Japan Day 5- Iya Valley

 This was one of the most memorable days of the trip for sure. Lots of fascinating items all packed into this de-populating area that already has limited population. 

We had some local tour guides today to take us around (Green jacket in the pictures. . . he was super funny and positive but didn't speak great English so his younger helper or our main guide would jump in frequently to deliver his messages in English). They showed up with flags of all our countries to welcome us. Our main guide said they don't get that many foreigners visiting so they make a big deal when we do come. This entire area was pretty remote I can appreciate they are excited for visitors. Also I was served some corn soup for breakfast. It was pretty good! Dang that I could never find it hot (or at all) in any vending machines.  

We went down to an old vine bridge. These use to be all over in this valley the Samurai would build these so that in a war setting they could quickly cut off the bridge if necessary. This is one of the last remaining in the area (but well maintained). I didn't feel unsafe walking across it was a cool bridge! We went down below afterward to the river and skipped rocks. 

We drove up the mountain to some viewpoints to see the overall valley and crossed another (regular suspension) bridge. Lots of the homes in the pictures on the mountain are vacated. 

Lunch was a very unique experience. We went to the house of a lady who makes soba noodles for everyone in the valley. She had prepared a lunch for our entire crew! (Admittedly other than our hotel i'm not sure where a group of ~25 people could've realistically had a meal in this area). We all crammed into her room and she had a wonderful lunch for us and even sang us a song. Her kitchen was tiny i'm impressed she was able to deliver all that food to the group. When we left she came out and wished us goodbye and waved to our bus until we were out of sight. One of the more unique and memorable experiences for sure! Interacting directly with the people in this valley was part of what made this day so unique and great. 

After lunch we visited another unique place. It was a vacated village called Nagoro that literally has only a handful of residents and multiple vacated buildings. One of the residents is named Tsukimi Ayano. She started making life sized scare crows and it has become something of a calling card for the village. There are upwards of 300 life-sized scarecrows all around. Outside, inside, next to traffic signs, everywhere. We walked into the abandoned school and the gymnasium is full of them. A bit eery but also makes sense somebody wants to pass their time with a hobby. Apparently she makes them for others now and teaches classes on how to make them. The town in my mind was more peaceful than eerie but could easily go both ways. 

Our next stop was to the very top of the valley. We went to the top to visit some residents and they treated us to some roasted tee. The view was unreal the pictures truly don't do it justice. One of the most incredible views I've ever seen. The main two guys in the picture are both in their 80's. The guy in the St Louis Cardinals hat kept skipping around it was so funny we were all enthralled with how mobile he was at his age. He apparently used to be the "Mayor" of the area. They were super fun to be around. 

This view and visiting with them made me think of Alaska. The view was incredible but I also thought about what it could potentially be like for them in the harsh winter up here on top of the mountain. Similar and you get the good when it's good but suffer through the bad when it's the cold season. 

Our last stop of the day was a house called Chioori. An expat American raised in Japan named Alex Kerr renovated this property but kept all the historical significance and now they have it available basically like an AirBNB. On the back they added modern facilities but the main house is pretty historical. One of the key items in Japan as far as historical houses is the thatched roof. Our Nat Geo expert commented to us that a home may sell for nearly nothing but if it's designated as a historical site and has to maintain the thatched roof that is where the truly big dollars of expense comes in. The thatched roof is super thick so I can see why it's so hard to replace. Takes growing essentially a field worth of thatch and then finding somebody that knows how to do it which is a dying art. 

None of the stops of today would've been on my radar at all had I attempted to figure out my own visiting itinerary on this type of trip. It was unique to visit with locals and see this type of area of the country I really find myself appreciating it even more now a couple weeks removed.

Japan Day 4- Travel Day and Iya Valley

 Woke up at the Fukuchi-in Monastery and attended an early morning prayer service with the monks. Two monks setup their service and did various songs, chants, and prayers continuously for just shy of an hour. During the service you could approach the shrine and say your prayer as well. It is a small room but they gave us a tour around the shrine afterward (no pics unfortunately) and the walls and shelves had all types of mini shrine ornaments. I would almost compare them to like a trophy room and lots of trophies but little shrines I obviously couldn't read the Japanese on them but it was a cool setup. 

This monastery and certainly the prayer service were one of the more unique experiences of the entire trip. It was truly sitting in a temple in a meditative state listening to the monks work through their prayer procession. Cool experience. 

Off we go and onto our first ferry ride! The Nankai Ferry over to Tokushima. I hadn't been on a big-time ferry before the bus itself just drives onto the boat, then we get off the bus and go up into the seating areas. They had "first class" seating areas, sleeping areas, regular cafeteria style seating areas. Of course our group can chat it up with the best of them so we had a great hang for a hours and ferry was done. 

Vending machines aplenty on the ferry boat as well. I tried this Yakult drink it was one of the few non-coke or non-familiar drinks i tried from vending machines. Not bad. The rest of the crew bought themselves some hot cup o noodles. Needless to say our boxed lunches this day weren't hitting the spot. 

We arrived at the Awaodori Museum. This was a traditional Japanese dance hall where they performed their dance for us and had all of the crowd join in as well. Jodi won the best dancer award of the day! The waiting area had some simulation music items to dance to or drum a beat to. The dance itself seemed like simple moves but funny to see those of us that aren't doing it frequently and in rhythm still get offbeat. I also decided to take a pic of the cleanup signs to remind myself to never get a dog! ;)

We then drove up into the Iya Valley and arrived at the Ryokan Hotel. This was an older hotel on a hillside that had essentially an entire extra building attached to it. Our rooms of course were in the "extra building" so you had to take an elevator to get up to a level where the extra building connected, traverse to the extra building, then another elevator to get to your actual floor and room. This hotel also had attached to it a fairly large Onsen building. It had a large arcade for kids in it that seemed straight out of the 90's to me. Of course I did some onsen again they were wonderful hot baths!

Our room was another tatami-mat room. This time we did have our own restroom facilities and showers in our room. One item i'll comment on and it was extra noticeable here was the water pressure in almost every shower in every hotel was absolutely incredible. Need that here! It was awesome. It was noticeable in these rooms because the little shower room was super tiny with no shower curtain so your little closet just got blasted with water. This impacted your towel that was waiting for you as well so your towel on your first shower if you hung it up inside the closet with you was soaking wet. 

We were given Yukatas again at this hotel to wear at our dinner. This dinner had lots of unique items including a fully scaled roasted trout! I just couldn't get myself there that night but Rachel tried it (Jake as well) and both said it was actually quite tasty! The salt on the skin made it tasty. They didn't eat the entire thing but this was apparently a delicacy in the area as we saw it the next day out in town as well. 

The view out of our window was a steep mountain that was super green and beautiful. It reminded me of the old view out of Back of the Moon to the big steep hill across the canyon. 

In retrospect this day was more of a chill day with lots of bus travel to get to this remote area. It was still super fun and starting the morning with the prayer service felt like it had happened forever ago by the time we reached the end of the day.