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  • Hey guys! Welcome back to vlogmas. I have brought you to another cool town today

  • because i was invited to stay at this really cool hotel! This is a very luxury

  • high-end hotel, i've never really stayed in a fancy ryokan so i'm really excited

  • about it and it'll be really interesting to compare how it differs from a regular

  • ryokan like the ones that I would normally stay at!

  • Hello!

  • Wow what a cool building!

  • So apparently this hotel is converted from an old house!

  • Look at it! I love how they've kept the old, rustic feel

  • How neat is this!

  • Could I get your full name and your signature here please

  • So this is the main street

  • This street has the most shops

  • For example souvenir stores, and sake stores, you can drink!

  • And this street is my favourite street

  • Is it? Ok I'll go there then if you recommend it

  • It's called Kawaramachi Street

  • There's a cat!

  • Aw they're feeding them

  • Wow this town's cool!

  • This whole area of Japan is so beautiful

  • I'm so glad I made the trip down here

  • I've never been to this area before

  • So many cool old buildings

  • Gonna check the post office to see if they sell special postcards just from this area

  • Lots of places in Japan do that and it's cool to know that you can

  • only buy it here so I try to pick some up when I visit cool areas like this

  • You can only get these here

  • Look at this Totoro shopping bag how cute is that

  • Oh wow special stamps from this area too!

  • The staff at the hotel told me that I should definitely stop into this store here

  • They sell black beans which are famous in the area

  • They're actually sweet! When you think of black beans in English you usually think of something savoury

  • But they're actually a dessert

  • There's some in a syrup

  • I've never seen them like that before

  • Yeah so these are kuromame (black beans)

  • You'll see them used in lots of Japanese desserts

  • Or you can just eat them like this, sometimes they coat them in sugar

  • These are the ones that you'll often see served with tea

  • I think they're coated in a little bit of sugar, they're really nice

  • Ooo chocolate-covered ones those look good

  • All right so she's gonna give me a little tour of the hotel and show me to my room

  • I'm so excited

  • This one used to be a fridge

  • A fridge?

  • This is an old rice cooker

  • And then they light a fire under there

  • That's so cool

  • This is an old phone box

  • In the past nobody had a phone in their house

  • This bank owner's house is really rich

  • That's why only he had that

  • Yeah we just keep the box

  • Let's go to your room

  • 102

  • Wow!

  • Whoa look at that

  • It's so big!

  • This is crazy

  • Look at this place! It's like my own little cabin

  • Oh neat there's a little study

  • You could live here, this is like an entire apartment

  • Look at this cute little desk

  • Wow! I love it!

  • This bag is actually a present, you can keep that!

  • Aw thank you

  • I don't know if you're taking a bath

  • If you like you can put them into the bath

  • That's awesome, I've never tried that before

  • Oh really?

  • Yeah I've always thought about it

  • What's upstairs? Can we go upstairs?

  • Aw it's tatami!

  • Little tatami room

  • Aw I love it it's so cozy!

  • Ok yeah this definitely beats any ryokan I've ever stayed in

  • Easily the coolest

  • I think you guys would agree

  • I'm in the dining room at the moment, waiting for my dinner to arrive

  • They've prepared a menu letting me know what they're gonna bring out

  • So I let them know ahead of time that I wanted a vegan menu

  • If you guys have special dietary needs you can contact them and let them know

  • what you would like and they can arrange that for you

  • They just brought out the vegetable appetizer it looks so fancy!

  • It looks so yummy!

  • Such an interesting selection of vegetables

  • I'm very intrigued with this leaf

  • Weird. It's kind of got the texture of what you would expect aloe vera to taste like

  • if you bit into an aloe vera branch

  • The flavour there's no much to it, very subtle like grassy taste

  • The next course is a local veggie tempura

  • And the sauces that they have with it are really unique

  • The white one is made from tofu and sesame oil

  • I've never had tempura with a creamy sauce but it works really well

  • Next is a turnip soup and the green sauce is made from the leaves

  • That's so tasty! It tastes like they put cream or something in it

  • But she assured me that it's 100% turnip

  • I've never seen a risotto that looks this fancy!

  • Mmm it tastes like maple syrup! I didn't expect that

  • The food here is amazing! 10/10

  • There's no way to improve it, it's so delicious

  • That was one of the most delicious meals I've ever had

  • like I said ten out of ten

  • Every single dish they brought out was delicious

  • For dessert they came out with this houji tea flavoured jelly

  • Super yummy

  • I want to make an orange bath because we can't not make an orange bath

  • Let's get the bath started and then throw some oranges into it

  • So the verdict on the orange bath: It smells amazing

  • and apparently it's good for my skin

  • I guess the oils, the orange oils are good for your skin somehow

  • either way though it smells great and it's really relaxing

  • so if you can find a little mesh bag and just stick a mandarin orange in it stick

  • Stick it in your bath

  • I squeezed it a little bit to get some of the orange juices out of it

  • So that it would smell stronger

  • So I guess I'm going to spend the rest of my evening in my orange bath relaxing

  • And I'll see you guys in the morning for breakfast which I'm already looking forward to

  • because dinner was so good

  • Goodbye for now, and I'll see you guys in the morning!

