佐渡に行ってきました。

あー楽しかった！

北沢浮遊選鉱場はラピュタみたいでむっちゃかっこいいし

玉堂窯元の陶器作り体験はもうーいろいろ刺激されたし

（土気持ちい、創作意欲かきたてられる、下手して大笑い、ゴーストばっかり思い出す）

渋くて、味わい深くて、さみしい空で

でも釣りのおっちゃんが陽気な防波堤の朝は

よく行く南の島のそれとはまるで違って

もう宇宙船とマンボーくらい違って

「朝」の種類について考えたし

海と山に挟まれた小道はそれは牧歌的で永遠歩いてたくなるし

宿根木の町並みは雨が似つかわしすぎて

カメラ欲が爆発するし、

意外なのはおしゃれなお店が多くて女子女子できるし、

なんか佐渡の底力を見せつけられました。

これからあちこち連載などで佐渡のこと書いていきます。

ご覧いただけましたらうれしいです。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

わたしが住んでいる日本最大のシェアハウス会社 オークハウス さんの物件に

ご興味ある方がいらしたら、こちらのリンクから

HPに飛んでお問い合わせくださいませ★　　するとまぁ！(´°Δ°`)

あなたとわたしに いいことあるそうなので、よろしかったらお願いいたします。

In September 2019, I made a trip to South Korea with a group of friends that I spend my time while I was in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. Two of our Korean friends got married and invited us to attend their wedding in Seoul. This is the PART 2 of the post. Make sure to read through the PART 1!

– DAY2: Visiting friend’s grave (and Korean BBQ)

Attending our friends wedding was not the only purpose of our visit to Seoul. A friend who lived in the same house passed away. This is such a sad story so I keep it short and I intentionally hide her name.
I was shocked when I heard the news that she was diagnosed as leukemia. She was one of the youngest and happiest of everyone I met in the house. She was also funny and bright up our conversations in the living room in Kichijoji 2. Very fluent in Japanese and she was looking for a job in Japan after she temporarily left the house to finish her study in Seoul. I remember she actually found a job in Tokyo and she was supposed to be coming back. It is so not fair. That’s what I thought when I heard the news. I tried to call her but it didn’t go through. She told me later that she was in coma because of her conditions. She called me back about a month later to tell her situations and what’s going to happen. She told me she was going through series of tests. Some tests come with extreme pain and it was hard to hear about it. I remember she still sounded positive and funny with many jokes. She told me she is going to have a marrow transplant which is something I only have heard in a drama. She said messaging and calling was the only way for her to communicate. With leukemia, it’s not safe to be talking to someone else in person because of her weakened immune systems. It was hard to believe that this was really happening to someone this close to me. She passed soon after.
After all the conversation and news, I still could not believe that she is no longer there. Part of me was still imagining she suddenly shows up in our living room and we just have fun talking about stupid stuff.
The reason I wanted to visit her grave on this trip was to show her respect but part of me wanted to convince myself that she really passed, to give myself a sense of closure.

Her grave in Ansan city

I was originally thinking about going to the grave site by taxi but another local friend got his car and drove us there. He was extremely nice. The road trip was fun but much longer than we originally expected. It took almost 2 hours to get there and I don’t think we could have done with taking a taxi. So we really cannot thank the local friend enough for that day.
After visiting the grave, we dropped by a lunch place on our way back to Seoul. The friend told us a local Korean BBQ place and we bought him a lunch. This was the least we could do for him. and this Korean BBQ was the best I’ve ever had in my life.

You know when you have good food, you remember the experience but not the taste itself. When the food is extremely good, you remember the actual taste and it doesn’t go away for years. This was exactly the case when I had this Korean BBQ. It was soooo good. I thought we do BBQ better in Japan but what we have in Japan is nothing compared to this Korean BBQ I had.
I’ve been to Korea many times before and I had so many BBQ in so many different restaurants. I was not impressed this much. I think this restaurant we went was a really good one in the entire country.

– DAY2: Walking around Hongdae area

We went back to Seoul by 2pm. Wedding and visiting grave was basically our two biggest reasons for our trip. Now that we did both, we didn’t really have much to do. We decided to just walk around the area we were staying because we realized we actually didn’t explore the area much. We were told that our area is called Hongdae and it’s one of the newest, kind of hipster area in Seoul. Hongdae is the name of the University located nearby. Lots of nice looking cafe and restaurants were around. We noticed many places are open compared to the first day we arrived. The shop owners must have decided to close the day because of the typhoon. Now that typhoon is gone, all the shops come back in business.

