Morning Stroll

Monday was a holiday, but I still woke up early so I decided to take a morning stroll in the mountain. It was so nice and refreshing, the air was clear but still a bit nippy, the sun was warm and the scene was beautiful.

I have some nice pictures of cosmos flowers over looking the sparking Omura bay, and of recently harvested wheat fields with the hay all rolled up and covered. I chose this photo because I was surprised when I saw the scene.

In the center of the photo is a family gravestone. Usually the are cemeteries with many the gravestones of many families all grouped together, so I was surprised to see this lone one. Furthermore, it is surrounded not my other graves, but by tea plants. This leads me to believe that this family has probably been growing tea on this land for many many generations. Families have one gravestone, to which ashes (in urns) are gathered. In Buddhism, you get a new name after death, so those are usually displayed on a wooden plaque. There are also spaces for flowers and incense.

The tea surrounding this area is also famous, known as Sonogi-cha, named after the area. It is thought that when the Chinese brought over the first tea plants thousands of years ago via the Hirado port (an island about an hour north of Sonogi), the first plant was planted here. So, this is the tea that the first British, Dutch and Portuguese in Japan drank and took back to their countries. Pretty cool.