This weekend (27th & 28th) we stayed in Nagoya again to do some cleaning up before the New Year holiday. I had given myself the task of getting the grease off the extractor fan hood, and T re-waxed the floor so the restaurant looks quite nice now. This is the traditional time for a big cleanup here, so everything can be fresh for the New Year. Actually new year is associated with Spring anyway – the traditional lunar calendar, still followed in Okinawa and China, would put it somewhere in February, and even at the end of December you’re already past the solstice so the days are getting longer – so we’re not that far from our Spring Cleaning really.
Farmlog 21st December 2009
One day in Amsterdam some 35 years ago, with a heavy grey sky overhead and the wind blowing the sleet into my ears, I swore I’d never again put up with a North European winter… and so it has proved to be, barring a couple of Christmas visits. The wind, the wet, the short dark days: sorry, it might appeal to the poetic side of some people but I set out for Asia that Spring. Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India: each country was warmer, and cheaper, than the last and eventually in the South of India I was living in paradise, on about $30 a month.
Of course that can’t go on indefinitely and I wound up in Japan in search of some gainful employment. Now here there is a winter I have to admit, but it’s much more tolerable, at least in Nagoya. For a start, it’s dry with plenty of sunny days when it can be quite warm outside in the daytime. With the latitude of Crete, the sun here is a good bit higher in the sky than in the UK. It can be windy sometimes, but it’s really not so bad, and quite short- from December to February, roughly. On the Sea of Japan side it’s a different story though: there the wind comes in across the sea picking up lots of moisture which it drops when it hits the mountains, and that region gets some of the highest snowfalls in the world! Just in the last two days they got over a metre in the north of Gifu prefecture, not all that far from our country place; that same cold wave gave us a foot or so at the farm and even Nagoya got a sprinkling.
So when we drove up on Sunday it was still overcast, and as we got into Gifu there was more and more snow on the fields around. Luckily the snowploughs had been through and we didn’t need tyre chains – putting those on in freezing winter weather is one job I hate – but the entry to our side road needed clearing with a spade so we could park the car. Once you get inside and the oil heater cranked up it’s quite warm enough though.
On Monday we were back to the norm – a beautiful day in fact without a cloud in the sky and the snow was dazzling. It was worth driving out after all!
Min temp -3.5°C max 2.5°C
Farmlog 14th December 2009 29 December, 2009
(slowly catching up here)
Last week we stayed in Nagoya because of a -most welcome- private party booking at Raffles’.
Sunday was rainy, but cleared up in the evening so I was able to go out and look for meteors. The Gemini shower was due in, and I caught a couple before getting bored but it wasn’t all that spectacular…
Min temp 0°C, max 13°C
Farmlog 30th November 2009 28 December, 2009
Phew, these sudden dropouts are obviously going to happen from time to time – I hope you hadn’t completely given up on this blog, but setting up my “new” computer (still not finished) has been the first thing I get into when I have a bit of time, so posting something to the blog got left out… Apologies.
Winter coming on: Sunday was rainy and miserable, but Monday turned clear again. No particular work done, beyond general clearing up.
Min. Temp. 4°C, Max. 11°C
A new box 2 December, 2009
There was no farmlog for the 16th of November because we had to stay in Nagoya. I took the chance to have a look round Osu, which is our local version of Akihabara, the famous computer and anime district of Tokyo – the centre of “otaku” culture. I came home with a “new” second-hand computer I found: an IBM desktop with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of memory, 80GB hard disk and a DVD/CD drive that can write too, so I can make CDs. It’s quite an improvement on the present box, and was going for the almost “junk” price of 7300 yen (about $80). I thought it was a bargain, and so far it seems to be working OK, though checking it out has taken most of my “computer time” this past week. Fingers crossed…
Farmlog 9th November 2009
Chillies grow quite well here – the hot Japanese summer is just what they like, and if there’s plenty of sun you’ll get lots of hot colourful fruit. Even the chilly October evenings are coped with OK, but what chillies can’t stand is frost. As soon as the minimum temperature goes below zero, even by half a degree, that’s it. The plants are dead, although if the frost wasn’t too severe you might be able to pick a few more undamaged chillies. Protected by a tough skin, chillies are quite resistant to going bad, but if that gets damaged, by insects or frost, for example, it’s amazing how fast a firm shiny chilli can be turned into a disgusting bag of pus, still held in that skin…
- min -0.5°C, max – er, I forgot to check…
Farmlog 2nd November 2009
Japan has many clear Autumn days with blue skies that go all the way to the end of the universe, but this was the sort of grey, damp weekend you could just as easily have back home in the UK. The party’s over and the place is in a mess with dead vegetation all over the place, and no-one to clear up except us, if you don’t count a few grasshoppers still wandering around looking for bottles with something left in them…
- min 9°C, max 15°C
Kyoto 4 November, 2009
Last week there was no farm report because the band went to Kyoto for a gig. We left early but didn’t hit the traffic jams expected on a 1000yen highway Sunday and arrived with several hours in hand, so walked around a bit. I don’t need to tell you about all Kyoto’s fantastically beautiful temples and shrines, but most of the town itself is somewhat unremarkable; the central shopping streets could be anywhere in Japan – not a patch on Paris, for example. The joke runs that while the Americans refrained from obliterating Kyoto in the war, the Japanese did the job for them afterwards.
