2 Years in Japan, Now What? 🇯🇵🚲 Hokuriku Region: Road Trip Part 7!

2 Years in Japan, Now What? 🇯🇵🚲 Hokuriku Region: Road Trip Part 7!

[Music] it’s the end of our 3-we road trip around Japan and the end of our 2 years living in this beautiful country this video will start with the last road trip video left off but then I’m going to catch you all the way up from the summer in Japan until now what we’ve been doing where we almost moved why we changed our minds and where we’re living now I have kind of a lot to fill you in on there’s time stamps below if you need them but first the end of the road trip if you remember last time we were staying in Kyoto prefecture near Amano hashidate I was so pleasantly surprised by this breakfast buffet in America we have specific breakfast food but that’s not really the case in Japan you just kind of eat the same things you would any other time of day so besides the rice and miso soup Staples I don’t always know what to expect at a hotel breakfast this is a good one this one had great variety so it felt like a really hearty meal to start the day right we split up our drive to isikawa by stopping in fukui prefecture at maroka Castle the last leg of our road trip had us returning to the hokiku region which is made up of fukui Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures sometimes nigata is included too since this is the region we’ve been living in I have such a soft spot for this area I made lots of videos featuring different places in these three prefectures if you’re interested in visiting the hokua region which I definitely recommend but we had never made it to maroka Castle until this day it’s cute we’re back in fukui prefecture and we’re at one of the original castles today it’s 450 in to see the castle but you do get this cool little woven ticket you can use like a bookmark or something there’s two different kinds it’s another one of the 12 remaining original castles so it’s included in my Castle’s painting so this one is this Castle right here in the middle it was kind of hard to turn into a cat there’s not really a lot of ear looking parts to the castle it was constructed in 1576 and has a small tin shoe or keep surrounded by Pine and cherry trees like many places you take your shoes off when you enter and put on the indoor slippers to protect the floors the construction of this Castle actually has a pretty dark history apparently the tin shoe kept collapsing during construction so instead of changing the design they actually decided to make aito bashira or a person to support the structure as a human sacrifice literally crushing them to death as the stones are piled around them a woman volunteered under the condition that one of her sons would be made a samurai but tragically after her sacrifice the promise of making her son a samurai was not kept so it was said that her spirit’s tears caused the moat to overflow every April aside from that terrible story The Castle was really cool and I’m glad we got to visit to a noble elegant well balanced castle tower is what it says this is surprisingly Breezy up here and nice you can see the hooku Riku Shing conson tracks out one window and the hakkasan mountain range out the other right very cool now we’re going to go to hosi rokan which until very recently was the oldest rokan in the world now it’s the second oldest but only by a dozen or so years which is impressive we got back in the car and started heading to our hotel for the night hosi rokan it’s located in the Hot Spring Town of wazu onen in KATU is she our prefecture since it was still too early to check in we had time to visit ishikawa’s Craft Village this is yuno kunori a theme park village dedicated to the Japanese crafts and art of this region okay so before we check into our rokan we’re in the Craft Village in kumatu as you walk through the forest with traditional style houses you can visit masters of each craft and learn how to make pieces yourself with their guidance you’ll find wajima lacer Weare Gold Leaf kutani porcelain Washi paper glass making cooking classes and more such a cool concept to showcase the Arts in an interactive way the park itself is so peaceful and full of nature so in this Village you can walk around and see all the different workshops for different crafts that are unique to this area and kaga Yim is a dying technique that you use here in the kaga area and so you can see they’re washing away the excess dye on the fabric in the water this process is called Yen nagashi one of the traditional practices of kaga yuzen silk Artisans it’s a nice summer day the admission fee for this park is just 550 Yen less than $5 and then you can decide which craft experience you’d like to pay for the prices are really reasonable from 1,000 yen to 4,500 Yen so you can participate in m multiple craft experiences if you want we decided to make some paper postcards at the Washi paper making experience I think it was 11,100 Yen or less than $10 each hagaki means postcard and we’d each be making a set of six the paper is made from the inner bark of Japanese shrubs and Koo or Mulberry is the most commonly [Music] used 1 2 three up shake shake shake shake shake shake okay shake shake shake shake the hardest part was already done for us since the plant fibers had been prepared in the slurry pulp mixture once our screens had the wet paper base we could decorate what are you going to put on a little bit of everything Washi literally means Japanese paper W is for Japan and she means paper a scoop of the slurry mixture would be SP on top to steal in the leaves and we could also use dyes or gold leaf a specialty of kazawa paper as we waited for our postcards to dry we admired the many beautiful paper varieties in the shop and this gave us time for an ice cream break nearby got our postcards back it was very fun I like this little town it’s like the best kind of theme park it’s relaxed there’s crafts there’s stuff to eat and do and look at it’s cool now we could go check into our hotel for the T night hosi rokan in awazu onen town incredibly this is the world’s oldest continually