Kan-san also brought us down to the big city of Nagasaki over the week-end. We then stayed at his companion’s work place, a small room used for Yoga classes at the back of an also small restaurant in very busy night life center of Nagasaki…
But first he brought us to a huge onsen, almost like a SPA complex. And then for sightseeing from the telephone, radio & TV transmission antennas – like Fourvière is to Lyon.
View from Onsen place… Nagasaki stretches along Uragami river and beyond…… and another nice meal it was!
Nagasaki by night, seen from NTT antennas…evening meal at the friend´s place – also where we overnight-ed 😉… next morning – a rainy day – meeting outside rest.
Kan-san and his friend also brought us to do some sightseeing in Arita … one of the main city for ceramics
Ceramics museumfor lunch we go to an eel restaurant (unagi) – a delicacy!seems to be a famous place…more ceramics, this time an warehouse with boxes full of unsorted leftovers from earlier series… a “treasure hunt”, but no time to hunt!!
… and back for another evening in Nagasaki
Second evening in Nagasaki we went for quick meal of noodles and it all reminded us of the movie Tanpopo. The owner laughed when we mentioned this to him… Then in the morning just enough time for a quick walk in surroundings – the temple road and cemetery on a hill.
View on Nagasaki from cemetery … later we got the explanation that it was a way for temples to pay less taxesSeems we are always 1 week to early and then we move on further north!Another treasure hunt place…
20 pig heads to make 300 bols of broth!Cemetery that seem quite old…We were very surprised to find a primary school in the middle of a temple!!Although some trees are blooming (mainly plum trees), we still did not get our sakura blooming experience (cherry trees).Area along the river is quite scenic Traditional pastries, sweat or savoury…
It was then time for us to go back to the mountains and do some WWOOFing work.
Did we miss to mention the 椎茸 shiitake culture… And harvesting … maybe we should try it in France or Finland.
I originally thought the best are the one of about 3-4 cm in diameter, but was told by Mihara that the larger ones are good too, if not damaged – anyone with other views?Good meals in the mountain too…Presentation still has its importance, although it then contrasts with surroundings…
We also tried to influence a bit on the cleaning side, not cleaning of houses & floors, but the environment wrt plastics and other hazardous wastes… but little or no effects we seem to have! Maybe on the 7th generation of WWOOFers commenting on the horrific impact of burning plastics will things change???
We harvested some of the fruit trees, only one of which was the usual yuzu, the rest we are not sure…
Ornamental tree…
We also had a ride to nearest village, ~5km down hill on one electric bike for two…
Going back up, we almost reached the farm before sunset, but electric bike ran out before reaching destination…
Building has no interest in itself, but look at the stone wall built around it… it is so close to house you wonder what they can see, if they have windows…!Another nice looking tool…
Actually all was not sunshine and we had given it a week to check if it was not just a wrong first impression or would change. Fact is that most of the times we were left to ourselves, isolated and not sure when or what would come next + it was dam cold, a bit like the first day at Les Contamines but every day was the first day again… so we took the decision to look for another WWOOFING host and say goodbye to Mihara and Kan.
So with help of Mihara’s friend, the cook of the Ureshino hotel, we ended our stay on 14 March.
Not only that friend drove us down from mountain to Ureshino… but as her sister is managing the Japanese style hotel, she also got us accommodation for one night and … Evening stroll in town… looks nice and peaceful.sagedama, a ball made from Sugi leaves to announce the new sake season.
evening meal prepared together chabu-chabu. Here a sink especially made to prepare fish.A traditional sake brewery – they had produced new sakeJust a view of the riverbanks through iron bridge
As this friend is the cook for the other western style hotel, she has to be up everyday at 4 am to prepare the breakfast for the guests… cheeky of us, we asked if she wouldn’t mind us joining to help her. So alarm clock set to 4:30, and we joined her at other hotel for 5:00.
So here we are in a hotel kitchen at 5 am helping prepare breakfast Generally speaking, Japanese seem to like having many different dish, also at breakfast!
Helene helping a bit more efficiently than me…Each of these dishes requires attention and special ingredients…
All done, those breakfasts are like full meals…
So, goodbye to Nagasaki and Saga regions … off to our WWOOF #4 nearby Fukuoka (north of Kyushu island).
