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Putting up fences around tennis courts, acting as secretary for foreign guests, chain-sawing, erecting a big canopy on the veranda, shovelling snow, avoiding the phone when it rings, accidentally driving over big stones with the ride-on mower, cutting telephone lines with a bush cutter, operating the mini-digger (no accidents as yet, touch wood)...

Japanese Tales: Wwoofing at Milky House, Summer 2002

Joseph Tame
2006-06-30 12:42:31

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My first Wwoofing experience was in France, way back in the winter of 1997. I don't think I'll ever forget that place: I'd wake up each day with frosty hair and lips frozen together as the shed that I was housed in was so cold! Thankfully, since then I've had much better times on host establishments, both in Europe, and now, Japan.

I met many Japanese tourists whilst working in a Swiss mountain hotel in 1999 and 2000. They'd pass through our resort in their thousands, yet despite being herded like sheep by their guides, they were always extremely polite and friendly: it was this led me to become interested in their home country.

I flew to Japan in the autumn of 2001, and was soon happily settled in central Tokyo. It was the first time that I'd ever lived in a city, and it made for quite a change from my previous alpine home, which had had an overnight population of 30! However, after 6 months I realised that if I really wanted to indulge in my new passion for learning the Japanese language, I'd have to land myself in some crazy farming community where no one spoke a word of English. Also, having done the typical English-teaching thing for a while I was ready for a complete change of lifestyle: enter Wwoof Japan.

The release of the new list in the spring of 2002 couldn't have come at a better time, and within a fortnight of downloading it I found myself at Country Inn Milky House in Niseko. Located 2 hours southwest of Sapporo, this area sees a huge volume of skiers in the winter, and a similar number of potato farmers in the summer. Milky House isn't actually a farm at all, it's a pension, a family-run guesthouse that has been offering "Active and Relaxing Breaks" for the past 20 years.

My first few weeks were absolutely horrendous. With my very limited Japanese I felt like a complete idiot, not having ...