Wakayama Trip

We had a fieldtrip to Wakayama prefecture in mission to help farmers harvesting ume. it’s peak season to harvest ume. My lecturer say, we going have a hard work like farmers do, in fact…ehehehehe it was fun experience to PLAY at ume farmland. kkk kkkk

Umeboshi inside onigiri, the tast is sour and salty

Wait, do you know ume? some say plum…some say it’s close to japanese apricot. The tree come from china becuse its beautiful flower, lately in 1200’s they harvest fruits. if it’s raw the fruit can be toxic and if it’s over rip, the taste is so so (for me). So, usualy ume is processed before eat, the famous two processed ume is being umeboshi and umesyu. umesyu is liquor, from the fermented ume . while umeboshi is dried pickle that used in the onigiri. the taste? ummm…me likey, it’s salty and sour, that’s why they don’t use it too much in onigiri. Nakamura sensei said, umeboshi also contain many bacteria that help our digestion, its sour taste being natural preservative. Wakayama is famous of its ume and mikan (local orange). They provide almost 58% of national’s ume demand. While only 29% in Wakayama cultivated with Ume. that makes big profit for the farmers, that’s why 90% of 1100 farmers in wakayama is full time farmer. Not only having land and harvesting the ume, the farmers usually have home industry to make their own umeboshi. Like the farmer that we going to help harvesting, they are husband and wife who manage the 3 ha farmland for many years.

Kampaaaaiii!!

well…that’s a little about ume based on my note on lecturea day before we harvest the ume. At least I have to write longer for this week report, bhehehehe…sooo what’s FUN? from the start at 9 am we off to Wakayama from campus, having lunch in farmer’s market. Mizuno sensei said that we going to cook our own dinner in the villa, so we buy some materials for our dinner. We plan to cook indonesian chicken soup and perkedel for dinner and nasi goreng for breakfast.The interesting one about farmer’s market is the farmer do their own packaging and decide the price of their goods. that’s why the price every vegetable even the same vegetable is not same. they also put labels who harvest it, when they harvest it, or….what recipe you going to do with this vegetable, etc.it take 15 minutes to the villa where we going to stay. The villa is gergous marvelous,awesome…hah! what to say, exactly everyone’s dream house. all made by wood in the middle of ume farmland. The owner is Mr Niizuma who welcome us very humble and warm. my lecturer say that he is famous tv director. looks he so happy watching us cook in his kitchen.

Proudly present : Sop ayam, nasi goreng and perkedel hihihi

afer arrive in villa, we having a class like I told before, then prepare our dinner. Actually most of indonesian student have responsibility to cook dinner, but japanese students more helpfull than us, >,< gomeenn… we cook chicken soup that lately more suitable to call it, “carrot soup" hahahah because the ammount of the carrot is more than chicken itself. While japanese student cook fried chicken and salad. our sensei cook some vegetable too…thanks God they like our soup *all hail to royco : we call it magic seasoning, buahahhaa* we chit chatting eat cake until 11 pm. Time to sleep. 

But we realize the next morning we have to get up earlier, making nasi goreng in hurry such bad idea. So we decided to make nasi goreng before sleep. we finally go to bed at 12 am. I wake up at 3.30 morning. becase we have to have breakfast at 5 am. it’s easy because we already cook nasi goreng before, just put the rolled egg to microwave, taraaa…we done. but sensei cook us miso soup, and japanese student also make onigiri with umeboshi. But most of us eat nasi goreng instead, yatttaaa..never though that our nasi goreng is famous.

Enjoying the break time, oh I love japanese cake and refreshing drinks

at 5.30 we leave the villa and go to the farmland. we already welcomed and straight divided into several group to get up the pick up car. We harvest fruit that already fall and from the tree until 10 am. having break, chit chatting with the farmers, go back to their basecamp, see how they process ume and packaging. Eat biwa fruit….then go home at 12.00 am sayonaraaa…not that hard, because we playing not working there hahahaha…the hardest part is harvesting in slope area, I almost fall in many time..kkk kkkk

then we having lunch and playing in the beach. the interesting one is the time table of our field trip is punctual, we depart to our campus at 18.30.