Rice Planting

On Sunday, we were invited to the home of Sue’s principal. He has a very nice, large home out in the country. In one of the first rooms of the house is the Buddhist altar, a common item in most Japanese homes.

His grandchildren were there visiting and kept us entertained with their gymnastics and other stunts. They were very, very cute. These two girls are cousins, 3 and 4 years old.
By the time we arrived the rice planting was almost finished. Not planting, actually, but transplanting rice seedlings into the flooded paddies.

Most people have a really expensive machine ($30,000) used only for a couple days a year to transplant rice. There is a second machine used to harvest rice in the fall. Growing rice is an expensive operation here and heavily subsidized by the government.

This fellow is planting rice the hard way.
Lunch was yakiniku – a sort of Japanese barbeque: beef, pork, pumpkin, onions, green peppers, cabbage, eggplant, corn and mushrooms grilled over charcoal. Everyone just gathers around and grabs pieces they want with their chopsticks, then dips it into their bowl of sauce.
As you can tell from the photos, I’m enjoying seeing all the water everyplace and the reflections of mountains and buildings and towers in the still water of the paddies.