we fed the plants into a combine machine and the rice grains were automatically separated from the reeds and neatly sifted into bags. When we finished I was surprised by the amount of rice we were able to harvest. I thought that for a rice field of that size we would get a lot more rice. We ended up getting about nine 30kg bags of rice. I was told that that would be enough to fed a family of four for one year. Also while we were harvesting the rice Mayor Kimura unexpectedly showed up and daringly jumped into the muddy rice field in his nice business suit to shake hands with everyone who was working.

収穫がおわってから、乾谷ファミリに炊き込み御飯と漬物をいただきました。田んぼで苦労をしたから食べ物がとても美味しかったです。今年楽農体験ツアーに参加してよかったなと思います。来年皆さん参加いかがですか！
After we finished all the work the Inuidani Family treated us to takikomi rice (rice steamed with vegetables) and tsukemono (pickled vegetables). After laboring in the fields the food tasted really good. I am really glad that I participated in the Agricultural Experience Tour this year. Next year why don’t you join in too!

Summer in Japan

Being that it's the middle of July and super hot here in Kyoto it would seem obvious that it's already summer, but to me I only really know its summer in Japan when the festivals start. Recently I went to the Tanabata Festival in neighboring Kizugawa City.

To me it really feels like summer when I can go to a festival where the streets are lined with vendors selling all sorts of typical Japanese foods like, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, karage and other such treats. The day of the festival was pretty hot and humid and with so many people packed into the streets it only increased the heat. But its so nice to walk down the rows of food vendors smelling the different foods and maybe drinking a cold beer. The best part of the whole thing is that most of the young children were dressed up in colorful yukata (a light summer version of the traditional kimono). At the festival there were large decorations were people had written down their wishes for the future (see above picture), one such wish was for world peace.

With the smell of grilled foods and tons of people out creating a lively atmosphere it really made me realize how much fun summer in Japan can be despite the oppresive humidity.

Cherry Blossom Viewing (Ohanami) Part I

The highly anticipated cherry blossom viewing season is finally upon us! In just the last week the weather has made a dramatic shift from cold and bitter winter to warm and sunny spring. Ushering in spring is my favorite part of living in Japan; cherry blossom viewing which is called ohanami in Japanese. Almost everywhere you look you can see beautiful white and pink sakura (cherry blossoms). Parks, streets, rivers, and temples are usually lined with sakura trees so for the short lived two weeks or so that they are blossoming everything looks even more gorgeous. But as much as I love the beauty of it all the real reason why I love this time of year is for the ohanami parties.

Most often held in parks, a ohanami party involves food, friends, drinks, nice weather, beautiful scenery and lots of fun. Everyone brings out a big blue tarp and lays it out on the grass underneath the cherry blossom trees with BBQ, snacks and drinks. Its totally acceptable to drink beer or anything else in the park and people often bring music and games as well. For the next couple of weeks I will be trying to enjoy the sakura and ohanami parties as much as possible and I will surely end up with hundreds of photos of the flowers and fun which I will post here for all to see!

My first opportunity came this past Saturday when I went with a friend to Maruyama Park in Kyoto City. It was a really warm day even though it was cloudy. The sakura were not in full bloom yet but there were still plenty of blossoms to see. Also just walking around Kawaramachi and Gion in Kyoto there were plenty of beautiful sites and photos to be taken everywhere you look.

Irrational Fear?

A large majority of Japanese people that I know have a dislike of crows. This can range from a slight distaste to hatred all the way to a seemingly irrational deep down fear of the beady eyed dark creatures. This is understandable as well as unfortunate as there are crows everywhere in Japan. They congregate in parks, lurk in alleyways and feed out of trash cans. I personally never had anything against them and while there is something distinctly ominous about crows I never feared or hated them. But all that changed just the other day.

On Sunday I was in Kyoto City sitting by the Kamo River in Sanjyo just enjoying the scenery and watching the people. I was waiting for a friend and had some time to kill before we went out to eat so I got a rice-ball snack (onigiri) from the convenience store. On occasion I eat onigiri but I am not a huge fan of them, but this onigiri was by far the best one I have ever had. It was a fried rice onigiri with shrimp, egg and pork on the inside. I had taken only two bites and was commenting to myself how unusually good this particular onigiri was when all of a sudden there was a loud noise and the onigiri disappeared from my hand! I was essentially looking in the same direction as my lovely rice ball but I had seen nothing. The noise was like a whoosh-smack and was accompanied by a slight pain in my now onigiri-less hand.

The shock, fear and pain momentarily confused me but I soon realized what happened when I saw the ruthless gang of crows having a bird feeding frenzy with my onigiri only 10 feet in front of me. If you haven’t deciphered the story by now, one of those little ruffians swooped out of the air and snatched my onigiri right out of my upraised hand, nearly taking my finger with it. After the shock subsided I was full of rage at the conniving feathered thieves for having committed beaked-robbery of the best onigiri I had ever had (and had only taken two bites of). But as I was surrounded by passers-by who probably didn’t even notice the brutal rice-ball snatching I figured I would be the one that looked like a lunatic if I tried to exact my revenge upon them there. So I sat with my pain and anger which eventually lead me from thoughts of murderous revenge to a slight respect for the cunning, precision heist that they had pulled off. I mean that crow swooped out of the sky right in front of my face and skillfully ripped the rice-ball out of my hand without me even seeing anything. And while there was some pain in the finger no blood was drawn and no evidence to show of the attack. While I still can't forgive them their trespass I have to admit a certain amount of awe at their artful larceny.

So now I join the Japanese in their dislike of the dark angels of theft. For now I will never be able to enjoy my onigiri in peace whilst those hooligans are about.