Shobara

The house in the center of the picture is the Vatya & Nartana's place where l've been for 3 days only... as l said before, they wanted me to stay longer such as 2 months!!! l'd really loved 'cos such peaceful land and clean air and playing with pizzas ... l mean country side life and l had 2 main reasons to move on instead to remain there ... one was that, before l left to travel around the grandfather, and he was also the boss, of the buddhist family where l use to work in the temple whenever they need (work such as: cleaning, cooking, carpentry and so on a little bit of all but nothing to do with their practice of buddhism ... and l dont care 'cos l do not have a so-called religion ... and l like there 'cos nobody speak english and so it is very good for me and moreover they're sweet people ... ) and so the boss was in the hospital 'cos of old age and passing his last days ... and when l was in Yakushima, suddenly it came to me to contact to my japanese roommate to ask her what l have to say properly, in japanese, to the family in case the boss would have popped out ... well as l said, it was difficult to get the antenna connection in the island but that time l went to the spot and got lots of messages, one of them was my roommate's telling me that, just the day l thought about asking her the proper phrase, ... the boss was "gone". He was a sweet man and therefore l felt it was better to be present at the ceremony that was on saturday of the week l was staying in Shobara ... and the other reason, the main one, was that deep down l felt that the "purpose" of this Odyssey was over and it was really time to move back to TYO .
Ok so here down you'll see a typical japanese room ... and l loved tremendously ... facing the garden with hills view ... aaaaaaahhh what a feeling ...

And here u can see a bit of Shobara land ... isn't beautiful?! all that green u see around is nothing but rice!!!

And so the next day, after the festival, was the holiday so we went to have a public bath, do some shopping and to see a couple that builded the House by themselves and made it an lndian restaurant ... it was a very very nice place and well made and they were also nice people that we invited to come over to eat fresh pasta l was going to make for dinner .... also because Nartana wanted to see how to make it and so l made them happy (and made myself too happy ;)

After the bath of course we were hungry and so l asked whats the speciality of Hiroshima ... OKONOMIYAKI.
So l had the honour to go with them to eat it just the way u see in the left picture ... there was a queue that we had to wait a good half a hour outside 'cos the place was quite famous for its taste ... it is such an experience to sit just in front of the cook and watching (you know...l like to watch silently especially when it is about food)
and there was this boy making these "omelets" with such speed, just like a samurai with a sword ZAK ZAK ZAK and SHUmmm ... amazing!
And there are not chopsticks or fork n knife but just kinda of carpenter spatula 'cos it is not that once the okonomiyaki is ready u eat it from the plate ... nooooo ... it go on cooking slowly and slowly on the ... how to say it?! ... the hot iron plate! so on the bottom forms a crust and with the help of the "spatula" that u can just, cut (as Nartana is doing on my right), separate the piece (cuz u cut the piece that u can put in your mouth only and the rest go on cooking and becoming yummier) and finally cleaning the "plate" just like a carpenter .... well l didn't found so especially yummy although it was spectacular and so here is what l ordered but don't ask me what there is inside 'cos l forgot ;) enjoy!

l'll make it someday, my version of course and l will show u in the food blog (^o^)/ ciao