Day 12 Downtown Kyoto

Everybody enjoys a free morning and we are only heading out at 1:30 pm catching a bus to Kawaramachi Sanjo - Downtown Kyoto - a fifty minutes ride from our hostel and then walk across to Nishiki markets:
exotic foods, produce and scenes, even light saver chop sticks!!!!!

 At 7pm we walk around the corner from the markets and get blasted with light, sound, mime, break dance, juggling and magic when the old toy factory becomes alive.......at GEAR ...an awesome modern Japanese Fairy tale.

GEAR performance – Charlie

Today the class spent the day wandering through the stores of inner Kyoto, taking note of the various shrines and landmarks around the marketplace of course. After dinner we regrouped and made our way to a tiny theatre not far from the markets to watch the performance of GEAR, an interesting, non-verbal play that focused more on body language and physical movement rather than words. The play follows the story of 4 emotion feeling robots (called 'Roboroids') as they continue their work in a long abandoned toy factory, producing lovely dolls with the spectacularly accurate name of 'Doll'. The show was utterly fantastic, the actors were all incredibly on-point and played their robot persona's with uncanny, almost unnerving, reality, with amazing physicality that would have you believing they were actually robots, and extraordinary talents that would leave you scratching your head in amazement. An all around enjoyment to watch and a must see for all ages.

Day 11 Kuta Village - Kyoto

30th March, Thursday morning 9:00 am - we are having some more tea in the sun before we sadly say good bye to our wonderful hosts.

         The boys stayed with Mrs Nui, a twenty minute walk from the farm.

                           Minami, Kazy , Lumi, Suzu,  family friend and Yuki

                      Two snakes are enjoying the warm sun light next to the bus.

The first signs of the cherry blossoms are greeting us at the arrival at the Utano Youth Hostel in Kyoto.

....and some trees in the neighbourhood are already advanced but the full bloom is only expected in a few days....

 Room 201 - a modern Japanese style youth hostel which will be our home for the next five nights

Day 10 Farm Stay Activities

                                             Breakfast on Day Two

                     Buckwheat noodles - SOBA - making with Mr. Hirose and Kazy.

                                    The kneading phase is almost done.

The stretched dough needs to be 1.3mm thick, exactly. 1.5mm is considered to be too thick by the masters.

             
                         Hand forged Soba Noodle knife with shark skin handle cover

                    Kiara cutting the noodles in 3mm strips off the folded dough

Everybody is going for the freshly boiled soba noodles as they come onto the lunch table.

Michiko (76) and Nui (75) from the village are demonstrating the rice straw activity: making chop stick rests - HASHIOKI

 

                               The final products: rice straw chop stick rests

                              Bamboo forest and rice field in the winter

Snow shoe experience - having a go on the snow-covered fields around the farm house.

                      Special Dinner tonight: NABE - Japanese Hot Pot

Kazy puts up a special treat for us: venison which he hunted this winter season. He cuts up the deer meat into thin slices. He also serves its fried heart and boar liver.

The mushrooms, pork slices, fish cakes, raw chicken meat balls, udon noodles and all the vegetables are boiled in a seaweed stock broth.

We are feasting, chatting, balancing slippery noodles on chop sticks, comparing
kangaroo to deer, enjoying the meal and each others company in this warm and wonderful environment created by Lumi & Kazy and his team.