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!