Hey guys! Welcome back to vlogmas. I have brought you to another cool town today
because i was invited to stay at this really cool hotel! This is a very luxury
high-end hotel, i've never really stayed in a fancy ryokan so i'm really excited
about it and it'll be really interesting to compare how it differs from a regular
ryokan like the ones that I would normally stay at!
Hello!
Wow what a cool building!
So apparently this hotel is converted from an old house!
Look at it! I love how they've kept the old, rustic feel
How neat is this!
Could I get your full name and your signature here please
So this is the main street
This street has the most shops
For example souvenir stores, and sake stores, you can drink!
And this street is my favourite street
Is it? Ok I'll go there then if you recommend it
It's called Kawaramachi Street
There's a cat!
Aw they're feeding them
Wow this town's cool!
This whole area of Japan is so beautiful
I'm so glad I made the trip down here
I've never been to this area before
So many cool old buildings
Gonna check the post office to see if they sell special postcards just from this area
Lots of places in Japan do that and it's cool to know that you can
only buy it here so I try to pick some up when I visit cool areas like this
You can only get these here
Look at this Totoro shopping bag how cute is that
Oh wow special stamps from this area too!
The staff at the hotel told me that I should definitely stop into this store here
They sell black beans which are famous in the area
They're actually sweet! When you think of black beans in English you usually think of something savoury
But they're actually a dessert
There's some in a syrup
I've never seen them like that before
Yeah so these are kuromame (black beans)
You'll see them used in lots of Japanese desserts
Or you can just eat them like this, sometimes they coat them in sugar
These are the ones that you'll often see served with tea
I think they're coated in a little bit of sugar, they're really nice
Ooo chocolate-covered ones those look good
All right so she's gonna give me a little tour of the hotel and show me to my room
I'm so excited
This one used to be a fridge
A fridge?
This is an old rice cooker
And then they light a fire under there
That's so cool
This is an old phone box
In the past nobody had a phone in their house
This bank owner's house is really rich
That's why only he had that
Yeah we just keep the box
Let's go to your room
102
Wow!
Whoa look at that
It's so big!
This is crazy
Look at this place! It's like my own little cabin
Oh neat there's a little study
You could live here, this is like an entire apartment
Look at this cute little desk
Wow! I love it!
This bag is actually a present, you can keep that!
Aw thank you
I don't know if you're taking a bath
If you like you can put them into the bath
That's awesome, I've never tried that before
Oh really?
Yeah I've always thought about it
What's upstairs? Can we go upstairs?
Aw it's tatami!
Little tatami room
Aw I love it it's so cozy!
Ok yeah this definitely beats any ryokan I've ever stayed in
Easily the coolest
I think you guys would agree
I'm in the dining room at the moment, waiting for my dinner to arrive
They've prepared a menu letting me know what they're gonna bring out
So I let them know ahead of time that I wanted a vegan menu
If you guys have special dietary needs you can contact them and let them know
what you would like and they can arrange that for you
They just brought out the vegetable appetizer it looks so fancy!
It looks so yummy!
Such an interesting selection of vegetables
I'm very intrigued with this leaf
Weird. It's kind of got the texture of what you would expect aloe vera to taste like
if you bit into an aloe vera branch
The flavour there's no much to it, very subtle like grassy taste
The next course is a local veggie tempura
And the sauces that they have with it are really unique
The white one is made from tofu and sesame oil
I've never had tempura with a creamy sauce but it works really well
Next is a turnip soup and the green sauce is made from the leaves
That's so tasty! It tastes like they put cream or something in it
But she assured me that it's 100% turnip
I've never seen a risotto that looks this fancy!
Mmm it tastes like maple syrup! I didn't expect that
The food here is amazing! 10/10
There's no way to improve it, it's so delicious
That was one of the most delicious meals I've ever had
like I said ten out of ten
Every single dish they brought out was delicious
For dessert they came out with this houji tea flavoured jelly
Super yummy
I want to make an orange bath because we can't not make an orange bath
Let's get the bath started and then throw some oranges into it
So the verdict on the orange bath: It smells amazing
and apparently it's good for my skin
I guess the oils, the orange oils are good for your skin somehow
either way though it smells great and it's really relaxing
so if you can find a little mesh bag and just stick a mandarin orange in it stick
Stick it in your bath
I squeezed it a little bit to get some of the orange juices out of it
So that it would smell stronger
So I guess I'm going to spend the rest of my evening in my orange bath relaxing
And I'll see you guys in the morning for breakfast which I'm already looking forward to
because dinner was so good
Goodbye for now, and I'll see you guys in the morning!
