Our Life Follow Up

No new photos from today's activities... I am too busy to get the camera out.

Today I woke up and a neighbor stopped by to give us a load of wara (rice straw) that we wanted to make natto (fermented soy beans). I then went to collect a poop-load of old floor boards which a friend had collected from demolished farm houses. For some reason the village people like to destroy their beautiful, well-built, classic, traditional houses and build cheap modern houses in their place. Baba (the friend) is always there to collect the wood. He has a pile of wood that he has collected over the past twenty years, and we received enough to re-floor our living room, any other rooms, our kitchen walls, and make a deck in the backyard. It would have cost us several hundred dollars at the lumber shop for the same amount of inferior quality wood.

After an amazing lunch of fresh veggies, potatoes, and genmai, we spent the afternoon selecting the unfortunate weak sprouts from our garden that will be tomorrows dinner in order to make room for the stronger spouts to become December's dinner.

After that we were answering some emails about the tour - I still can't believe that we have so many participants without actually advertising! The emails are not only about our upcoming tours, but also people who want trips next year or in November and December. Although I feel smart in that I made these tours, I feel like an idiot in that I didn't realize how popular it could be.

We just got back from a walk to the local hot spring bath which we visit four times a week. I realized tonight that we have only taken a shower five or so times this entire summer. The rest of the time we have bathed in either a hot spring onsen bath, or the beautiful Lake Aokiko (in August). Life doesn't get any better than this. It makes it even better that our bath is located in the very village we live in - only a five minute walk. All of our neighbors also use the same bath, so it is great for meeting people and "connecting" with the locals.

Finally, I want to direct you to a site that embodies our philosophy and the One Life Japan philosophy. I feel sorry for people who don't "get it". Joseph's story is similar to ours. We (Tomoe and I) both had a time when we thought that "the good life" was just around the corner. It was not until we decided to live the good life now that the good life actually came to us.