This island is famous for blueberries. A while back I was proofreading the mid-term exams for Osaki Junior high, and the third year's test had a reading comprehension section. The paragraph was about Mr. Yokomoto, the man who brought blueberries to western Japan. Mr. Yokomoto was a child of this island who had moved away with his parents to Tokyo. He had gone to school and studied agriculture, but had really hated living in the big city. He was a descendent of many generations of farmers, and deep down he knew he wanted to work the land. Coming back to Osakikamijima, he tried the traditional oranges and citrus, but was unsatisfied. He decided to try blueberries. No one had ever tried growing blueberries this far west and south in Japan, but he was not deterred, and the rest is history.

I present to you Yokomoto-san, and his blueberries.







See, I read that paragraph and corrected a few punctuation errors, and I moved on. I went to my Monday Japanese lessons and never could remember exactly what my teacher's name was, but I knew it was Yoko-something. Then one day it just clicked. I remembered that her name was Yokomoto-san, and I remembered that paragraph, and I realized that my Japanese teacher was Mr. Yokomoto's wife. Small world.


Yokomoto-san: Japanese Teacher Extraordinaire.

Mrs. Yokomoto and I have Japanese lessons every Monday, and roughly half the class is just chatting, and we got to talking about how her husband had tried to photograph their products, but the pictures hadn't been great, so what advice did I have. I offered to take the pictures, and so the next chance I had, I went up to their farm and photographed some jam.


It's delicious. I was paid in trade, so I got a jar of kiwi, blueberry, and strawberry. On toast they are most excellent.

The other thing that was happening around the time I took the jam photos is that the island was bursting into bloom. It's slowing down now, but for a few weeks there, every tree and bush was covered in flowers.




This was on my commute home from school. I wonder if taking the F-Train home in Brooklyn will be able to compete.


There's a garage along the main road in town that has some beautiful flower out in front.




At Higashino Junior High they had spectacular cherry blossoms for a week.


I post this picture only because I was on my way to school with seconds to spare, but it was beautiful and grey out and I pulled off the main road to find a good spot to take a picture. I found this, which was better than nothing, and then got back on the road. I ended up being 10 minutes late for school and the principal called me into his office to remind me that school started at 8:10. Oops.

Lastly, these two pictures were taken on a flower-seeking trip with Mori. After this little trip to Nagashima, we planned to go to Ikunoshima - the tiny island next to Osakikamijima - by boat to see the cherry blossoms. Stay tuned, that's what you'll get next time.





And then no more flower pictures for a while, I promise.

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