NO MUSIC NO LIFE. Yipyip, this is the Motto of 2024, not only in Japan but in my life. Music is essential to life itself I believe, if you don’t, try reading About Me and listening to the music I love, maybe I can make you understand;)
However, in the upper picture you see the Arabaki Tower in Tokyo, where I am posing underneath.

And no, although I’m sometimes wearing this apron, I wasn’t part of this festival. But I will join some festivals in Japan in 2024 as you will see later. The very beginning of 2024 I was still in Switzerland, helping at two New Year Parties at the same time, getting injured, partying for three days and almost directly flying to Japan, only to arrive there with some stitches over right eye – at least that was a fun experience, searching a hospital as one of my first actions when I arrived in Nishihazu, Aichi, to devote myself again to the almighty Aspergillus Oryzae, the Koji Mushroom, the source of Japanese fermented foods and flavours.
Better, than already there again at the same point as in Summer 2023 i had to admit to myself the following, like Din Djarin in many Episodes states:

That’s why I followed my inner sensation telling me: Go back to Japan soon and longer than before. I booked a flight with a return ticked after exactly three months. Only have I been so tired and/or overworked, that I wrongly assumed even before leaving, that my flight back will be exactly in 90 days. Finding myself in on the way home from Shinjuku all-night-drinking early in the morning proofed me wrong, when I got a message that my “flight from today unfortunately will be delayed for 2 hours”.

WTF? Thanks to my Twin-brother we managed to book a detour and I safely returned. But let’s turn back the clock. I arrived in Tokyo, Narita Airport, visited my friends and headed to Aichi three days later for about two months. Beginning of march I went back to Tokyo for around a month, mainly for visting friends including being visited by swiss friends, subtle sparking off the flame of rebellion and drinking – yes, drinking, me – in Shinjuku Nii-Cho-Me, the Gay-District of Tokyo. This period of three months is what I call “Winter in Japan”. Further on I will continue with my story from August 2024 on, where I headed to Japan for the next time, for an even longer one. This story I will be calling “Never Ending Summer”.

Winter In Aichi

Yes, there is Winter and snow in Japan! But normally not in Aichi, really not. Nevertheless, the Winter of 2024 was out of the ordinary and although this years February was the warmest ever, we also had one day of snow here – what I greatly enjoyed! (My first snow in Japan;)
Snow, Japan and a Kei-Truck – everything you need in life! Except maybe drinking and eating and so forth. That’s what I also came for: food, more exactly Koji making. What I experienced already shortly in the Summer of 2023 I continued in these Winter months. Last but not least this was a next step towards a deeper experience, reflection and understanding what being or living in Japan gives and means to me.

Back at Miyamoto-Kojiten

There I was, back again, in Japan, Aichi-ken, Nishioshi, 444-0703 Nishihazucho, Ichiba 25-1, making Koji – and Miso, yes Miso. The traditionally fermented Japanese soybean paste, especially known in Miso soup and as an ingredient for sauces. As I mentioned already in 2023, it was Ron-chan who showed me the ways of Miso and introduced me to this beautiful space here in Aichi.
Already in the very first week we had a lot of program, I was thrown into the miso shikomi workshops, where people come by their own or with their whole family to produce their yearly pot of Miso. In most cases they do an eight or twelve kilo amount of Miso, some of them might even be doing several with different ingredients. Many participants are doing it for a long time, as it has been over 20 years, when Miyamoto-san started the Miso workshops. Some of their kids had their hand stuck in Miso when they where three years old and by now their teenagers, some of them still tagging along.

The wheeled Koji-Table-Container

Besides the workshops, which form the main part of the winter season, I was doing all kinds of work, especially handcraft related tasks, like attaching shelves on walls, reorganizing material, creating order and making use of the unused. One project amongst these was building a box, which serves as a container for the crumbled Koji, when we take it out of the incubator and let it through the crumbling machine – for which I built a trolley in the Summer 2023. The box can be equipped with heating blankets to prevent a too big temperature drop in winter. At the same time the box’s lid serves as a Koji-Table, when we would spread the seed over the steamed grain and mix it. Flipped around it still closes up the box and creates a wheeled table.

monorogue – a vegan cafe and restaurant

I wasn’t everyday working or at the Koji-ten. We basically got one day off a week, where we can do whatever we like. I also got to see lot of places or things around this area, eat delicious ice cream or pizza;) After not even one week of my arrival we got a visit from the team of a vegan cafe and restaurant called monorogu (monologue). They and therefore also me were interested in seeing each other, for I am running a similar business (www.pfuenderli.ch) in Switzerland – which by now I left in the hands of a beautiful and lovely team, I am sure they are running it with heart and ideology! Here another thanx to my beautiful friends back in Switzerland!
For this occasion I created a dish called “Caprese Giapponese” where I changed the ingredients mozzarella, fresh basil and aceto balsamico with tofu, shiso and black koji amazake – delicious! But not more than all the food the women group from monologue brought. In the end you see them choosing an o-miyage a souvenir like gift (very typical in Japanese culture) I brought for everyone, a woodblock-printed tenugui (handtowel).

