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October 27, 2004
Ehime is Mikan country
This past weekend I headed to the south of my prefecture, to a city called Uwa-cho. The purpose was to help with a Halloween carnival for the local elementary schools. After entertaining close to 500 elementary students we (myself and the other JETs who helped out) were treated to some local culture. On Sunday we headed up a mountain to go mikan picking. Mikan are basically oranges but a bit smaller and quite a bit hardier. The trees we picked from were over 40 years old and more like old gnarly glorified-bushes.
The mountain has a system of carts and rails to lower the crops, one such lovely old get-up is visible along the bottom of this photograph.
After all that hard work of picking and eating our fill of Mikan it was time for lunch.
Grilling on the little portable hibachi grill.
These miniature-sized game machines looked awfully lonely, and I would have feed them quarters but then I remembered that I’m in Japan, and the trauma of eating foreign money would probably be the final stab for these two worn-down little guys.
Later that day we went to a museum to watch a koto performance and take part in a tea ceremony.
Posted by theinfonaut at October 27, 2004 11:56 PM