Guest contributor Roberto

Today I am extremely happy to publish a guest contribution from Roberto De Vido, well known publicist and cynical polit commentator at http://politicomix.blogspot.com/ .

Click to enlarge!

From 20070915

A spot of agriculture

After our achievements on Saturday, we decided to dedicate Sunday to field work. As Yuko and I are known to sport the "black thumbs of death" in terms of gardening, we were glad to have farmer son Alastair to give some hints.

Please be careful when cutting grass when you visit, as we have embedded edible plants in various locations on the field and other places around the house.

Basil and Rosemary



Blueberries



Raspberries



Another Rosemary



Another Basil



What do you think?



Some sort of flower

Surprise Visitor

As we were all loitering about in the house and garden, we were suddenly greeted by Kobayashi-san, the 79 Year old builder who thatched our roof last Year.

He walked into the house and was awed by the great changes that have taken place in the meantime. During his young years, Kobayashi-san actually stayed many times in this house as apprentice thatcher to the previous owner's father. Tears were about to fall when he commented that the house was rescued, something he thought not possible at the time.



Later we talked business - envisaged future projects and improvements. However, when it came down to details, I let junior handle it. Perhaps he will be a lawyer when he grows up, or is he giving architectural instructions?

Inaka Cinerama

Alastair, being as useful an architect as can be, brought his projector with him. We improvised a screen from bed linen, and were ready to watch the latest movies, when we discovered that I brought the wrong display adaptor for his PowerMac!!!

All was saved though, when we connected the projector to the multi-system DVD Player (can Play either PAL or NTSC all regions). The movie itself was quickly copied to a USB memory stick, which in turn was inserted into the USB port of the Player.

Oh how joyful my daughter was to see "Meister Eder and his Pumuckl" come to life on the 2m wide screen! Unfortunately the days exertions and a generous consumption of the Inaka Home house wine (red) led to me nodding of fairly quickly ...

Late Summer's Weekend

Our Friends Kayoko and Alastair of Bakoko the up-and-coming design and architecture practice, recently joined my family and me at Arisaka House.

Late summer created pleasant warm but not too humid temperatures, ideal for a casual Bar-B-Q.





Besides the pleasure of grilling and eating, some work needed to be done. You can see me - in dress rehearsal for the Oktoberfest - disposing dried cut grass, vines and other garden organics, while Alastair tries to improvise a new Moskito net for the windows.

Long Absence, and a busy season

Hi, this is the first post for a long time. I am happy to say one of the reasons for the long break was a high occupancy of our Arisaka house, so that I had not many opportunities to visit it myself.

But this is great for us, and I think we have won many new friends to Inaka Home. Please let me share some feedback from guests.

The most important thing though - remember that Autumn is a really different season of wonderful beauty. So you should visit again in Golden and Red season!


Paola & Jonathan Mannaro:

"We found the kitchen to be very well equipped, and absolutely nothing
was missing, we also used the washing machine and that was perfect too.
Everything was in good working order and we were delighted with the
luxury of the beds, the bedding and of course the sound system.

You had a fun choice of LPs and we listened to all of them as well as some
CDs of our own. We had not expected Madness in Arisaka, but they were right
there !

SO – thank you very much for making the house so comfortable and homely
it was one of the most relaxing holidays we have ever had !"



Glen Maxwell-Heron:

"Just a quick note to let you know that the weekend went well at the Arisaka House. You were right - the bedrooms do warm up very quickly and the kerosene heaters are very effective at heating the main space. It is a great location and the directions are certainly sufficient to find it.

As I say, we all really enjoyed our stay and will try to get back there again."

Ryo Sato:

"It was obsolutely fun trip to there!
Me and my mates enjoyed having BBQ and swiming in a waterfall:-)"


Michael Arnold & Hitomi

"just wanted to say thanks for letting us rent the Arisaka house -- we had a wonderful time! It was tough to come back to work today. Hopefully we can rent it for a few days again in the fall."

Auto Camper expedition

Yours truly has been enlisted recently to help the Japanese "Auto Camper" magazine (by Yaesu Publishing) test a Camping Vehicle on loan from the maker. They were very interested to my opinion about usability, and asked me a lot of questions about Camping in Europe. My friend Damon also took part in this test and represented the United States.

After picking up Damon from Tama Plaza, we headed out to a day camping site in the nearby mountains. Damon and I took turns driving the machine.



At the camp site we each started preparing our respective country's signature dishes.




In case of Damon: Cheese Burgers. In my case German Potatoes Salad(Kartoffelsalad), and Sausages. The result was lovely as you can see!



We had a great day out!



To get all the Details, please buy the July Issue of the Auto Camper Magazine at a bookshop.

Friend or Vermin?

