Inuyama castle

kiso-gawa river

Inuyama castle from Kiso-gawa river

Reference>>

Inuyama City : http://www.city.inuyama.aichi.jp/english/kankou/inuyamajyo/e_inuyamajyo.html

a popular Gohei-mochi shop

One of the best things about our spring trip to the Kiso Valley in Nagano was all of the delicious food. Our first taste was Nagano’s famous Shinshu-soba with mountain vegetables and Gohei-mochi. I loved Gohei-mochi, which was a roughly pounded mochi (some of the grains of rice are still whole or in larger bits) that is shaped around a wooden skewer and grilled with a delicious sauce. Everywhere we went the Gohei-mochi had a slightly different flavor, so it was really fun to try a bunch and compare them. My favorites were the one that we had with our lunch set on the first day in Tsumago and the ones served with our dinner at Koushinzuka minshuku. At Koushinzuka they told us that their sauce is made with local walnuts that they collect in the fall, with miso, sugar, soy sauce, and sesame. Most of the others that we tried used peanuts instead of walnuts. The shop above in Magome was cute, but I didn’t like his mochi and sauce as much as the other shops that I mentioned. On our way home we stopped in Narai, where we tried another delicious variation. We had two mochi, one with the familiar nutty sauce, and another with a black sesame and sugar sauce.

Want to try making your own Gohei-mochi? Try the recipe here.

This adorable snack shop in Magome had a bunch of different traditional-style candies, nuts, and crackers. There were lots of samples to try. Our favorites were the roasted soybeans rolled in ground black sesame and sugar. On the down side, they were quite expensive.

The waterwheel building in Magome had a beautiful example of a traditional irori (fireplace). The family can sit around the fire to keep warm, prepare food, and enjoy their meals. The sculptured fish is not just decorative, it is actually and ingenious lever that can be used to raise and lower the level of the kettle over the fire. Behind the irori you can also see a tansu staircase with drawers that are used for storage. This building also had old grinding stones for grinding grains attached to the waterwheel mechanism.

rows of flavored sembei in a shop window

In Magome we enjoyed lunch at Daikokuya. At the top is a soy-simmered freshwater char, while the set below featured konbu-wrapped trout. The best part of the set was the delicious chestnut rice, kurikowameshi, in the black-lidded box. The clear soup with yuba at the bottom right was also very good.

Our favorite meals on the trip were definitely the ones that we enjoyed at our Koushinzuka, our minshuku in Tsumago. Everything was served around the irori and our hosts happily explained the interesting traditional and wild ingredients used to make them.

the beginning of dinner (from left to right): A cup of steamed vegetables topped with grated yama-imo and yuzu zest, simered vegetables and tofu dumplings, nokanzou ohitashi, udo (a spring vegetable) with plum sauce, and Gohei-mochi

Nokanzou ohitashi: the innkeeper’s wife showed me the description of this vegatable in a botanical book. I was surprised to see that they are actually the early spring sprouts of a wild orange-flowered lily. She said that later in the season you can also tempura-fry the flower buds and eat them too.

udo with plum sauce

wild spring vegetable tempura: seri, nanohana, wild red sorrel, nokanzou, and yomogi (I think)

grilled iwana (char): this river fish is a local specialty that made an appearance in many of our meals. The innkeeper showed us an easy way to pull the bones from the fish all at once to make it easy to eat.

homemade tsukemono

Gohei-mochi; the sauce is made from small wild walnuts, sesame seeds, soy sauce, sugar, and miso. While we enjoyed our dinner, the innkeeper showed us the shells of the walnuts as he told his stories about gathering the nuts in the fall. Then he tossed the shells into the irori fire. The oil-rich shells caught fire and sounded like tiny jets as they hissed and made the flames much larger.

the irori at Koushinzuka; the fish on the kettle-hanger is covered in soot from years of daily use

breakfast at Koushinzuka (from left to right): rice, shoyu-zuke tamago and sliced yama-imo, umeboshi, mountain vegetables, and simmered vegetables and dumplings in a thick sauce were served with simmered iwana (below)

sweet soy-simmered iwana (char): this fish was so small that we could eat the whole thing–head, bones, tail and all

shoyu-zuke tamago and sliced yama-imo: The soy-sauce pickled egg yolk was very tasty, but the yama-imo was a bit too slimy for my taste.

