milk hall kamakura

Wave first showed me this place a few years ago. She brought her bike, because she is a local. It's in an alley, and if you are a tourist you probably wouldn't find it.

Outside Milk Hall in the alley. Photo by Nami.

I came again with N a year or so later, but it was under renovation. There was a tiny corner open for business, with a handkerchief bar. We ate ice cream, they played records.

From their website

Matt and I have met here for coffee a couple of years in a row. It's dark wood and glass, a kissaten juke joint. It's moody and varnished and they have good taste in music. Milk Hall Kamakura.

cafe shozo nasu

   

We decided to make the trip up to Nasu to see Matt's show there and I'm so glad we did.

Pulling into the town on a crispy fall evening, we found a warmly lit cafe with a rustic clothing shop below. Glass jars of coffee beans gleamed on the shelves next to packets of handmade shortbread biscuits. Once upstairs, we chose a corner table next to a heater in the yellow glow, with pretty lamps and stylish clientele scattered around. The Wien coffee and cake set was delicious.

When it came time for the doors to open, we made our way next door and up the narrow staircase to the venue. A bar was positioned in the back, serving drinks and hot soup and a few other nums. Mismatched chairs lined the area in front of the stage, which was lit by dozens of candles.

This country is filled with the most beautiful of little shops and cafes in the unlikeliest of places. Cafe Shozo in Nasu. 

Noah Style

On our last day on the island, we had the rental til the mid afternoon and the flight took off in the early evening. Time for a shop and a stroll and a lingering lunch.

Noah Style is in a residental area near Shuri Castle, up a hill in a modest neighborhood. In fact, the cafe is a pretty converted house.

Inside, there is a tiny clothing store with things made from soft natural and organic cotton, and another area selling organic vegetables and other goodies like house-made sweets and enviromentally friendly laundry soap.

The menu offers a few carefully crafted options - soups, sandwiches, plate lunches chock full of color, and the daily special, which we got. It had 11 kinds of food, with brown rice and organic coffee. Such vegetables as beets, urizun-mame (winged beans), and hijiki seaweed. It was all followed with a tiny lovely sliver of cake made from brown sugar and nut butter.

N was inspired by this lunch and bought some kuruma-fu as soon as we got home and made a stunning dinner for us.

Out the back patio, we found several bedraggled bunnies hopping around the garden, and a large tortoise in repose under the deck.

A definite recommendation for people who love delicious wholesome food, lovingly prepared and artfully presented.

Onna-son and rocking at the Casbah

The viewpoint at Cape Manza in Onna-son is fetching, with green expanses leading to cliffs plunging into the blue. After gazing at the spray for awhile, I found that there was a geocache less than a kilometer away, and genius that I am, insisted that we strike out across the rocks to find it. Alas, though I am a Capricorn I am not a billy goat and we were soon thwarted by the sharp steep rocks and our ill-chosen footwear. We decided to try again from a less precipitous approach, stopping at the souvenir stand to buy some かりゆし.

This time we were able to hone in on the cache zone. Just a bit down the road, the beach was secluded and completely absent of the day trippers who were goggling at the sea just a few hundred meters away. Huge jutting rocks formed caves and we searched for the cache. Along the way we made the acquaintance of a cat who seemed to live in or near the caves, as she kept popping out of holes and perching on different boulders.

We never did find the cache, but in the way of the best cache spots, it didn't matter that much. We got to hang out on a beautiful lonely beach and had it all to ourselves. Unfortunately, N waded into the water with his phone in his pocket and lost all the pictures of that place.

On the way back to Naha, we stopped in Okinawa City for some grub.

Tucked in a decaying city center in a deserted shopping arcade, the unlikeliest cafe and shop waits like a soft pearly pebble gleaming in the gravel.

Vegan junk deli (Rock the) Casbah!

Buffet style weigh and pay, complete with skull and crossbones.

I'll have a little of everything, thanks.

めんそーれOkinawa

Shisa, the Okinawan lion-dog creature, decorates many houses.

Mensore means welcome in uchinaaguchi, a native Okinawan tongue. It's one of the most common native words a tourist will see around the island, which mostly, at least in the large commerce areas, runs on mainland Japanese.
This was my third time in the Ryukyu Kingdom, the first when I was a kid and the second two years ago. Again, Skymark was the cheapest deal I could find on a flight. Thankfully, no needy seatmates were in residence this time around.