operated family business it was founded in the year 718 ad and it’s been welcoming guests for over 1300 years until recently it was also thought to be the world’s oldest hotel but it turns out that another Japanese rokan was founded just 13 years prior in 705 so that holds the title now however hosi rokan is unique in that it’s been passed down continuously through the hosi family for a mind-blowing 47 Generations when we arrived we were LED immediately to the Tea Room for a traditional welcome with green tea and wagashi or a Japanese sweet this one was some kind of sweet Bean treat here’s some matcha tea that we were welcomed with and we get to drink it by this Garden View which is so Serene overlooking the garden while sipping fresh matcho was such a peaceful and enjoyable way to our time here afterwards we were shown to our room where our luggage was already waiting for us so after they welcomed us with tea they went ahead and brought our luggage to the room and this room is huge I can’t believe how big it is let me show you this is just for two people so a t Tomy Matt floor and we have a balcony which is really cool [Music] look at this whole balcony is just for [Music] us the tea set in the room had Katan Yaki porcelain cups which is a pottery art form that comes from this [Music] area this room is really nice I think I’m going to sit on this balcony for a little bit and enjoy the Sun from the comfort of an air conditioned room and then go out and explore the garden a little bit the word ran uses the kanji R for trip and KH for building basically a hotel or in the hosi rokan has four different Wings connected in a diamond loop around the central Garden each Wing when you leave the hotel you can trade your indoor slippers for the provided outdoor sandals the inside is so pretty but I’m going to go walk around and see the garden out here which is also open until 9:00 p.m. the mossy garden and summer bug sounds were so relaxing though the hotel has been renovated over the centuries it’s hard to imagine what life was even like in 718 ad when this Ron was founded in the early 700s Japan’s capital was still Nara not yet Tokyo this hotel was hosting guests before electricity or running water when Europe was in the Early Middle Ages and over a thousand years before America even existed and yet all those years of History later you can still reserve a room at the hosi yokan [Music] the garden is so peaceful it’s nice you can walk around out here anytime you want if you want to enjoy the beautiful nature surrounding the rokan you can take a walk around awazu onen town Simas means to go for a stroll and this quiet town is perfect for strolling this is the public bath house for awazu onen it’s said that this onen or hot spring town was founded by the monk Tao Dai over 1300 years ago the same time as the hotel the hot spring waters were seen as a gift from the nearby hakkasan Mountain Gods to cure the injuries and illnesses of humans walking the peaceful paths in this town will lead you to some wooden temples and shrines if you want to get out and enjoy a little bit of the natural beauty that the kaga onen area has there’s this nice little temple walk that’s Sur hosi okan and you can walk on these Trails see some temples and just listen to the nature sounds it’s so peaceful rewatching this footage I think that’s like the 10th time I’ve said peaceful but it is true Zeb was so at peace he was taking a nap back in the hotel room while I explored this Buddhist temple was up on a hill behind the rokan and there was a walking path around it next to the temple there’s a tory gate leading to a Shinto Shrine and a path that will take you around to a park the path loops around to this park with a so-called happiness bell inside the Bell says that this area is part of a lover Sanctuary to impart the joy and magic of encounters I got back to the hotel as the sun was setting perfect timing for a pre-dinner bath the women’s baths are behind the red curtain and the men’s are on the other side with the blue curtain all dressed up to go to the bath as we got ready for the baths I was feeling pretty sentimental about our time in Japan coming to an end it’s our second to last night in Japan but we get to have a nice bath so it’s okay I guess that makes up for it not really but afterwards we walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner and got the summer special iazu summer udon they were served chilled which was perfect for an augus evening when we returned to the hotel we were able to see the garden lit up at night while we were out the futon had been laid out for us I pretty much crawled right in and fell asleep so fast the next morning we were up bright and early with the sun and got to enjoy coffee on the balcony area it’s the last full day in Japan tomorrow I’m going to fly out yeah tomorrow anyway it’s been a good road trip and it’s been a good couple of years and I’m in denial but it’s been really fun we’ve been very lucky we got to see a lot it was a little exhausting just because we did so much but I’m glad that we did so much cuz we were able to see so many things that we didn’t get to see while we were living here yeah so I wouldn’t have changed anything but it was very fast-paced yeah it was like a real whirlwind trip yeah yeah but we really did it and we didn’t have any mishaps those little Omi they really helped us they protected us on our little journey but yeah it feels good to be back in ishala for the last 72 hours or 48 hours or whatever it is yeah start getting ready for the airport it’s crazy said yeah yeah 30 minutes left so I mentioned my flight instead of our flight because I actually had to fly out a day earlier zeb’s employer in Japan covered his flight which was great but unfortunately the best flight that I could find was on a different day our task for today was getting the bikes airplane ready we’re back in uchata actually and we’re in our friend’s parking space so that we can pack up the car take the bikes out and put them in these boxes and then have the boxes shipped ahead to the airport so kind of a busy morning