We tried some cool looking cafes around and walked toward the station where it’s supposed to be even busier.
The rest of the group joined us at the park where it used to be old train tracks. There used to be trains running but now it’s re-developed and it’s a nice park.

We spotted another nice cafe with a rooftop and we stayed there until sun sets. There were some good street performers as well. We were there for hours but there were people going by constantly. It must be a really popular location.

– DAY2: Another rooftop party with bride and groom

Earlier this day, we found out that it’s one of our friends birthday. We had Korean fried chicken and stick candles into the chicken to make it look like birthday cake. We probably didn’t have to do this because the bride and groom joined us later and they actually brought a birthday cake!

Just like the day before, we spent the rest of the day on the rooftop. We never ran out of alcohol because there was a 24/7 convenience store just a minute from the house. It was just so much fun we kept on talking and stayed up for a while. It was just like Oakhouse Kichijoji 2 but it’s really nice to stay outside on a rooftop. There was nothing to worry about because our flight was in the afternoon.
It’s so much fun to go on a trip with friends like this. It is easier for a family traveler like me and my wife too. Just knowing that there are someone else to take care of my kid is reassuring. I should do this kind of trip more often.

In September 2019, I made a trip to South Korea with a group of friends that I spend my time while I was in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. Two of our Korean friends got married and invited us to attend their wedding in Seoul. I have been invited to friends’ wedding before but never outside Japan. It took me two seconds to answer his (groom’s) invitation without even asking my wife. I knew she wants to come with me and I was right.
Immediately after, I started asking our mutual friends if they are interested in coming to Seoul with us. Some of them could not make it unfortunately but the number of travelers grew and we were a group of 7 by the time we booked the flight. Five of us from Japan and two more from London. This was the very first time that I met ex-housemates outside the country. This is gonna be so much fun.

– DAY1: An amazing Airbnb apartment

Our trip started with heading to the Airbnb apartment that my friends booked for everyone. The apartment is located in such nice area and the rooms were absolutely beautiful. I can easily say this is the best Airbnb I’ve ever stayed in my life. Let me show you some of the photos from Airbnb listings and the house room is as nice as these nice photos.

There are 3 stories with 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathroom in the house and up to 6 people can stay at once. I loved every inch of this house but my favorite was definitely the rooftop. For some reasons, it’s somewhat rare to find rooftops in Japan but it seems to be pretty common in Korea. I looked at other houses from the rooftop of this house and I can easily find other houses with nice rooftops. This is clearly something missing in Japan. If I ever build a house, it’s going to look a lot like this.

We took a taxi from Gimpo airport to the apartment. It was smooth and didn’t take no more than 30 mins. We were actually worried about the flight as ANA told us that there’s a chance that the plane has to go back to Haneda because of the typhoon. It was lucky that we made it to Gimpo but we could tell the wind was still strong outside. When we reached the apartment, it started raining. It was hard to spot the right house because Google map did not seem to be working well in the area. I heard from a local Korean guy later that the Korean government is not sharing a good map of Korea due to the national security reasons and that is why Google map is using a lousy map. We found a building, checked in, and we had about 4-5 hours to kill before we head out for the wedding. We went out for lunch. Luckily there were so many places to eat around the area. We found a noodle place and spent some time there.

We, then, started walking around just to get to know the area. There were many cafe, restaurants around but many of them were closed because of the typhoon. I heard it’s actually rare that typhoon comes all the way to Seoul. We still found a very nice cafe that serves high quality specialty coffee. Spent some time there and headed back to the apartment.

We took another taxi to the wedding venue which was not too far but we needed two cars. We were kind of late when we arrived but the entire process was simple to actually get in the venue.

– DAY1: Ceremony

There was a reception in front of the wedding hall but some people seemed to be going without talking to the receptionist as if the wedding is open for everyone to attend. I heard about how open the wedding is in Korea. This must have been it.

The wedding ceremony was nice. It was kind of similar to what I see in Japan. I noticed some attendees were wearing casual, daily clothes and this was interesting. I heard it is okay in Korea to come with friends who don’t even know the bride and groom. There usually is a buffet style dinner after the ceremony and all the attendees just spend some good time with relatives and friends. I was actually surprised how casual the entire thing is. I obviously like the Korean style better. There are just way too many rules and procedures to follow in a Japanese wedding and just way too official. My wife and I did not hold a wedding because the entire process seemed too troublesome. Maybe I could’ve done a wedding like this.

