Fall In Tokyo

The leaves change color, the vending machines now hold hot drinks as well as cold and the toilet seats are warm - these are all signs that fall has come to Japan. Potato digging is another. In pre-schools all over, little children followed (or in some cases led) by their teachers and parents make their way to one of the small farms to commune with nature.

Ariana and I went last week. While many children were actively digging and pulling at the vines, Ariana was waiting until the farmer came along and dug out the potatoes that were left in the ground. Then she would gracefully pick them up and put them in our bag.

The farm was small, probably about 2 acres, and as you can see from the picture, smack in the middle of a neighborhood. In addition to sweet potatoes, they also grew other vegetables and had a few pomegranate trees.





This is a Daikon radish, a very popular vegetable here. It can be sliced or grated into a salad or sauteed. It grows straight down into the ground and as you can see, with the leafy top was almost as big as Ariana.

Ariana was quite interested in the bug she found (eew!!) - picking it up and waving it around for all to see (eeeeeeeeww!!!!!!!!!!!). Luckily this one did not make it into the bag of potatoes.

As you can probably tell, I am not a big fan of bugs - not a good quality to have living here. It is easy to forget that Japan is one big island, but it is and it has the variety of bugs and insects to prove it. Like I said before, eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!