Talking to the village chief the other day, I heard that people here in Arisaka get frequent visits from herds of deer. They come down from the forest, to forage and it seems they are not too scared of humans.

Locals don't enjoy them too much - they make dirt on the streets and eat produce from the fields.

According to him, other wildlife also includes Tanuki (Japanese badger, Bears (very occasionally) but fortunately no monkeys.

If you as one of our guests have a chance to see them, please send us a photo!

Children Play Area

If you experiment a little bit with your route when walking to michi-no-eki, you may find a little unkept path leading up the ridge . After about 2 minutes, you can walk on a better kept path, and enjoy a nice view on the village on the other side of the valey (Tateiwa) and the hills beyond.

This is a little resting place that can be used to just take a break, or have a snack.



If you turn down left a little behind this place, you reach the big roller slide. This is brilliant for kids and papas!





Unless you want to receive a thorough massage of your buttocks, I recommend using a piece of card board, to sit on.

At the end of this slide there is a Children's play area, including a big Jungle Gym,


And once you and the little angels have exhausted themselves, you just pop into the Onsen which is conveniently located at the same site, overseeing the play area.

Bigger kids will also find a Basketball Court here, and a larger flat, grass covered area ideally suited to play frisbee.

First Picnic

This is a late posting of the first picnic this year in the beginning of April.

The sun shone so warm in front of the house, that we decided to have sandwiches outside. Kana and Troy prepared them with their special recipe, and I wish they'd share it with us.



Each Sandwich was individually marked with Cheese cut-outs to indicate its owner.



Mmmmm - Yummy!

Afterwards I fell asleep, and it was difficult to get any work done...

Spring Postcard from Inaka

Finally spring has arrived in Arisaka. Of course it is still colder than Tokyo, and sometimes snow falls instead of rain, but overall you can feel nature waking up around the house.





The Ume tree in front of the house has started to sport some blossoms, and I was able to have the first outside picnic on Friday. It was nice sunny, warm so that I fell asleep.

Karuizawa Designer and Artist exhibits at Arisaka House

To celebrate the spring opening of our house in Arisaka, a designer and artist Toshiro Takakuwa(and friend of inaka home) has kindly given us a selection of his artwork for exhibition.



He created the one on the left, inspiring a feeling of clean water, while the other three are a series depicting the earth. Please check his website avecth for more information and his bio. He also wrote a nice blog entry about us, which you can read here.

We have placed one picture in the living room, one in the kitchen and one for each bed room.









I hope you will all enjoy them during your visit!

Golden Week approaching, think ahead!

Now that officially spring has arrived in Japan orders are picking up, and certain dates get pretty busy. Even though golden week seem still far away for many hard working Tokyoites just trying to get the fiscal year finished, in fact we already get many inquiries for Golden Week.

So if you think about spending that holiday at our house, you better get your reservation in quickly. Another thing to take care of are other travel arrangements - please remember that rental car company run out of cars, and that the shinkansen trains run at more than official capacity(reserved seats advisable).

Lastly, be aware of traffic conditions. Even though it usually takes me about 2 hours drive to get from Nerima to Arisaka on a Friday night (after 19:00h), Saturday morning, long weekends and special holidays can easily make this a 6 hours drive! So get up early or drive late to avoid the crowds.

For those of you who are more flexible and despise crowds, why not try to make it before Golden Week? Particularly during the week you may find it easier to secure the house.

Inaka Home awarded 3rd place on GreenDot 2008 competition

Inaka home was awarded 3rd place in the category "service" of this competition.

What is the GDA?

"The jury of the international Green Dot Awards (GDA) announce the winners of the 2008 competition. The GDA was established to reward and promote forward-thinking businesses that create environmentally friendly products or services, and to reward revolutionary green proposals. The GDA aims to bridge the gap between truly innovative businesses that practice excellence in environmental responsibility and international consumers and media."

Who was on the jury?

"The Green Dot Awards were juried by experts in the industry including: Kyle D. Brown, Ph.D., Director of the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, California State Polytechnic University
Daniel D. Chiras, Ph.D., Author of The Homeowner’s Guide to Renewable Energy, The New Ecological Home, The Solar House, The Natural House, Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods, and The Natural Plaster Book
Peo Ekberg, Environmental Consultant for Sustainability and LifestyleCO2 Adviser
Dave Evans, Author of Cool Green Stuff: A Guide to Finding Great Recycled, Sustainable, Renewable Objects You Will Love
Steven Foster, President of the Steven Foster Group and commercial consultant for eco-sustainability
Christine Mason McCaull, Co-founder GoGreen Online, and Go GreenTV
Shelagh McNally, Editor at Green Living Online & Green Living Enterprises
Luis Valenzuela, Founder and CEO of Green Art USA"

What does it mean for us?

