Day 7 (June 7, 2026)

June 07, 2026

Alexandra here! I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain, which had been the case since our arrival last night in Oita. As I went down and started brushing my teeth, I suddenly heard a loud exclamation from Jess, who had stepped on a centipede. Everyone in our cabin (Kelland, Elizabeth, Jess, Lilah, Mackenzie) immediately started freaking out, and even though Jess sprayed the centipede with a puddle of bug spray, it wouldn’t die (it actually did… eventually). I’ve seen centipedes before, but I jumped when I saw this one because it was the biggest, fattest centipede I’ve ever seen. After that debacle, we headed down to a bungalow where we eat our meals, which have been made mostly by a lady who works here who is so sweet and has contagious energy! We made Onigiri (rice triangles) and ate that with seaweed, fish, tofu, corn, and apples. We were supposed to go on a hike, but the rain was really heavy, so we went to a museum that looks at Buddhism (and Shintoism) in the Kunisaki region. At the museum, there were many fascinating artifacts, ranging from traditional masks to bowls to miniature versions of the Oita area. Near the entrance, there were also replicas of a massive Buddha carving and a Buddhist temple that we will get to visit later in the trip! Then, we boarded the bus and drove to local farmer’s house, where we ate a vegan bento box (with potato, rice, curry, salad, etc. inside) from local producers and sipped soup made by the woman of the house. We played a traditional Japanese game (shogi taoshi); it is similar to pick up sticks. There are game pieces that are placed on top of a game board that looks like a little table, and the goal is to take off as many pieces as you can each turn without making a sound; you can only use the end pad of one finger to do so. Afterwards, we got to the main activity of the day: rice farming. We left the house barefoot with our pants rolled up (or unzipped and turned into shorts). Walking along the sharp stone floor to the rice fields, students either said it was extremely painful or not at all. There was still a light drizzle, but the rain had died down a bit, so the weather was really nice. We walked in a straight line so that we could plant the rice plants in a row, and we stepped into mud that went all the way to our knees. Little tadpoles, flies, ants and other bugs crawled around in the mud and around our legs as we planted October’s rice crop. The steps involve evening out the mud, plucking 3-5 pieces of rice plant from our batch, and planting them by the aligned markers. We also got rid of weeds by stepping on them/burying them in the mud. The rice will be harvested in three to four months! We were done after about an hour, and after being hosed off and each given little pieces of chocolate, we said thank you and goodbye before heading back to our home base. Back at our bungalow, the Hata-san showed us how to make a sweet potato snack. While it was cooking, she taught us how to make soba! There are many steps involved that also had words aligned with them like (phonetic spelling) hoodie-hoodie, which means shake; may-zee, may-zee which means mix; moh-me, moh-me which means massage; and kah-nay, kah-nay, which means knead; and more that we would say/even sing as we did the actions. After, we ate these little sweet potato buns that we rolled together as snacks. We’ve just finished the workshop and eating our snack. We’re going to come back at 6:30 for dinner (which will be the soba we made by hand) and then do some taiko drumming later tonight. I’m really excited for it! Tonight ended with an incredible musical event- we were taught by Taiko drummers and then played (that was not the incredible performance). After we learned and played, the Taiko drummers put together an incredible show- so fun, awe-inspiring, and touching.