Goodbye Hongo

I've been feeling x, y and z, so the blog has gone quiet. But I'm being asked where I am. So here's an update.

I passed my last day with the Sakamotos, taking down the now-spent cucumber plants. I basked in 25 degrees - I probably won't be feeling that again for some while. I then badgered Shigeo to take me to the chicken sheds (photos on FB) a few km into the mountains.  This seems to be where Shigeo's land is, a huge resource that has provided a pig-farming livelihood to his eldest son, and Shigeo's fifth field. The soil, with more clay than the fields in the valley, is used for root crops that tolerate the inferior drainage. Adjacent, is Shigeo's son's house, also home to his wife and four children. I was very surprised at the "third world" scene: bare-bottomed kids running around in the dust with dogs, vast areas of mechanical junk, an outdoor cooking area.

Just down the track Shigeo showed me his composting area, and the covered area Yohei and Kayo base themselves at during the summer for a few days each week. There was also a storage area where Yohei has been storing wood retrieved from old houses, in preparation for building a place of his own. Shigeo talked about this being on the same site - though, to me, Yohei and Kayo had expressed their desire to go to Kyushu island. Hmmm...

I was given the afternoon to pack (yeah, I know, and it didn't take that long). As I stashed my 2kg rice souvenir I listened to Radio 4, trying to orient myself towards the mother land.

That evening was the annual festival of light at Takehara. Sadly, the town has become a victim of the success gained via the TV drama: the streets were bursting with tripod-wielding tourists, the silent atmosphere of former festivals a thing of the past. We listened to a friend of Shigeo's and Keiko's singing a mixture of Japanese and Western pop classics, "How many loads must a man walk down..."

The following morning, weeping - as is my style - I made my farewells. And travelled north-east to Kyoto.