Boar 'n' beans

Chaos and disorder now officially reign, like that bit in the movie where gravity fails and everything in the spaceship floats up and off in random directions. After a very odd two days at work on Monday and Tuesday which toggled between boredom and blind panic that I wasn't going to get everything done, the week gave out and I started an impromptu 7 day holiday that I'm now through 5 and a bit days of. In that time we managed to get out to Himeji, Sasayama and anywhere else that least reminded us of job applications and looming deadlines. The gravity kicks back in on Wednesday which I'm not at all upset about; at the moment I'm struggling to focus on anything until it crashes down on me in a heap.

Last Wednesday kicked off the festivities and we celebrated with a trip out to Himeji for a lunch party with my work colleagues. This was the last of a series of "progressive dinner" style events which meant that the 3L bottle of red wine we've been eyeing for 2 years was finally uncorked and assaulted. The host has renovated his house to the nines so while it looked like a tired old temple building from outside, inside it was a trendy mix of of pot belly stove, bamboo floors and stainless steel. After the tour o' envy through two endless floors, we sat down and got started on the food and drink. We had sashimi and "Himeji oden", which is a hot-pot thing full of all kinds of vegetables, boiled eggs and fishcakes served with fresh ginger. It's getting very chilly now so the stodge was most welcome, as was our dessert contribution - bread and butter pudding. We sat for long enough to exhaust the conversation and polish off the last of the wine (most of the afternoon), then bid everyone farewell and headed back to our neck of the woods.

Get out the broom

On Friday I dusted off the camera and we hopped a train out to Sasayama, a little farming town in the northeast of the prefecture full of winding roads and paddy fields. This was our second try after the first ill-fated attempt and this time things worked out much better; Jessica met us at the station and we were off and racing around the countryside in her car. Our first stop was a little temple tucked away at the back of what could hardly even be called a road, where a giant gingko tree was shaking its yellow leaves all over everything. The whole mountainside was turning varying shades of orange as well but I imagine within a few weeks winter will have well and truly put that to rest.

Shut up, it's a cultural experience

Next stop was a beef restaurant where they serve Sasayama beef, which I'm told is much like Kobe beef but with a few less zeroes. I had a "steak cutlet lunch" which was a gorgeously rare and tender steak crumbed and deep fried as only the Japanese (and possibly the Scots) can. It was served with three different sauces and as much rice as you could eat, which gave me all the energy I needed to be driven around all afternoon.

Sasayama in miniature

Apart from beef, Sasayama is famous for three things - pottery, black beans and wild boar; we managed all of them in the afternoon's travels. First up we had a look at a museum and showroom of Tamba pottery which I found surprisingly interesting - they have all the traditional stuff but sell just about anything you can imagine for modern use from plates to beer mugs to tea lights. Jess was right about not being able to leave empty handed - we managed to limit ourselves to a couple of cups despite spending half an hour in a warehouse-sized shop full of very pretty suitcase stuffers.

Really gets your mouth watering

Next we went for a wander around the old part of the town and had a sampling of all the weird and wonderful things they do with black beans. Apparently they're regular green beans that are left to wither on the plants out in the fields, only picked when they look like something you'd sweep out of your driveway. As unpleasant as that sounds, they're actually really nice - sort of nutty, sweet and treacly. They can be eaten as is, dried, pickled or made into cookies, cakes, tea, coffee and almost anything else. We sat around a wood burner and drank some black bean coffee, then bought some souvenirs for workmates and a cake for ourselves (which has since been eaten in two sittings).

Sink your tusks into that

After a quick pre-dinner hot spring, we headed into the restaurant for our boar hot pot, called "Botan nabe" ("peony hot pot") because of the way the meat is arranged like a big flower. The stock was a very rich, heavy miso soup to go with the strong flavour of the meat. I figured it would be like pork but was surprised to find it was more like gamey beef. It was nice but I think we were all a bit meated out by the time we got through it all. Having ticked off one of the last things on our must-do list, we bid farewell to our gracious tour guide and hopped on a late train home. Since then we've mostly been in "no-spendy weekendy" territory - our next few weekends are chockers so we're trying to cool our wallets a little before the next onslaught hits; just 3 weeks, 2 blog posts and a whole lot of drinks, dinners and farewells and then it's all over red rover. Home stretch here we come, whether we like it or not.