Good morning guys! I had a really nice sleep
The bed was super comfy I decided to stay down here in one of these beds
But I'm kind of regretting not making a futon up in the loft
Because that would've been fun
I'm about to head out for breakfast
I'm gonna be leaving here at 9:00 to go do a martial arts class
So I hope it's a big breakfast
I need some energy to get me ready for martial arts in the morning
But that's the plan for today and then after that I'll be heading back to Iwate
And finishing my trip down here in southern Japan
But it's been so great and this hotel! Could it have been any better?
I didn't know what to expect when I heard that it was like a luxury japanese-style hotel
But it really had all the things that I love about traditional Japanese hotels
The historic vibe of the room
But the things that I don't like normally
Are things like the hairdryer and the toilet and the baths are usually kind of old
Because the hotels have usually been around for a long time and they don't update it
But this room had all brand-new appliances and it just felt really
comfortable. It had all the things that I kind of need from home with the historic
vibe of the building itself. So it was a perfect combination of old and new and I
really liked that about it. And the food is just I'm gonna miss it
so much you guys! I really wish this was closer to my house so I could spoil
myself every once in a while with a good meal
But let's go get breakfast!
Breakfast arrived, it looks super yummy!
It's the kind of thing I was expecting - rice and miso soup and lots of side dishes
I'm particularly excited about the atsuage it's like a deep-fried tofu
And they fry it with ginger and it smells amazing
And also the dishes that use the local food of black beans
They've got the konnyaku with black beans and the miso soup made with black beans
Mmm it's got a really rich, almost smoky flavor
It's better than I could imagine
it's got a nice deep fried crispy outside
And the inside is so soft and creamy
This is the black bean konnyaku
I love the texture of it
It's like a really thick jello they stewed it in a vegetable broth
And it's really absorbed the flavor
The other dishes they have here are radish with a miso dressing
Carrot and burdock root salad, some homemade cabbage pickles
All right guys I'm gonna enjoy my breakfast and I guess I'll see you next at my martial arts class!
After a 1 hour drive, I've arrived at the naginata dojo
I'm going to be practicing naginata today and
apparently the style of naginata that we're going to be doing is called Tendo Ryu
It's a 450 year old style
I've actually done naginata once before probably about 3 years ago now and it was a lot
more difficult than you would imagine it to be. If you've never seen a naginata before
I'll be showing it to you very soon here but it's a long pole with
a blade on the end it's a very interesting weapon and it was used by the samurai
I've never seen a real one before!
You can cut with just this side right?
obviously we won't be using a real naginata during practice today for
obvious safety reasons but we'll be using this wooden version
Yes like that
Bring your feet forward, right then left
Not yet not yet
Right left, Right left
When I do this block me
Yes! Bring your right foot forward
Now bring it down and cut me
Starting at my face
The blade is facing upwards right?
Turn the blade around and cut all the way down
Yes now cut me
Turn the blade around
Now step forward and twist it
Yes like that
so far it's a little different than
how I practiced in Fukushima we didn't do any of this twisting
It wasn't this grotesque
this is really cool yeah learning some different techniques here it's
really neat to see how it's different
Now I'm going to try to cut your head
So step forward and block me
Now bring both your feet together
I had a lot of fun, it's really nice having a teacher one-on-one to help me figure
out stuff because I'm not so great at holding the naginata as you might have noticed
It's my second time now and that's really the thing that I had the
problem with the most last time, some of the positions feel kind of awkward and
it doesn't feel like that's where you're supposed to be holding it but apparently
those are the correct stances I just need to work on it. But if you guys are
interested in practicing naginata yourself it's a really cool opportunity
to study a martial art that you normally wouldn't get a chance to do in like
America or Canada! I'll have their website down below so you guys can sign
up there if you like and this is the end of today's vlogmas! Thank you so much for
watching guys and our next one will be back home in Iwate!
So I will see you there!
Bye!