In Kasashima, a fishing village on the western edge of Kashiwazaki, the owner of a wonderful seafood restaurant called Umibe Kitchen Club Moku took me on a short walk from the restaurant. She says that seaweed was a staple in the village and it was traditionally women who were relied upon to gather it; diving…
Walking around in Kadoide makes you feel like you’ve gone back in time. Beautiful thatch roof houses spot the town. This one is home to one of the many villagers who would bow and say hello. These houses are a rare sight now-a-days. When roofs are damaged or worn, communities work together to replace and…
Mr. Kobayashi says that this tree has the power to give life. That’s because it’s given new life to the people living in Kadoide. With it, he and his workers make washi, paper made in a Japanese style entirely by hand. His family has been making paper for generations, but he was the first to…
The market for sake outside of Japan is slowly growing while inside Japan, it’s slowly shrinking. You’d never know that if you were talking to the head of Ishizuka Brewery though. She poses. One of the ways they distinguish themselves from other breweries is they use mochi rice in some of their sake. Mochi is…
Sake brewery tour part 2! My tour guide waves me over to one of their storage fridges. Most sake breweries in Japan keep their sake cool much like a regular fridge, but instead of using solely air conditioning motors, this one uses snow! Enough snow falls to keep everything inside cool well into summer. The…
