Today you will be harvesting some vegetables in Osamu's garden
I look forward to it
This is Hatsue and Sachie
Got it!
Call me grandma
I think I'll get you to harvest some radish
Japanese radish?
Yes
Some radishes and turnips
This is... let me just get it
This is a round radish
This is a long and skinny radish
The one everyone knows of!
It's surprisingly easy to get out
I've made kiritanpo before
It's similar to that!
Don't smash all of the rice
Just half of it right?
There's glutinous rice and white rice in here
She said she wants to join my class
What class?
The one at the closed down school turned community area
You want to see that?
Yeah, of course since she is trying her best to gather the community together and make it a better place
Sure, we can go
This is going to be so good
It sure will!
It'll go in so quickly!
You're going to eat it all, right?
Eat until the morning
This area is really countryside, right
I like the countryside though
It's beautiful and has a lot of nature
You look fine!
We all just woke up too haha
3..2..1.. Cheese!
This use to be Hayabusa Elementary School
But in March, 2018 it closed down
We wanted to make it a place where people could come together again so we decided to renovate the school
5 years ago, my friends and I noticed our town losing it's liveliness
So we decided to get together and make the town interesting again
First we opened a restaurant nearby
Then we opened a guest house that attracts the bikers that come by
We renovated an old house to make it
That's where I'm staying tonight!
I look forward to seeing it
A lot of people with the "Hayabusa" bike come by
but because there wasn't anywhere to stay, they all just came, explored a bit and left
But we wanted visitors to stay, interact with the locals and leave the town with fond memories
And the concept here for the elementary school is to have a community of innovative people who want to build their own paths in life, starting their own businesses or projects
Some of the retired people of the town started their own business to show that no matter what age you are, it's never too late to do anything :)
Now they are producing and selling mushrooms
This place is not only a shared office for entrepreneurs to gather
We want to embrace the things in the countryside too like being surrounded by beautiful nature
Building a community with the elderly locals
Basically the concept is to embrace the things we have in the countryside
whist adding in technology and design skills to make it a better place for the future
You need some strength for this haha
It gets tiring after a while huh
Nicely done!
How many chopsti cks are we making?
At least 4 pairs
Perfectly carved
Looks good!
The elderly people you just met graduated from this high school
This school closed down 2 years ago with only 13 students left at the end
But to the people of the town, it's a place with many memories
Many wished for this place to be used again...
and since our company is very thankful for all that this area has done for us
we wanted to give back to the community and turn this place into a lodge where people can come stay
and also interact with the locals by doing the activities you just did
Is it under renovation now?
You can take a look inside if you'd like
Let's do that
We haven't started renovating yet
I'll take you to see the classrooms
We plan to turn the classrooms into rooms like this to stay in
In the countryside, the sense of community is very strong here
And since this is a school they all went to, it has a very special place in their heart and connects them
So, renovating this place has a lot of meaning behind it than meets the eye
Our owner's vision is that you can always build more and more new things
but they believe it is very important to preserve the old
So the concept to the hotel is to renovate the old buildings and add in new things
whilst also keeping nature the way it was and create a space where you can coexist with nature
At our hotel there are 6 rooms
When it first opened there were 8 but we wanted to make rooms bigger so now there are 6