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Japan, Shrubbery, Part 4
Woke up on Wednesday morning, happy that I had another free day to spend with my friend, and more time to check out rural Japan. We talked life, and then took Bu, the hunting dog, for a walk through the neighborhood. It was humid, no breeze. Almost perfect weather. I was nursing a slight hangover, so some fresh air was just what the doctor ordered. I saw some beautiful homes, and the school that Hammer graduated from 20 years ago - we're getting older, haha!
Can you see it? It was as long as my hand, like a .50 cal shell.
I don't know why this seems so important, but right outside Hammer's house, we found a Hibiscus bush growing. If you don't know, the Hibiscus is the state flower of Hawai'i, and I grew up around them in my childhood home. How cool is that?
Yuck! Tiger Spiders, brrrrr. I don't know about you, but I'd rather crash a motorcycle that mess with that spider!
Starting to get my head back together, and we were in and out through beautiful roadways, narrow and sometimes covered with a veritable jungle of different trees and bamboo.
Look! Baby rice!
I wish I could remember the name of this one - it's rare. Unfortunately, there was such an information overload for me going on at this point, I could only repeat it before it fell out of my head.
These golden fields really resonated with me, and they smelt so good. It's hard for me to imagine a life without rice, because it's just that good. Everyday at Motegi we ate at the on track cafe, called J's. You could get just about anything you wanted there, with it's built in mini-store filled with collectibles, models, clothing, and more, and the food was a selection of stuff from around the world, like pastas, Japanese, and then some. I always opted for the Katsu Curry with rice. You just couldn't beat it. No pictures exist of that, though, because when I'm at the track, I'm working.
More waterways, which cut through the flatlands and provided the irrigation for all the rice paddies. Rice needs water to grow, which is something that makes it very hard to cultivate. Sometimes you need to drown the rice with water, and at other times you need to drain all the water from the fields so the rice will flourish. It's complicated and time consuming, and I appreciate it that much more now - for sure!
