The day started off with me and another helper finishing off the last of the rhubarb. After packages a few more beetroots we went and had a delicious lunch of soumen, scrambled eggs, cucumber and beans. We were then joined by the same high school student as yesterday and another person I don't know the name of.
We then went to the beetroot field and started planting, the plan was to do two rows of the field today but it started raining, then stopped, then came back with a menace, so we stopped for the time being, went to have an ice cream in the workshop and I was relieved of my farm work duties for the day!
I took a little rest and then helped keep an eye of the rhubarb jam while Sawami went to collect the kids from day care. After that, I watched dumbo with the kids while we waited for Kiyo to come back. Then we had dinner! Delicious fried vegetables and tofu, and edamame! Now I'm going enjoy the rest of the evening by sleeping, good night!
Today started with an early morning at 6:00 with the first priority being trying to keep the kids from disturbing mum too much while she prepared breakfast. After breakfast, we head out and began by packing special local cucumbers (they're white!) into boxes and measuring and sealing beans as well.
After a short break, I went to the cucumber field and tore away any yellow or dead leaves from the cucumber plants as the plant still uses energy to maintain these useless leaves. We then had lunch at the local community centre and came back to the house for a little rest. We were then joined by a local high school student who sometimes helps out at the farm too and spent the afternoon washing and cutting 80 kg of rhubarb and packaging beetroots.
Shortly after coming back to the house Sawami arrived from collecting the kids from day care and we all had some sweet potato crisps as a snack and watched a strange kid's cartoon about how to behave in restaurants and how to wipe your bum. We then had somen for dinner and I watched a programme about a Japanese man in Valencia who'd become famous for some reason. All in all, a fun but tiring day!
This morning, me and my friend went searching for an appropriate breakfast to mark the sad occasion of our separation after such a short period of time together. After searching for a while for something veggie in two supermarkets we gave up and went to a fast food takeaway shop where I ordered undo with seaweed and we picked up some milk ice tea on the way back to the hostel by which time the soup the udon had been in had leaked everywhere in the bag (luckily it didn't go anywhere else). After that partially unsuccessful breakfast we said our goodbyes at the station and I boarded a shinkansen for the first time! It was super fast and quite spacious, I was surprised at the amount of leg room you get actually.
At Takasaki I transferred and boarded a local train to Numata and half way there, there was a bit of a commotion as a hornet was buzzing about by the windows, luckily it disappeared after being trapped in between the train blind and window and being hit with a bag by several high school girls for a while.
Poster that caught my eye in the shinkansen
When I arrived I met my host family plus another volunteer who was leaving that evening, a husband and wife with two small children (4 and 2 years old). I played with them for a bit and then we all had lunch together and then I went and sorted and cut the root off bad beetroots with the other volunteer and dad for a while.
After that, I had some free time so I unpacked and settled down. In the evening I played with the kids again while Sawami prepared dinner and then we ate! By this time I was so exhausted I just went straight to sleep~
This morning I awoke in the early hours, wide awake, decided it was too early to get up and read for a couple of hours until about 6:00 when I decided it was fine to get up in about half an hour to take a shower and get ready for the day ahead (I was planning on meeting my friend who's staying in the same hostel as me and meeting up with a bigger group at about 11:00). 6:30 came around, my jet-lag kicked in and I woke up about at about 9:30, which was fine luckily as my friend had been out to a night club the night before and hadn't woken up either. We were a little late to meet up with the rest of the group but it was fine~ We ate an early lunch at a udon restaurant close to Shinjuku station which was delicious I had mine with an egg and tempura onion!
We then walked to a free observatory on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and enjoyed the sprawling (and somewhat cloudy) view of the landscape.
Afterwards, we walked to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden which was lovely just to walk around, despite the humidity and heat.
We also stopped into the tea house in the park and had some tradition match and sweet served to us by a kimono-san. Also had a stroll around the enclosed botanical gardens which matched the outside weather perfectly.
After working up quite a sweat from all that walking such humid conditions we went to a cafe close by and rested for a while (I had a matcha float). As we got up to leave the cafe (which in the basement of a tower block) the heavens decided to open and we were blessed with a rest from the sticky as it bucketed it down. We waited for about ten minutes to see if it would subside but it didn't seem like that was going to happen anytime soon so we each shared an umbrella and made our way to purikura (fun photo booths)!
On our way we stopped by to pay our respects to Godzilla (can you spot him?).
We made it to the game centre which had an entire floor dedicated to purikura and an amusing sign on the way up forbidding men onto the floor unless accompanied by a woman. The name of the booth also made me laugh which was somewhat lost on my companions.
After having fun transforming our faces into alien-like masks we made our way to karaoke! We had a private booth for three hours with five dishes and unlimited drinks, needless to say, it was an excellent first day in Tokyo. I'm a little sad to be going so soon but excited for venturing to Takayama-mura tomorrow!
My flight from London to Hong Kong was fairly uneventful, although I did get my meals before everyone else (the upside to being vegetarian), however, the quality of the food wasn't incredible (the downside to being vegetarian and possibly being overly optimistic about aeroplane food in general).
I only had about an hour or so in Hong Kong as the flight was slightly late going out, however, did manage to appreciate the size of the airport as well as enjoy some local signage and art.
Finally, I arrived at Haneda airport at about 22:00 and had to wait in the fairly long queue for immigration and customs and then I was free to catch the last train to Shinagawa, change to the JR Yamanote line and proceed to Komagome, subsequently realise that I had no wifi and therefore couldn't look up exactly where my hostel was. Luckily as soon as I arrived at the station I was offered help by a passerby to carry my suitcase down the stairs, whilst looking at the station map of the surrounding area for a while a kind drunk man gave me directions to the nearest police box where I could find help and on my way there another, less drunk, man looked up the address on his phone and walked me to the hostel which was luckily a three minutes walk away in a straight line. I jumped into my pod and enjoyed a well-earned rest.
