Sampling the delights of Asia back in 2007 left me craving for more. Japan was the last country I visited in Asia and will be my first port of call this time around, but for how long I cannot say, with the pound currently on it’s arse I could find myself back at home staring at my bedroom wall before I know it. I have purchased a one-way ticket and shall let the gods decide my fate. Basically if OR when it all goes tits…I come home, I almost made that sound simple.

My aim this time around however is to explore the diversities of Japanese day to day life, in order to do this I have set myself up with various farming placements throughout Japan. Predominantly the farms will be organic growing rice and an assortment of fruit and veg, so it will all be very different to the livestock farming that I am used to back home, and of course climate will be another big addition, things could get sticky. It’s here that I balance the question, what would I rather be doing? Freezing my nuts off on a remote Hebridean Island in the depths of winter or sweating my nuts off in a rice paddy in the middle of nowhere in Japan. It definitely feels like two extremes trying to counterbalance one another. But I’m thinking after the winter I’ve just had, I’ll opt for the later.

Hopefully via this method I’ll be able to soak up a bit of traditional Japanese culture as well as experiencing Japanese farming techniques and working on my Japanese language skills, all whilst shovelling amazingly vast quantities of fantastic Japanese food into my gobhole.

Sorry, thought that I should dress down that last sentence there, it was all beginning to sound a little bit to formal for my liking and I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone into thinking that I know exactly what it is that I’m doing. But anyway, if you want to read my blogs, that’s fine, if you just want to look at the pictures, then that is also fine, but If you don’t want to do either of those then…..that’s also perfectly fine.

---

---