After the ceremony, the bride and groom invited us to something more traditional. I am still not sure the purpose of this ceremony but it should be the traditional style of the wedding in Korea. Everything happened in a smaller room where only relatives and close friends are invited. It seemed like there were series of manners and procedures to follow. Certain place to sit and certain timing to bow, that sort of things. Still it did not seem too agonizingly formal like most ceremonies in Japan. We were lucky to be invited to this ceremony to see the traditional costume and everything. This was the most exotic experience of the trip.

– DAY1: The rooftop party

We were also lucky to reunion with one of our Korean friends in the ceremony. We actually did not know that she is coming to the wedding because of her work schedules and everything. She was working as an architect in Beijing for a while and she happened to be in Seoul on the wedding day. After the ceremony and dinner, we headed back to our Airbnb house and she joined us for our house party later.
We came back to the house and started our party soon after. The rooftop of the house had a great view at night. The temperature was just right and comfortable too. Drinking beers and talking about stupid stuff. It almost felt the same when all of us were in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2 back in good old days except that it’s different this time. We are in Seoul! It’s amazing to think that we’re reunited like this years later outside the country we originally met.

We spent hours and hours… drinking and talking until everyone got sleepy but there were just too many things to catch up. I guess two years was a long time.
By the way, this is just DAY 1. Let me write about the rest of the trip on my next post.

西表島に行って来ました。

前回いったときは冬で、まぁ八重山の冬らしく曇りがちだったんです。

なので9月のスッキリくっきり真っ青キラキラな様子に埋もれるのは初めて。

この島の雄大度はもう、なんかもう、ひれ伏したくなります。

ジャングルまみれ、マングローブど深い、川が輝きすぎ、

山が果てしない、海が力強い、港がかっこいい、生き物だらけ、

夕焼けが大げさ、朝焼けがダイナミック。

10仙人が森の奥にいらっしゃるって聞いたけど、

恐竜とかシシガミさまとかポルコロッソとか

とりあえず何が出てきても納得する感じです。

体感として一番びっくりしたのは、マングローブの腐植土具合。

一歩歩くとずぶぶぶー！　

ねっとりべっとりの土が足に絡みついて沈んで抜けなくなるんです。

おおおこれが底なし沼か。

どろっどろになりながらなんとか抜け出して、西表バンザイと思うのでした。

それにしても焼けた！　こんっがりやん。

詳しくは旅色アンバサダー連載に書く予定です。

またご覧いただけましたら嬉しいです。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

わたしが住んでいる日本最大のシェアハウス会社 オークハウス さんの物件に

ご興味ある方がいらしたら、こちらのリンクから

HPに飛んでお問い合わせくださいませ★　　するとまぁ！(´°Δ°`)

あなたとわたしに いいことあるそうなので、よろしかったらお願いいたします。

It’s always nice to go back to the community where I used to spend most time of my days. Just last week in September 22nd, I was invited to a party in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. I have lived in this house ever since I moved to Tokyo which was about 6 years ago. I have lots of good memories there and to be honest, it affected my life in so many ways.
Although I don’t live there anymore, I still go there to see some friends every month. I’m not the only one who keep going back to that house too. In fact, ex-housemates visiting the house is the most common reason to throw a party.

Several people cook for everyone

The party on the 22nd was about BBQ in the backyard of the house. We ended up staying in the living room because it started raining by 6pm. We used a big shared grill and people brought things they can grill. There was no fee to join the party and anyone can bring friends.

Good thing about partying in Kichijoji 2 is that there are always enough people cooking something delicious at the party. and usually guys are the ones who prepare the food.
Thomas is one of the regular chef on occasions like this. He always cook something new and it’s great. The only problem is that I can’t remember the name of the food because it’s always in French which is too French for me to pronounce.

Oakhouse party is the always the time I get to eat something I’ve never tasted in my life. This time was no exception. There was this guy from Portugal who marinated drumsticks with some herbs and spices. He grilled them like the photo below. The flavor was totally new to me but it was absolutely delicious.

The party was a good size and there were about 15 people who came over. That sounds like many for a house like Kichijoji 2 but there was more than enough food for everyone. I brought some sausages and pork but we never grilled it because everyone was just way too full.

I don’t organize a party at Oakhouse Kichijoji 2 anymore but it’s nice that someone else still does and get to see old faces every once in a while. Next party is already scheduled in October and this one is supposed to be South African for some reason. Maybe next time my colleagues are coming too.

