Far and away, but not really

This winter break Aya and I did not travel to some distant land, but stayed right here in Japan, which can seem distant enough given the right locations. Now that is not to say that we didn’t do anything. We had decided a few months ago that we would like to do some volunteer work and searched for a suitable place. We found an organization called Woof and signed up with them. Once signed up we could see the profiles of many people that had signed up to host people. We saw many farms and hotels, ski resorts and other businesses looking for people to come volunteer with them, but we chose a small farm in Shizuoka. Why did we choose it? Because they said they brewed beer. Now essentially we wanted to volunteer somewhere where people needed us to help them, but as we left Aizu we realized that that was not what we were doing and somewhere along the way our good intentions had been replaced by something much safer and closer to home, which happens a lot when you are in Japan. Despite this we went on.
When we arrived the season converged at an unproductive time and we really didn’t do much of anything. We sowed some seeds, sorted mikans, and made some New Years decorations to earn our room and meals, but it was not hard work and we only put in 4 or 5 hours a day. The rest of the time was spent lounging about or eating dinner with the family. Oh, and did I mention they had two ostrich, a huge German shephard and two cats both named Tama?
They were extremely friendly. When on the first night we asked why they had signed up to host woofers the son said that he wanted contact with foreign people. This struck me as odd. Most males in Japan either don’t have interest in foreigners or are afraid to admit they do. I don’t know why this is, but it is something that I have observed. So over the next few days I tried to talk with Yoshitsugu, the son, as much as I could although he was busy actually working while Aya and I were “working”
At the end of our three days they packed us up nicely with mikans and sho-chu and sent us on our way. I promised Yoshitsugu that I would keep in contact and we may even join up to watch some sumo at the end of January.