I've been curious a cafe in front of Yoyogi Park, which is one of the most famous parks in Tokyo. JR Harajuku station and Chiyoda Line Yoyogi Park station are convenient to access. To walk in 3 minutes. The cafe is TARLUM, which is glassed-in front. If you go through the cafe, you can notice it easily.

A couple days ago I searched the cafe on the Internet. It told me that they could accept pets. What a wonderful environment it is! I went there immediately. The cafe has 3 floors (basement, 1st floor, and 2nd floor). Pets can stay on basement and 1st floor, and it's forbidden on 2nd floor. The cafe is also a restaurant with fine dishes during dinner time. I ordered white wine brure and cappuccino.I thought that brure might be very sweet before eating, but I was wrong. This brure smelled and tasted wine, and it's not too sweet. The brure was better than other cake shops around my house.

Other sweets were also fine. Dinner at this cafe would be great. I'll go to the spacious 2nd floor for dinner next time.

It took for 1 hour and half from Morioka Station to HIraizumi Station by Tohoku Main Line. The train had two carriages. It's quite local, isn't it?

Swallows flew across the green station, which was nostalgic and calm. Chusonji Temple was located 10-minute away from the station by bus. Chusonji Temple is specified a national historic site. It was built by A samurai, Fujiwara no Kiyohira, in the beginning of 12th century and had 40 towers around the temple in its heyday. However all of them were burned out by blaze. Now only Konjikido (golden hall) does exist with original figure.

Matsuo Basho, who was a legendary poet, read about Konjikido in his best work, Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Interior). "The golden hall sparkles with rain drops in May". Its floor, ceiling, and wall were decorated with gold leaves and noctilucent clams. 12 golden Buddha statues inside of 4 poles were colored gold. Remains of Kiyohira, Tomohira, HIdehira, and Yasuhira's head were under the golden Buddha statues.

A historical sylvan road had 13 halls and several shops at the entrance of each hall, and I could enjoy specialty incense, tea, and other souvenirs. There was Hakusan Shrine after the 13 halls. I enjoyed Fujiwara's terrestrial paradise.

An oyster bar appeared in my beloved town, Yoyogi, and I went there last weekend. The name of restaurant was Seafood Club COVO. It's located in JR Yoyogi Station east exit close to DoCoMo Tower. It's hard for people first visiting Yoyogi to find the off-street restaurant.

I ordered mozzarella pickled in miso, white wine steamed clam, grilled chicken, raw oysters, and steamed rice with sea-bream meat. My favorite dishes were mozzarella pickled in miso and raw oysters.

The texture of mozzarella pickled in miso was totally different from originals and fresh. Its seasoning with salt was just as well. I believe the best beverage for the dish was SAKE. Unfortunately this restaurant didn't have a wider variety of SAKE. I ordered Kubota. Raw oysters were fleshy and sweet. I tried several kinds of oyster, and Shunko (A name of oyster) was the best. The restaurant gave me 6 sources (nampla, sesame oil, wine vinegar, Japanese soup, citrus & miso, tomato & garlic) to eat raw oysters. I guess wine vinegar was the best match to raw oysters. I'll try use it at home. Rice with sea-bream meat was steamed by pressure cooker, and it had fine soup and too many bones. I don't like it because of the bones.

What it comes down to is that raw oysters were great!, a variety of beverage was average, for other dishes some were OK, but some were lazy. If you love oysters, I can recommend you.

A continuation of Solo travel in Hachinohe Part1. My next place was a vast park, Miyagi Park. It took for 5 minutes from JR Hon-Hachinohe Station.

The Japanese garden surrounded by Japanese trees of pine, maple, and cherry was tidy. I looked down Mabuchi River running through the town from a hill in the balmy May sunshine. There was a country view with fresh green on my right side and an industrial area on my left side. I thought that our ancestors looked down Hachinohe castle town long time ago just like I did. An old samurai residences with black high wall close to the park reminded me of ancient days.

I looked for specialty seafood downtown after that. Finally I found a local cuisine restaurant, La Plaza. I ordered Hachinohe Senbei Stew. Chicken, whitefish, mushroom, celery cabbage, burdock, and Nanbu rice cracker with soup based on salt were stewed in Nanbu Iron Pod. The dish was good for my stomach and relieved my fatigue.

You probably imagine Tokyo as a sightseeing spot in Japan, but Hachinohe is recommendable as well.

Hachinohe is located in Aomori Prefecture, a north part of Japan. I visited Hachinohe alone during the season of new green leaves.

On the first day I worked around downtown. On the second day I got up at 06:00 and went to a morning market in perch. The morning market located at the foot of a panoramic hill, Choja Mountain, opens from 05:00 to 08:00. It closes the road to cars, and market booths align on both side of the road.