Ron-chan’s visit and the way of sake

Then came this devastating day. The day Ron-chan arrived. The day my almost life-long sobriety ended. I don’t know how this could happen, but might also be the delicious – and much more digestible and less hangover-like – nihonshu better known as sake in Europe or it was the influence of Machako, a very nice and somewhat crazy woman I am living together with in the share-house of the Koji-ten and a friend of Ron-chan. Whereas Ron-chan teached me the ways of Miso, Machako teached me the ways of sake and I teached them the way of the Gnocchi, hehe. The three of us together started celebrating Ron-chan’s arrival and ended up drinking everyday of Ron-chan’s visit until late into the night;)

The elaborated flavours and handcrafts of Mikawa region

With Ron-chan I also got to visit lots of local production sites, such as the very famous Hacho-Miso, where the owner himself, Asai-san, showed us around and cooked lunch with us together. Further we got a tour and peak into the Mikawa-Mirin production, the most famous mirin maker in the region of mikawa and a local based companioned pottery maker, tokoname. All in all a beautiful journey through the traditional handcraft of Japan here in Aichi and loads of fun being out and drinking;)

Soba-tsuki with Tsuyopon

Soba is the word for buckwheat and at the same time it means buckwheat-noodles. Tsuyopon is a staff member at the Koji-ten for march and April. He came to visit us in January and besides lot of other interesting things he brought the whole equipment for making soba noodles. It was a great experience and absolutely delicious. As you can see we ate them from traditional braided bamboo plates and guess who made them: Tusyopon himself!

Mochi-tsuki with Hoshino-san

Another day of Tsuyopon’s visit we did Mochi, the traditional Japanese rice cake, made from a rice dough which was beaten countless times by a big wooden hammer. For this occasion Hoshino-san came buy with all the tools, different hammers like the child-sized one;) Hoshi-san a is a natural farmer in our region, he produces the most pure and tasty veggies and is quite successful youtuber. He has this friend in Totori prefecture who is forging and creating beautiful knives, unique ones, like I’ve never seen. Every time I came here I’d ask him to bring the current collection and I’d buy at least one (if not for me, than for a friend).
The mochi-tsuki (which means mochi-making by the way) was on the day after the fire festival in our neighboring town. The fire festival, hi-matsuri, is an event where they pile up a huge tower of stray bound together by rope and bamboo. While lit they climb ladders to rumble the whole big tree and bring it to fall. The way and direction it falls is an old fortune telling – 1200 years old and since then it has been held every year; an astonishing and fascination way of passing on knowledge and rites. From the burnt bamboo you can take back a piece to your home hang it up or use it for something. I did bring one, cut and chipped chopsticks with everyone’s name and we enjoyed Mochi with them – fiery taste;)

Koji made in Switzerland

As it happens to be, I was not the only Swiss person in Japan interested in Koji. When I was visiting Hacho-Miso with Ron-chan, Asai-san showed us an e-mail of a Swiss guy who was interested in all several kinds of fermentation involving Koji. His name was Leonardo. I wondered if that was the one who made contact with me in Switzerland right before I left to Japan in January. But my memory kept another name, Lino.
But the ways of Koji, as i mentioned a fungus, mushroom, therefore connected to every life-form through mycelium, are infinite. That’s why Leonardo and Lino met up in Japan and thus, Leonardo was bringing Lino along, when Asai-san came to visit Miyamoto-Kojiten. Both fascinated of the materia, requested a short intern stay while I was there, which was the most comfortable way to go. You have to know that in Japan most of the people don’t speak another language than Japanese, although they have been taught English in school. Both of them were already doing experiences with Koji in Switzerland. Leonardo did several sorts and buckets of Shoyu (soysauce), Lino was already producing Miso and distributing it directly to small organic shops. Working an debating around with Lino led to the outcome that he decided to buy the same Koji-machine, a big incubator, as we use it in the Koji-ten. It will soon be produced and shipped to Switzerland, where the Japanese way of fermentation will reach a new dimension of spreading all over food-culture;)

Okazaki Castle – Birthplace of Edo’s first Shogun: Tokugawa Ieyasu

Another day at the Kojiten I met a sibling of mine, wearing the ultimately same black & blue striped sweater. His name is Chihiro. How else could it be, that we soon embarked on a wonderful journey, Spirited Away from daily life to visit the Castle of Okazaki, where Tokugawa Ieyasu was born. After the great battle of Sekigahara it would be no one less than Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu himself to unify Japan as a country after centuries of endless recurring warfare. He also came to be the first Shogun of the Tokugawa- or Edo-Period, where – at least political – peace would endure for 250 years, beginning from 1603.
Chihiro and me (with his mother Kamo-san, kindly enough to take all these nice pictures) can be seen exploring the castle and the area around. Meeting subordinates of Ieyasu and even himself, at the top tower of the castle. Inside we got a peak into several authentic goods from the Edo-Period. We did some multicolored woodblock printing and outside of the castle we found the spring of the waters, where Ieyasu has been washed right after his birth. I respectfully rinsed it over my head and guess what:
I gonna become the next Shogun of a Beautiful True World!
First things first, to the little ones; outside of the castle was another surprise waiting: the kessoku bando, the Tree-fix or “Bambusgummi” how we call it in Swiss German. The thing I brought as a small present for everyone (besides the printed tenugui (handtowel) you see in Chihiro’s hand), the thing tattooed on my left backhand and the thing holding together the world by starting revolutions from the bottom to the top;)

