28th Oct – 3rd day at farm, weeding day

It was pretty cold, the last two days, especially at night. Last night, I set my alarm at 6am since it covered more than 8 hours. In the end, I slept for 9.5 hours and woke up at 7am just on time to brush my teeth and get dressed for breakfast at 730am. Rice and miso soup seems to be a must in their meal. After breakfast, Yuhei-san told me that he needed to go out to do something, and wont be back by 10am. Cant get what he said in English, probably to sell the vegetables and send his 2 big bags of waste papers for recycle. They really take the effort to keep all papers for recycle. I thought, “Yahoo”, I could rest for 2 hours!! Unfortunately, my dream was shattered after he told me to do weeding at the onion field while waiting for him. The nightmare I had yesterday. And so, off I went and did not stop for 4 hours! Just occasionally stood up to stretch my back and legs. It was really tough work and I was thinking about my beer and sun tanning session at Sentosa all the time. Finally Yuhei-san said “yasun de kudasai” (Please rest) and I didn’t realized it was already lunch time. Yuhei-san cooked some vegetables for us. Usually when he is alone, he just eat left-over food and seldom cook. It was a luxury already during my stay, I thought. After lunch, nightmare continued. Yuhei-san said I may start my weeding again at 2pm and stop at 5pm since we had Aikido martial art training today! At least the evening session later kept me motivated and something new to look forward to. There was still 20minutes before 2pm, and my head kept repeating “rest, take pictures, rest, take pictures…” I decided the latter. For 3 hours, I pissed 3 times. Beer appeared again. Recent Shanghai trip moment came back. Later, I thought, it may be tough, but after all that’s the whole purpose of this! I was motivated again. I promised myself then, that I would finish off every slice of onion that I could see on my plate in the future. Around 4:30pm, I put on some music on my iPhone to keep the motivation going. Then, “ring ring”, my alarm set off. Yahoo, knock off time. After 2 days of weeding, I barely completed half of the half of the field (if you know what I mean). Went back to realize I have no more clothes and did my laundry. Yuhei-san has a washing machine for his workers. Not long later, it was dinner time. Today, we had Japanese curry chicken rice. Oishii desu ne. (Delicious). Something interesting about Japanese drinking their coffee. They drink it like Ocha. That is without sugar. Kopi-kosong (black coffee without sugar). Initially, it tasted weird on the first day, but today, I found it nice indeed!

At 7pm, it was time for Aikido training. Together with the kids, we went to town. We reached a place like a sports hall. At the hall, we kneeled at the entrance and bowed. Later did I realized that Yuhei-san was the instructor indeed!! He coached his kids. He changed to his Aikido attire. First, we set up the hall with the cushions. We still had time to play some “bare boru” (volleyball) with the kids =] When the class started, we all squatted down, Yuhei-san at the front and the rest of us in a line, and bowed. Then, we faced each other and bowed once more. Then, we repeated what Yuhei-san said. I tried to follow, but some phrases were too long and I just mumbled along. Once done, we started to do various warm up routines. Yuhei-san would yelled “Ichi, ni, san, shi..” (Yuhei-san told me later that “shi” was used for counting instead of “yon”) for each routine. Final routine was the forward roll and backward row. After a few rounds, my head started to spin. Then, it was time for some real action. Yuhei-san called upon Ryo-san and Chika-san and then they started to practice each Aikido’s move that Yuhei-san said. All done, Gen-san’s turn with Chika-san. I just observed. The martial art is very interesting. I checked the Wikipedia before that it is a defensive form of martial art. I noticed most of the moves will tend to bend your wrist until it hurts. Then, it was my turn with Gen-san!! It was fun. =] Then, Yuhei-san tried it on me. He was stronger and I could feel the pain. He asked me to try it on him, but I couldn’t catch the move. I saw many Aikido’s disciples coming in, and one of them was a white foreigner! Some were very young, and I saw a little girl in the Aikido costume with the helmet on. So cute!! Too bad I was busy in the class, or else I would have captured a picture of it. I thought I could see the adult session after that (I joined the kids session just now). Yuhei-san asked if I like to try. I quickly followed him home.

Today, it wasn’t as cold as the previous 2 nights. Saw the newspaper today and noticed the weather report on Friday will be raining! Hopefully not too cold then. After shower, I realized I have forgotten my towel!! Had to put on my old clothes in order not to wet my new one. Hastily, I ran to my room to get dried and changed to my new clothes. Every time I wanted to turn on the heater table, I thought of the electricity bill that Yuhei-san will be paying and refrained myself. 10pm, time for bed. Tomorrow would probably be more weeding!!!