Egg Plant, Hospital & Sake

Today's our last day at Shirakawa.....*SNIFF**SNIFF* Morning we went to a farm. Mr Sato is a famous farmer in this area. And his speciality.......egg plant....... He hired 3-4 Cocoron members to worked in his farm after learning about them.
Egg plant farm....the straws are to prevent any weeds from growing and keeps the moisture in control.

This ladies are part-timers coming to help pack the egg plants.

That's Mr Sato in the middle. Very humble and funny guy. Invited us into his house....very traditional house....altar...deco...and other stuff......
Pickled baby egg plant. Of course those who knows me well knows that no matter how greedy I am there's one thing in the world I would not eat.......egg plant. Yup Did not even touch it despite Keiko tempting me saying that's it's very nice & crunchy.

After Mr Sato's farm we went to a general hospital to visit a member of Cocoron who is employed there. Sorry no photos allowed there. The member, Kawano san was in a mental hospital for 16 years before being discharge. He was then send to this hospital for on-the-job training and after 1 year he was hired full time. The staff are pleased with his work and attitude. He works as a nurse aide....helping in the laundry and changing bed sheets.

After the hospital visit.....we went to Mr Odedaichi (I think that's the spelling) sake place and was invited into his house for lunch. He ordered bento set from Cocoro-ya and also serves tempura, pickled veggies and stewed bamboo shoots with mushrooms.

Getting ready for lunch!

And this is what we had for dessert... key lime pie with homemade apricot sauce and japanese cherries...... do I need to tell you how good it taste? Keiko was very naughty.,.telling me it's egg plant.....
I might as well be wearing the T-shirt saying "Arrest Me. I'm eating too much good food in Japan"! hahahahahahahaThat's Odedaichi-san showing us some of his artifact. He has 2 samurai armour and some old weapons. It's like a mini Tokyo National Museum!
Yes... that's Keiko saying "Dun Mess with me if not you know what I will do to u!" *grin*

After lunch, visited the sake factory which is just behind his house. He and his father and father's father has been producing sake since 1865!

Inside the refinery.

This is where the labeling an packing of the bottles are done. Odedaichi-san has 4 PWDs working there. 2 of them has worked there for more than 20 years! He started hiring PWDs even before the law about hiring PWDs came out. Cool eh...... And he has no problem with them even though at that time there won't any job coach support or support system.

In front of his sake shop. I didn't buy much only 3 bottles! haha 2 to bring home (law only allowed 2 if not I'll get more) and 1 small bottle for Akiko whom I'm meeting this sunday.

After a sake shopping spree back to Cocoron center for feedback session.....
Keiko & Matsuura...must be SMSing their husband saying "honey, I'm coming back tonite!"
Feedback session.......I shared that I never think that people with mental illness are in the disbilities category. In Malaysia I dun think they are categorise in the disabilities section so I never take notice. All I know is that they are also having much difficulty finding jobs as most of them are only able to work part time. I think when I go back to malaysia I will be more aware of them.
Kiran presenting a "Thank You" card (from UV of course!) to Kamada-san from all of us.
I also gave her a pewter letter stand....with the Twin towers, KL tower and the Sultan azlan shah building. (Gave the same one to Shiraiewa-san from Tanpopo-no-ie) Immediately she put the card on the letter stand as display. We then say our "sayonaras" and head to the train station.
This is soooo cool. The train we are taking has a Pokemon theme! Pikachu.....Kawaaaiiii

And the seat cover......kawaaiiiii

The boys settling down in the train

Keiko....er....trying to do a ballet dance in the train.... Must be feeling very stress... Dun blame her...spending 5 days with me can be quite "stressful"! hahahaha

We finally reached Tokyo at about 6:45pm and reached TIC about 7:40pm. phew.....tired and missing Fukushima oledi!! I luv the villages......it's the kind of life I wish I'm living in now. Not much of a city person eventhough I grew up in KL.