Leaving

On the way back to Hekinan from the Toyota factory tour, we came across a tract of farmland in Anjo city. The farmers were out harvesting their rice. To my Saskatchewan eyes, it looks like mini-farming, but it's big business out here. Talking about the price of rice in China, or Japan, it's going up, and the people of Asia rely heavily on rice for food. If too many farmers leave their land, rice production goes down and so does the food stock.

The good news is that there is a small emerging trend of young people moving to small farms and working the land. There's even a hip, young, fashion businesswoman (famous for the 'shibuya gal' look) who has started farming and marketing the brand as "Shibuya Rice". ShibOOya is a super cool district in Tokyo. Here she is with her fashion model labourer. They are sooo roughing it.
I like the trademark white towel on the head that male labourers wear in summer. The towel truly is one of the most spectacularly useful items in the galaxy.
Here's the mini-harvester dumping its mini-load of rice into the mini-dumptruck. It appears to be a family affair.
As the harvester goes around, hacking off the stalks, the cranes gather to hunt in the stubble for frogs, bugs, and maybe missed grains too. I had never seen so many white cranes in one place before.

Seeing harvest in action reminded me of the fall season in Saskatchewan. Now that we're leaving, Mandy and i are feeling a little nostalgic about our time here. We will miss life in Japan, although we both agree that it's the right time to go back home. We're leaving behind ready employment, some good friends, and mild weather. But it's just not home, is it? I don't know that i could feel at home in Japan, no matter how long i would live here.

We have a bye bye party tomorrow, and then we're leaving to visit Kelly on tuesday for a while, and then off to Malta/Italy for a proper honeymoon! There's a lot to look forward to.