Good evening. It’s Keita from Early Birds. We’re in the middle of a three-day weekend. The weather wasn’t exactly perfect, but thank you all for coming by.
We’ll be open and ready for you tomorrow on the final day of the long weekend, so we look forward to seeing you.
Anyway, I went on a little trip during my recent day off. After closing up on Wednesday, I packed my bike and traveled via Toyohashi to Hamamatsu.
I’ve always wanted to visit Hamamatsu. As it turns out, it’s quite close—even without the Shinkansen, you can get there in about an hour and a half. I got off at Hamamatsu Station, assembled my bike, and wandered around the city. It’s always exciting to visit a city for the first time, and I’m always curious about the various shops and people I encounter.
The downtown area was bustling, and there were several shops with really intriguing aesthetics.
After wandering around the streets for about 30 minutes, I stopped into the shop I had my eye on: "naru Soba". It’s a famous Hamamatsu spot I’d known about for a while, and I was finally able to visit.
I was already acquainted with the head chef, Mr. Ishida (known as "Gori-san"), but we first met this past March when he visited "THE RAMEN SHOP", a popular ramen spot in Oakland, during my trip to the U.S.
Gori-san was there to hold a soba workshop at the ramen shop and ended up working there as an intern for a few days. That meeting made a deep impression on me, and ever since, I’ve been determined to visit him in Hamamatsu, so this was a long-awaited trip.
I already knew it would be great, but a place that pays such attention to detail is just cool. Between the landlady’s thoughtful obanzai side dishes and Gori-san’s soulful handmade soba, everything was incredibly delicious. Since soba is a favorite for everyone regardless of age or gender, the shop was filled with all kinds of people and was lively the whole time. It was such a comfortable space that I ended up staying for three hours! (Laughs) The "Walnut Dipping Sauce Seiro" was exquisite.
Then, Gori-san invited me, "Want to go grab a drink?" and naturally I said, "Yes, please!" We were joined by some folks from the Hamamatsu hair salon "EN," who took us to one of their favorite cool bars, where we talked about all sorts of things: Hamamatsu, Nagoya, our shops, and some random nonsense, too.
That stimulating night passed by in a flash, and before I knew it, it was past midnight. We parted ways with the promise to meet again for lunch the next day.
The next morning, a little before 6:00 AM, I rode my bike about 30 minutes from Hamamatsu Station to the Nakatajima Sand Dunes. Circles staff member "Happy," who is from Hamamatsu, happened to be visiting his parents at the same time and mentioned he’d be going surfing in the morning, so I went to watch. I can’t swim, so watching it was!
The coast, which is a known surf spot, was pretty rough that day, but there were already dozens of local surfers in the water. It’s cool how they ride the waves even in a rough sea. I looked at Happy and thought, "Alright, show me what you've got!" but his expression was grim. (Laughs)
It seems those waves are pretty tough unless you're experienced. Even so, he gave it his all, but clearly, riding those waves is hard. For someone like me with no experience, I don't have a scale to measure skill, but seeing Happy struggle made me realize that the people who were riding those waves normally must be quite talented.
I probably won't take it up, but it really reinforced that surfing is such a cool sport, and just watching the ocean was incredibly healing. I’ve grown quite fond of the Nakatajima Sand Dunes.
After watching the surfing, I biked back toward the city and met up at naru Soba with Circles staffer "Nabetaku," who had come from Nagoya that morning, and "Miyumiyu" from Pine Fields Market. The four of us ate soba. Even though I’d had it the night before, I was moved by how good it was again. Seeing everyone looking satisfied made me happy, too.
After our meal, we went to "BOOKS AND PRINTS," a bookstore owned by photographer Shingo Wakagi. They’re usually closed on Thursdays, but luckily they were open for an exhibition. It was a shop with a really thoughtful selection, very rewarding to look through, and just interesting overall.
The "KAGIYA Building" that houses the shop is great in its own right, filled with charming stores on every floor.
We drove over to the Hamamatsu Municipal Museum of Art for a photography exhibition by Shingo Wakagi, the owner of that bookstore. Since it was one of the big reasons for Nabetaku (our Circles photographer) to go on this Hamamatsu mini-trip, we all went to see it together.
[Shingo Wakagi (born March 26, 1971) is a Japanese photographer and film director born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. He graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York with a degree in photography. He is active in a wide range of fields as a photographer, including magazines, advertising, and music media. He runs his own publishing company, Young Tree Press, and in April 2010, he opened the bookstore “BOOKS AND PRINTS” in his hometown of Hamamatsu, followed by a second shop, “BOOKS AND PRINTS BLUE EAST,” on October 10, 2012 (both shops were consolidated into the KAGIYA building in 2013).] From Wikipedia
http://www.shingowakagi.net
There were many portraits of celebrities I often see on TV and in magazines, as well as many shots he’d taken and kept of his own important family and friends. Each piece was very powerful, and I felt a lot of energy coming from the photographs. Well, I’m not exactly an expert so I can’t say anything too profound, but it was really interesting.
We were talking about what to do after the exhibition, and we decided that since we’d come this far, we should head to "d&department shizuoka," a shop I’d been hearing about lately and had been curious to visit. It’s about 80km from Hamamatsu—an hour or so drive if you zip along. Our Shizuoka trip just kept getting deeper. I’m handing the baton over to Nabetaku to cover the rest of our time in Shizuoka.
On that day, I was riding my BLACKCAT disc road bike, wearing a Resistant backpack, Lall by Deepers Wear shorts, and a merino wool T-shirt.
Personally, for a mini-trip like this where you don't really need full bike-packing gear, this setup is easy and comfortable. Next time, I want to enjoy "Deep Hamamatsu" with a proper riding setup. When I do, I hope the folks at GREEN COG, a bike shop that also participated in RIDEALIVE 2016, can show me around.
I’ll definitely be back before the year is out. Alright, Nabetaku, take it away!