Fresh flowers, vegetables (mountain plants were in season), and fish were aligned on tables and sheets on the road. Stewed ODEN in a deep pan was on a charcoal stove, and freshly-fried TENPURA was next. My favorite thing was grilled fish. Skewed fish was grilled slowly, and its skin was crispy and meat was plump. You can taste only in Hachinohe.

I ate SOBA at 350 yen as well. It's reasonable and tasty. I could also top with TENPURA as much as I wanted. My stomach and heart were satisfied with those local specialties.

I was blessed with spring crisp air and blue sky and felt grateful with the fun moments. This travel keeps going little more.

Iriomote Island is a part of Yaeyama Islands. I described Taketomi Island previously. These 2 islands and Ishigaki Island are main tourist points. Iriomote Island is the second largest island in Okinawa Prefecture (289 sq km). To put it plainly, the island is the jungle.

There are plenty of things to see. Water falls, mangrove forests, hot springs, water buffalo, and more. You can rent a car and drive all around, but some parts of  Iriomote Island are hard to go in. Do you like kayak? If you do, it's perfect. Now you can go everywhere. I rent a kayak and went inside of deep forests. Everything was fresh to me. I encountered about 3-feet eels. Wow! What a big creature it was! A tour guide told me that he saw 7-feet eels before. 1-feet crayfish was also awesome!

It was truly exciting trip to me. My favorite spot was a water fall. It was like adventure. I sailed a kayak into the deep forest. If I didn't have a guide, I would lost my way. I had to climb hills for 1 hour after sailing the kayak, and then suddenly the water fall appeared. Its view was amazing. My guide took me to the top of the water fall, where I could look around the island entirely. Can you imagine beautiful sky and crystal-clear ocean with deep forest after the adventure. I loved it.

Try to do it when you visit Iriomote Island.

The beautiful island is located in Okinawa Prefecture as a part of Yaeyama Islands, but it's far from the main island.

Okinawa is the best beach resort in Japan, and I believe that its beauty is better than Hawaii. A few years ago I had an opportunity to visit the beautiful island, Taketomi. My flight was from Tokyo to Ishigaki Island, and it took 10 minutes by high-speed boat from Ishigaki. The island is only 5.42 square kilometers. You can look around by bicycle in a single day.

Do you know Japanese TV game, The Dragon Quest? A main character goes on endless journey to defeat the Archenemy. He meets a lot of people during the journey and walks from village to village. Nothing exists on the way to his destinations. Taketomi was like this.

I like to find a place, which would be never penetrated by others. Once I rode a bicycle, I couldn't see any buildings or artificial things. In another moment I found a private beach with star sand, blue sky, and crystal-clear water. People in Taketomi are laid-back and friendly.

It was a perfect situation for me. Don't you think so?

You can slip back in time to Edo era in Nakasendo, which is located in Shinshu. One of the post stations is NARAIJIKU. The village is selected and protected by the Traditional building structures.

It's different from Kyoto and Gassho-Dukuri in Shirakawago. I felt I knew the unique atmosphere like old Japan. More than 90 % of housings are timbered and ancient-looking. Surprisingly inside of housing is modern and neat.

freshwater fish and wild plants around the village are abundant and tasty. When I visited there last time, grilled sweetfish was amazingly delicious. I'm bad to eat fish, but this was exceptional. I ate tiny bones too. A cypress bath was hot spring, and I could sleep well.

There is a huge dam close to the village, and it's the best way to drive when the sky is blue. Of course Soba is tasty, because it's Shinshu. For me it was a healing trip.

Tokyo had heavy rain last night temporarily like  squall. I was out at the moment. Damn!

I finished working earlier than usual, and went to a dinner, CAFE LIFE, in Azabu-Juban. I love the area, because it's clean, quiet, and comfy. Many shops and restaurants get together. Remarkably there are some dogs' shops and dogs. It's a perfect situation for me. The dinner accepts dog's coming on 1st floor, so I had dinner with my dog on 1st floor.

Their dishes are mainly Italian. I ordered boiled vegetables salad, duck & watercress salad, pizza with anchovies & garlic, and pepperoncino with anchovies & vegetables. Those were pretty tasty. The dinner was well-served and laid-back. I liked it. I also had a couple of drinks such as Mojito, black beer brewed in Niigata Prefecture. I didn't know Niigata had breweries. It's lighter than  Guinness, but the tasty was genuine. I'll try some next time I go to Niigata. Mojito was OK, but tasted different from Cuban originals. Several years ago I had an opportunity to drink it. I prefer Cuban style.

