He open his first restaurant in Japan in Shichirigahama, off of the Enoden-line. I hadn’t ridden the Eno-den yet, but was rather excited as it’s quite old, having been around since 1900.

photo courtsy of hamapenguin on Flickr

When I think of a celebrity chef, I usually think of a stiff atmosphere, and prices so high I swear I’m paying for white on the plate, not food. Bill’s is quite the opposite. While the prices are a tad higher than usual, it’s nothing out of the ordinary in Japan.

I ordered the Ricotta Pancakes with Honey Butter and Banana. It was incredible. At first thought, one would expect a cheesy flavour, but as ricotta does not have much taste by itself, this is was not the case. They were incredibly filling (as pancakes usually are for me) and highly recommend them.

In hindsight, I should have ordered coffee or something bitter to go with my pancakes, but how does one see an Orange Juice, Banana, Yogurt, and Berry drink? You can’t. Given the price of ¥700, I was a little disappointed in the amount received, but it encouraged me to savor the flavour that much more.

Conclusion

Bill’s in Shichirigahama comes highly recommended. The food was delicious and not overly expensive. The view of the ocean makes it the perfect place to enjoy a quiet Sunday morning.

This is the countryside of Japan that you have seen before in earlier posts as when I visited Tochigi. I am glad to report that this modern “Wafu”, or Japanese-style, is spreading and catching on.

This past week I went to a place that I had been many times before, yet never to this particular place. I visited Hakone.

In order to get up the mountain by train you must take the Hakone-tozan Tetsu-do, which zig-zags its way up, passing other trains zig-zagging their way down only at the switch back. The driver actually gets out of the “front” of the train and walks to the back, which becomes the new front.

My destination was only a few stops, but it takes about 20 minutes. The stations are noticeably smaller than those in Yokohama or Tokyo as you would expect. Especially surprising is that there is no gate. Just a single worker that checks everyone’s ticket, or two stands with a IC Card reader for your Passmo/Suica train passes.

Cafe Naraya is exactly the style that is spreading and that I so enjoy. Wood with white walls, natural colors, and delicious coffee. The cafe actually has a Foot-onsen, or Ashi-yuu, that is available outside for customers. However the day we went it was unusually full of customers sticking their feet in the warm water.

As guessed the second story has a small art gallery, showing around 6 – 10 different works of art. The second floor also contains a small library, which you are encouraged to borrow from while you are in the cafe. It had books in all manner of Languages, though Japanese was by far the most dominant.

If you’re going to a cafe, you can’t not mention the food. The food was quite tasty. I had a Cafe Latte and split a hot dog of sorts that was topped with an organic tomato salsa.

If you find yourself in the Hakone area, I recommend looking up Naraya Cafe. It’s worth the short jaunt up the mountain. With an ounce of luck, this trend of modern Wafu cafes will continue to spread, maybe even closer to the city.

The pace of life and the treatment of fellow humans was the most welcome change. In Japan, there’s this concept of “Slow Life”. Slow Life is the simple idea of living life simpler and slower. The ideals of organics and local food are part of Slow Life as is the idea of natural goods. So, you will often see a lot of earthen colors, natural woods, and the like. Slow down. Enjoy your coffee. Notice your surroundings.

I strive for Slow Life, but as I live in the Yokohama/Tokyo area, where the pace of life is decidedly Fast Life, can make this difficult. Experiencing Slow Life, if even for the weekend, has given me enough of a taste that I think I know how to get there from here.

The first place we went to was a cafe for lunch called Cafe Shozo. Approaching the cafe from the dirt parking lot the first thing we see is the following sign.

It says “Please don’t be a nuisance to the people around you.”

We sat outside in perfect autumn weather, sunny with a slight chill in the air. I ordered an egg sandwich with some french roast coffee.

After lunch, the next stop was to go visit some Llamas on a Llama farm. We couldn’t really pet them, they were cute. Minus the spitting. Thankfully they didn’t spit too much.

The short hike up the mountain to the farm was enough to make you feel like you were a million miles away from the city and all of the stress it brings with it.

Alas, it was getting late, so we decided to head into town to a group of shops where our friend works.

We first stopped at a used book store. The atmosphere at the store was really great. They played classical music and they had a room where you could sit, drink tea, and write letters or read.

Walking to some of the other shops in the area, we saw the owner of Cafe Shozo roasting some coffee at his shop in town. We talked about coffee and how fresh roasted coffee is catching on in America and Japan.

Staff waving goodbye at the cafe upstairs.

I should have read a bit more about taking photos of fireworks before going as I could not figure out the proper settings to really make them come alive. Hence no photos. However, there is a video at the end of the post that turned out pretty well. All photos shot with a Canon Kiss X3/500D.

Just like I had thought, it was a lot lighter, maybe 100 kilograms instead of the 800 kilograms of the regular mikoshi. Everyone gathers at 8am in front of the children’s mikoshi. We take a shot of Japanese sake before we begin. As we are drinking our shot I notice some ropes tied to the front of mikoshi. Puzzled I’m not sure what they are for, but I’ll find out soon enough I think.

My friend directs me to the front of the children’s mikoshi and lifts up the rope. We are supposed to use these ropes to help the children carry the mikoshi. This makes sense because there are only a few junior high students and the rest are 4 or 5 years old, nowhere old or strong enough to carry one of these bad boys by themselves.

My naivety led me to believe that these ropes would make carrying this thing simple. I soon discovered the exact opposite was true. They weren’t long enough to allow us to comfortably carry it with our shoulder and have to carry with mainly our forearm.

We manage to survive our 2 or 3 hours of children’s mikoshi with a few hours to spare before the yattai. Yattai is like a small car with some taiko on them and long ropes in front. The entire neighborhood pitches in and pulls this cart around town for the next 8 hours or so.

All of the neighborhoods in the area pull their yattai to a meeting place next to the ocean and play a song songs and rest for a while. Talking with the locals, I discovered that this part of the festival is for asking God that the town receive a good catch this summer fishing.

As the yattai start to head on the 5 hour path home, I notice something I hadn’t seen last year. People dressed crazily. Not traditional Japanese “crazy”, but crazy crazy.

I had missed this part last year, but discovered that my friend’s neighborhood has a tradition of having people cross-dress or dressing crazily for most of Day 2. A fun way to enjoy the festive spirit indeed!

Maybe next year I will partake in this part of the festivities, I am still undecided.

We slowly made our way back to our neighborhood. Pulling yattai, listening to taiko, and generally just relaxing. I also got to really use my camera all night long and learn a lot more about night photography – sans-flash.

Boy playing Flute

Woman playing Taiko

Matsuri really are a great. A perfect chance to let your hair down, enjoy the company of your neighbors, meet old friends, and make new friends.

I’ve posted all of my photographs from the Matsuri in Flickr in my Chikura Matsuri 2010 set.