Kusunoki Farm

So Kobe was fun - we were only there for one night, and we just kind of explored. There wasn't really anything we HAD to see so we just went to a few places and tried to get lost. We found an awesome little vegetarian restaurant (even though kobe is known for its beef... it was too expensive for our current budgets) and had a lovely lunch, and continued walking around the more worthwile parts of the city. When we got back that night we watched a harry potter movie, which was a welcomed break from the constant moving around.
Our new farm is amazing. It was a little weird when we first arrived - we were picked up from the train station (apparently we went to the wrong one, but it was not our fault), given a quick tour of the house and left alone for about four hours because everyone was out doing various things. So we hung out in the living room alone and waited for people to come home. We spend the majority of our time with Mariko, a woman who is 55 and sooo fun and funny. Her daughter Ayaiko and daughter-in-law Mihoko both speak english very well, and it is really nice being able to talk to them. Mihoko has two kids, Daichi (a six year old boy) and Aoi (a four year old girl), they are very sweet and we spend a lot of time with them as well. The family has a store, and they work normally at least until 10 each night, so we don't really see the men or all of the cousins very often. Their property includes a community garden, and Mariko has turned it into a cultural center as well. One of the gardeners is a pottery instructor, so there is a pottery class on saturdays, one member is a yoga teacher, so there is a yoga class once a month, one is a weaver... and so on. We got very lucky in that we were here for both a pottery and a yoga class. Yoga was more like streching and moving, and it was pretty cold out. But nice regardless. Pottery was wonderful. The three of us and about eight older ladies all attended suzie's class, which we held in our garage. This week we made small houses that you place a candle in.
Our first job on the farm was to decorate the house "american style"... so it started out looking like a cheap motel, with lights flashing in such a way it could give one a seizure. We made some improvements yesterday. Other jobs have included: harvesting potatos, planting onions, planting trees (one named after each of us...), weeding, packing and prepping the compost (jumping on the 6 foot high pile - adding oil - jumping again,) helping with an english class (more like a giggle fest, on both of our ends... really fun), and various other things. oh, and another "burn" (fire) - thankfully this time we only burned wood and paper (and sweet potatos in tin foil, yumm). We were also told on the first day that wwoofers make something to leave at the house.... so we are making a bench. A few days ago we sorted through a huge pile of scrap wood, found some power and hand tools and started. Not done yet, but it is looking pretty good so far, and very sturdy (we are rather proud). Yesterday was our day off and we went to the Himeji Castle. It was beasutiful and we went to the top of the main tower... for some reason being there made me feel very calm and at peace. Today we cut down and stripped about 200 bamboo trees, and cut them into six foot poles to be used in the garden. It was pretty hard work, but fun. And Mariko took us to a cheap sushi place for lunch, so that was a nice treat. We need to make 500 bamboo poles, so i think that is probably the plan for tomorrow as well.
I am going to try to write on this more often - that way the posts hopefully won't be as long and boring. Generalizing the past is never as interesting as what is going on at present. Anyway, a few neat things I like about Japan: the vending machines all dispense cold AND hot drinks, there is one laundry machine to do the washing AND drying, on some of the trains the seats automatically turn around so one always faces forward, the camaras on cell phones are legit camaras (like 5 mega pixels) and the phones can scan bar codes and take you to websites automatically. Thats all I can think of right now, but there are definitely more, will try to remember....