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Part2 - Miyama

Into a long slightly uphill tunnel, I reflexively increase the pace and feel the eyes behind pierce my back, “it’s too fast too soon”. Who want’s to hang out in a dark damp damming hole? The light at the other end beckons…… Another quiet back road and we encounter an atypical garage with numerous 1960’s Austin minors, a 1950’s Ford Thunderbird, a citroen DS. An eccentricity of character that has brought this place into being.

Wherever the land is flat and broad, rice farmers have begun tilling the soil for the annual crop of rice. Planting begins in April, flooded fields reflect the mountain side and sky, sown seedlings mirror the plantation trees through the summer and has the stalks begin to bend under the weight of grains in autumn their browning colour match the turning leaves. A cyclical pattern following the harmony of nature.

We come into Miyama village, nestled deep within these mountains halfway between Osaka Bay to the south and Wakasa Bay to the north. Dotting the valley are numerous thatched roofed houses, some centuries old, fighting to ward off modernity, in their gardens you might find a pine tree a branch extended 10 metres along a trellis. A reticent rumpled faced woman stooped from years of toiling in fields tells me, the branch grows 10cm a year. The tree is a heirloom like the bonsai plants surrounding the small Koi filled pond. Passed down through the generations.

Nearby rows of tea bushes are visible, their leaves plucked, stems cut and dried and roasted. Now steeped and warming us as we wait for lunch. Nearby patrons sit cross legged on the straw matting in front of a charcoal hearth, smokeless heat warming the room. In the fields across the way, in the shadow of a waterfall, buckwheat is grown. Then harvested and milled, the flour is kneaded and rolled to becomes handmade slender succulent noodles. Our noodles are topped with herbs and shoots gathered nearby and served in tasty steamy broth.

PART3 - Kurama