"Although the Green Dot Awards are worthy onto themselves, they are also a consumer guide to excellence in environmentally-sustainable practices. A business with a Green Dot Award is a business that can be trusted by consumers with stewardship of the environment."

Mount Asama Eruption - are we facing total destruction?

Recently the news covered the eruption of Mount Asama, an active volcano on the border of Gunma and Nagano prefecture.



Thinking about how close our home is to the Volcano, perhaps you are worried about Arisaka House? And the other question is - was it just a coincident that the volcano on Sakurajima in Kagoshima (southern Japan) spew lava at the same time?

According to our local Guide, Hiro-san, Arisaka and our beloved valley is completely unaffected - The ash went only to Gunma, Saitama and Tokyo thanks to the wind. Arisaka people don't really notice anything.

His comment:

"Its great - as I don't have to clean up volcanic ash!"

These are some pictures I took earlier from across the hill in Tateshina village:

From 20070915

From 20070915

However, morbid / decadent followers of the inaka home blog may be tempted to quickly reserve Inaka Home for this weekend, to enjoy the spectacle from a safe distance.

If you are so inclined, you can see you are well placed to witness the total destruction of Saku, Komoro and Karuizawa from this picturesque Japanese village.

For your enjoyment of this exhilarating potential catastrophe, we recommend the following essential items:

• Camping chairs & camping table
  
• Sleeping bags to keep you warm if the disaster occurs in the afternoon (your viewing position will be in the shadow, but Asama has the best lighting of the setting sun)
  
• Binoculars
  
• Video Camera and Tripod
  
• Digital SLR with tripod and super zoom
  
• Champagne bottle & glasses
  
• Thermos Flask with hot milk tea
  
• Ritz Crackers and Cheddar Cheese
  
• Book "Restaurant at the end of the Galaxy"
  

Cross-Country Ski / Langlauf

Today we received an inquiry about cross-country skiing near our Arisaka House.

What a great idea! I haven't done proper cross-country skiing since my childhood, where I participated in a 14km Volkslauf in the Black Forrest. Although I did use my touring skis a few year ago to reach Honzawa Onsen in Winter ( a6 hour uphill treck), and saw other people use it a bit further up in Yatsugatake.

A quick search has revealed the following possibilities:

1. Blanche Takayama (20mins) is rumoured to have a 4km track and rental of equipment, although I still need to confirm this. It can be reached even under snowy conditions, but winter tyres are required, and chains should be carried.

2. Utsukushigahara a high mountain plateau, cross-country and snowshoe tours/rental available. This website seems to be operated by a hotel, which judging by their website is not as good as Inakahome, so don't stay there. Getting there is also a little bit of a concern, as it is very high up (dangerous road conditions in winter). We will check it out and post some updates.

3. Nagato Highland Farm, normally a dairy farm producing loads of icecream and expensive rare cheese, uses its cow pastures as cross-country tracks. My comment would be - make sure there is enough snow if you value your equipment!

For those of you who like downhill activities, here is one extra information: Blanche Takayama is Ski ONLY. So if you have snowboarders in your group, you had better drive a few minutes further to Echo Valley.

We will check out those options, and post an update once we have the facts

Patrick is speaking at The Tokyo Small Business Meetup Group tomorrow

I was invited to give a presentation tomorrow about Inakahome, and how we made it a reality.

The audience is the "The Tokyo Small Business Meetup Group", an informal group of entrepreneurs current and future, who want to exchange ideas, experiences and network.

In case you are interested, please sign up to the group (free), and sign up for the event on this page (better hurry, its filling up quickly).

Arisaka House converted to Danish territory (temporarily)

A little belated reach us the photos of a merry Danish delegation that took over Arisaka House for Christmas week. Trying to escape their busy yearend schedules, Rebecca and friends found a welcome home-away-from-home in our house.



Communal cooking is the best fun :-)



Here a special Danish Christmas dish is prepared - Yummy! I wish I had the recipe! Do you notice the gentlemen reflected in the stainless steel surface(top left of the picture)? Obviously not everyone was helping.





Their hard work was rewarded with a sprinkling of snow for a white Christmas.



The view over our field.

Happy New Year

On behalf of Inaka Home I would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year 2009!!

Towards the end of December, Winter has finally arrived for real in Nagano, and plenty of snow is available in Blanche Takayama, Echo Valley and other ski areas within 20 minutes drive reach of Arisaka House.

Our house is located just over 600m so is spared the heaviest snow fall. Nevertheless a beautiful coating is always welcome, in particular by my daughter.

From 20070915

From 20070915

Why not have a pleasant family ski weekend, at our home? We still have vacancies for January and February, so you beter hurry to get your reservation in (please use the feedback form on our homepage)! You can read last Year's entry about our skiing at Blanche Takayama here.