okay we were very sweaty but look at what we did this is my bike with one of the extra wheels and then this is zeb’s bike with the other extra wheel so yeah hopefully everything makes it safely we tried to package and Pad everything but we’ve got two bikes and an extra wheel set in a bike bag and a box okay we’re almost ready we did it 2 hours later we’ve done it now we’re going to take them to Kuro the bike and one of the duffel bags is on the way to kumatu airport and we’re going to go see if we can put this box in the hotel before check-in and then drop this car off and then we’ll be ready for a pretty reasonable rate they’ll send your bags directly to your Airport terminal the bike box is too big to ship but our smaller bike bag was barely within the size limit we had also shipped a duffel bag and a cardboard box ahead to the airport from kushu so that’s four bags that I’d be picking up in the airport we would have shipped the box in the duffel when we moved out of the apartment but I think 10 days ahead of your flight is the max time that they’ll hold a bag in the airport so we had a pretty full car for half of the road trip this was the hotel we’d be in for the final nights in Japan crucially located right next to the train station the hotel Let Us store our bike at the luggage storage until check-in which was a huge relief because we still had to return our car we did it they’re so friendly for about a year and a half we’d been leasing this K car from a local car shop about a 30-minute drive from Central kazawa good buy car it made everything so easy since we just paid the monthly rental while they took care of the maintenance inspection and insurance getting my driver’s license in Japan last year was simultaneously the most terrifying experience and my proudest moment but I can tell that story another time okay last logistical stop we’re returning the car that we had for a long-term lease and then we’re going to take the train back to kazawa station and yeah then we’re pretty much ready for the flight which is pretty wild I’m so glad that everything went smoothly we got so lucky from here we were taking the hokuetsu railway back to maawa Central Station so now we’re in surui station and the very nice car rental company actually drove us to the station which is about a 10-minute or so drive so we didn’t have to walk which was really nice and actually if you come to Seri station they have a rental a bike rental over here which is cool you can ride along the tador galwa the train comes in like 10 minutes it’s the uchata train oh yeah we have to make one connection and then I’m going to go to the Post Office and then I’m going to have one more coffee time with my friends before we go like you’re on a safari feel like I’m on a safari for our last evening together in kazawa Zeb and I had a Mr Donuts date and then conveyor Bel Sushi later for [Music] dinner the next morning the time had finally come we set our seeu lers and I walked from the hotel over to the train station to get on my Shen Consin for Hana Airport natsukashi is a Japanese word you can say when something gives you a happy memory or fond nostalgic feeling it’s a word I’ve been thinking a lot about when editing this video in English Nostalgia gives a similar kind of sad longing feeling but natsukashi is more about joy and gratitude for the past like when you hear a sound that triggers a happy memory or you smell something that makes you think of a specific time and it makes you smile the train sounds especially bring back these memories for me [Music] I know I’ll be back to Japan sometime so I wasn’t feeling sad sad to be leaving but more of a grateful happy sad all the bags we shipped ahead were waiting for me in the terminal which was incredible and I’ll spare you the mundane details of international plane travel but it was thankfully uneventful I got to Western North Carolina at midnight and I knew my dad would be picking me up from the airport but my mom surprised me at baggage claim too I was so happy to see them for the first time in a year I missed rule North Carolina more than I realized it was such a weird feeling to leave a place I love but also return to a place I love I was staying with my family in my childhood home and slept with the windows open so I could smell the Mountain Air and hear the forest all night Zeb arrived late the next day and it was a happy Whirlwind of reuniting with family going to a good Friend’s Wedding bike riding getting over jet lag and figuring out where we would be living so our initial plan after leaving Japan was actually going to be moving to the Netherlands our plan was to get a Visa with the Dutch American friendship treaty which is comically shortened to the Daft Visa that would allow us to live there after I registered my freelance art and video work as a business so once we did that Zeb would get a spouse visa and then he would be eligible to be hired for any EU job with a spouse visa we talked to a Visa lawyer we were looking at apartments we had our plane tickets we had vet appointments for the cats because we were going to bring our two cats over with us and we were trying to get based in the southern limberg region but it was funny cuz we were having the complete opposite problem from what we were having in Japan so in Japan housing is really easy to find and the Visa is the kind of harder thing in the Netherland the Visa would be relatively easy to acquire but the housing was the difficult problem we reached out to a few expat services that usually offer housing help but they weren’t accepting any new clients at the time and we didn’t have any luck reserving any of the apartments that we found online to be fair we probably seemed like risky tenants since we didn’t have any visas yet but it was a circular problem because we needed housing before I could start the Visa process and then a lot of the houses wanted me to already have a Visa and already have a salary so it became kind of a circular tricky problem the was all happening this past fall and so in September we delayed the flight until October so that we