The Secret Life – $100 Day

Heather’s task last Thursday – Round up her foreign friends, go to the pottery town of Mashiko, and each spend a company provided $100 acting like a “tourist”. Then when they were done, they just had to explain all their complaints. Or ways to make tourism more attractive for foreigners. Mashiko is a cool little town known for its pottery making. It has a midwestern Amish country feel to it, but without the woodworking.

All the girls rented bikes to tour the town. But part of the job was that they had to use the town’s website to reserve the bikes and report on ways it could be improved. They received their bikes from a nice old man ready to do his job of lending bikes! He had all his English practiced and ready. Actually the whole town was tipped off that a bunch of foreigners would infiltrate their town. And everyone was ready to invite them to come into their store.

They rode their bikes to a strawberry farm and did some strawberry picking. And of course provided the manager with some pointers on how to do better. Like allow the customers to take some strawbs home! You can only take what’s in your belly.

Then they did some pottery browsing and museum frolicking. Heather explained how they found this house-like structure that seemed like a restaurant. The architecture was beautiful and when they walked in there was an open fire in the center. The pictures make it look so inviting. But there was nobody there! Nobody ever came to greet them or anything. I guess they missed the memo that the foreigners were coming.

Because Heather’s company is promoting a lot of sake breweries these days, they finished the day at the local brewery, called Tonoike. Heather has been there before. Its where she got famous in the sake magazine. They received a tour and a sake tasting at the end.

Then Heather was home by 5pm. Overall, not a bad day of “work”.