Hello. I'm Kagawa from the Creative Department's Kamiyama team.
It's already been a year since I started living in Kamiyama in January 2017.
I have been appointed to write "Work and Life in Kamiyama" at a turning point in my life, so I would like to look back on the events of the past year and introduce rural life in Kamiyama, which is a little different from city life.
A fateful encounter
"He who controls the vacant houses controls Kamiyama."
The current situation in Kamiyama is that although there are many vacant houses, it is rare to find a house in good condition that you can move into immediately, so much so that you may have heard the expression, "vacant houses."
In my case, I was fortunate to receive help from people around me, including the Kamiyama- based NPO Green Valley , and I was lucky enough to be able to rent a vacant house with good conditions and condition.
I believe that the reason I am able to enjoy living in Kamiyama is because of my current home.
House exterior
This photo was taken by Kawarazaki from the design department using a drone. Most of the area in the photo is the site!
Although we are now living comfortably, even though the house was in good condition, it was a lot of work preparing to actually move in.
First of all, the landlord had decided to demolish the storehouse that stood next to our house, so we decided to clean up inside it before the contractors began their demolition.
Cleaning up the storehouse
Inside, there are many antiques stored away, making it feel like a little treasure hunt.
At the beginning, I had plenty of stamina, and would get incredibly excited just coming across an old, empty wooden box, but as they kept appearing one after the other, I gradually began to just clean up with a blank expression.
Next, tidy up the house.
Because the house is so large, it was really hard to move all our belongings out.
With the help of many people, including the Green Valley staff and the satellite office staff, we worked with a group of about 10 people and managed to finish cleaning up after a full day.
After the cleaning is done, I asked them to help me sweep and wipe the house.
I am truly grateful to the people who helped out by delivering refrigerators and other means.
We removed three large truckloads of garbage and unwanted items.
Of course, there was a lot of cleaning and renovation to do before we could start living there, but afterwards, when I went around to greet my landlord's relatives and people living in the same village, I realized that renting a house in Kamiyama is completely different from renting an apartment or condominium in the city.
For landlords and relatives, renting a house means
It means entrusting the house where we were born and raised, and where so many memories are stored, to someone else.
As we were making the rounds to pay our respects, some of the relatives looked sad and tearful as they talked about their memories of home.
My landlord himself says, "Do whatever you like with the house (unless it's something really unusual)," but I always make sure to contact him before making any changes to the house.
Let's go to the countryside
People who come to visit the Kamiyama satellite office often say,
The question was, "What do you like about living in a rural area like Kamiyama?"
I always answer, "A quiet place."
There is no noise from cars or people, and all you can hear is the chirping of insects and birds.
There is also a pleasant, nostalgic smell of the mountains in the air (although I've gotten used to it now and can't really remember it well), and at night you can see beautiful stars just like in a planetarium.
When I visited Kamiyama for the first time last summer as a Monosasu Juku instructor, I was impressed by how comfortable the place was.
My current house is also in the mountains, so the surroundings are really quiet.
Simply relaxing under the eaves and gazing out at the garden will give you a sense of luxury that is hard to find in the city.
We will introduce life in Kamiyama with a few photographs.
Plum wine making
There is a beautiful plum tree growing in the garden.
Nishida-san, who manages the Sudachi field in front of my house, told me that it was about time to harvest the plums, so I gave it a go without much thought and ended up getting a lot more plums than I expected.
I don't usually drink plum wine, but since I had the chance, I decided to make plum syrup and plum wine using the plums I harvested (about 12kg!).
The plum syrup comes in two varieties: rock sugar and beet sugar, and the plum wine comes in two varieties: white liquor and shochu.
I was impressed that even though I made it myself, it turned into delicious plum wine after just six months.
And best of all, the plum syrup I drank while wiping the sweat off my face after mowing the grass on a hot day was absolutely delicious.
DIY
When I lived in the city, the idea of doing DIY never even occurred to me.
But now we have more than enough space in our house and we don't have to worry about noise.
In addition, Mr. DIY Asa-chan is at the Kamiyama Satellite, so I was able to learn the basics, such as what tools I needed, and slowly collect all the tools I needed and start making what I wanted.
