autumnal news

I seem to have caught a cold again. Hopefully nothing that lots of vitamin C won't fix. But maybe my immune system is in need of fortification or something. (or I just need more common sense so as not to keep catching cold.)
Yesterday, some & I friends had an interesting experience pear picking. Not to be deterred by last year's aborted attempt due to heavy rain (when Helen W and Simon were here to visit), I dragged some friends out during typhoon season. It had been raining non stop for about 2 days, but thankfully the rain eased off during the afternoon as we approached the pear orchard. However, it was very muddy and it somehow worked out well that our plan to pick pears didn't go quite according to plan. Imagining we'd pick as many pears as we'd like whilst eating them there and then (as they tend to do here), we all just ended up picking and eating one pear each.... And then the old lady in charge of the orchard picked 6 pears for most of us, while we stood & watched. We then paid for them and took them home! We can't have been there for longer than 20mins. By the way, pears here look more like apples and taste like not much. But they are (one of the things) what my town is famous for. And you can grow to like them!
Then we ate a big meal and came back to mine for tea, coffee, snacks.... and were visited by Miyagi's own 'Amanda's 100yen shop'. One of the local ALTs collects our unwanted clothes & either gives them to the homeless or sells them for 100yen (50p) per piece. She's having a sale at her house tomorrow, but knowing I might not be able to make it, brought six massive bags of clothes for us to look through. Always good when a) Japanese clothes don't fit, b) Japanese clothes are expensive c) there aren't any charity shops in Japan- so it all goes to a good cause and d) is ridiculously good value.

Anyway, I was intending to post some random thoughts about autumn that have been whirling round my head the past week.
Seems I made a mistake earlier- sanma / saury isn't a summer fish, but an autumn one. The kanji for it (character) means fish autumn. So that clears that up, oh and so is salmon- but you probably knew that already.
When I was at primary school, well & at Coopers too, we always celebrated Harvest Festival at St Nick's church. Must admit, I never did quite understand what harvest was about... only that we would sing We plough the fields and scatter (St Nick's) or Beauty for brokenness/ God of the poor (Coopers) & bring along old tins of food we didn't want to eat at home and give them to Bromley Welcare. That was probably due to growing up in suburbia, surrounded by houses and back gardens. Well, now that I live among the rice paddies of Japan, I think I understand harvest now!!! I cycled past an old lady stacking up rice to dry in a field the other day, oh and this morning I was reading Deut 14. [Does anyone know a good explanation of vv22-28, cos apart from the 10% stuff, I don't really get it!]










This one was taken a few weeks ago,
but you can see the rice stacked up
in the distance.
Can you see the little grains of rice??!!
By the way, learning Japanese kanji (which i need to do more of), is useful for learning the language, and culture of Japan- plus general knowledge! E.g. the character for aki - autumn, is literally rice and then fire, with fire meaning either the drying of crops by fire, or them catching fire in the drier months. [Explanation thanks to the 'Kanji Klass' in the 'Daily Yomiuri' shinbun .]