Kansai On Fleek 2023 - Nose Day 2

Jet lag meant i was awake at dawn (which is better than 2 am). Steven had to go back to Osaka and Mika had to go back to Kyoto really early so like a ghibli movie somehow Mari's husband was going to the station anyway and took them

 

as I said goodbye to those 2 I went on a lil early morning sanpo and saw the magical country hamlet and the amazing gardening and farming everyone does even if its a lil bit.

I've mentioned Ghibli several times and it's a Japanese animation studio who's most famous movies were directed by Hayao Miyazaki and often look like this

neighbor across the street's house we toured the day before

some other neighbor had come by and given them 2 huge crates of red leaf lettuce, if i grew this on my roof it would take all of my containers and tons of fertilizer and they just have it by the cratefuls to give away

put all the futons and such back up on the 2nd floor

Akira's Bechstein piano. All the Matsumo kids can play cuz they had a piano in Osaka (Akira is the brother of Masako, John Ribeiro's wife)

Mari was over again and cooking in the kitchen like a kind helpful neighborhood ghibli character. They made a huge breakfast

raw egg and rice

I told everyone they have to walk around the lil hamlet for 20 min cuz its magical. There was a decent sized buddhist temple up the street

dog vaccination stickers

everyone has some kind of vegetable garden going, young and old (Akira and Masami are the youngest so mostly old)

Astrid Gilberto died a week before this and I wonder if her and Jobim ever got so tired of being asked to play the girl from ipanema and i wonder the same for Akira who plays at the Ritz Carlton and other fancy places around Osaka

we packed up and left for the rest of the days plans which we did't really know what they were besides hiking to some shrine and going to a ceramics town. We drove a few min from their house and were about to enter a mountain driving tunnel and then turned around and drove back towards their house then down another country road and then up a rough looking mountain until got out and saw this tori gate and shrine in the distance. It was like spirited away where you don't know whats happening and theres a tiny road and lots of foliage and then boom your'e spirited away

you can't capture how steep it is in photos but some people found it challenging

they said that some poeople from the community maintain it and i'm not even gonna say where this is so it can stay a special lil spot for this hamlet. There's plenty of other magical lil shrines all over japan dear reader, if anyone is even reading this

on the other side of the knoll was this magical old tree

Mari is a tap dancer and has performed at Akria and Masami's before. Her husband (I forgot his name) does lots of snow related stuff I can't remember but he's a real mountain man

Jen was like why is no one else disturbed that this door in the tree has been cemented shut? anyone? anyone? and since we've gotten back i've seen her sleeping on the ceiling sometimes.

Monkey's chair mushrooms. Saru no koshikake

After that magical forest experience we went to the Sasayama castle ruins. One of the plaques said this was where the "bribery" room was

fill in your own caption. Did jason just say the most offensive thing possible? Am i being commanded to get down on my knees? (this was just a random freeze frame)

Houmei sake brewery in Sasayama

finally learned what these balls you see sometimes are. They are cedar boughs made into a ball and are hung up when they are green when new sake is available and as the sake ages and mellows out the green cedar boughs slowly turn brown. It is SO cool and such a *proper vocab word unknown* piece of Japanese culture

shoes for stomping around in the barrel

the fermenting rice enzyme bed

2 kinds of sake being played Mozart or Beethoven

on to the ceramics town. Bob bought some stuff at Hakutoya home goods store

Tamba Sasayama is famous for black beans, kuromame. We went to Odagaki who does a lotta stuff with them beans. It used to be a samurai's residence and the trip to the bathroom leads you through this

some kind of savory shooter, so good

different black bean treatments all delicious

open faced roast beef sandwhich

they said we had to get their Montblanc dessert which is made of chesnut puree and there was a lot of chestnut action going on so maybe the region is famous for chestnuts also.

black bean icecream

the black beans are not cheap, this 1.2 kg bag is $60!!!!

it is Tanabata holiday time where you write a wish and hang it on bamboo

Thank you so much Akira, Masami, Mari, Mari's husband for your super hospitality and showing us your Ghibli-esque life. 
https://www.instagram.com/akitainu_kominka/?hl=en