Blog de Pat et LN

3.g Weekend 26, 27 Jan – Iriomote

With Kaori we prepared some bento ( picnic ), wrapped in traditional way using a leaf from Getto.

Then went for a walk in the mountain behind Oohama’s rice fields.

An abandoned road goes a long way up, we even get a nice view back on the rice fields and Kazushige still clearing the evacuation water canals…

But soon enough the road gives way to a path and to thicker and thicker jungle.

Not knowing what we were to expect, we gave up after reaching a small pass.

Still we got to see some amazing nature.

**Otani-Watar**, an edible plant that grows virtually anywhere.

Next day, just the two of us went for some caves that had been roughly pointed out to us…. the description as to how we would find the way was somewhat vague but with details. We got a good cycle to reach the start, and a walk in forest for about 50’…

Then finally found the caves and when done, we realised they were only 4′ from the road, just a bit further down from where we first started.

Some go on, we were told… if you are willing to crawl in water!

On way back we bought some pineapples from one of these self service shelves on the side of roads.

And went for the very touristic star shaped sandy beach.

Just as we were reaching back home, in the village we saw a strange looking bird… shy but not ready to fly away… just running away. When asking the farmer, they were not sure what to call it!

3.f 21 to 25 Jan – … so just work and food?

Nah… we also had entertainment and discoveries of all sorts.

Always a white crane in rice fields, quite shy… but not afraid of tractor ploughing the rice field.

**KamuriWashi** (*crested serpent eagle*)

Kazumasa, native of Iriomote, 30-ish … may have spotted a **Yamaneko** (endemic wild cat, more like a mini leopard) for the first time!

We all stopped working and search/looked… in vain!

How to lace lemon grass…

And more ….

3.e 21 to 25 Jan – And more …

Nozomi found a big shell from the sea, we had to struggle a bit to get it open and extract the body.

But we had the right team for that and so …

… it was added to the evening meal

Some daily scenery…

Bikes landed by the farm to come and go…

Mess behind warehouse

Nesting swifts (Tsubame)

Shoes waiting at each doorstep

A bit like in Finland but pushed to another level, there are shoes for each area of the house ( in every house even hotels ).

So shoes worn outside stay outside or in the door way, you find shoes for kitchen, versus shoes for living room, shoes for bathrooms… and NO shoes for tatami / sleeping room!

Morning lights when going to farm ~8am

Sunset through the kitchen window ~6-1/2pm

Niwatori, our chicken friends, what’s left of them…

3.d 21 to 25 Jan – What? No pictures of food!

Last post on our first week may give the wrong impression… we did not just work! We once more had amazing meals…

from **Otani-Watari** (*Asplenium antiqua*)

Egg, flour, water + lots of cabbage. Add sea food when fried.

Although our host likes fishing and although it is around 23°C, he finds it too cold to go out fishing… instead we caught our own sea food with a trap and bate.

…much better! We kept them from one day to the other in the fridge, till …

And there was more.. believe us! Wondering if this is really organic farming WWOOF, or a Guide Michelin tour??

3.c 21 to 25 Jan – Iriomote, First WWOOF week

First week of work at the farm, some days are quite heavy on the back … we are more used to office work, but we got to do a lot of different task.

Sorting and packing rice for sale
Mending the warehouse
Trimming the mango trees
Moving plants to another location – transplanting
Trimming the hedge along sidewalks & hibiscus in vegetable garden
Seeding vegetables…
etc. … DIY paradise – Pat loves it! Hélène enjoys it too, but maybe more the free time!

Rice cleaner — Machine to polish the rice: separate rice from rice bran

Hand sorted using a sieve… brown rice must be close to 100% pure!

Sorting the rice is a long process and quite “boring”, …

So says Hélène after two days indoors and a painful back.

For some reasons I got the privilege of escaping from this labour, even if we offered my contribution several times… Maybe not considered a man’s job, instead I got to stay out most of the time, or inside when raining – but not to sort rice!

Quite a tiring task as there were many plants to move and the ground was very stony at some point.

I first believed these plants were put along the rice fields as natural protection… but not at all, they are simply pretty when in flower and used to make tea, etc… ( Getto, Alphinia Zerumbet )

Kazushige was using a special tool to make wholes for the plants.

Rice seeds that we planted, have germinated

Cutting the hedge in view of island marathon Feb 9th

3.b Weekend, 19 & 20 Jan – Iriomote

First weekend on island, sunny Saturday, rainy Sunday. Rain is to be expected in this season.

Saturday morning, we went to the next village for the primary school festivities, Shirahama.

The village has likely not much more than 200 inhabitants, we counted 16 students, but 8 teachers.

The performances by these young kids was just amazing… and that is without understanding the meaning. The school itself was impressive by its size and equipment, for such a small village.

On our way back, we tried to walk along a path in the forest, but could not go too far as Kaori was wearing nice clothes and just sneakers.