  • Good morning guys! I had a really nice sleep

  • The bed was super comfy I decided to stay down here in one of these beds

  • But I'm kind of regretting not making a futon up in the loft

  • Because that would've been fun

  • I'm about to head out for breakfast

  • I'm gonna be leaving here at 9:00 to go do a martial arts class

  • So I hope it's a big breakfast

  • I need some energy to get me ready for martial arts in the morning

  • But that's the plan for today and then after that I'll be heading back to Iwate

  • And finishing my trip down here in southern Japan

  • But it's been so great and this hotel! Could it have been any better?

  • I didn't know what to expect when I heard that it was like a luxury japanese-style hotel

  • But it really had all the things that I love about traditional Japanese hotels

  • The historic vibe of the room

  • But the things that I don't like normally

  • Are things like the hairdryer and the toilet and the baths are usually kind of old

  • Because the hotels have usually been around for a long time and they don't update it

  • But this room had all brand-new appliances and it just felt really

  • comfortable. It had all the things that I kind of need from home with the historic

  • vibe of the building itself. So it was a perfect combination of old and new and I

  • really liked that about it. And the food is just I'm gonna miss it

  • so much you guys! I really wish this was closer to my house so I could spoil

  • myself every once in a while with a good meal

  • But let's go get breakfast!

  • Breakfast arrived, it looks super yummy!

  • It's the kind of thing I was expecting - rice and miso soup and lots of side dishes

  • I'm particularly excited about the atsuage it's like a deep-fried tofu

  • And they fry it with ginger and it smells amazing

  • And also the dishes that use the local food of black beans

  • They've got the konnyaku with black beans and the miso soup made with black beans

  • Mmm it's got a really rich, almost smoky flavor

  • It's better than I could imagine

  • it's got a nice deep fried crispy outside

  • And the inside is so soft and creamy

  • This is the black bean konnyaku

  • I love the texture of it

  • It's like a really thick jello they stewed it in a vegetable broth

  • And it's really absorbed the flavor

  • The other dishes they have here are radish with a miso dressing

  • Carrot and burdock root salad, some homemade cabbage pickles

  • All right guys I'm gonna enjoy my breakfast and I guess I'll see you next at my martial arts class!

  • After a 1 hour drive, I've arrived at the naginata dojo

  • I'm going to be practicing naginata today and

  • apparently the style of naginata that we're going to be doing is called Tendo Ryu

  • It's a 450 year old style

  • I've actually done naginata once before probably about 3 years ago now and it was a lot

  • more difficult than you would imagine it to be. If you've never seen a naginata before

  • I'll be showing it to you very soon here but it's a long pole with

  • a blade on the end it's a very interesting weapon and it was used by the samurai

  • I've never seen a real one before!

  • You can cut with just this side right?

  • obviously we won't be using a real naginata during practice today for

  • obvious safety reasons but we'll be using this wooden version

  • Yes like that

  • Bring your feet forward, right then left

  • Not yet not yet

  • Right left, Right left

  • When I do this block me

  • Yes! Bring your right foot forward

  • Now bring it down and cut me

  • Starting at my face

  • The blade is facing upwards right?

  • Turn the blade around and cut all the way down

  • Yes now cut me

  • Turn the blade around

  • Now step forward and twist it

  • Yes like that

  • so far it's a little different than

  • how I practiced in Fukushima we didn't do any of this twisting

  • It wasn't this grotesque

  • this is really cool yeah learning some different techniques here it's

  • really neat to see how it's different

  • Now I'm going to try to cut your head

  • So step forward and block me

  • Now bring both your feet together

  • I had a lot of fun, it's really nice having a teacher one-on-one to help me figure

  • out stuff because I'm not so great at holding the naginata as you might have noticed

  • It's my second time now and that's really the thing that I had the

  • problem with the most last time, some of the positions feel kind of awkward and

  • it doesn't feel like that's where you're supposed to be holding it but apparently

  • those are the correct stances I just need to work on it. But if you guys are

  • interested in practicing naginata yourself it's a really cool opportunity

  • to study a martial art that you normally wouldn't get a chance to do in like

  • America or Canada! I'll have their website down below so you guys can sign

  • up there if you like and this is the end of today's vlogmas! Thank you so much for

  • watching guys and our next one will be back home in Iwate!

  • So I will see you there!

  • Bye!

Hey guys! Welcome back to vlogmas. I have brought you to another cool town today

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