Spring starts early for the fishermen. Every morning they haul the wakame out of the water and bring back to shore by the boatload. They dip it quickly in hot water, then each strand is split in two along the spine and hung up to dry in the sun on elaborate frames, using clothes pegs.
The plants are a rather boring brown color when they come out of the sea, but as soon as they're put in the tub of hot water they turn a beautiful jade green that glints as they sway in the sunshine, until they eventually dry, turning crinkly, very dark, almost black.
Although February is the harvest season, the work has already started in the autumn. That's the time the fishermen seed the nets with spores, then take them out and string them across the sheltered bay.
When you see the work that goes into cultivating and preparing wakame — and the way it features in people's diet, eaten just about every day of the year — you really appreciate that these are by no means weeds. They're kaiso, literally 'sea vegetables'.
