“The huge ones hide behind the leaves.”
“The small ones taste sweeter.”
“The squashed ones stain your pants.”
Such was the peasant wisdom we shared last Friday on a trip to hunt for strawberries. Just 30 minutes of hunting and each of us had preyed on more strawberries you would usually prey on in a year. The hunting ground was a small family farm next to vegetable fields and a railway track, with the nearest toilet being a box under a tree. A brave participant claims the interior was pristine; your correspondent was too wary to verify her statement.
After the hunt, we went for lunch at a café that served curry and fried food to people who smoke and eat at the same time. It was the only restaurant near the train station. The food was pretty good, though. While we didn’t go to the nearby hot springs after all, some of us stayed on to tour the local district while others went to climb a nearby mountain. All in all, though a little short, it was a refreshing trip that took us out of Tokyo and into small-town Japan. From the backyards of houses we passed by, flowering trees reached out towards a clear, spring-scented sky.
