During the month of June here in Japan, you'll notice that most fields get filled up with water and these little plants are planted--which is called taue. The rice harvesting, if the weather is cooperative, should be sometime in September. These are some of the rice fields we have around our neighborhood.
There is a little store & restaurant nearby called Banmai. I've never been to the restaurant, but heard that they serve a mostly vegetarian fare. I have been to the little store on the bottom several times, and they sell organic veggies, fruits and other health food items. Every Tuesday, they have a 10% off all veggies sale. Today, I got some tomatoes, zucchini and a really fragrant peach. 
I roasted these veggies for tonight's dinner and we'll have the peach for breakfast tomorrow.
In the past two days, we received 2 boxes of BEER! (Satoshi's favorite drink!)The month of July is o-chugen season here. O-chugen is a gift giving custom where you give gifts to people, such as company supervisors, relatives to show appreciation for what they have done for you. Since it is very hot during the summer here, a favorite gift to give is usually some type of drink. We got a box from Satoshi's parents and one from a client of his. The next season for gift giving is in December and is called O-seibo.
This week, I started eating this dark chocolate by Green & Black's. It is called Maya Gold, it is a 55% cacao with orange, vanilla , cinnamon and nutmeg. The cinnamon & nutmeg really stands out, and the orange tends to linger in your mouth, but overall it is really delicious. This brand was supposedly the first in the world to make an organic chocolate, and is now owned by Cadbury-Schweppes(C-S)--which I'm not really too keen about, especially since they(C-S) had a really big recall recently for probability of salmonella in their other brands of chocolate.
Hope you are keeping cool where you are!
6 comments:
Wow a whole month to give and receive gifts! Sounds lovely!
Hi Ivonne,
Hopefully someone will give us something sweet to munch on... ;)
Thanks for stopping by!
Kat
First time I heard of Yebisu beer...I hope the month of July continues to bear gifts for you both!
Always love getting a peek around your neighborhood...seeing the rice fields was really cool.
Hi Rowena,
Apparently Yebisu beer has been around for awhile. I really like their dark beer, kind of chocolatey!
You should hear the frogs that live in those rice fields and night, talk about noisy ;)
Take care!
Kat
Great post...a really nice slice of life.
Don't get too down on C-S...many companies have problems. I subscribe to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's newsfeed...there are more recalls (national and international) than I care to mention.
j
Hi Jasmine,
You are right about many companies having their problems. Pretty scary stuff going on in the world!
Enjoy the week!
Kat
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