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.

Farmers Market Kamiyama

The Kamiyama farmers' market was only 5 mins drive from our house and employs some very lovely people who were always engaging with Hopper and uber friendly. We were there fairly regularly as we passed it getting anywhere out of town and also because, well, everything was so fresh and the seasons for certain produce changed frequently. It was also just plain exciting to see what was on offer.

Inside was a giftshop selling crafts and specialty foods, a small restaurant selling a variety of noodle dishes, a cold case with local made tofu, sushi, and snacks, and the ever exciting ice cream counter. A separate area located in front had all the fresh produce, plucked so lovingly in the couple days before, brought in by local farmers. It also serves as a rest stop on the highway so there's bathrooms, picnic tables and plenty of parking.

We were lucky enough to be around for eggplants, shiitake, sudachi limes and at the end yuzu limes (which look more like grapefruits than limes), sweet potato, red chillies, Asian pear, popo (a fruit that looked like a small chubby rotten banana but had knobby irregular seeds throughout and tasted like a mango banana hybrid, so so delicious and the season lasted but a week), mandarin, purple corn, green beans, some other totally foreign fruit that I believe was called bobo, and persimmon (kaki). But to name a few.

Funny thing is that a few of these are specialty items sold in other parts of Japan for high prices but were available at the source for peanuts, and things like popo are too fragile to transport so are unknown in other parts of the world. (We came home to find a popo gift and were unsure what to do with it, it looked rotten and brown and not very appealing; thanks Keiko for making sure we got to experience it.)

We sort of gorged really. And never have I ever had such tasty firm shiitake. And the sudachi is so delicious and coveted that it goes on everything from oysters to tofu to soup. You can truly understand the nature of regional Japanese cuisine when the ingredients are so astonishingly delectable.

Oh, and the views from here are spectacular, so it was always so nice to get a meal or a snack or even just a drink from the myriad machines and sit outside at the picnic tables and stare at the mountains.

udon and ice cream

hanging around

local made cakes

ordering from the restaurant while really wanting something else

ice cream flavors: sudachi, sweet potato, green tea (2 varieties), black sesame, strawberry, yuzu, lemon, udon (noodle)

best tofu I've ever eaten, hands down

lovely employees

what's ripe and ready

and you can see who grew it (left kaki, right limes)

popo! this was picked before it was really ripe so it needed couple more days. best to eat it when it falls to the ground all speckly yellow brown and slightly ripping open

bobo! (or larva?)

soooo many seeds, must be spit out, very interactive fruit not to be eaten on 1st date

skin, fruit, seeds (hopper thought it was a caterpillar, tried not to think about that while eating, very mild flavor)

the view, and mama's great parking job

residency posters put up around town, Nik's photo in middle, of course more ijshun!