Let's enjoy picking Japanese radish!

What is daikon you may ask? Well according to the wonderful Wikipedia daikon is a mild-flavored East Asian giant white radish. Though most widely known as daikon, the radish is also known under other names, including daikon radish, Japanese or Chinese radish, winter radish, mooli or moo, lobak or loh bak, labanos, rabu, phakkat-hua, and cu cai trang. ^[1] Although there are many varieties of daikon, the most common in Japan, the Aokubi Daikon, has the shape of a giant carrot, approximately 20 to 35 cm (8 to 14 inches) long and 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 inches) in diameter. This information is most pertinent to this particular blog because I will now be informing you of my experience in the fields picking and cleaning this root which is an essential to Japanese cuisine. I had just finished teaching when my teacher turned to me and said, "Let's enjoy picking Japanese radish!". My initial reaction was "WHAT!" but of course my obvious answer was ,"O.K.! Sounds fun!" while in my head I am thinking, I am totally not wearing radish picking clothes today! Nonetheless I get out there will all my teachers and students and we pick these monstrous roots and carry them back to the school to clean them. And let me tell you my arms were SORE! Those radishes are heavy! We picked and cleaned so many daikon, it made me think that this was the whole reason they even had a school all the way up in the mountains...to help with the farming! But actually all the daikon we picked my school gave to the local temple (named Sanzenin, its actually quite famous) and in turn two days later the temple gave us a large portion back baked to perfection. So after all my teachers exclaimed "SUGOI! OSHII-SO!" (Wow! Looks delicious!) we all got to have a big piece of daikon with our lunch. And of course our students also got to join in and try the daikon they had farmed. The adventures never end when you teach in the mountains......