A while ago I went to one of the most unexpected places I have ever been to in Japan...
MOTHER FARM マザー牧場
If -anyone- visits this site who has been there before, I will eat my hat.
Mother Farm is similar to Living History Farms, if you know what I mean. We have a grandLiving History Farms in Iowa! Oh, it was wonderful! The cows! The Corn! Petting zoos, games, events. Stinky Cow stuff... giant pigs... ewww...
Actually. It's kinda boring.
One of the funniest events they had at Mother Farm was a pig run with the kids. The kids had to smack their baby pigs around a race track. Some of the pigs would stop to dig in the dirt, and it was absolutely hilarious to see the frustrated children desperately smacking the pigs to get them to move. The staff looked like they were having the time of their lives.
click for bigger pic.
There was also a hilarious contest in which old people had to bail hay
as fast as possible. Weaklings!!! I could have done it! They should have let the gaijin on the job.
One of the most elaborate events they had was a sheep demonstration by a Japanese speaking foreigner who seemed to be from New Zealand. (Not that everyone in New Zealand is a sheep herder, it just seemed so from his accent. Really! I happen to like New Zealand. In fact, I want to live there some day. If anyone from New Zealand reads this please post a comment!) They had dogs running on the backs of sheeps, the man was man handling the sheep, dragging them around the stage. At the end, he sheared a sheep in about 2 minutes, and gave an entire garbage bag of sheep wool to a random kid in the audience. Now that's comedy.
Mother Farm was a great change of scenery. The area is very open and spacious. Good place to slack.
Mother Farm is in Chiba, you can get there from Kurihama by taking a ferry across the water and driving about 20 minutes.
-Harvey
This is kinda funny.
I've been studying kanji as usual. Check this out.
I was asking a friend about why the kanji for secretary in Japanese consists of the characters for "Secret" and the character for "Write" (or document or whatever).
| 秘 | 書 |
| "Secret" | "Document" |
I mean, secretaries aren't exactly doing spy work or anything right?
My Japanese friend said. "I dunno, why does secretary have the word secret in it?"
Woah.
Anyone know why? Or is this just 偶然 city?
I see...
http://www.m-w.com
Main Entry: sec·re·tary
Pronunciation: 'se-kr&-"ter-E, 'se-k&-"ter-, in rapid speech also 'sek-"ter-, esp British 'se-k(r)&-trE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -tar·ies
Etymology: Middle English secretarie, from Medieval Latin secretarius, confidential employee, secretary, from Latin secretum secret, from neuter of secretus
Date: 15th century