Harvesting Rice in the Mountains

Last weekend we were invited to one of Sid's colleague's mountain house for the annual rice harvest.  All in all we had a wonderful time.  To get to the mountain house (1.5 hours north of Tokyo by bullet train--"shinkansen"--and about one hour by car from Nagano) we took the bullet train.  This train goes as fast as a propeller plane and is quite an experience. There are women dressed like flight attendants who bring around a cart of food items for sale. We had seats in the reserved section so before we got on the "flight attendants" tidied up and put fresh cloths on the seat backs for us to put our heads against. The bullet train leaves from Tokyo Station, the largest station in Japan.

Sid and our kind host, Hisako on the bullet train. Note Sid's soda.  Sam was carrying the Coke and evidently shook it up. When Sid opened it it sprayed out and he caught it by wrapping his sweater around it.  Also note the window with the scenery flying past.

The country life--here in the mountains there were few apartments and many houses.  This scene is of rice fields. The rice is gathered and then hung out to dry--you can see it draped over what is essentially a long wooden fence.

The rice fields are very pretty.

 The Pash family getting ready to work in the rice field.  The fields are quite muddy and so we purchased a combination of rain boots and cheap tennis shoes for the trip.  Ironically, Sam ended up with camo boots.  We have managed to purchase nearly nothing in camoflauge since moving to Fayetteville but in Tokyo could only find camo boots in Sam's size!

 More rice field.

 The Pash family working in the rice field. I am very glad that this was just a symbolic thing--the emperor plants and harvests a symbolic amount of rice and so did we.  If we had had to harvest the whole field, I think I would have died. It was rather warm out and essentially what you do is bend over, separate one clump of rice from the rest, cut it off near the ground with a curved instrument (sort of a smaller version of the grim reaper's tool), carry that clump to the side and lay it the same direction as the other clumps already there. Then you walk back and do it again.  In the old days, this is how it was done. Now, you harvest a small amount as a symbolic gesture and let the machines do the rest.  This rice field is part of a coop that our hosts belong to. It is used to make sake and each member of the coop gets a certain number of bottles of sake made from this particular rice. Not all rice or sake is the same, though.  The best rice is the rice dried in the fields under the sun.  It has more flavor. The rice dried by machines losing something.  So, field owners dry the rice they plan to keep for themselves in the sun and dry the rice to be sold by machine.  At dinner before the day of the harvest, we tasted last year's sake (rice wine).  It has less flavor than grape wine and is drunk in little sake cups (like shots).  And, the Japanese drink many "shots" of sake.

 Working up an appetite?

 Our hosts at the rice field.

 I love this picture of a rice field.  It is all swirly like a Van Gogh painting.

 After the rice cutting was done--Melinda, Sam, and Graham with Hisako, her husband, son and daughter in law, and grandkids. Sam became very fond of the little girl who is 5.  They played together all day--and despite the language barrier really got along well. Perhaps they got along so well because of the language barrier!  :) At any rate, when we had to leave the little girl cried and cried inconsolably and Sam kept saying, "I live in Tokyo!"

 All along the roads and rice fields in the mountains you see clumps of cosmos like this.  It is beautiful.

 After the rice harvesting was done for the day, the group had a BBQ at a public park.  Sam especially was very hungry and excited. It did not turn out well for him, however. One of the organizers had caught hundreds of freshwater fish from a river near his home and stuck sticks through the whole, uncleaned, fish.  These were then roasted over a fire. Sam was appalled. He would not even stay at the BBQ because people were eating the fish whole, eyes, scales, bones and all.  So, we took a walk down to Hisako's friend's home, Professor Kido.  Professor Kido's husband is an artist and makes beautiful sculptures out of stainless steel. Their mountain home is his workplace. It's a really neat house.  The bottom floor is the workshop and then upstairs is a big, open home. The whole scene reminded me of something you would expect to find in France or Italy. Mountain scenery with a big open house looking out over it all. Also, their son works with stone so the whole place is filled with art.  Professor Kido teaches Greek history, but she makes jewelry and has several tile mosaics she has made on the walls.  When Sam and I were there looking around at the art, Professor Kido asked us what was wrong. She and her husband set up tables for Sam and I under big, festive umbrellas in the backyard overlooking the mountains and the volcano.  She brought out a big bowl of fruit and several types of drinks for us. Sam was very happy. We sat and munched on fruit in the garden and then we hunted for frogs until the BBQ was over.

 My favorite of Professor Kido's husband's sculptures.

 From another view.

 Sam displaying one of the trillions of frogs he caught at Professor Kido's.

 The frog up close. There were many types of frogs--green, white, brownish. There were also an amazing number of dragonflies. Sam's little friend was able to capture the dragonflies by spinning her finger around in a circle and then stretching her finger out for the dragonfly to land on. 

 Professor Kido and the kids in her kitchen. In addition to big sculptures, Professor Kido's husband has made an assortment of stainless steel puzzles. The kids really enjoyed these. Even Graham!  The box is full of the cookies that saved my life. I was starving after just a little fruit and not much else. So, I ate green tea cookies. They were like oreos sort of without the chocolate. They were quite tasty. 

 The view from Sam and my table under the umbrellas at Professor Kido's house.

 This is my favorite picture. Upon learning Sam's disinclination to eat Japanese food or meat, Professor Kido put together a dinner party for our family, the Greek professor visiting Kyoritsu this month, and several students here in Japan (including a Korean-Australian girl who spoke like an Aussie, her Greek-Venezuelan boyfriend, who spoke like a Venezuelan, and a Japanese girl). All in all there were about 20 of us at the party.  It gets dark much earlier in the mountains than in Tokyo. Here in Tokyo the sun sets about 7:30 each day, but in the mountains it was dark by about 6. This picture was taken after dinner at night without a flash. I love the flowers highlighted by the lights below.  We had pasta with tomato sauce and salad. Sam loved it. Sid and Fumi (our host's son) were late because in the night (did I mention we slept on futons--quite comfortable--a futon is a tatami mat on the floor covered with lots of fluffy bedding) Fumi and I were stung by bees. So, Sid and Fumi went to gather our things from the house and discovered a bees' nest as big as a watermelon and had to call the exterminator.  I was lucky only to have suffered one sting.  But, that made them late for the party.  The sauce was cooked in the kitchen, but the pasta was boiled outside. The Japanese often have ingenious ways of cooking. In this case, Professor Kido's husband has a "stove" heated by fire outside.

Sam and his friend.