ギャンブラーな僕が450人もの前で講演を依頼いただいた。

うるっと来ながら、以下の文章を書いてます。

ギャンブルと、講演依頼なんて、真逆。
ギャンブルと、青年会議所みたいなまともな団体は、真逆。
なのに、ご依頼を頂けた。

それは、このご依頼をいただくまで、
何百人、何千人という
「ギャンブラーだけど、この人いいね」
ってな気持ちのバトンリレーがあったから。

その一角を占めるのが、
なんと、オークハウスに住んだことがきっかけ。

たまたま日本最大のシェアハウス
ソーシャルレジデンス蒲田に住んだ。
そしたら、毎月のごとくテレビやメディアが来てくださり、
僕は無名のギャンブラーから、
有名ではなくとも、
まったく無名からは脱することができた。

マジでオークハウスのおかげさまサマ様♪
オークハウスさんへ恩返しもしまくりたい。

先週も、同系列のソーシャルレジデンス福生がヒルナンデスだかに長時間の取材されていたし。

住んだらチャンスが拡がりまくる。
それがソーシャルレジデンス。
ギャンブラーが青年会議所から450人の講演依頼をいただけたきっかけの住居。

夢が拡がるチャンスへ住む喜びを感じて欲しい。
プロギャンブラーのぶきｗ
（↑なんか、名前いれたくなったｗ）

あっ、来月きてｗ
以下は告知のコピペになります。

＠＠＠＠＠
公益社団法人　高崎青年会議所
●事業タイトル
１０月第一例会　第２７回高崎ＪＣフォーラム
『君は夢の主役』～ワクワクする未来のために～

ドローン空撮のハガキの販売を始めました。

うれしいことに、石垣空港売店さま（空港の売店エリアの中）と

ANAインターコンチネンタル石垣リゾートさま（1F奥、GALLERY & LIBRARY）に

置いていただいております。

石垣島、竹富島、黒島からの下記５シーンで

八重山の抜群の陽気や、海と島が絡む渋さを詰め込んでおりますので

ぜひ思い出の地を、今度は鳥になった気分で

眺めていただけましたら幸いでございます。

＝＝＝＝とまこドローンハガキセット＝＝＝＝

石垣島の平久保の畑道が、海で行き止まりになるところ。こんな道毎日歩きたい。行き止まった末の抜群の開放感たら！　すてきな場所を見つける。心地よく歩く。行き止まる。そしてどうするのかは自分次第。キラキラの海に飛び込んでもいい、立ち止まって策を練るのもいい、ここで別のことはじめちゃってもいい、寝っ転がってしばしお昼寝も最高。この景色が大好きなのは、心地よく歩く今と、無数の未来を感じるからかもしれません。

竹富島の日の出前、石垣方面から貨物船がやってきました。動くものを見ると追いかけたくなるのがドローン操縦者の性（笑）。俄然ダッシュで追いつき見下ろすと、カラフルでかわいい色したトラックが積まれてたんです。あれまメルヘン。ごっついメルヘンどこまで行くの、極上色の海を渡ってお仕事するの。

竹富島のまっぴるま、透明な海の中ではアオサがキラキラゆれにゆれ。あまりのキレイにたまらず海に入ったんです。そうしてくるくる、くるくる、また違うキレイな世界が目に飛び込んで……見る気があるか次第、見る角度次第で、世界はこんなにも輝いたんです。

石垣島の早朝、太平洋に太陽が昇るのを、東シナ海上空から見守りました。雲の中にいて見えなかった太陽は自身の力で雲を徐々にとっぱらって顔をだし、精一杯輝いて。これが自然の摂理なら、こえられない壁ってないんじゃないのと思えるんです。

黒島の午後。海はなんてつるんつるん、雲はなんてふわんふわん。空はあんまりにもキラキラでキラキラで、こうも完璧な陽気に取り囲まれると、どうしてたって顔が歪んじゃうんです。あのニンマリが生まれる感覚をリアルに心に留めてたい。いつでもここちよくなれるスイッチです。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

わたしが住んでいる日本最大のシェアハウス会社 オークハウス さんの物件に

ご興味ある方がいらしたら、こちらのリンクから

HPに飛んでお問い合わせくださいませ★　　するとまぁ！(´°Δ°`)