Even so it’s not an unpleasant town; the North, where our lodging house was, has some fairly quiet tree-lined streets – and lots of bicycles. Every corner seemed to have a bicycle shop of some kind. They must be the best way to get around – Kyoto’s narrow streets, like Tokyo’s, make for some grim traffic jams. Here in Nagoya they made a fresh start after the war with a new grid layout of /wide/ streets, appropriate for an economy heavily dependent on Toyota Motors…
The “live house” where we played, Taku Taku, is a really nice place in a big old wooden building with beautiful warm accoustics. (They do have noise problems though, being right in the middle of a residential area, so it all has to stop at 9:00 on the dot.) Our previous gig there was nearly 30 (yes thirty) years ago! It took them that long to get over it, but finally we were allowed to play again, and this time it went OK I think. During the intervening period they seem to have had some quite famous people playing, so I really wondered what we were doing there, but the audience were great. Sometimes it seems as if Daihachi Ryodan might be more suited to Kansai than Nagoya!
Farmlog 19th October 2009 31 October, 2009
On Sunday we drove up through ricefields bright yellow in the autumn sunshine, to be welcomed by the last movement of the insect symphony, along with some shrieking deer in the background. The deers’ mating call you hear at this time of year is not pretty at all – an unearthly banshee scream! That evening was clear and still; the stars wet and shimmering, draped across the sky like dewdrops on a spider’s web. A couple of little ones fell off in the ten minutes or so I was watching…
The next day was hot under the sun, but chilly as soon as it went behind a cloud. The kamemushi (“stink bug” maybe?) are all making a beeline for our house to find a winter home behind the curtains. OK till you find one and try to throw it out. They do stink. Oddly, the smell is not unlike coriander leaves, but if you dwell on that you could get put off Thai food. A dying wasp in front of the house. A few years ago, one got into my wellington boot and with its last gasp managed to sting me on my toe, somewhat to my discomfort… The show is slowly closing down for the Winter.
On the radio I heard that the Orion meteor shower was starting.
Min temp 7°C, max 18°C
Aso’s sayonara present 24 October, 2009
Yesterday I finally went and picked up my 12,000 yen. This has been in the works since last Autumn. The current LDP government wanted an economic boost that would appeal to the electorate, and proposed a tax cut. Their partners the Komeito party said it wouldn’t help those too poor to pay income tax, and insisted on a cash handout instead. Twelve thousand yen – just over a hundred dollars. It’s nothing to get that excited about; I thought it would be better spent tackling youth unemployment or helping the homeless, and opinion polls showed most people didn’t want it! If it had come in December as was originally planned it might have worked a bit – I would probably have gone out for a couple of drinks – but bureaucracy meant it would take a bit longer…
People in smaller towns got theirs in the Spring but here in Nagoya the local government said there was no way they could organise a cash handout for 2 million people before August or so, and so it proved. First I got an envelope with a couple of forms and several leaflets explaining how to send off your application. Hardly anything in English of course. I think they were trying to make it as complicated as possible so some people would just not bother. I sent mine off and eventually got another paper-stuffed envelope telling me exactly where and when to show up to collect this money.
Waiting at the reception area was a security guard and a lady who checked my name and gave me a plastic token to hand in when a processing desk was free. There were 20 or so seats in the waiting area and 3 or 4 desks with a couple of clerks at each. I was the only person waiting so right away they checked my papers, got me to sign at the bottom and gave me a slip to hand in at another counter round the corner with 2 more people. There I finally got an envelope with my name on it and the money inside. The whole thing took 10 minutes maybe, but at least 10 people were employed dealing with this complicated transaction. Along with all that paper, I wonder how much the administration added to the cost of giving away 12,000 yen?
The ironic thing is if this does boost the economy a little the credit will go to the current DPJ government!
asazuke 