This was a very different experience for us. We stayed at the home of an old friend of Jana's.
We arrived after a beautiful but very curvy ride up and up from Kyoto. Hairpin turns led to windy roads, the last half hour was along a single-lane road where you had to pull over to let cars or trucks go by in the other direction. I was dizzy by the time we arrived!
Harufumi, Yumie and family live in a tiny village, most of the houses are traditional "gassho" style. Their kids met us in the driveway. From their house, we could see the whole village, about a dozen dwellings spread along a narrow road in a deep valley high in the mountains. Wow.
Haru showed us his rice paddies and his vegetable garden. We picked some cukes and hot peppers for dinner.
We returned and had some delicious "Shiso" iced tea, made from leaves of a plant called "beefsteak plant." I have seen this plant in the US and never realized that it is a member of the mint family and it is used for pickling.
The house was cozy, we felt bad that the kids (three boys) had to sleep outside in a tent so that we could sleep in their room! But they enjoyed it, and they invited their neighbors along too. There were two tatami rooms in the house for sleeping, a small kitchen, and a common room for everything else. The room we stayed in was also used as a music room. Benna has now found her instrument!
In the kitchen they had jars of all kinds of vegetables pickling and curing in different ways.
An incredible meal was presented, and we ate in traditional way - sitting on the floor. Amazingly, it was about the first time we did this on the entire trip.
On Wednesday we packed ourselves and their family and the neighbor's kids into the car (11 people in total!) and drove a little way down stream to a nice swimming hole.
It felt so much like Vermont or western Mass! The cool shade, the hot sun, the icy water, the little fishies and salamanders.....OK, maybe there are more salamanders in Japan. The girls had fun playing with them, which was nice, but we felt sad that they could not really engage with the Japanese kids who were having a ball splashing around.
After all the fun in the sun, kids played and parents worked or read or napped. I took the girls and two of the new friends out to a rice paddy to catch more salamanders. We got a big one right away, and he had leeches on him. I had never seen leeches on a salamander, and it turned the girls off pretty fast, so we ran back to the house.
The girls slowly but surely eased in to play with the locals. Benna in particular overcame some of her shyness in order to get involved with the activity of the moment - playing with the bucket of eels in the yard! These poor little guys will be dinner for another neighbor soon, but for the moment they serve as entertainment for the kids.
And when they get bored with the eels, they have fun chasing the chickens.
The making of dinner was a group effort. The Udon dough had been started in the morning, kneaded more in the afternoon, and then rolled out and cut up. Benna took all the credit, but everyone helped.
In order to boil up the big pot of water, they had to drag out a woodstove. The kitchen has one burner and it is too small for such a large pot. The water boiled and the noodles cooked. Tempura had been prepared in the kitchen, and several types of pickled vegetables were set out. A feast!
After the amazing dinner and lots of great conversation, the kids were treated once again to do-it-yourself fireworks. Such fun, and all the smoke helped keep the mosquitoes at bay.
Today, thursday, we had to pack up and drive back down the hill, but not before another delicious meal. Benna once again played a big role, grinding the roasted sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle. Miso paste was added, along with plum-pickling extract and ice water. Add fresh cilantro and sliced cucumbers and you have a cold soup to blog about. Served with salad, rice and stir-fried tofu and veggies, it was a summer meal to remember.
We drove a short way, then stopped at a friend's house. This friend lives in a traditional house which is in the process of remodeling.
I don't really have the right words at the moment to describe the house, but it is really really different from western style houses. The woodwork all around is beautiful and precise. The roof is thatched grass. In many cases it is covered with tin, but this house was not covered. Inside, the new wood was blonde and unfinished, but the older wood was shiny black.
The main room has a fire pit in the center, and a small shrine built into one wall. The fire must be kept going every day to keep the roof dry, so there is a smoky smell in the house, and the smoke turns everything black over time. The kitchen was modern, with a stove top and large sink and modern refrigerator. The bathroom and toilet room were also very modern, but wood was used extensively and the effect was very impressive. The living space had modern touches like a large screen TV and lighting, but traditional tatami floors. For our visit, they served iced tea and she made a fire and roasted some fresh corn over the coals. It was another very memorable and totally unexpected treat.
After a while we said goodbye and loaded ourselves again into the car for the roller-coaster ride down the hill. We were sad to leave the village, we had come to appreciate the close-knit community. If only we spoke better Japanese!
As we drew closer to Kyoto it was amazing to me that the city has come to feel so familiar. I realized where we were so quickly and could have easily found my way back to the apartment, on foot or by bike or using the bus system.
Of course, our kind hosts drove us back so that was not necessary. A heartfelt "Domo Arigatou Gozaimashita" and "sayonara" to Harufumi and family!
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