Well I've been working hard on the Masuichi website but my boss Sarah has decided that it isn't good for me to stare at a computer all day (haha maybe I complain about it too much). So instead I have been forced to take a break (horray!) and work on the rethatching of the Hokusai workshop for the rest of this week!
Rethatching is awsome, I got to climb up the roof of a wooden structure and slather mud all over the place. Sarah is hard-core about restoring the Hokusai workshop as authentically as possible so everything is being done according to traditional methods and whatever research she could find in books. That means no nails, no cement, everything is put together by hand using only rope, wood, mud and dried grass.
Apparently before Sarah got her hands on it the structure served as a home and the people who had owned it for generations didn't care for it very much. Additions had been built onto the thing, and the roof was basically allowed to rot. The workshop was about to be torn down so that a new house could be built but Sarah and Mr Masuichi found out about it, asked for it and had the workshop moved onto Masuichi-property. Now the workshop, called Heikkiiken is to be fully restored as accurately as possible and used as part of a new hotel being built on the property.
Ever since I started working on the roof I have noticed one thing. I am now weak little girl. Or I shouldn't say that, two girls work hard on the site daily with me. Every evening I come home covered in mud ( this stuff hardens like cement, it's impossible to get off ) my arms and legs sore, so lame. But at least I am having lots of fun again! haha and this weekend I have been told that I will help the sake master plant the rice fields! At least it's never a dull moment here at Masuichi, I guess I will have alot to write about in the sake off-season after all.
Sean.