Body-shaming freebie at the hotel

I looked into staying at the place I stayed last time, but the hostel has changed hands and a double now costs about the same as a cheap business hotel - except the hotel has the benefit of a private bathroom. We ended up getting a Toyoko Inn club card (¥1000-¥1500) because at a few hundred yen discount per night for five nights, it paid for itself. In addition to the discount, you get a free night's stay for every ten. Since the card is for life, it also saves me the hassle, at this hotel at least, of being asked for my passport. I always refuse to provide it (I don't travel with my passport domestically, and guests who are assumed to be Japanese are not usually asked for ID), but it saves me the whole refusal song and dance agitation. Getting worked up less often is good.

So after arriving late at night, cabbing to the hotel, and crashing out, we spent the first day in Naha city riding the monorail and checking out the city. At Shuri station, we found the cleverly named 35 coffee, and when I saw they were offering iced coffee for only 100 yen, we got one. 35 in Japanese is san-go, which in a homonym for sango/coral (珊瑚). This coffee company spends a portion of its proceeds preserving coral reefs in Okinawa.

We hit up Vegi Cafe Shanti for lunch, a beautiful little vegetarian cafe offering Nepalese-style food. Some of their sales go to building a school in Nepal. Yum!

These ladies are doing a tea-gathering dance.

We had both been to Shuri Castle before, but walked around the grounds anyway and got there just in time for a Ryukyuan dance performance! We got to see four traditional dances from various aspects of Ryukyu culture, from the courts to the farms. I love the whistling and chanting that goes along with Okinawan traditional music!

View from Shuri castle

On the way back to the monorail station, I spotted this storefront and we stopped, intrigued. NPO Agora is a non-profit dedicated to helping those with developmental disabilities, especially those with mental disabilities. Here they have a cafe and social space, and also sell arts and crafts made by their members. We bought some jewelry. This day left me with the impression that Oki has a higher than average level of do-gooders/socially conscious people.

We also hit the prefectural museum, which has both art and history wings. We chose the history museum, and learned about both the natural and folk history of the island and the archipelago(s). Worth it!

sacred spaces

beautiful food

At the beginning of April we had a benefit buffet lunch at Kamejikan (Turtle Time? Whoever named that place wins) in Kamakura, a rustic old building refurbished into a guesthouse whose owners graciously volunteered the space to hold an event for us. The lunch was catered by the talented chef Nahomi Edamoto of NHK's Kyou no Ryori fame, and this lovely and eclectic lady prepared a stunning vegetable based meal from farm-direct organic produce, some donated from farmer friends of hers. She used a lot of Japanese vegetables like burdock, greens, and beans (I forgot their names - mizuna? uguisumame?) and told us their story.

The gorgeous  wooden guest house boasted rafters and a tatami room and a Japanese style veranda where the guests with dogs hung out. Only blocks from the beach, the doggies Nana, Hana, and Chibi (in between foster homes) had a grand old time trotting in the sand and splashing in the shallows.

Thank you so much to the Kamejikan staff, Chef Naomi Edamoto, Miku Sano, and Andy Wainwright for helping us put together such a lovely and successful event.

photo by SeeMoreArt

Meanwhile, only about 15 minutes' drive from the shelter in Inawashiro, a stately white lady (the white lady loves you more) rises above Aizu Wakamatsu, gazing out at the valley over the baby in her arms.

The Aizu Dai Jibo Kannon (会津慈母大観音) is not so old, the locals will say scornfully. Anything less than a few hundred years old doesn't really rate in Japan, and she was only built in the 1980s. Still, she's impressive, rising 57 meters into the air, hollow down the middle, with a spiral staircase and windows at intervals to look out into the surrounding hills. You can get up to shoulder height, peering out of porticoes in her spinal column.

The grounds are beautiful, with terraced sculpted gardens stretching out far enough for a good stroll, with plenty of spots to pause with a picnic. Koi bubble and undulate under the bridge that backbends over a pond with wandering canals, letting the carp meander around the park.

We hope she sends her merciful gaze our way, just a few kilometers to the east.

