Yesterday was mostly spent at the Koiwai Farm near here in Iwate - a kind of real farm meets tourist attraction that appears to successfully balance production of dairy products (though est. 1891, these stil have a kind of cachet here in japan - e.g people give butter as a special gift) with a very popular visitor attraction complete with the hand-rearing of lambs. All the livestock we saw were experiencing a kind of 5 star accommodation that would have their UK counterparts voluntarily making their way to the slaughterhouse - fresh sweetsmelling hay, futuristic polytunnels (v popular here due to typhoons etc) and adoring Japanese schoolchildren. Though the whole enterprise had a whiff of the old Grizedale Centre about it, it was a fair number of notches up in quality - from the gift shops to the food options - the latter being a kind of indoor barbecue where you cook your own food on a brazier. Very funky was a series of snow 'igloos' they use all winter for families to have barbecues in the grounds - a massive success that I can imagine we could import but using leaves and branches instead of snow. The snow rests on a metal support that is removed for summer - it's a great example of the Japanese love for a kind of expedient and easily consumed 'natural' experience.
The night before Adam and I delivered our talk at the Iwate Museum of Art, very well-recieved despite the challenges of translation. If in doubt say 'peter rabbit' and all the japanese laugh and nod.
At Kata and Kate's where we're staying, their daughter Emily (see below) demonstrated her Kendo to us and I compared the abject polyester European fencing kit I have, to this majestic get-up.
No comments:
Post a Comment