could have two months with family and really have more time to think about whether or not this gamble was what we really wanted however to make it work we would have probably had to fly over without an apartment contract and stay in an Airbnb while we searched in person and put our savings on the line with the hope that the housing and the employment would just kind of work itself out before our savings ran out so it would have been possible but difficult another adventure abroad would have been really exciting and there’s so much much to love about the Netherlands and we started to kind of look around at our cozy North Carolina life and being close to family and being surrounded by Nature no Visa concerns and we just started to think maybe we should stay here for a little while I kind of agonized over this decision for a while to be honest especially since we had been telling people that our plan was to move to the Netherlands and that was what we were going to be doing and honestly in a way I was kind of embarrassed to change our plans and to just kind of move back to my hometown I don’t know why that was embarrassing but it just seemed kind of underwhelming even though this area is really great you might also wonder why we didn’t want to just stay in Japan and that’s a fair question Zeb was teaching with the jet program which is a great experience however it is a dead-end job so you have to find a new job or secure a new kind of Visa within that 3 to 5 years because the jet program doesn’t last past 5 years and permanent residency takes a really long time in Japan so there wasn’t really much stability or security with life there it’s also really far away from family which is hard I’ve been studying Japanese but it’s going to take me way longer than a couple of years to be fluent so that language barrier was also something that I was still working on and was still a hindrance to my job prospects and Visa possibilities as well and then also I wish the earthquakes didn’t bother me as much but I’m honestly very scared of them and I’m scared by the fact that they could happen anywhere and any time so the risk of natural disasters also kind of played a small part in that and just the unknowns and not having as strong of a support network in Japan as we do in America another very personal thing is that while the cycling in Japan is fantastic and I’ve made a lot of videos about how great the roads are and how many beautiful places there are to explore there’s not as much mountain biking in Japan and that’s something that’s personally very important to me and the mountain biking in the US is something that I really missed all of the trails that you’re able to ride on and things like that so don’t get me wrong I love Japan and I could definitely see myself continuing to live there I could have stayed longer I really enjoyed my time there but I also wasn’t sure if I could see myself there a decade from now and so that’s kind of why we started to look into other options about where do we want to be in 10 years so that’s when we started looking at the pros and cons of North Carolina a little more seriously and we started looking at houses for sale and we found one in our budget that would let us walk to the grocery store restaurants the library and the post office while being a short drive away from mountain bike trails and gravel roads it was all the convenience I was missing from Japan plus the forest access I’d been missing from the us so we canceled our flight to the Netherlands put in an offer and it was accepted and then hurricane Helen hit on September 26th we were prepared for heavy rain but not the magnitude we got the week leading up to the hurricane had already been rainy so the ground was pretty saturated by the time Helen arrived 40 trillion gallons of water were dumped on Western North Carolina more water than has been seen from a weather event in State history it was a really wild time but my family was all safe and had relatively minor property damage we got so lucky and it’s something I don’t take for granted all the mountain Creeks ran down into The Valleys in places like Chimney Rock Asheville’s River arts district and the town of Marshall were practically washed away the French Broad River is wide and shallow usually flowing just a few feet deep this hurricane actually broke the 1916 flood record and the river was over 24 ft high on the worst day a two-story house is between 20 to 24 ft so you can imagine why this was so destructive for the area there was a lot of recovery in October but there was so much support and neighbors willing to help each other this area is still recovering thanks to the hard work from volunteers emergency service members and locals adding to our Good Fortune our new house was miraculously untouched so a month later all the paperwork and inspections had been sorted out and we were meeting with the lawyers to officially close on our first house it’s moving day when do you think of America do you think of big trucks not usually first no well I’m in a big truck and we’re in America we have a trailer with our things and zeb’s going to follow me with our car we were very kindly lent this truck with trailer and we’re going to move in today so it’s a big day you’re on a house it’s our house little weird it’s exciting so fast forward to now and we’re still enjoying life back in Western North Carolina we can always move abroad again in the future but for now I have plans to make my videos about bike routes races and bike packing in the US pursuing my watercolor art more what the Appalachian mountain region is like and I even have a video I’m working on from the holidays when we went to Scandinavia we used the flight credit from our canceled flight to go to Norway with my family for Christmas so stay tuned for a video about that trip soon there’s been a lot to catch you up on since our Japan road trip and moved but I’m really excited to share more current stuff let me know in the comments what you’d like to see I really appreciate you subscribing and thanks as always for joining me on the ride [Music]