Thanks to Ian, who sent me a donation with which I've paid for medical supplies. We've done spay/neuters, administered antibiotics, fought off fleas and ticks and worms and scabies, and much more thanks to you.

the cold bitter north

I heard it's snowing again in Sapporo, and though I started to write something about spring sidling in, here we are under another bout of sleet and other shittiness.

We went to our sister city a few weeks ago in time for the beginning of the festival, and spent some quality time dallying in kissaten, and bonding with snow, ice, crampons, hokkairo, hot beverages, and, most importantly, parfaits.

Penguin was, sadly, closed, so we had to hit up another spot recommended by my friend Prince. We traipsed around in flurries for a good long while, enlisting the help of a friendly koban policeman, and passed it twice before finally finding this spot, unassuming in the middle of a quiet block. Look for the pie-cake block letters on pressed aluminum, as the shop's name, People Peape, doesn't stand out. Cozy, grotty, indie, spectacular.

We went to Otaru on Sarah's recommendation, and while it was a pretty place, I think the best part may have been the algae boner photo op.

Though the music box emporium, recommended by Ben, was pretty magical. I love that this entire place is dedicated to increasingly esoteric analog technology. It reminded me of one of my favorite places, the Museé Mecanique in San Francisco.

We also stumbled on this cool café with Sarah, Sophia, and Nomu while freezing our booties off in downtown Sapps: The Cinema Café. It's underground (B1F!), with woody booths and lots of movie posters and trailers projected onto the wall. I don't know if they ever show full length movies, but it was a chill hangout. 

Sapporo, you do not disappoint. Though your weather is frigid, your people are hip and friendly and I really enjoy visiting. I hear Hokkaido is beautiful in the summer and I promise to visit in warmer weather, someday.

Pure Café

Thought I posted about this place before, but blogger's search function sux and so does my track record with tagging things correctly.

Pure Café in Omotesando is a super healthy and yummy vegan place in the Aveda building, where I would spend all my fancy money if I had it.

This is pumpkin soup, salad, and a roasted vegetable and tempeh sandwich, in the lunch set.

La Longevite

A few months ago I received this book as a gift:

Tokyo Vegetarian Restaurant Guide And a few nights ago I went to a new place, for me, called La Longevite.

(click through photo to go to source)

We sat here, and got the macrobiotic course menu.

The restaurant is French-ish, though I'd call it French fusion. The chef was lovely, the service great, and the decor was cozy and fulfilled my boudoir quota for the month. 

It's not an entirely vegetarian place, but they do focus on healthy food and organics and have a good selection of veggie food. One of my dishes is pictured on the cover of the book - "vegetable mosaic".

Located in Shirokanedai, it's best to call ahead to be sure they're open. There were only two staffpeople the night we went - the chef and a server. Oh! And I almost forgot to mention the steady stream of '80s and '90s hits the chef was playing! Whitney Houston, Paula Abdul, and other roller-rink favorites. 

Tel: 03-3449-3231

3-3-1 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 

   

yesterday

with B at Lion
(apologies for my crappy photoshop skillz. i don't get how you can scan something on the same machine, on the same setting, within one minute of the other, and get two different shades like this. pros?)

Sakuragaoka Café

Here's a laid-back lounge in Shibuya’s backyard. 

I like this spot for a coffee and a some quality time with my laptop.

Peep the Nihon-ga.

Just a few minutes away from the hugger mugger of Hachiko Crossing, you'd swear Sakuragaoka Café was in a different world, or at least a different station. This spacious, mellow lounge filled with soft lighting and low-slung couches that invite you to linger longer doesn't feel like Shibuya. More like Seattle.

Rum and cherry coke, caramel latte, or a coconut curry. The staff will loan you a LAN cable.

Open until the wee hours. Shall we have a drink in Udagawacho?

Komeda Coffee

I like this funny chain of coffee shops called Komeda Coffee. It's like an old-fashioned kissaten.

They have "Vienna coffee", which in kissa-speak means coffee with whipped cream on it. They have old fashioned booths and every drink before 11 a.m. comes with toast and an egg.

The shop is originally from Nagoya.

I can't resist this kitschy diner/coffee shop/kissaten hybrid throwback. It gives me a little whiff of road trips and truck stops.