One Life Japan: Bike, Hike & Walking in Rural Japan

28/04/2024

13/08/2020

One of my assistants is a city girl who quit her job in order to move to the countryside and work for One Life Japan.

Thanks to COVID, there is not much work to with customers, but it is an excellent opportunity for her to acclimatize to sleeping with bugs and murder hornets, and finding "beautiful butterflies" which are actually moths, and I had forgotten how beautiful they actually are.

Sometimes seeing the world through fresh eyes is worth a global pandemic?

Nah.

Anyway, she is also getting used to the idea that the tomatoes we eat have previously been licked by beautiful bugs.

13/08/2020

While we weather the COVID drought, I am remembering years past. This is from August a few years ago at the beach - only a five hour bike ride with a brilliant downhill cruise, or a one hour drive.

While eating lunch, we made friends with the beach-side restaurant's children. Luckily the parents were not around to see the dangerous play.

I the photos the beach is not crowded,which would be unusual for this time of the year as it is right in the middle of Obon festival and everyone would be on vacation. This photo was taken at the tail end of beach season, so beach is quiet, but I imagine it is similar to a peak season beach amidst COVID.

14/08/2019

13/08/2019

The heat is beat so long as we ride in mornings and evenings, and save the afternoons for nap-time.

Our little hamlet here in Sakae Mura, Nagano is gearing up for the annual summer festival tomorrow.

12/08/2019

Summertime in the kitchen

15/07/2019

People ask me where they should go other than Tokyo. Usually they are thinking of Kyoto or Hakone, or maybe Osaka or Hiroshima. Sometimes they have heard of Shirakawago.

No offense to those places, but aside from recommending Iiyama (near the One Life Japan base) and the surrounding small, non-touristed villages, for those who can not make it here, I also recommend the areas from Hokkaido to Kyushu highlighted in this "Undiscovered Japan" video (Check out the stylish man featured in the Snow Country portion dancing with the bear hunters).

That is your's truly starting at around 00:35

More about each area can be found here:

http://www.undiscovered-japan.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCUEQ2mEoLQ

The 13 special tourism zones have been certified by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in a bid to increase regional tourism and off...

08/07/2019

Sakae, Nagano

04/07/2019

Finding their way through the jungles of Mori no Ie. kougen

02/07/2019

Working with rice straw. Client just trademarked the word "mino" for one of her fashion lines.

02/07/2019

Third generation referred customers. The family that recommended me to them was also recommended by someone else.

Looking forward to the fourth family in the chain.