Japan Week 2 - On the organic rice farm

Japan Travel Map

Click on this Japan map link to see the detailed route and the main towns. http://www.travellerspoint.com/member_map.cfm?itinid=189101&tripid=189101

Bye to the Organic Farm

It was a wonderful time with gorgeous happy, generous people and we did a lot of laughing. The work was easy, very varied and really interesting. They run a restaurant on the farm, so the food was ridiculously good, and they took us to an onsen (three different ones) every night, so we could get really clean, soak our weary muscles, and go home to sleep like logs. We were incredibly sad to say goodbye to ourgorgeous new friends. Had a totally unbelievable dinner on the last night (7 June) followed by a rotemburo (outdoor bath) at a fantastic ryokan. Set in a forest and garden with beautiful old style timber houses, natural rock and laterns in the trees. Bliss. One week of heaven for nothing....

How to Plant Rice

Put on your stupidest hats

Head on down to the rice field with the mob of happy planters

Say hello to TOTORO on the way

Get 'nude' feet

Listen to Mattchan's very comprehensive tuition for planting rice in Japanese, followed by a condensed English version: 'Roots' *pretends to poke roots into soil. 'Unh'

Then watch Grandma, who was 60 years of experience, to get the idea.

Basically, the job is to fill in any gaps left by the rice-planting machine.

(Don't rely on the slack farmers- they're just chatting on the phone and smiling for the camera!)

Take a tray of seedlings and get started!

Slip into the warm, soft mud

Walk along the rows and fill in the gaps

Follow the beautiful curving rows

You poke this much in

Look back and admire the day's work

Pile into the back of the ute to head home

Cook up a storm

Tempura platter

Have an Enkai 'banquet' to celebrate the end of the planting

Relax your weary muscles in a local onsen- sorry, no pictures of that bit!

More Photos from the farm

4 June 2009 - at the farm: Lynda and Hilary have been in the fields planting rice in bare feet!! They are filling in by hand areas that the machine cannot reach. Apparently the grandmother (in her 70's) is a legend at rice planting and gardening. They seem to spend a lot of time at the local onsen (hot baths) where they scrub up each evening. Only limited internet access (one computer, many potential users, apparently).

3 June 2009: It is basically a party here now. Heavy rain so no rice planting for the moment. Lots of people visiting, all going to the onsen before dinner. Japanese people are SO FUNNY! We are being driven by a girl named Sayori, a sort of Japanese version of Ana (Rob's friend). She smiles a lot and she just said "I am a safety driver"!! (sent by SMS). Lynda said there is a 17km canal that bring water to the forest and farm that was built many years ago. It is very wet and grey in Fukuoka - it rains a lot!

1-2 June 2009 - at the farm

We caught a bus to Minami Oguni, where we were collected and taken to “Applemint”, where we will spend the week WWOOFING – (working on organic fams for food and board) with Shiochisan and his wife Kyokosan, and workers Mattsune, Shiori (Hilary thinks she is a Japanese version of Ana) and Umi. People are extremely happy and friendly and the place is peaceful.

Very keen to hear about Australia, lots of language swapping and laughing. Also very elderly parents who are expert gardeners and speak a strange local dialect Hilary cannot understand. They are so kind and friendly and happy and easy going. They grow rice, herbs, blueberries and veges, and they have a restaurant, make their own preserves, package their own rice and make rice wine, have a little farm shop and work extremely hard. And all it's all organic. Fantastic. (Take that, Walkers!) Our first jobs have been sorting husks out of red rice and brown (wild) rice, and weeding long beds of ginger. Tonight after an incredible home grown and cooked meal in the family kitchen, we all went to a local onsen for a bath and gave the women there plenty to talk about!

I am now sitting on the verandah of the restaurant, surrounded by the sound of water flowing down the mountain, into the channels which feed about twenty terraced rice fields, stepping down the hillside. There are blueberry bushes all around, little paths between vegetable and herb gardens and no other houses in sight, just range upon range of forested mountains, of the most amazing shapes. Spent the day going with Kyoko san to Mt Aso, an active volcano with a huge crater, spectacularly bright bluey/yellow bubbling water with steam rising in clouds and willy-willies. It is the rest day, because the weekends are busy in the restaurant. Tomorrow we will be planting rice!

Lynda described the farm as a series of rice paddys terraced down a hill and surrounded by forest. Water is continually pouring out of the forest and into the paddys. They are living in shipping containers surrounds by what sounds like a million frogs!! The farm has been in the family for many many generations and grandparents, parents and kids all live there.

1 June 2009 - Beppu to the farm

A very early start to catch the Trans - Kyushu Limited Express train. Loving how even the newer trains feature beautiful timber, this one in it's beautiful floor and seat-back tables. The “Sonic” has overhead lockers like a plane, all in timber. Passes 30 – 40 people on bikes at each level crossing, waiting patiently, as Japanese people are exceptionally good at doing. The train climbed through stunning scenery, forests and terraced rice fields, tunnels and bridges taking us high into the centre of the island to the Aso area, the largest volcanic caldera in the world.