It’s the end of our 3 week road trip around Japan, and the end of our 2 years living in this beautiful country! This video will wrap up our road trip with a return to the Hokuriku Region (北陸地方). We’ll stop at Maruoka Castle in Fukui (one of the original 12 castles left), the Kaga Craft Village in Ishikawa (yuno kuni no mori) and a stay at the world’s oldest continually run family business (Houshi Ryokan).

Then we’ll pack up our final things from Japan and fly back to the US where we figure out next steps. Will we stay in the US? Will we start a new adventure abroad? I’ll fill you in on where we’re living now and what factors helped us make that decision.

Join my Postcard Club: patreon.com/user?u=86397010

Jump To:
1:11 – Hokuriku Region
1:31- Maruoka Castle
3:56 – Kaga Craft Village
5:34 – Washi paper making
7:27 – world’s oldest family business
8:40 – ryokan room tour
11:15 – walking around Awazu Onsen
13:52 – last full day in Japan
15:24 – packing & shipping the bikes
17:41 – returning the car
20:28 – natsukashii (懐かしい)
21:33 – Arriving in western North Carolina
22:13 – Moving to the Netherlands?
24:31 – Why not stay in Japan?
26:35 – Hurricane Helene
27:53 – Our new house

See my watercolor art here: https://thebluebike.art/start-here

More about:
Maruoka Castle (丸岡嬢): https://maruoka-castle.jp/
Fukui Prefecture tourism: https://enjoy.pref.fukui.lg.jp/en/
Ishikawa Prefecture tourism: https://www.ishikawatravel.jp/en/
Craft Village (ゆのくにの森): https://yunokuninomori.jp/?lang=en
Book a room at Houshi Ryokan (affiliate link): https://shorturl.at/Jxrde
Houshi Ryokan: https://www.ho-shi.co.jp/en/
Yamato airport luggage service: https://www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp/ytc/en/send/services/airport/

🇯🇵 More videos about Japan here:
Japan Road Trip Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6mz_uUREKnwSpTMnWMo8FaxBuojFEG06&si=H_nVUW9yTyeu_X4F
Kyushu Scenic Trains & Cycling Routes: https://youtu.be/yaNwkwDsDtk
Bikepacking Japan’s Amaharashi Coast: https://youtu.be/VIFvovFUGB8
Week-long Bike Tour Kanazawa to Matsumoto: https://youtu.be/OOgtL6N20mY

🎙️ Want to keep up with the rest of our adventures? We have a podcast! : https://www.ramblingramsbothams.com
Support my videos by becoming a channel member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHNUoxsMd-c5VM10ZbU331Q/join

#lifeinjapan #japantravel #ramblingramsbothams #hokuriku #roadtrip #japanroadtrip #japan #北陸地方 #ryokan #onsen #japanesecastle #japanesetrains #bikingjapan #cyclingjapan #movingvlog