Kitchen flooring (9mm plywood)
Even if you think you have made a plan and are prepared, problems often arise when you actually try to do something, but using your brain to do something outside of work is a lot of fun.
Above all, it's great to be able to make things yourself, as TV stands, shelves, and other items that are not exactly the size you want can often be hard to find on the market. Even if there are small traces of failure, the sense of accomplishment is amazing! (Or at least I tell myself...)
I began to notice things I had never paid attention to before, like how the chairs and desks I use every day are made, and why they look so professional.
Dining outside
During the warm seasons from spring to early autumn, we often eat meals under the eaves.
Food eaten outside tastes many times better than usual, and it's amazing how even boiled somen noodles feel like a little treat when eaten outside. You can easily enjoy cooking dishes that would be unpleasant to eat in the kitchen, such as grilling yakiniku or saury on a charcoal grill.
It's a blissful moment to get drunk and swing in a hammock in the evening. (It's under the eaves, so it's great even on rainy days!)
When we first moved, my wife would always say she went back to Kanagawa, but now, as we were swaying in the hammock, she said, "Kamiyama is nice."
Kamiyama Hot Springs
"Kamiyama Onsen Hotel Shikinosato & Iyashinoyu" / I took so many pictures that the foam on the beer went down
When I was working at the headquarters in Yoyogi, my weekend enjoyment would be to go to the public bath near my house and then have a drink at my favorite izakaya on the way home.
That's how much I love hot springs (public baths) and izakayas, and Kamiyama is home to Kamiyama Onsen, which has excellent water quality.
Since we're driving, we obviously can't go drinking at an izakaya on the way back from the hot springs, but it's all good if we can quickly drive home and have a beer!
Drinking ice-cold beer from beer mugs frozen in the freezer (purchased at a flea market in Tokushima City for 50 yen each) enhances the izakaya atmosphere.
Bugs, animals, cold
The townsfolk's favorite: "Mukade Kinchoru"
Of course, it's not all fun and games; there are also many hardships that are unique to the countryside.
Once, a centipede crawled up my leg while I was sleeping, and since then I have been so traumatized that I would jump out of bed if I felt even the slightest sensation of tentacles on my body.
(At its worst, when you're half asleep, the wrinkles in the sheets may look like centipedes.)
I'm definitely buying a mosquito net this year.
Next, animals.
Deer, monkeys, raccoons, and rabbits appear in the garden almost every day, but the most annoying thing is the sounds of their footsteps in the attic.
At first I thought it was a mouse, but then I realized it was the footsteps of an animal much larger than a mouse...
(Although I wrote that it was a quiet and comfortable environment.)
If you hit the ceiling with a bamboo sword a few times, they will calm down, but they will resume their activity after a while.
They're completely taking me for a fool.
There is no entrance to the attic in our house, so we can't come up with any solutions and it's causing us a lot of headaches.
(Even if I made an entrance, I wouldn't have the courage to go up into the attic...)
And the cold of winter.
It's nice and cool in the summer, but in the winter it's so cold inside that you feel like you're outside.
If you don't turn on the heater, your breath will shine even though you're inside the house...
On snowy days, the snow falls all over the garden and it looks beautiful like a snowy field, but my car won't start.
Shoveling snow before going to work...
I can't wait for spring.
The future of life in Kamiyama
I have looked back on my first year living in Kamiyama in this way, but there are so many other events that I wish I had pictures of, and I still can't fully convey how exciting life in Kamiyama is.
Now that I've come all the way to Kamiyama, I'm trying to live the so-called "country life" by imitating what I see. There are still many things I don't know, and with the help of many people, including my neighbors and people who have lived in Kamiyama for a long time, I was able to safely complete my first year of life in Kamiyama.
Since coming to Kamiyama, I have felt a stronger desire to try things than when I was living in the city. I also feel that a big change has been that I have started to take action first, thinking, "I'll try something once, and if it fails, I'll think about it again."
What I did during that year living here may have been something I could have done in the city if I had wanted to, but I think it was the environment of Kamiyama that gave me the opportunity.
And there's pizza oven making, vegetable gardening, flooring, plastering, bookcase making, river fishing, and more...
There is still so much I want to do in this house and in Kamiyama!
In my second year, I want to try many different things.
KAGAWA YUTARO