The garden is just going forward

I’ve just taken delivery of 1000 worms to assist me with my organic waste. Now that may seem odd, but I was so lucky to find a company in Japan that sells the Can of Worms, along with a load of other cool organic products.

Actually there are a lot of places now in Japan that have gone organic and sell via the efficent mail order system here. I found one site a few months ago that sold can of worms, and the site was in English so wow, lets get one. But they didn’t deliver. Now on my whole organic kick and juicing I really wanted to dispose of my organic waste without sendng it out to be burnt so I could just breath it down again.

I searched again for Can of Worms in Japan and found this site

http://noah-green.com/

I guess I just got a little better at working out Japanese site since living here so I gave it a crack and ordered one via their Japanese only site. The order went through and then I found out there were closed for a few days (via Japanese langauage email).

I then wrote back in English and told them no probem with the delay in delivery. To my total delight and amazement they wrote back to me in English. Then when they sent what would have been the standard email reply of delivery instructions someone had kindly translated each paragraph into english for me.

I have lived here long enough not to expect that and was just so thrilled that Noah Green did that for me. I was stoked, and really really wanted to make this work. Well it did. My worm farm arrive on Friday night and someone had taken the effort to write on notepaper to me that included were instructions in English and Japanese.

They never needed to do this and I was so happy about this I felt I needed to really make Noah Green something that non japanese speakers should take a closer look at. When I have a bit of time I’ll try and write something about how to work through their website in English.

What really has made me so happy about http://noah-green.com/ is that they do care about us who can’t speak Japanese. There was a small issue with my worm delivery, but it was all sorted out and now, well 1000 worms are eating away at my vegetable was. And that has got to be good.!

I got this from one of my Uncles the other day.  Seemed a good idea to repeat.

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the House, the cracked pot arrived only half
full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering
only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the
perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was
made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of it’s own imperfection.
And miserable that it was able to accomplise only half of what it had
been made to do. 

After two years of what it perceived
to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the
stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have
been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side
causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my
flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts," the pot said.

The
bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on
your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because
I have always known about your flaw. So I planted flower seeds on your
side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered
them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to
decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would
not be this beauty to grace the house?

Moral:
Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s
the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very
interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what
they are, and look for the good in them. Blessed are the flexible, for
they shall not be bent out of shape.

Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life.

I’ve downloaded the pics now and found that the camera lens I was using is not the problem, I appear to have a spot of dust on the camera (again), there is a lot to be said for not changing lenses at all!!!

The new lenses is a Sigma 18-200ml lense on sale at Amazon for $300 less than normal retail.  Oddly its rotation for zoom is the opposite from the Pentax lense I’ve had, but you do get used to it.  Pics are here.

Okay the pics aren’t there yet.  I have to clean them up before posting!!

If any of the reader of this work in IT, then this will be so appropriate! I know exactly what it feels like to be herding those kitties! I don’t normally post You Tube Pics, but this is a total classic and well worth watching.

I’ve been doing alot of reading the last few weeks about raw food diet’s. There is so much to learn, and its really caught my attention.  So I’m going to give it a try.  Will be interesting as I’m already gluten free (or as close as I can get in Japan), so this is going to be interesting.  Today was a lead in as I still had some milk frozen from before going to China, therefore the morning smoothy was milk based and some left over rice went into the cabbage wraps.  The almound ‘cheese’ for lunch was fantastic and tommorows lunch is a Gazpacho soup I made last week. 

Back from a week away in Hangzhou, China, quite the experience!  I arrive with the team from work on Sunday.  Nice flight on JAL business class.  After check in we went for a walk around the West Lake which is truely very beautiful.

The only thing about Hangzhou that is so very obvious is the air pollution.  I was thinking how wonderful it would be on a clear day to find out today was a clear day!  The murk that hangs in the air is just always there.  Its very sad really as the city itself is really a garden city.  I’ve been to many cities that make that claim, but after spending a week in Hangzhou I think it really does deserve that title, it really does have gardens and greenery everywhere.  The lake is the centre of it all and is quite something.  It took us three hours at a brisk walk to get around it all, and that was a brisk walk in 30+ degree’s so it was also a sweaty walk.  I really wish I had changed into shorts for that.

I have the pics and will process them shortly.  The meals out were amazing and course after course just kept coming.  Odd one of the dishes I really like was the tripe, go figure that one huh.  The one dish I really didn’t like was the west lake fish which tasted will like the lake.  enough said once you see the pics.

The people there were really wonderul and very friendly.  I had a great time meeting my team members and was really inspired by there enthursiam.

Well its about time some of that name game came out. Many of the readers of this will not be familiar it with Maori language – or perhaps my countries native language. I will confess I’m not a native speaker, nor even a good listener as I know from living in Japan.

There is something I do know very well. My home. Its a small little valley on the west side of the becoming famous Coromandel Peninsula. Its been so unworthy of notice that even today its just a small mention on the maps, well almost. Its beginning to get fame because its the beginning the prestine Pohutukawa Coast, and somewhere still untouched.

I know the valleys of it very well, not because of recent history where my family owns alot of it but rather because of its name. The name is Papa Aroha

Translation is (and this is very directly I dont’ need to look up and verify, since I grew up with these legend names)

Papa = Earth mother, her partner was Rangi sky (yes Papa in my real language means mother)
Aroha = Love (no different meaning for that either).

My home valley I live in is called Papa Aroha. Take the translations, it means the place that mother earth loves. Or a place where the ansectors felt her love and see it. When you see a picture of my valley you will understand. It really is where the mother earth created a place you will love. Come see, you are welcome!

So far this blog series doesn’t cover much of my previous travels as it was started when I arrived in Japan and I never quite worked out how to incorporate it all. In the first few weeks of 2005 I did a tour through part of the middle east. My main goal was to see Petra, which I did, the day of my 36th birthday, pretty cool huh!

A part of the that tour taught me through Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. We all had the option to do a day trip to Lebanon and down to Beirut for an extra charge. I wasn’t sure about doing it, and figure I would go with the flow. It ended up all of us were up for the trip (there were only 11 of us for the first leg of the Winter tour), it was an exceptional trip and something that now I thing back on it captured my heart as well.

You don’t realise when you leave Damasus to travel there just how high up you are, or rather the Lebonese mountains. Our first stop after crossing the boarder was Balbeck, and if you want breath taking ruins thats the place to go.

Just realised its been a while since I added anything to the foorsteps blog. All my efforts have been on the house site (click on Shimoda house above). Its been a totally mind blast working on this place. All the details are at the house site.