#8 the w-report Remote Adventures in Japan
A cultish new Izakaya in Berlin and lots of News you can Use
INTO THE WILD: INAKA (“RURAL”) ADVENTURES IN JAPAN. (GW)
A trip to Japan, with the right information and intentions, can be life changing. For the diehard Japanophiles I know, some of whom have been more than twenty times, a visit to the country is almost like a spiritual quest. They go for very specific reasons: to visit shrines or onsen; to immerse themselves in authentic only-in-Japan culinary experiences; and/or track down specific artisans. Of course there are also those who go to Niseko, in Hokkaido, to ski or those that spend all their time in Tokyo shopping and reenacting their version of Lost in Translation.
At w-report we like the idea of sometimes treating a trip like an hero’s journey. Not just going somewhere to check off a list of Instagram-worthy selfie locations, but instead, traveling to learn about and experience a culture. Traveling to make yourself a better, more interesting, human.
Speaking of interesting humans, our friend AYUMI PAUL is a remarkable spirit. She is a classical violinist and an artist whose work attempts to make the invisible (like energy and sound) visible, or present. Last year she was the artist in residence at one of our favorite museums in Berlin, the Gropius Bau, and there she created a room for singing and meeting and dreaming where she would spontaneously perform. It was like the site of a modern oracle, a space where the unexpected might happen.
This past December, Ayumi, who is half Japanese, half German, went on a three-week-long pilgrimage to Japan. Upon her return the Ws met up with her to hear about her adventures. Ayumi confirmed something that I had, for some time, believed to be true: these days it’s Japan’s remote, wilder regions that are worth traveling to. That’s where you can find the magic. I won’t mention the term forest bathing in this piece—it’s overused—but instead we thought we’d dub these serendipitous journeys to Japan’s countryside, Inaka (which means “countryside” in Japanese) pilgrimages.
“Cities like Tokyo and Kyoto are now packed with tourists,” Ayumi told us. “If you travel to Japan you should definitely spend time in the countryside, without doing too much planning beforehand.” She herself had decided to fly into Kyoto and then travel from there. Knowing that she wanted to spend time in a remote part of Japan she asked a few friends with knowledge of the country; the small city of Taketa in the Ōita Prefecture came up more than once. Soon after focusing her attention there, she was fortuitously connected to the owners of GALLERY CONNECT PLUS, who offered her an artists residency. A good sign. It ended up being her base in Taketa for the two weeks she was there.
Her hosts, the owners, Naomi Yamasaki and Takaya Mori, were generous guides and respected members of the community. Gallery Connect is very much of a grass roots project; the couple built it up, along with the help of several locals, when they renovated an abandoned house, upcycling and reusing the material they found there. Today it’s a stylish cafe and friendly meeting place, as well as a gallery showing both local and international artists. “They served the best scones I’ve eaten outside of England, as well as amazing grilled rice cakes and coffee,” said Ayumi. “Naomi also supports the local farmers and sells their rice and honey.” She described slow beautiful days of drinking coffee or tea by the gallery cafe’s windows with its mesmerizing views, walking through the rice fields and forests and steeping herself in the area’s hot springs. Every day she discovered something unique, like IZUMIYA, an ice cream shack in a field that sold, according to her, the most delicious soft ice cream she’s ever had. “They serve flavors like green tea, ume plum and kabosu citrus in freshly made waffle cones.” In fact everything she ate there, she enthused, was incredibly delicious and full of flavor. “The people there really take care of their land. They feed the soil and the forests with their prayers and gratitude on a daily basis. They listen to their rice fields. You taste that magic in the ingredients, in the water, in the grain and in the fish from their rivers. I never tasted such flavorful vegetables.”
Back in Kyoto, Ayumi rented a simple room in a traditional house and ate and made friends at ESTRE, a cool natural wine bar . Her favorite place in the city though was the soba noodle bar HONKE OWARIYA that is now overseen by Ariko Inaoka, 16th-generation owner and the first woman to run the business. “She left her career as a photographer to take it over about ten years ago,” said Ayumi. “The place is like the Berghain of Kyoto. The line there is SO long. But it’s worth the wait.” Soba noodles are made from two ingredients: buckwheat flour and water. Soba is considered to be a “high-vibration food”; Zen Buddhist monks used to eat a ball made of buckwheat flour and water before they went into deep meditation and long fasts. At Honke Owariya they source their buckwheat from highest quality producers from the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and the water, which is considered even more important, comes from the restaurant’s private well, located near the Kyoto Imperial Palace, which originates from Mount Hiei. Ayumi, who makes artworks using water collected from significant sites and even tears that people send to her, is like a dowsing rod, picking up on the energy of a place and a person. She said that if she could, she would eat at Honke Owariya every day.
