The Happy Hippy Life

There are a number of people who have chosen to live here in Kamiyama based on the pure notion of living a natural life. You can drink from wells, the air is clean, plenty of edibles thrive in this environment, it's super cheap, bigger towns are nearby for bigger needs, and you can move yourself so high into the mountains that you need chains on your tires in winter to manage the crazy road to your house.

[Also, to attract young families, a local initiative provides tons of funding for fixing up old abandoned houses.]

I got invited to Sada and Kiko's house, high up on a mountain behind us, to spend the afternoon with a lovely group of ladies and their kids. About 7 of us ladies and at least 8 kids, a couple of them being tiny little babies. 

It was a gorgeous day, the air crisp and dry, and once we arrived after a vertigo-inducing drive, it felt so very removed. From everything. They have neighbors, so it's not like they are lone mountain people, but there was a certain feeling of being in a different layer, like being in the clouds, viewing life from above. I suppose it's the feeling that "mountain" people find so addictive, like the feeling I get at the beach looking out over the horizon.

The ladies are from all over Japan but have come around to eschew the modern hustle and bustle of city life in exchange for child rearing in nature. It must be a great pleasure to have found each other and share similar views, to engage in a life that a lot of people might think strange. 

I certainly look forward to spending more time with them, and joining in on Wednesday play days. Hopper immediately connected with their son Bongo, who is a year older, with their shared love of shinkansens and capes. The kids were great, welcoming him in without so much as a side glance. And the women were just so kind and sweet and funny and generous.

Arigato Kiko for extending your home and offering such a wonderful afternoon. We'll see you soon.

PS. Whoa. The drive. I'm curious how I would feel going up there again. It's super steep, too narrow for my comfort (Um, what if a car is coming at you. Who backs up and who passes who where?!), and there are no guard rails on these crazy elevated sections of cliffs. The photo I took was the tame part of the road that I could stop and look out and take my hands off the wheel without feeling queasy.

France a la Last Summer

Good gravy, this is about 8 months late. But since I started writing it months ago, I gotta get it out there before I move onto our latest adventures, which led me to cleaning up the harddrive so I could make room to upload the photos off the camera from, yes, almost a year ago. Jeez, please bear with me...

Last August we were invited to join our friends Fede, Rohan and their kids Boris and Maria, who rented a house in the Ardeche region in the middle of France. It was a gorgeous little village sat upon a hill, called St Thome. No shops, no real streets (seriously side-view-mirror-grazing paths not for the squeamish), just an old church surrounded by a lord's estate and a few other jumbled bungalows. It was ever so charming with it's interconnected cobblestone paths and steps and roofs. We stayed for a week and drove around to visit different sites.

It's always a wonder to me, as an American, to see buildings and monuments that have withstood the test of the past thousand or so years. It's so magnificent and humbling but also a little repellant. Some of these tiny villages seem to be stuck there, stagnant, holding onto traditions and ideals that no longer apply to the modern world. And yet, I can't help but be in awe of it and respect it and wish that for just an instant I could be witness to those lives of long ago in all their simple, stinky rotten glory.

So as well as wandering around picturesque villages, we visited farmers' markets for local produce, swimming spots along the river, we also spent some time with some local natural winemakers. It's quite fascinating, this band of misfits, doing things the old fashioned way. Meaning their wines contain nothin but grapes, no ash, no sulfites, no chemicals of any kind, and are allowed to ferment in special barrels for x amount of time. One such wine maker, Andrea Calek, threw a huge party/wine tasting event that put most festival parties to shame. Winers from all over France and Spain brought endless bottles to share; there was a band, tents in the fields, and enough drunken antics to disturb the neighbors until the wee hours.

There was also canoeing, spelunking, and some serious fruit eating. Being in France in summer is a good idea. Peaches, plums, nectarines, strawberries. Mmmm....

All in all, a fab week, with great people, eating delicious food in a beautiful place.  What more could you ask for? Check it out...

on the train, drinkin juice watchin Octonauts

mmmmm

so happy to be off the train after nearly 8 hours

Rohan came to get us at the station in Montelimar, waiting for Hopper to burn it off

the house had a pool with this view!

wine party!!!!!

fun for everyone

not officially a judge, but picked a few faves

nearby village

so cute together

small but refreshing (though it did turn a most peculiar color and needed maintenance = out of order for 3 days)

famous natural bridge, its beauty enjoyed by thousands everyday

does not want to get in

game of catch, trying to lure him further into the water

just water!

love how big days out means sleeping on the way home

view from entrance of Madeleine caves

spectacular tour of massive cave with all sorts of different formations

oh my oh my it's The Howl!!!!!

full moon rise over St Thome

this is the hanging gardens at the top of a castle, doesn't it look like ground level?

OK, i've canoed at a few spots along rivers in various places in the world, but this was by far the scariest. at more than one point, i had to get out of the canoe and walk it across rocks. and go over rapids and steer between big boulders at speed. fun. but happy i didn't know before how mighty that river was, i may not have gone

perhaps we shouldn't have taken this dude's advice

off I go, into 3 hours of wondering if we went the right way!

Rohan and Maria, and Boris had his own canoe

just hanging at the local joue de boules square

"high speed" train home