The dinner has 2nd floor with comfy sofa tables. I'll sit on the sofa next time.

I introduce my favorite hot spring, Hatgo in Gunma Prefecture. It's located off the beaten track.

I'm impressed recent hot spring accommodations. Hatago is not just an accommodation but a village. With an area of 20 acres, they provide hot springs, accommodations, museums of traditional crafts such as furnitures, armors, swords, live performances of handmade soba, and rice cake pounding. The area is only for the village. Nothing is around the village.

About 30 rooms are available, and some of them have hot springs inside of the rooms. My room was 40 square meters approximately and pure Japanese style, but I felt fresh and stylish sense due to Ryukyu tatami mat. The room also had a lofted room, which was called "moon viewing room".

There are several hot springs inside of the village. One of them, "water fall viewing hot spring", is comfy, but my recommendation is "chartered open-air bath" with 2000 yen extra charge. I felt a sense of liberation a lot.

Meals depend on seasons. Basically they prepare grilled meals for dinner, and Grilled sweetfish with salt is amazingly delicious. Fresh laid eggs are distributed at the entrance in the morning, and pour the egg on the rice. Miso soup, grated yam soup, pickles are together. This is typical Japanese breakfast, but it's obviously different from home-cooked meal. Remarkably a building for breakfast differs from a building for dinner, so I can enjoy the view with meals.

I rarely want to go to same hot springs. However I wanna go to Hatago again.

This is an ancient architecture in heavy snowfall areas in Japan.

Gassho means praying hands, because a shape of the roof looks like praying hands. Shirakawago and Gokayama are famous for the architecture, but fundamentally Gassho-Dukuri were a main architecture for folk dwelling in Japan. A thatched roof has to be high-pitched to prevent rain penetration and to bear the weight of snow. Gassho-Dukuri is the appropriate architecture.

A part of the rare architecture, Gassho-Dukuri, is designated as UNESCO World Heritage, and it is a precious existence and feeds us ease. Constructions in metropolis are mainly reinforced concrete, and convenience has been enhanced dramatically. However I feel anodyne loneliness.

Each region has each history and aspect, but Gassho-Dukuri is a representative example to express Japanese minds.

We have a short break from the end of April to 5th of May every year, because some national holidays concentrate on this term, which is called GOLDEN WEEK in Japan. People go to abroad or other leisure spots. Some stores and restaurants in Tokyo close their business during the term.

I prefer to stay home, because plane tickets and accommodations usually extremely expensive like double price. What I wanna do is to veg out or to meet my friends. Those are perfect situations for me.

This time a friend of mine, who works in Australia, has come back to Japan for vacation. We've known each other for 10 years approximately. She'll be 29 soon. 2 other friends and I held her birthday party. I had a place I wanna go for dinner, but the Golden Week disturbed it.

Finally I found a restaurant, BISTROT D'ARTEMIS. As you may guess, it's French. Mostly French cuisine is very formal and expensive, but this restaurant was casual and reasonable. Over 100 sorts of wine were listed, and dishes mainly meat fit for the wine perfectly. We ordered about 5 dishes, and it's enough. Basically I order 5 to 7 dishes for French food, but this restaurant serves certain amount of food for each dish.

I've been to uncountable restaurants, and BISTROT D'ARTEMIS is unique.

I went to Daigo City in Ibaraki prefecture last weekend. The weather was fine and warm, so I wore only T-short. It took for 3 hours by car from Tokyo, and my purposes were falls and Soba.

The most famous fall in Ibaraki is "Fukuroda Fall", which was selected "the best of 100 falls in Japan" before. Its height is 120m and width is 73m. Amazing!!

However my fall at this time was "Tsukimachi Fall", which was also called the "hidden eight views" and "passable fall". You can go behind the fall. If you wanna go there, please ask someone around there, because the fall is completely hidden from a main road. That is the reason why it's called the "hidden eight views". The size (height : 15m / width : 10m) is much smaller than Fukuroda Fall, but it appears attractive and showers lots of negative ion.

The other purpose, a Soba restaurant, was at the same place. Seats of the restaurant faced to the fall, thus I thought the restaurant owned the fall, but it's not. The taste was awesome! I've eaten plenty of Soba in Tokyo and Shinshu, but this Soba was better than ever. My recommendation to you is "Chigiri Soba"as a dessert, which is a Soba dumpling with bean jam and toasted soybean flour. If you like sweets, this can be your favorite.

To be honest this was my second time to visit Tsukimachi Fall. but whenever I go there, I'm sure I love it. Hot springs and ski resorts are close. I wanna build my second house there hopefully.