I just watched Sumiko making nukazuke, a kind of pickle, using white radishes and radish greens. She took a small covered bucket out from somewhere. When she took the lid off, I smelled something sour and a bit rotten, but also familiar - a little bit like something I ate for dinner. Inside was a thick light-brown paste, about the texture of spackle, with fragments of vegetable here and there. She took a bunch of radishes in her hand, and in the other hand, took a small handful of salt. She then rubbed the radishes and radish leaves with salt, and reached her hands into the tub of brown paste, breaking it up, and revealing vegetables that had been packed inside. She pointed out a couple carrots, gobu (a thin white root, not sure what it's related to) and more radishes.

The brown paste was rice bran, with some fermentation going on. She added a few fresh handfuls of the bran and then packed the radishes, leaves and all, into the paste, making sure they were entirely surrounded. She then pushed the medium (I'll stop calling it paste) down, making sure the fresh vegetables were completely covered.

I asked her how many days it would take before the pickles were ready to eat, and she said one day in the summer, two in the winter.

As far as taste goes, they aren't bad - fresher and less salty than brine pickles, but with a definite fermented taste, a bit like kim-chee.

I actually did some work today! One thing this farm produces is dokudami - an herb used for tea. The plant grows wild on the periphery of the farm, along the road, and under some trees. It looks like a viney leafy herb, with a small white flower. The roots have runners like morning glory. The leaves are broad and spear-shaped (also a bit like morning glory), and have a hint of purple, especially along the edges.

After picking a few pounds of the plant, we washed them, and then made little bunches of about 20-25 stalks, binding them with plastic at the root. We then hung them to dry in the upstairs part of one of the buildings. Drying time is about three weeks to a month.

Today was the first day that I didn't spend any money. I'm guessing I'll have lots of days like that at Muchachaen, and I'm also guessing I'll be working a lot more than two hours a day there.

I've noticed that the Japanese have a different approach to warning signs - signs meant to alert the general public to dangers. Rather than using abstract pictograms like ours, which look like hieroglyphics, they use cartoons. One of them showed a man in a business suit being dragged by a train, because his arm was caught in the door. At first glance it's cute and funny, but the horror of the situation comes across too. I'm thinking that cartoons are just as universal, if not more so, than abstract pictograms. Maybe they convey their message faster, and with more impact. Cartoons can instantly convey facial expressions, movement, relationships, and other sorts of things that pictograms basically lack.

I see a lot of English here, especially in advertisements, and I think they don't always say exactly what they wanted to say. Yesterday I saw an ad for some kind of condominium, or maybe housing development, called "woody house." (Maybe it was an ad for a brothel?) On the other hand I seem to provide a fair amount of amusement too, in my attempts to speak Japanese.

I took this picture at lunch today, while playing with Kenji's digital camera. (I'm starting to want a digital camera, but I think I'll hold out for 20 megapixels.)