Explore everyday life in Japan
Living within reach of the countryside in Japan means you have access to all kinds of fruit picking throughout the year: strawberry picking, cherry picking, peach picking, pear picking, persimmon picking, grape picking, and much more, depending, of course, on the region you are in.
In Japanese, the word kari (狩り), often pronounced gari, is paired with the names of fruit to equal what is called fruit picking in English. Kari, however, is a word that means to hunt, which turns fruit picking in Japan into fruit hunting. The idea of hunting for fruit is something that I particularly like. When I think of hunting for strawberries or, in this case, hunting for cherries, it makes my imagination run a little wild.
Often, the fruit farms in Japan that open their doors to the general public are nothing more than a few greenhouses full of fruit trees, vines, or planters. Sometimes, within these greenhouses, there are sitting areas cheaply made of framed 2 x 4 platforms and plywood where you can sit down, relax, and picnic with your family or order meat and vegetables to barbecue over a charcoal grill.
Other times, they offer slightly more comfortable sitting areas that have plastic tables and chairs set up near stands selling homemade gelato and other farm wares such as preserves, etc.
Occasionally, you will find farms that don't have a place for you to sit. They merely open their doors and welcome you to either eat as much fruit as you can pick on the spot, or welcome you to pick as much fruit as you would like to take home and then sell it to you by the gram. Of course, if you opt for option two, you can still pick fruit and sneak some samples into your mouth, but by and large the general expectation that you won't sample the wares if you haven't chosen the all you can pick and eat course is followed, as are most rules and societal expectations in Japan.
This year, I tried cherry picking for the first time In my life. Since the cherries looked so incredibly good, I opted for the all you can pick and eat option. Being that this option was a little expensive, 1800 yen (about $17 USD), I made sure to eat my money's worth. (There were a hundred cherry pits in my cup when I finished.)
As I'm sure you can imagine, this didn't agree with me very well later on in the day. At the time, though, with the cherries being as good as they were, I felt like I was really getting a great deal. And my children also had a great time filling my face with cherries.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.