NOTE: We’ve said this before, but here at the w-report we don’t do traditional travel guides. We focus on the magic places, the one or two gems that will transform your trip to a place. Quality, not quantity.
AYUMI’S FAV PLACES:
Gallery Connect Plus, Taketa : a gallery, community-building project, and cafe
Izumiya, Taketa : a cultish soft ice cream stand in the middle of nowhere near Taketa
Estre, Kyoto : a lively and welcoming natural wine bar in Kyoto that serves up delicious small plates
Honke Owariya, Kyoto : one of the most respected soba noodle makers in Japan, now headed up, for the first time, by a woman, Ariko Inaoka.
Our friend Moritz Estermann, who used to manage some of the best restaurants (and female chefs) in Berlin and is now living in Switzerland, where he is from, (he is currently consulting on an exciting upcoming hospitality project in Andermatt) just returned from a Japan pilgrimage of his own. A relentless researcher and obsessed with food, Moritz reached out to his creative network with a strong connection to Japan. He too decided to start in Kyoto (he loved the newly opened 7-room TAMAO KYOTO —”one of the most precious places I have ever stayed”) and then travel on to more remote areas to hike and visit a green tea farm. “I am a green tea fanatic and I have been obsessed with Sunday Naturals (now Yoshi En) and over the years became friends with them,” said Moritz. They sent him to the NATURALITEA GUEST HOUSE + TEA FARM in Fujieda. “We stayed at their amazing traditional guest house which can sleep up to six people,” he described. “It’s so serene and an amazing place to unwind. Located in the middle of a beautiful landscape of bamboo forest, lush tea plants and yellow rice fields.”
The highlight of his trip he said was spending several days on the southern most island of Yakushima, a mystical place dubbed the “Island of Life” and designated a World Heritage site, that is covered with ancient trees and surrounded by pristine beaches and sub-tropical waters. It also inspired Studio Ghibli’s beautiful anime film Princess Mononoke. “I think it was the most special place I have been to in my life,” Moritz told us. “We hiked all over its interior amongst magnificent forest landscapes, in awe of the age and grace of those trees, and then we’d sit in authentic natural onsen directly by the sea.” He recommended staying at the SANKARA HOTEL “reminiscent of Mandarin Oriental properties with gorgeous villas, beautiful sea views and impeccable serve.” His favorite place there for a soak was the Hirauchi Kaichu Onsen which is located in rock pools overlooking the ocean, and most uniquely, it was co-ed. “It was so weird and awesome. There’s hot volcanic water coming up from the ground and fresh cool seawater coming in when the tide rises.” The culinary specialty on the island is flying fish. “We had a fantastic meal at a place by the sea located here.”
MORITZ’S FAV PLACES:
TAMAO KYOTO : intimate new hotel in Kyoto
NATURALITEA GUEST HOUSE + TEA FARM : a welcoming and very special tea farm and guest house in Fujieda
SANKARA HOTEL : an elegant and upscale resort on Yakushima
MORITZ’S TOP MEALS IN TOKYO: Hattori Sushi and Maisen (best tonkatsu)
JAPAN PILGRIMAGE INSPIRATION. Have any of you read A Sense of Direction by New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus? It’s a great memoir about his adventures on three pilgrimage trails, including a solo circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku, where he attempts to come to terms with his relationship with his emotionally absent father.
GISELA’S DREAM WALK. The trip I personally would like to do this year is to journey along the sacred Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage trail (which along with the Camino Santiago is one of two UNESCO World Heritage pilgrimage routes in the world). The best travel company to call to organize your own pilgrimage in Japan is Walk Japan, which has been designing and leading hikes throughout the most rural parts of the country for more than twenty years.
