Du 27 oct au 6 Nov 2023
Le WOOFING (définition iGraal)
Le Woofing ou World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms est un concept de voyage économique et bio. Avec le Woofing, on part en vacances pour travailler à la campagne et se détendre.
Alors, il rallie la détente, le bien-être et le plaisir d’apprendre à travailler la terre. Il permet aussi aux vacanciers de donner un coup de main aux fermiers et des agriculteurs ainsi que de découvrir une nouvelle culture dans d’autres pays. Ce concept a vu le jour à Londres.
Notre approche
1ere expérience Woofing de notre voyage, dans un restaurant au bout de la péninsule au sud de Tokyo.
Nous avons choisi le Woofing chez cet hote pour :
- Optimiser notre budget de voyage (0 dépense ou presque)
- ne pas avoir des horaires top durs (car au japon, les heures travaillées sont plus importantes, ie 8h/jour juste pour être nourri et logé)
- découvrir un coin moins touristique du japon mais ave son charme quand même, et voir comme la vie s’y passe
- Découvrir le monde du travail à la japonaise dans un restaurant
- Si possiible, progresser en Japonais
A propos de notre hôte
- Nom de l’étalissement : 小さなレストランしいの木やま
- Infos sur le site du woofing : We prefer long stay WWOOFer. However, for short stay WWOOFer, the stay must cover any weekend (a period from Friday through Monday).
Please fill out the period which you hope to stay here (the arrival date& departure date) in the message of the application by all means.
We are going to ask you cleaning rooms and dishwashing in the main as help while you’ll be here.
If you like it, we welcome you.
We live in an environment rich in nature. You can feel with your five senses the scenery of the sea that changes daily, the color of the sky, the green of the trees, the scent of the air, the voices of birds and insects, the sky full of stars, and the changing seasons. Wild animals and insects are all friends. We welcome woofers who want to experience the splendor of nature, and woofers who are kind to animals, plants and nature.
We also love to eat and drink. I am interested in food from various countries and regions. I also love having food conversations while eating. We welcome woofers who cook dishes from their own countries and regions and tell stories.
We also love and are interested in Japanese culture.
I love history and geography, and I love walking around to see shrines, temples, castles and old towns. For Mr. Woofer who is interested in Japanese culture, we can guide you to nearby shrines on holidays.
My wife loves kimonos and is qualified as a dresser to dress people in kimonos. She can also experience wearing a kimono.
You can use Wi-fi in your room.
I’m sorry, we can’t accept smoking person .
It’s hard to accept a person who have limit with meals.
Please send me a message in Japanese or easy English.
We are not good at English.
We wrote these sentences with a support of translation software
- Avis des précédents woofers : w60668 I stayed with Papa and Mama 11 days, including 2 weekends in July 2023. The weekends are the busiest in their charming little restaurant. I had a wonderful time, helping them, observing and learning. I am very grateful for this opportunity and I hope they will visit me in Belgium. They were so kind and showed me around Izu peninsula on the free days. What a wonderful part of Japan; the scenery is amazing, the ocean great to swim in and I even went snorkeling with Papa for an afternoon. It is « service coupe » as they call it in restaurant business here, you work for lunch and the again in the evening but never very late compared to european standards. In the afternoon I took Papa’s bike to ride to the beach (20 minutes, 45 minutes of walking along a beautiful bikepath which follows the river). So I went swimming every day in the pacific which wasnot even cold. What a great time I had. We talked a lot about food in which Papa and Mama are very interested. For those who have never worked as extras in restaurants, it is basically cleaning dishes, pots and pans and cleaning in general. If you speak Japanese you might even work in the restaurant, which was the case with the nice Spanish woofer who arrived once I was there. Did I mention that Papa is a great cook? Well, he is. Thank you so much and hope to show you around in my country.
Panoramas 3d
Vidéos
Petit tour du proprietaire
Nous avons déccouert le vrai wasabi !
Soiree tressage d'une corde de riz un soir de pleine lune dans une ferme au coin du feu, super souvenir
Ballade à vélo le long de la rivière, qui est superbe (au ccouché du soleil notamment)
Fête annuelle du temple, nous avons préparé les bentos pour les financeurs du temple
ISAO dans la cuisine
Mini film pour se rappeler l'ambiance dans le restau le soir
Concert de musique africaine, à la fin presque tout le monde dansait
Galerie
Bilan
On a recopié l’avis qu’on a mis sur le site du woofing japan. On est en somme ravvi par cette immersion qu’offre le woofing, c’est un niveau au dessus du tourisme de base car on était avec des gens adorables et on a pu rencontrer pas mal d’autochtones, ce que le tourisme de base permet peu.
Feedback woofing Minamiizu
We are a French couple who don’t speak Japanese (I know a few words and am learning but have a beginner level) and stayed 10 days, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning the week after. We stayed during the first week of November 2023 and were lucky to have very good and warm weather (and moskitoes), which is not the standard season.
We recommend this woofing, we had a very pleasant experience.
For those who want to have as much details as possible :
Communication
Mama is not very good with English but understands if you pick the right key words and speak slowly.
Papa’s English is OK.
During food time (breakfast, lunch, diner) we raised questions about Japanese lifestyle (car styles, earthquakes, their previous years, favorite food, movies, wine, shoes, fashion…) and always learned something new and interesting.
