James and Pierre's Excellent Adventure

Hello again,

I left Milky house on the 4th, and went to a new place called Chise Gardens. At this point, the status of my trip became that of 'Caper'. Look for an upgrade to 'comedic misadventure' later in the wek.

Chise Gardens is a farm without a farmhouse. There is a kitchen building (where a farmhand called Furukawa lives), a yurt (where the family who owns the farm live), one nice room where seven cats live, three or four buildings for chickens, goats and vegetables, and a partially constructed farmhouse, which is where I live along with Pierre. The walls and floors aren't finished so there are lots of little cracks that the wind can blow through. Plastic sheeting is used to provide some sort of shelter, so there is no insulation. This being Hokkaido in the onset of winter, it's pretty cold in here. There is no shower, we go to an onsen to have a bath. We've done it every night so far but it's starting to be a problem, because it's quite expensive. And all I want is a shower, onsens are fun but it's a bit much to go to one each night.

There is no running water inside, but fortunately there is a toilet. Pierre and I share a little shack inside the house, it is reasonably warm inside. We can sleep OK.

Pierre is a French WWOOFer. We are helping build the house, and also occasionally chopping firewood. Pierre is a professional carpenter, which is good because he knows what to do and the work is going quickly. Living in the place you are building is a big incentive to work quickly and do the job properly. I'm going to be a dangerous amateur carpenter by the end of this, I'll have enough knowlege to be ambitious, but not enough to prevent disaster. A disaster of the 'shonky furniture' kind, that is. As accident prone as I am, I don't think I will have an accident with the power tools we are using, because I am genuinely afraid of them. The father of the family that owns the farm cut his hand pretty badly using a circular saw that they had jury-rigged into a mounting arrangement. It's a sobering reminder of the seriousness of the situation. But I will be fine. And I'm learning how to properly pronounce French swear words, which can only be a good thing.

Pierre doesn't speak Japanese, so I've been translating between him and Chizuko san (the mother of the family), and Furukawa san. It seems I can actually communicate quite well. Even though I don't know half the words they use, communication takes place eventually. I'm glad that I have learned enough Japanese to be useful. At this point I feel like all the work I've done has been worthwhile. I really badly need to learn more words, and I'm doing so, but I've already reached the level where I am noticably better at communicating than someone who doesn't speak the language. At the beginning, I wasn't.

I am proud to say that I have helped sully the good reputation of Australians over here. Onsens are public baths, you wander around naked with a bunch of strangers. But you're not completely naked, you're supposed to carry round a small towel which you drape over your bits. Which I did at first. But I observed that keeping yourself covered at all times didn't seem to be a big deal. If it was, they would use more than a towel. From this I concluded that nudity wasn't a big deal here, so I did away with the towel. But today I was watching what people were doing more closely, and I think I was wrong. I think you are supposed to make the effort to cover your bits, even if it clearly pointless and futile. It's OK if people see your bits, as long as you made a token effort to hide them. Japanese psychology still seems pretty strange to me but I think I'm starting to get to the bottom of it.

Well, got to go. Hope everyone is well.

Bye,

James