NIKO IN BERLIN. Sometimes you don’t have to travel anywhere to experience another country. In Berlin that would be any place dreamt up by the restauranteur and artist Oliver Prestele, who started a mobile soup kitchen in the early aughts near Mitte and then eventually opened what is now the city’s most beloved ramen joints: Cocolo. The remarkable thing about Oliver is that he obsessively makes almost everything himself, from the ceramics to the miso. Entering his studio in Wedding is like ending up somewhere in Kyoto, complete with an irori-style grill suspended over a hearth. (W SECRET TIP: Oliver sometimes serves up soba noodles there on Sundays at 6pm). The good news for Berliners and visitors alike is that he just opened up his dream Izakaya place on Brunnenstrasse, called NIKO. There are about two dozen seats surrounding an open kitchen, excellent sake and highballs as well as a small but excellent small plate menu. Already so popular that reservations are a must.
NEWS YOU CAN USE (GW + AW)
FORGOTTEN FANTASY: Luna Luna, a long-lost amusement park dreamt up by an impressive cast of contemporary artists, debuted the very first time in 1987 in Hamburg, Germany. Initiated by Austrian composer André Heller, it was bought up - after almost 35 years lost in storage somewhere in Texas- by Rapper Drake (for 100 Million Dollar) and is now on display in Downtown LA in a 60,000-square-foot old warehouse at Ace Mission Studios. There’s a carousel by Keith Haring, an enchanted tree by David Hockney, a glass labyrinth by Roy Lichtenstein with music by Philip Glass. It’s a very unique and fun way to experience art. Bring the kids! And do exit through the gift shop (fun and affordable merch!) and get the Moon Pass, as it includes free parking and special rides. Make sure to have dinner in nearby Little Tokyo and queue at Marugame Monzo for Udon (tomato shrimp is their bestseller).
LA FANTAISIE: Paris will be hosting the Olympics this summer —kicking off July 26th— so you better get your hotel booked now! Antje stayed at La Fantaisie (Metro Rue Cadet) and loved the interior design by Martin Brudnizki. If you care for a cute little in house SPA or a dinner created by French superstar chef Dominique Crenn this is your place. If you just wanna get a glimpse, do visit the cute rooftop garden bar or café.
PAINTED FROM PICTURES: The New York-based artist and writer Leanne Shapton is showing recent paintings —and celebrating the new edition of „Important Artifacts“ —at the Thomas Fischer Gallery in Berlin until February 10th.
EATING WITH ART IN ATHENS: One of the most talked about bistros at the moment in the Greek capital is Gallina, recently opened by the art collector Philippos Tsangrides and dreamt up by one of Gisela’s favorite design duos, Objects of Common Interest, who installed a dramatic tube of light, of their design, in its center. She was introduced to the place by her friend, the lovely design curator Tina Daskalantonaki, and wrote about it for the T List .
PSYCHEDELIC CHRIST: Gisela loved listening to these two podcast episodes that discuss—one on Tim Ferriss about a secret religion and the birth of Christianity and the other on NPR about the anthropologist Margaret Mead— how psychedelics have shaped Western culture in monumental and unexpected ways.
LOVE AFTER DEATH: Antje’s friend Elke Naters just published her radically honest and touching book about losing her partner, the writer Sven Lager: About life, love and death; What happens when a loved one dies. "Alles ist gut, bis es das dann nicht mehr ist" (Ullstein press, only in German so far).
PRINT LOVER ALERT: Out of Eden's is the bi-annual magazine of our nomadic chef friend Niram Watthanasit, the owner of Eden’s, a charming cafe in an old quarter of Bangkok. Issue N°8 is out and about and it’s all about Love on the Table. Follow him on insta: @eden_niram.
A SHERPA WOMAN’S LAST CLIMB: This tearjerking documentary about mother, entrepreneur and climber Pasang Sherpa, who (30 years ago!! ) summited Everest to bring attention to the plight of Nepalese women and Sherpas. Gisela loves a good mountain climbing movie— Free Solo, Seven Summits and the Alpinist—but she can’t stop thinking about this one. Partly because it was on a recent trip to Nepal that she first heard Pasang’s dramatic story and then saw her likeness everywhere, from a huge statue in Kathmandu to a memorial gate at the start of the Everest trek in Lukla. The documentary, directed by Nancy Svendsen, is playing on the big screen January 27 + 28 (followed by a Q&A) in Manhattan’s New Plaza Cinema.
TIPS TO TIP: It’s always confusing. What do you tip and when and how much? These are questions that the W’s sometimes ask ourselves. Recently there have been a few good pieces in the NY Times on the topic like this op-ed piece as well as this one about whether one tips at a self-serve counter in the US and a related one that’s focused on Australia.
On my bucket list is to visit Hokkaido! Thanks for the read.