Sunday, we tried to reach one of the amazing waterfalls of the island, 6km cycling. But then some 2-3h looking for the start of the walk to go there… we got pretty close with a dead end to a canoe / kayak launch and storage area in the forest… we got tangled in mangroves and soaked wet from rain, but never got near those waterfalls – apparently the locals make it very hard to avoid using the service of a guide.

Still on our way there and around, we did see a few interesting sights.

Like local beef farming, this particular farmer is just breeding cows.

Pineapple fields… too small for now 🙁

Mango trees in greenhouses, also not yet the right season… just barely blooming.

And after been soaked to the bones, we came to spot local hunters which had coughed some inoshishi (wild boars), apparently doing lots of damage to crops, but good food…

Weekend wouldn’t have been complete without some snorkelling…. (sorry no underwater camera!)

3.a 16, 17 & 18 Jan – Ishigaki & Iriomote

At the South Island

One quick halt at Ishigaki, 3h flight south of Odawara … overnight and attempted to collect information about the two islands. Not really lucky with that, the best we found was at local library, copying pages of a book that described a few walks on each islands part of Okinawa archipelago.

Next morning, we finally reached our destination Iriomote – after a short boat ride (33knts! ~60km/h) and bus ride, as the boat did not reach the port we initially aimed for.

The bus stop is named after the farm itself. We met with the owners Kasushige, Kasumasa and Miki + 3 other WWOOFers: Chase ( from USA ), Kaori and Nozomi.

The farm is indeed keeping few chickens for eggs, but mainly cultivating rice – black and white rice.

Seems they are giving up on the chickens as the Iriomote wild cat is feeding on those chicken and that cat is protected… so soon no more chickens 🙁 !

The farm is 5’ cycle ride from the village, 100m from the sea, 50m from the forest.

We stay in the village, a modest guest house which belongs to the farm. A young couple (Thame & Sawako) and their child (Shintaro, just turned 1) live there and manage the guest house.

We arrived on a Thursday beginning of afternoon, but they still gave us the day off, so we just went for a discovery walk around the village… although not a sunny day, we still got the feeling we would enjoy our stay!

During week days we will take breakfast, lunch and dinner at the farm, work ends at 4pm, dinner at 6pm and we have the WE off!

Our first day working at the farm

We have breakfast together at 8:30, work until ~12, start again at 13 until 16, then evening meal at 18.

For our first day we sorted rice and prepared trays with those seeds…

Trays are made using a convey belt machine, a bit like the security check at airport… but this time each block adds a layer of earth, then the rice, then little water and finally more earth.

These are then stacked and left for 5-7 days to germinate and get a small size plant… which will then be laid out in a greenhouse for another ~2 weeks.

In afternoon we prepared the greenhouse so it will be ready to receive those trays.

We ended this great day with a walk just behind the farm, up a river, until a waterfall.

And evening meal from fried fish….

2. 14 & 15 Jan – Odawara

About 70km south-west from Tomi’s place lives another friend, Mimiko. We went there for two days.

As Tomi’s favourite football club had won at the Asian tournament, he took the train with us up to Odawara and spent the afternoon with Mimiko and us.

This is a region for kaki and plums /prunes from which they make the famous umeboshi. And Mimiko lives right in the middle of fields that have either rice, plum trees or kaki trees.

One particular species was already flowering (robai).

During a walk at nearby park we were surprise to discover that Pokémon frenzies was still on in Japan:

They are **not** all lost, looking for their way on google map!

Plum trees are well taken care of in orchards.

Next day we first got into Odawara town, as Mimiko had some paper work that need to be checked in the town hall, a very functional building with open space workers mixed with visitors… all in total silence.

We then paid a quick visit to Kaoru at her working place, a private clinic where she works as a nurse with a specialty in lymph or so….

Then out of the main town to a temple in the nearby mountain/forest – Sotyoshu Daiyuzansaijo Temple. A great place to escape from the busy town and have a long walk surrounded by ancient trees and likewise goddess…

And then a last walk along then Sakawa river

1.c 13 Jan – Tokyo

As Go and Megumi have a day off, exceptionally! … we went to the local swimming pool with Go in the morning, a great 50m pool with lanes to swim , water at 28 and surprisingly not crowded!

As they have a Yuzu tree in their garden and nothing had been made with the fruits, we got the great idea to suggest making some jam/marmalade from those fruits:

… not so sure how to proceed, we got started with help of all volunteers, following something similar to what Hélène has been doing with oranges…

While picking yuzus, Hélène went to the DondoYaki ceremony, apparently a strange mix of traditions and modern consumer frenzies!

Back to Yuzu factory:

A (20l) bucket of yuzu later, checking on internet for recipes … they claimed using 5 yuzus for 1l of water! So we kept guessing and following our own inspirations!