Shikoku Tours is based on the area of Shikoku, the smallest and least developed of Japan’s four major islands. Japan is renowned for its emigration, which is especially perceptive in rural areas like Shikoku. Depopulation also results in the loss of conventional culture in all its forms. This includes the built setting. All over Shikoku, gorgeous old buildings are rapidly deteriorating and finally disappearing.
Slow movement allows you to watch the murder, but it actually occurs straight before your eyes. The center of town will be dotted with that cramped but still classy old house or kominka one day. A week later, it’s gone, leaving merely a surprisingly large piece of reddish earth. Its beautiful proportions, its shingles patinaed by a decade of weather, and its swept, handmade crystal with split wood ornamentation will never be seen again.
Shikoku Tours was founded with the intention of providing an opportunity to preserve this priceless identity. Old Japan, as depicted in brown designs, displayed in galleries around the world, and more lately on social media, is a concept that has a universal appeal regardless of its place of birth. We argued that the money people would invest in the area may serve as a motivator for conserving the built culture as well as generating some of the money needed to do it if we could send people to Shikoku to see it.
We were n’t the only ones with that notion. Although their numbers are low, forward-thinking business owners have been restoring conventional structures as lodging. This is n’t limited to kominka such as old farmhouses and townhouses. Usually with considerable ingenuity and elegance on the part of native architects and engineers who have been longing for the chance to preserve the houses they grew up with, stores, colleges, and other buildings are being repurposed.
In all of our trips, Shikoku Tours makes an effort to contain at least one of these restored or repurposed qualities in order to make a connection with the traditional Japanese lifestyle of the past. Our” Unique Accommodation of Shikoku” journey is designed completely around kominka. Our clients stay in a complex of stunning cement and stone warehouses dating back to more than a century in Kiragawa, a city on the coast of Kchi Bay known for its high-quality charcoal. Guests can stay in a thatched farmhouse in Oku-Iya, one of the most remote valleys of difficult-to-access Iya, in the rocky inside of Shikoku. It was once a cigarette farmer’s residence. The Nakayama family currently cultivates vegetables it, using directly developed technology known as fermented grass mulch, which has a more than a thousand years of documented history. There is n’t a supermarket or convenience store around for 40 km in any direction. I once asked Mrs. Nakayama how they’re able to live full in the mountains without shops about, and she answered basically” Hozon jōzu, ka na” – I guess we’re good at keeping things.
Many of these kominka are run by multigenerational households and partnerships, whose members are involved in regional agricultural and fish, which have swayed many contemporary improvements. Lunches and dinners only have their make on hand. The blatant praise from their foreign customers for the delicious food causes a somewhat embarrassed response,” Well well…
By regularly inviting inquisitive people over for a stay, we support the preservation of our country’s standard heritage and sources of income. Gratifyingly, customer feedback indicates that these kominka remains are the most spectacular parts of our sessions to Shikoku. We’re now looking for adventure-related actions that may entice visitors to stay longer at each home. Additionally, we’re looking into how to maintain ownership during the less well-known winter and mid-summer months. We’re addressing a pressing concern in this way that is hard to see outside of Japan. Or, to put it another way, we all want to be good at keeping things.