Filming – A Week in Western Japan

This week we filmed in Osaka, Nara, and Fukuoka, and each day was full of fresh local food.

In Nara, our amazing Japanese interpreter and I spent an extended weekend withYoshikazu Kawaguchi, a natural farmer who runs a free monthly farming class, including free practice farming plots for students; about 300 students were in attendance on this particular weekend.

We ate our meals with the farming students, which consisted of lots of rice (of course) and for greens, vegetables and wild plants from the farm, including a few flowers… tempura style.

Stayed over at the traditional Japanese forest lodge (aka: a hundred people sleeping next to each other on the floor), and then talked with as many of them as we could during the day.

That night, I took my sleep on a night bus (10 hours overnight) to Fukuoka, where I met up with Suhee Kang, for a whirlwind of interviews with local natural farmers, artists, and chefs.

We had several amazing meals, one in particular was a rice plate with fish and legumes at a tiny, inexpensive, amazingly excellent reservation-only restaurant in Itoshima. You need reservations, not because it is a snooty joint, but because natural farmer Murakami, and chef Shinnosuke need to prepare properly.

Their menu is improvised based on their conversations about which people are coming to the restaurant, and what is looking good at the farm on that particular day.

Today we have a shoot with Suhee and our hosts and I’ll head back up to Osaka (overnight bus again) for a day for two more interviews. Suhee takes a flight back to Seoul tonight.

It’s been a busy week with more to come…