They will also teach you the essentisl Japanese formalities : how to say good morning, thank you, thank you for the meal, good work, welcome back and so on…
If you are willing to learn from them and show interest, they will open to you and be very nice. It was very touching.
Also, thanks to the customers that we met, and to events that we participated to, we had opportunities to discuss and discover more culture. We are more than pleased by this, especially since we did not speak Japanese.
Papa is very nice and kind and patient. Mama was not patient ad that was a bit stressful, we always feareddwe did not do something correctly the first time or put back an object to the exact place it should go to. That is the one and only negative aspect of this woofing expience. At the end of our stay Mama was trusting us and was more nice and relax though.
Work
It’s a restaurant’s schedule.it’s also a small restaurant, with a counter (3 seats) and 4 tables of 4 to 6 persons.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday are full days.
Monday and Tuesday are partial days where we worked only until lunch.
Wednesday and Thursday are off.
All in all, reasonable working time (for Japan). Work efforts are also resonnable.
On a full day :
We had breakfast together at 8:30am, then 1h break, start to work from 10am to 2pm/2:30pm.
Then 3h break
Back to work from 6pm to 9pm max but restaurant closes earlier if there are no more customers.
During low season, restaurant may close the afternoon if there are no reservation.
As for work, it is quite diverse and well established :
From 10am to 11:30am
-preparing the restaurant living space with mama
-preparing the salad with papa
-cleaning the restaurant (windows, occasional spiders webs)
-cleaning the 2nd floor (vaccum cleaner and bathroom cleaning)
From 11:30am to 2pm and from 6pm to 8pm/8:30pm
Since none of us could speak Japanese, man was assigned to kitchen with the dish washing (simplified by the sanitizer) as the main activity and woman was assigned the waitress activity (prepare and clean table).
There are side tasks which make this experience enjoyable :
In the kitchen, papa will teach you to weight and prepare rice portions in the plates for customers (curry rice, omerice, udon rice), prepare the salads also, prepare pickles, mix eggs, and few other tricks that help him.
-for the waitress, mama will mention to the customers your woofing and create opportunities for the customers to speak to you. After only 10 days, we had the feeling that we had met many regular customers who were all interested in our country lifestyle. We even got some contacts for further destinations.
Lunch together with papa and mama at around 2:30pm.
After 8pm : we close the restaurant, there are many small tasks to do in the appropriate order in both the kitchen and the restaurant. It takes 30 to 40 mins with the both of us.
Diner together at 8:45pm with papa and mama.
Conclusion : we had to put some efforts at the beginning in remembering all the tasks and where each objects appropriate place is.
Once you get it all, you fall in a gentle routine that is not boring.
You have to stand up most of the time, and are free to seat when you need to (next to the sink in the kitchen for instance).
Know that papa is very kind, and mama is more strict but gets nice after few days when you get familiar with the restaurant’s routine.
Accommodation:
The restaurant is a traditional house, with low carpentry on the 2nd floor (beware if you are tall) and tatami for the rooms.
1st floor is the restaurant.
The 2nd floor is a living place.
A large room with tatami at 2nd floor is dedicated to woofers. We slept on futons. I thought it would be hard for me but was not troubled by futons. Sleep quality was alright. The only inconvenience we had was the noise made by passing cars on the road starting from 6am, and the city morning alarm at 7am.
Bathroom is good, with a shower where you can easily control the heat from a panel (46 degrees is best) .
Toilets are separated.
Last but not least, papa and mama do not actually sleep in this house, they have their own appartment that they go back to after diner. So the house is very quite after diner which is great.
Wifi is barely available in the sleeping room, but no problem on the 1st floor.
At he end of our 10 days, we were feeling ok but happy to go to a hotel with silence and a good bed o be honest.
Foooooood
It is an important topic for us and were more than pleased on this topic.
Breakfast is in 3 parts, salad, bread, cereals.
For lunch Papa cooked menu dishes and sometimes asked us which dish we wanted to try.
For diner, it is a special meal to share which was also always delicious.
Quantity was also plenty enough, especially for diner where we would eat more than we could.
There are also cereals available in self service that you can eat whenever you want.
Every meal was different, typical (not only Japanese) and healthy (with vegetables).
Experiences around the restaurant
Minamiizu is lovely.
We did the big onsen which is really good. Also, from outside, seing the steam rising from the bath at sunset with mountains in the background is beautiful.
The river that goes from the restaurant to the beach is also beautiful with cherry trees all along the path. It was my favorite (even though the trees had no more leaves).
The beach is awesome, quite, big, and water was clear and still OK to swim.
Papa and mama let us use their bike, we could go there in 20 mins.
On Wednesday we went on a 4h bike tour along the coast which was lovely.
Papa took us for a sightseeing tour on Thursday and we had very nice moment.
Last but not least, we were also very fortunate to participate to 3 events during our stay. We did rice ropes around campfire in a farm organized only during this season, we went to the city temple yearly festival, and went to an African concert organized in the elementary school. All were fantastic souvenirs and everytime we met nice people who discussed with us.
Conclusion
If you are ready to work and willing to learn whatever it is from papa and mama, then we strongly recommend this woofing experience.