あなたとわたしに いいことあるそうなので、よろしかったらお願いいたします。

おとといの9月9日の明け方に台風が過ぎ去った。
最寄りの京急線は８時まで運転を見合わせる予定だった。
でも、ズレこんだ。
何時に運転しだすかわからず。
ソーシャルレジデンスの巨大リビングは、会社に行けない社会人が出社準備の状態で待機してた。

住民限定のLINEがあり、逐一情報が入ってくる。
「いま、こんな感じで列に並んでるけど、動けず」とか
「電車きても、すでに満員で２～３人しか乗れない」とか
有益情報をみんなでシェア。
さすがシェアハウス♪
徒歩3分の駅へ向かったけど、戻ってくる住民もけっこー居た。

12時15分でも、雑色駅は入場規制がされていた。
途中から警官も出動されてた。

お昼前だと、この３倍は並んでた。
通常時でも電車は10分に１本しか来ない。
なので10分待てば、進みの遅さから、乗れるのに数時間はかかると判断できた。
「1時間で25ｍくらい進んだ」とかＬＩＮＥで報告が来たり。

ソーシャルレジデンスって、こーいうとき助かる。
おしゃべりしながら現状把握しながら、待機できる。

午前中にリビングが混むのって、珍しい経験。
それはそれで楽しい経験だった。

いつもは満室なのに、たまたま空いてるので、щ(ﾟдﾟщ)ｶﾓｰﾝ
一緒に260人と住も～
ソーシャルレジデンス蒲田
https://www.oakhouse.jp/house/465

Summer and Autumn is the time when you get to see many Matsuri in Japan. Summer matsuri, fireworks festival, beer festival, are the ones that you hear often. In Tachikawa, there are so many Matsuri that I don’t think I can possibly remember all of them. Summer matsuri is usually something very local. Every city and town has their own version of matsuri. The size of each matsuri is always different depending on which one you go to. The big ones are not always the best ones though. Sometimes the smaller ones are better, more beautiful and less crowded.
Living in Tachikawa Garden Town, I have good access to most matsuri in the city.
The one I went a few weeks ago is the one called Reitaisai（例大祭）. It is one of the biggest summer festival in Tachikawa area. This is my second time coming to this festival. It’s located in and around Suwa shrine (諏訪神社) which is one of the biggest local shrines.

The photo below is shot inside the shrine site.

Compared to last year, this year is not too hot and humid. This kind of festival is about carrying heavy stuff with other people. It could get a lot tougher depending on the day. I felt sorry for them last year just by watching them. Not this year. Somehow it’s quite opposite to last year. The days are mostly cooler and cloudy it got hotter in August but now it got cooler again and the summer is ending soon.

The matsuri goes on an entire day. This Suwa shrine is usually very calm and quiet at night but not this day. There are many small shops show up by the evening and the entire shrine gets full by people. Everything looks very different.

The shrine at night is magnificent with the dimmed lightings. This is something you can’t see too often.

A few days later I went to this beer festival in Komae which is about 30 mins away by train from Tachikawa. It was an annual beer festival run by local breweries. I love craft beers and it was nice to see some friends at the venue. There are countless micro breweries in Tokyo hosting events like this.

The problem is they don’t really market the events much. Usually there are fliers in the stations or Facebook post. There are some local web media which only talk about local news. That’s how I usually get to know these events. Let me know if there are other ones like this in Tama area!

国土交通省さんのサイト「Grasp」で

インタビューをしていただきました。

旅について、旅をしない若者について。

「旅をしない」ということを本気で問題として捉え、

解決したいなら、まずは国土交通省さんが、

なぜ旅立たせたいのか、旅立つことで何を目標としているのか、

そこを明確にすることが必要です。

個人的には、旅に魅了され非常に有益だと感じているから

旅をしています、お役に立てることはたくさんありそうです。

さて、インタビューページがこうでした。

まさかの新海誠監督の上!!!　

「君の名は」5回見て5回泣きました。

こんなに人の気持ちをキラキラさせる才能が地球上にあるなんて、

もう地球の未来が明るくて眩しくて仕方なくて!!

「天気の子」は、あーだこーだしたいことありつつ

それ含め楽しませていただきました。

ありがとうございます、世界のお宝!! 　

まぁそんなわけでこのページが大好きです笑

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わたしが住んでいる日本最大のシェアハウス会社 オークハウス さんの物件に

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HPに飛んでお問い合わせくださいませ★　　するとまぁ！(´°Δ°`)

あなたとわたしに いいことあるそうなので、よろしかったらお願いいたします。