I was so excited by the atmosphere of the countryside that I forgot to take a single picture of my friends shop! You can see a few pics in my last post.
It was in a tiny village in the forest but with a few fields making an open space in the middle of the forrest. I guess there are about 7 or 8 houses there on a single road.
When I got to the second nearest station, I realized there was an hour wait between this station and the next….such is the countryside!
I saw that it would take me an hour to walk to his place from the station and even if I waited an hour for the train, I’d still need to walk for 25 minutes. So I decided to walk.
Actually deep down I was hoping to hitchhike but the road was pretty busy, people in Japan aren’t likely to stop on a road where there are cars coming up behind them.
First I sent a message to him to tell him I was coming. I didn’t think he’d be free enough to pick me up, since he runs a cafe/curry shop. I just wanted to make sure I could order lunch before he closed up for the day….at 4 pm 😆
He had time though and so he picked me up. The one hour walk was an 8 minute drive.
It’s hard to imagine him having any customers so far from everything, but everyone in that area uses a car, and it turns out the shop is kind of a supplimentary thing, their main work is selling food and drinks at music festivals and events. There are also two friends living near by who often bring their friends and family to the shop.
His next door neighbor who also knows a few of my friends in the city came over and we jammed and talked for a while. He plays in a reggae band and he and his wife take care of 6 kids, 3 of his own and 3 of a friend, I don’t know why.
The kids, from 3-7 years old were doing their own thing with one parent rotating to watch them casually while doing their own thing. Not the kind of helicopter parentry I grew up with or the kind I am used to seeing in the city.
The curry his wife made was amazing. Since it’s a shop, I had to pay, but I love his space so much I was happy to pay. I wanted to buy something else just as a kind of vote for their to keep doing what they are doing so i got some of his homemade chai syrup.
When I think about the logistics…in a place like that, you’d only need 4 or 5 families to frequent your shop 2-3 times a week to make a living there. Add a few events a month and you really don’t need to worry.
It wouldn’t be luxurious but there wouldn’t be any issues of survival, and there are other things you could do to suppliment income as they do with events. Basically it’s still hard to be rich, but living modestly is a whole lot more comfortable and easy to manage.
For me the main issue with living this way is a visa. I need a bigger income to prove to the state that I’m worthy of a visa 🙄, then I end up paying all that extra income back to the govt 🫠
Seriously though, the idea of moving out there or getting to know more people out there is filling my head with ideas. I wouldn’t even have to live out there. I could find some way to collaborate with him or other friends to be able to stay out there more often.
I would love to help them strengthen their community so I’m thinking about what I have to offer. Maybe that’s what we will tak about next time.
I actually really really like this guy. The way we met is funny….
He hit on me.
No no, he wasn’t into me like that. He was a bartender at a pretty badass little bar on a sidestreet with no other stores and he went out to the corner to have a smoke.
“Hey” he said, and thats all.
I smiled, wondering if we knew each other and he asked “What are you up to tonight?”
I told him I just finished eating and was heading home.
“My friend just opened a bar and I’m taking care of it for him…no customers, I’m kind of bored.”
So i asked him if I could check it out.
It was an awesome atmosphere and he played good music so I sat down and had a drink and we talked for 3 hours until the last train. No one else came.
I came back a few weeks later and again a few weeks after that and talked to him an hour or two each time but then the shop got really full around 11 pm. The shop had a bunch of interesting people (usually all coming near or past modngiht) but its about 40 minutes from where I live and before I could go there a 4th or 5th time he left to start work on his own shop.
I still don’t know if he called out to me because he wanted customers or because he genuinely wanted to talk to me, its aways a bit hard with people running shops, but I get a good feeling from him. He makes an effort to share whatever information he can with me and when I came to visit he offered to let me stay at his house next time.
Just staying there is exciting for me because the house so closely resembles what I envision for myself in the future. But also i like him and his wife and want to get to know them better.
So now I have two places in the countryside I hope to visit again often. I may have to push myself a bit to be able to actually make it out there, but I’m going to try to keep this rhythm of 1-2x a month.
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