Potatoe-mania

Today I became a farmer.

Well for a little while anyway. We spent the whole morning digging up sweet potatoes! There really is truth in the statement about hard work being good for the soul. It was a small patch, 15×10 maybe, but we got around 300 potatoes out, and it was actually lots of fun. Digging them up, finding them, then digging again to try and find those that were hiding from us. Oh, and trying not to kill them when we were digging. A few of them got speared in half by the hoe, but they’ll be the ones we eat first.

Today we also went for our first morning walk with Shin-Shin, the super kawaii black Labrador-cross dog. We went at 6:30am, just after sunrise, and walked (and ran at times) for around 45mins around the town. It’s nice and quiet, and relaxing to be walking with my kapu-chan. Shin-shin was cute, running around, sniffing everything, she even was eating grass?!?! She wouldn’t budge when I tried to drag her away from it. I thought you need like 2 stomaches to eat grass?

Lunch, after our potatoe expedition, was awesome. Kasumi’s Grandma brought salmon and onigiri, and Kasumi cooked it with sweet potatoes and it was awesome. Seriously, there is nothing better than FRESH fish. mmm. The rest of the day was fairly relaxed, just napping and lounging around. Dinner was yuki-soba, which was nice.

Have I mentioned the Kotatsu? It’s a lowered table on the floor, maybe 1m by 1.8m, covered with a blanket and with a heater in it! It’s sooooo much to just sit down and study/watch tv/relax/be on the laptop with. It’s awesome because of how cold it gets here. I don’t think it would really suit Australia (thou judging from the summer you guys are having now… it might be useful!)