Day 1, left home early morning. Under normal circumstances, time to reach Kamogawa by car is 2 hours. But as this is GW, reached our first destination "Minami Bousou" near Tateyama in 6 hours. Nakajima-san family had already reached there and was waiting to receive us. Being localite and experienced driver that he is, it helped him to save almost 2 hours during peak traffic. One more family, friends of Nakajima family had more head start, so they were hunting good restaurant for all of us. Soon we all joined them and our first lunch together was in a local eatery. Our choice of food was, by all means, fresh seasonal fish caught in near by seas. Namero Gohan, Tenpura was mouth watering. Only complain about food is, it took a bit longer to come out of kitchen :-)
Post lunch, troupe headed for seashore. It was sunny day and kids and all of us adults were in great spirit of enjoyment. All the while on rocky sea shore, kids were singing a song,
La la la la, la la la la
Tonari no Kobuta ga
Bu bu bu bu
When I too joined them in chorus singing "la la la la la", ... wow! their excitement and joy was immeasurable. In this spirit, led by excited kids, all of us climbed mini tower. Had a birds eye view of seashore from the observatory. It is no way anywhere closer to view of Queens Town (NZ) gondola we had seen few years back, but did enjoy this one also. In kid's spirit!
Evening too was eventful. Get-Together arranged by Tanada club (trustees) was unique. Specially prepared food was in abundance. However, it was party atmosphere that stole the show. Anchor started the ball rolling by pulling legs of fellow trust members, warning them not to speak long, do not drink too much as some of them had done last year :-) Mike used by him was nothing but a bottle of beer. Once beers started taking control of us, anchor commanded club members to speak a word. It was applicable to new club joiners, but, eventually everybody were pulled to speak for this or that reason. Those who spoke were also in right "spirit" of sharing and enjoyment. We too contributed by introducing our self. We had a question from one member.
"Where are we from in India?"
"Mumbai... and in fact..."
I couldn't complete the sentence due to roaring applause. But I had to complete it cause we are not exactly from Mumbai.
"Mumbai... in fact a city called PUNE near Mumbai"
(and this needs to be said in this sequence cause chances of they knowing Pune were very low)
It was really feel good factor to know you are welcome in the group of natives.
Next day, day 2, I had additional plan apart from rice plantation, for which we had come to Kamogawa. Photography! Provided weather is good. Woke up at 4:30am. Bit early considering we were off to bed around 23:30pm previous night :-) Got up and slightly opened the curtain of the room, and I almost screamed out of excitement. Entire east sky was painted with shiny orange color by messenger of Sun God announcing the arrival of his master. Changed myself to top gear, quickly got up, Nakajima-san joined me and we rushed to paddies. It was worth the efforts and pure joy to be in nature in wee hours when the world is still asleep. Have a look at my best shot taken that morning.
First touch of muddy paddy. Sowing rice might be routine job for many farmers around the world, But it was my first experience despite having farmers family background. Rice is not what we grew in our farm back when I was child. Spent 2.5 hours in a group of other people like me in a paddy sowing rice and many thought kept splashing mind, despite of ache in knees due to less leg movement in sticky mud. The thought most impressive, however, was not mine that I want to share here. It came from Mrs. Nakajima. We liked her POV. It goes as ...
"We keep telling our kids about not wasting food because. We are also taught by our parents about it. But after spending time sowing rice in paddy for few hours, teaches us how much efforts are required to put in by so many hands to bring a bowl of rice to your dinner table."
Hopefully, my daughter understands it on her own as she too was in a sticky, muddy, paddy with us.
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