See more photos from our Kiso Valley trip at Alex’s photoblog

A new book is now available from Stéphane Meunier, long-time Bujinkan practitioner and head  instructor of Budo Montreal, in Montreal, QC, Canada. 3 years in the making, with over 230 pages and 170  photos directly from the private collection of Soke Hatsumi, this is a fantastic addition to any ninpo library. Copies can be purchased at: http://www.budomontreal.com

Sorry for the long break.

Back in April Laurel and I took a long weekend trip to the Kiso Valley in Nagano prefecture. The valley is famous for a few well preserved post towns.  Back when people traveled by foot and horse there was a road that ran between Tokyo and Kyoto called the Nakasendo. All along the road small towns grew for people to rest along the way. Much of the road is still walkable, but most of the towns have been abandoned or evolved into modern cities where there is now a highway or train station.

We visited two of the preserved towns Tsumago and Magome. To get there we took the train to Nagiso and then walked, since the towns are off the main transportation lines (there are roads of course, just not the big ones).

This is the town of Nagiso. There isn’t much to see, but it is pretty and it is an old post town that now has a train line. We walked from here a couple of km along the Nakasendo to get to Tsumago.

The weather was perfect, which was pretty lucky for early spring. The ume (Japanese plum) trees were in bloom too.

I think this is what the Nakasendo would have looked like even way back then.

The walk was punctuated by cute traditional farm houses with very well maintained gardens.

This is the view coming into Tsumago. It was pretty busy. Many Japanese tourists come for the day. The main street is lined with shops and a couple museums and they all maintain the traditional architecture of the post town.

The biggest attraction in town is the Wakihonjin, which was the second best inn in town. The Honjin was the best inn in town used for traveling dignitaries. The Wakihonjin was less important than the Honjin as it was just used if the Honjin was full. However, the Honjin in town was rebuilt in 1990s and the Wakihonjin is original and so is the biggest attraction.

Here you can see the main room of the in with the irori (fire pit) in the center. There was a hierarchy for seating around the irori.  The best seat was Dad’s where he could warm his feet on the block of wood in the pit, to the left in the picture. The worst seat went to the kids who sat next to the screen. The screen blocks the breeze so all the smoke moves in that direction. Sitting in the smoky seat with no tatami builds character.

View from the seat of honor. Laurel is sitting in the wife seat.

The irori is burned everyday and the soot keeps the cypress wood, that the building is made from, in good condition. The staff wipes down the walls everyday, but that are all pretty short so they can’t reach the whole wall. The shiny red part of the wood is wiped daily and above that is 200 years of soot.

The bath at the Wakihonjin.

Very nice sliding doors.

This is the toilet. This one is a special lacquer toilet that was installed when the emperor was stopping by. He didn’t use it and so it has never been used.

A couple more shots from the Wakihonjin.

There is a historical museum attached the to the Wakihonjin that explains the history of the village and valley. At least that is my guess as most of the info was only in Japanese. People in this area had to pay their taxes with wood. So they had standardized logs.

This is the Honjin. It is very nice, but not as interesting as the Wakihojin since it has been rebuilt.

I really loved the details above the doors.

More ume.

At around 4:00 or 5:00 the stores closed up and all the day trippers left, so town became nice and quite.

We were having fun taking pictures of the deserted town, but we didn’t realize just how far away our minshuku, Japanese style bed and breakfast, was.

Strange, but cool sights on our walk to the hotel.

We did make it to the hotel just before dark, which was good since there wasn’t much else around. We chose that particular minshuku because they have an irori and good food.

We chose that particular minshuku because they have an irori and good food.

The area is famous for this little trout like fish and for gohei mochi, below.

The food was great. For a more complete food explanation go to Laurel’s blog.

Sitting around the irori was a fun, but a little smoky experience. There’s not much to do once the sun goes down so the host of the minshuku entertains you with stories and songs.

This is a raw egg yolk on top of thin sliced mountain potato, which is really slimy. Breakfast of champions!

And of course the little fish.

Waving goodbye and hitting the road for the next town, Magome.

Crossing the border between Nagano and Gifu.

The walk between the two towns was really nice and luckily we had great weather!

Coming into Magome.

The water wheel drives this grain mill.

Making the famous gohei mochi, Magome style.

This one is ume too.

In case the town starts on fire.

