Spend May in the Japanese countryside with us

Spring mornings in the Japanese countryside are pure magic right now—they honestly make me fall in love with this season all over again. As we enter the shifting humidity from winter to spring, the mountains are shrouded in a soft mist, resembling giant, perfectly steamed rice balls fresh out of a traditional rice cooker. And the rice paddies! They’re flooded now, shimmering and glistening under the spring sun.

What I cover in this video

My first time helping with rice planting

This is my first time helping my neighbors with their rice fields. I’ve been watching them for the past few days from the house, first planting the sprouts with their rice transplanter, then following suit by hand-planting and fixing any sprouts that didn’t quite take to the mud. As soon as I saw them pull up their pants legs and wade into the mud, I went down to the fields — first, to casually ask what they were doing, then to follow up and see if I could help. Play it cool, Mika.

As soon as I got the green light, I sped-walked back to the house, changed into my blue coveralls, and headed back down to the fields. The mud was squishy and smooth — surprisingly cool and relaxing as it squished between my toes; a nice contrast to the sun’s heat that was already starting to bear down on my neck. We did that for an hour before one of my neighbors called for a break, bringing cookies in a wicker basket she had prepared. 

Springtime cooking with bamboo shoots

Featuring one of my favorite seasonal treats: tender, light bamboo shoots. Even with the hungry snouts of boar picking many of the barely-sprouted shoots, there was still an incredible abundance of bamboo, graciously delivered in plastic bags and to our doorstep by our neighbours.

Processing bamboo takes longer than you would expect: first peel off the layers of tough skin protecting the delicate flesh of the bamboo. Then, boil the bamboo with rice bran to strip it from its innate astringincy for 40 minutes. Drain, then boil again with a fresh pot of water.

(More) updates on our akiya house hunt

Of course, I’ll give you a minor update on our ongoing (and sometimes challenging!) search for our dream akiya house.