Showing posts with label rice. rice-planting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rice. rice-planting. Show all posts

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Freewheeling on Route 46

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I've been taking a few bike rides in recent weeks. Actually I cycle about 20% of the time, push the bike uphill about 10%, and freewheel downhill for 70% of the time. My bike has no gears, its a "mamachari", so I get my wife to drop me and my bike off up in the high country and then head home downhill.

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Yesterday I cycled 30k from near Iwami Ginzan, and took Route 46 all the way back. Some of the time its a 2 lane road, but some of the time its a single lane mountain road. It passes through a couple of villages, and down a couple of mostly uninhabited valleys.

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Lots of people busy in the paddies, planting by machine, and also by hand. Most appeared to be at least 60 years old.

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Stopped in at a couple of shrines. The shrine in Oe has 3 beautiful huge cedars flanking the entrance.

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There is also a few nice temples, and of course many roadside altars.

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Lots of empty and abandoned houses, both in the villages and on the hillsides.

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In the heat of the middle of the day most people are inside, but this guy was out and about. I think he was out scouting around for gardens to raid. I saw one this lunchtime in my own village, single male out of the cover of the forest. I suspect he will bring the troop back around dawn.

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There were also lots of flowers still. In the last valley there were a lot of wisteria.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Typical Japanese landscape 5

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The sun sets over a paddy of ripening rice.
This photo was taken in my village while walking to Bon Odori.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Golden Week: Inaka style.

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Golden Week occurs in early May, and is a very busy holiday period. Airports, train stations, and expressways are clogged with millions of Japanese tourists all travelling at the same time.
Where I live, out in the countryside, very few people go travelling however. Early May is time to plant the rice.

Most Japanese farmers are only part-time farmers, as japanese farms tend to be very small, and could probably better be called market-gardens. Most families in the village also have a rice paddy, tambo, and the huge subsidies paid by the government make it worthwhile to plant rice.


Rice growing is heavily mechanized, but the corners of odd-shaped paddies still need to be planted by hand.


More photos from my village