Again after 5:00 everyone left and we had town to ourselves.

Yeah more ume.

The next day was a bit rainy, but I can’t complain. Next stop Narai.

This is another old post town. This one is famous for this newly built bridge.

Not a good day to be having umbrella difficulties.

This town was pretty cute, but very rainy, so I have no pictures. We did have a fantastic lunch though!

Caso você deseje criar um arquivo ISO personalizado no Ubuntu, ou queira modificar uma imagem ISO já existente, a solução é o KIso. Para instalá-lo, digite em um terminal:

sudo aptitude install kiso

Para criar um arquivo ISO, abra o KIso (ALT + F2 e digite “kiso” sem as aspas), clique no botão “Nova imagem” e aperte em “Não” para começar um arquivo vazio. Agora, basta ir adicionando os arquivos desejados.

Ao terminar, clique em “Salvar imagem” e escolha o nome do arquivo e o local onde irá salvá-lo.

Caso queira, você pode modificar um arquivo ISO, como o de uma distribuição Linux, ou de um DVD. Para isso, abra o KIso, clique em “Abrir imagem” e escolha uma imagem para modificá-la. Então, adicione ou remova os arquivos desejados.

Outra característica interessante do KIso é que ele trabalha também com arquivos NRG, do Nero. Portanto, caso esbarre com uma imagem NRG algum dia, o KIso pode ser usado para convertê-la para ISO.

La dernière fois que je l’ai rencontré, il allait mal. Diagnostic accablant: Cancer de la prostate, et infection des poumons. Il avait l’air hilare, dans cette chambre d’hôpital qui respirait l’éther et le propre. Il voulut me montrer quelquechose.

Scène d’hôpital – Kurashiki

On l’appelait encore le Professeur. Professeur, parce que poète, esthète, jouisseur et paien. Libre et incompris. Professeur, parce qu’il l’avait été, un temps, avant de s’en raccrocher vers des considérations plus loquaces. Poète parce qu’il le sera assurément, ayant publié une poésie indigeste, lourde, complexe et sans avenir, vouée à disparaître. Esthète, quand en blazer blanc, chemise en popeline blanche et noeud papillon noir, il vous déclarait sa flamme pour l’alcool, d’un oeil vif et sans se dépareiller de son sourire d’homme libre. C’était un homme qui avait vécu, bourlingué, sans véritable compagne, mais un chat, toujours fidèle à son poste de vigie, pas très riche, mais véritablement prince. C’est ma femme qui avait fait les présentations. Pétris d’habitudes, et malgré l’âge, il ne songeait qu’à entretenir son labeur, la pension de retraite n’étant réduite qu’à une peau de chagrin, à l’instar de nombreux japonais. Et son petit bar, perdu dans des ruelles glauques du Fukuyama de l’”entertainment”, ne recevait qu’une clientèle d’habitués. Où on devisait de jazz et de littérature, d’où notre Professeur, en chef d’orchestre-barman, s’évertuait toujours à trouver de nouvelles recettes. Passion rhédibitoire…

Il m’attira vers lui, et dans un japonais plein de roublardise et de tentations, me tendit un magazine porno. Il insista pour me remettre les nombreux coupons qui accompagnent cette revue hebdomadaire. Du Bondage. Et des femmes au foyer sexuellement vampirisées. Il y avait du sang sur son “Pajama”. Et des drains lui pendaient le long du corps. Il souriait et se mit en devoir de me léguer son souvenir.

Il trouva un bout de papier, et griffonna en anglais. “My last wish”. C’était deux recettes de cocktails, comme un pied de nez désinvolte. Deux recettes de cocktails, qu’il prénomma sans vanité aucune Kiso I et Kiso II. Me priant instamment d’essayer, et de lui faire connaître le résultat. Nous le quittions, salace, blaguant de l’uniforme des infirmières et du potentiel en nibard dissumulé.

Scène d’hôpital – Tours

Aujourd’hui, il a fait froid, mais le soleil irradia une grande partie de la journée. J’étais encore à l’hôpital, veillant au chevet de mon père, j’étais encore heureux. Loin d’ici, on venait d’effacer une vie, et on enterrerait un homme.

Le ciel était bleu, limpide. Je me souviens encore que le soleil brillait très fort.

ゆけゆけ二度目の処女 – The Ending