The busy life of a kaishain is not only made of meetings and reports, in fact there is also a little time for harvest. For those of you who missed the first episode of tamanegi crop, they can catch up with the potatoes crop. Right, we as researchers like to dig deep subjects that matter and sometimes output weird ideas. So like last time, we went to the small field next to the research center and joyfully dig to take out potatoes from the earth. It is sure a lot of fun, especially when everyone is there to get their potatoes, even the big boss.
The big discussion after the crops is “what are we going to do with them?” The most common answer is obviously curry rice (pronounced kare raisu), after 2 months in Japan, it is probably one of the most common and appreciated dish here. And of course my answer is the same as my Japanese colleagues but just mentioning I will do it in the betonamu style.
Back to work, each of us carrying 1,2 or more kilos of potatoes, you get a strange feeling entering our open space as you see many bags of potatoes next to each researcher but hey ! that how it is, the fruits of our hard work. Speaking of hard work, it was not really that yesterday. Everybody was excited for sure but because we were going to watch the fireflies after work (you bet we or they left the office at least 3 hours earlier than they usually do). We all met at the station to get to Nara and except that they were no one around Todaiji, we really looked like a school excursion… taking pictures of the deers and playing with them.
Once we got to the little water and forest place, perfect setting to see fireflies, we waited for a couple of minute, gazing in the dark to be sure we do not miss the first one. Unfortunately we did not see many of them or were I expecting too much, I don’t know. What’s the point in watching fireflies? Well, it is part of Japanese culture, it is relaxing outside the city and you remember your mother telling you that story of fireflies close to a small river and a forest just like that one. Or maybe because it is the boss’ idea and that we are going for drinks after that…
You said drinking, but are we not eating first? Well there will be some food… Like the welcome party one month ago, we went to a Japanese style “restaurant” or izakaya. Food is of course delicious but so are the drinks! And you cannot read the drinks name, you let your colleague choose for you and hopefully till the end of the night, you will have taste enough of them to remember some names for next time…
Anyway, those social parties are really made to make abstract of the hierarchical relationship you have during the day, more or less, and freely chat and joke on any matter. This is during those nights that you discover how fun are your colleagues but don’t get me wrong, tomorrow, you will be at work and forget about what I said tonight.
People think that Japanese cannot stand alcohol very well, the thing is that alcoholic drinks tend to be cheaper or slightly more expensive that the dishes they served in izakaya, so let’s drink! The corollary is that you may get drunk easily then. An interesting point is that those izakaya usually take the last order at 10pm so customers can recover, just enough if needed, to catch the last train. Social analysis of the last train population is something to experience.
