TryonTheWorld: Kawachinagano

Life in the KWACH

The purpose of this trip for me was a reset. I needed to realign myself with a baseline of what life feels like when I have achieved a place of comfort, peace, and a general sense of happiness so that when I leave I know when something is making me feel outside of it. Every adventure, every event, every activity that arose in this city supported everything that I needed to achieve that reset.

Kawachinagano is one of those destinations that going into it - I didn’t know what to expect. I only had this vague impression that it was a little bit more rural version of Japan that I was accustomed to. Usually when I think about Japan, it’s big cities, high-rises, lots of people, and crazy technology - that is a side to Japan that I have always had an undeniable draw to.

So when I set my sites on staying with my mate for a couple months and they dropped their address for a "little" city in a prefecture just south of Osaka I really wasn’t prepared for the way I was going to fall in love. Getting off the train at Chiyoda station, you’re met with a long street lined with an unusual amount of barbershops, pharmacies , and delightful places to eat.

Beyond them are rows of beautiful homes gently dotting a rolling landscape of hills, mountains and farmland. It was the kind of city that’s big enough to have things to do all the time but small enough to feel like home away from home. I took a rather strange route to my mates house that had me running up a really steep hill through a very pretty neighbourhood, and then exiting out the back of it down a sketchy looking kind of staircase kind of slide looking concrete path that I emerged from into a really beautiful field. I was arriving at the time of day where the sun was just beginning to set and a golden colour covered absolutely everything, my heart stopped. This was going to be an amazing trip.

City meets forest but everywhere

Life was pretty straightforward here in what we affectionately call “The Kwach”. I’d wake up with my mate. We’d go to the gym. We go on a hike. We go to eat. We go home to cook dinner and watch movies. Wake up and do the same thing the next day. There were so many little adventures to go on that it seemed like three months wasn’t enough time! all the hidden temples, walking paths, shops, and city activities to do meant I was going to need to come back here again - and I was more than okay with that.

hikes in the woods and bento boxes by the river....

It was easy to slip into a comfortable life here, take all day to stroll up the mountain to a temple....

We're goin' up, up, up
It's our moment
You know together we're glowing
Gonna be, gonna be golden

.... keep wandering on through ....

....up and down......

.......paths that seem to go nowhere....

...until you run into a random orange Orchard......

Or in front of the house of an old man (probably a yoaki) who is going to pop out and talk to you about how to sit properly - then take a flying leap over a chair to prove his mobility. Yea. There were always some kind of little surprises somewhere in the Kwach no matter where we went

Fall in the Kawch - fucking mint.

The wildlife here is tame - no bears - just this aggressive goat and Shinji. BTW there are a TON of weiner dogs in this city, lowkey the village mascot.

Tanuki Titties! not as fun without huge balls but hey.

and temples.....

Everyday felt like another little adventure was just a couple steps away, so much to do I even learned to cook, which is a fucking miracle in of itself.

This place was like magic! Randomly it snowed a few times for Christmas and gave me a chance to build little snow guys

BTW - Christmas isnt really a thing in Japan, this is more for the expats. We had a blast turning all the random things in the house into a Gozdilla themed nativity scene tho, and all the helpers that came to the house got a kick out of it!

The big thing this time of year is New Years...and I was ready!! The weeks leading up to it I sat down and wrote out my goals. Notice that this year I did not feel the need to include "eating all the ass", thats growth.

There is something powerful about climbing into your Daihatsu kei truck at the early hours of the morning, driving an hour to a mountain, walking up it with your mates, and watching the first sun rise of the year!

We sat by this fire all morning, chatting it up with the many people who came to bring in the new year - it was amazing! Then of course it was off to the shrine for Hatsumōde!