Big City Life Tokyo – at my home base kakekomi-tei

After two months being in Aichi, I headed off towards Tokyo, my other, older, homebase and place of lots of my friends. As I wrote in the beginning, I arrived in January 6th in Tokyo and again I had not a lot of days to spend with my friends, because I promised to be in Aichi by the evening of the 8th. Still called out to all friends, as always, to make a welcome party at Kakekomi-tei, a local bar in Yaho, Kunitachi, the west of Tokyo, epicenter of my friends and activist group movements in west Tokyo.

The bar is half official or public. Sometimes it’s much more a hang space or shelter for marginalized people of our modern society. Although most of my friends or the peopl there never heard of squats or know anything, they know quite embedded some thoughts and principles. Since I met them first and entered this bar, I couldn’t help, but pointing out the squat-like self-determined and responsible way of everyone. Despite that, it took them some time to accept and experience such perspectives but eventually it became part of all of our lives. For also the owner, Bokemaru-san is quite old, it becomes more and more necessary to supportand sustain the whole place – love to Boke-san, my Japanese grandfather; may live eternally;)

In these first days I was tired but still overwhelmed by the warm welcome and my feelings being back respectively away, also for such a long time. Thus it was even harder to leave to another place for two months – which instantly entered my heart and became my second home in Japan. It was therefore quit hard to leave Nishihazu, but I was very much looking forward to see my friends and loads of other activities. It was also a quite heavy travel from Aichi to Tokyo. Then besides my whole luggage I was also carrying some liters of Mikawa-Mirin and around 10 kilo of self-made shiro miso (white Miso, less salty, very sweety in taste) as a gift for all my friends in Tokyo.

The IRA and A3BC – political woodblock print heritage

One fixed point in my weekly program in Tokyo was the gathering of the woodcut group A3BC (Anti-war Anti-nuke Art of Blockprint Collective) every Wednesday at the Info-Shop in Shinjuku called Irregular Rhythm Asylum (IRA). It was great to once again dove into this merged cooperative production of political and artistic people and perspectives. I was reminded a lot of my first two visits in Japan 2012 and 2016 after which I wrote my bachelor-thesis that got published as a book. If you’re interested you can download and read it here (until now only in German).

In the upper pictures you can see the project they were working on in February and March, which was quite an interesting and special one. They were invited to a museum exhibition in Aomori, the very north of Japan’s main island. But the request wasn’t to bring the printed picture or finished artwork (whatever that would be), but the plate, ready to be carved. At the exhibition itself, which was called bunkai (decay, literally mostly connoted to decomposition), the plate would be carved, by the group members as well as participating visitors and being printed. The first interesting fact is, that the exhibited “artwork” was a decomposition of the wood-plate itself and the second, much more astonishing fact, is the new level of a live artwork, a changing artwork, something still rarely being seen in a museum, especially in the field of woodblock-print, which therefore reaches a whole new dimension of expression.

Swiss tofu producers in Japan – Noemi’s visit

As it happens to be there were even more Swiss visitors in Japan during my stay in Winter than the Koji-interested Lino and Leonardo I met. Even funnier and more interesting to every Japanese: Tofu producers from Switzerland. I also used to work and am still part of this old tofu production in Switzerland called Engel Tofu (www.engel-tofu.ch). A co-worker and friend of mine, Noemi, who worked for 10 years there, decided to take off on a longer travel and wanted to see once Japan. Still in Switzerland we discussed my schedule and she planned her long journey from Tokyo on, a week after my arrival in the city. Originally she planned to stay for around one week but ended up a bit more than three weeks, for we were enjoying a lot of activities together, from shopping to sightseeing (all still undone by me until then) and certainly eating and drinking;)

Both being huge Star Wars fans we found a great collectors shop and discovered a pop-up book in cafe. We fancied Tachikawa’s monorail, went shopping at the kappabashi street, famous for kitchen tools, attended a great punk concert during Easter in Koenji while missing the Easter festival at our squat back home and fascinatingly contemplated the daily evening mapping of the Tokyo metropolitan government building in Shinjuku (which is for free and during daytime you can enter the building up to the 30-somewhat floor accessing a great viewing platform for free as well).

And for sure we (almost had to) tell everyone our Tofu story or life. We searched some shops and talked to the owners, tasted local tofu of all different kinds from supermarket to organic stores and went to eat in a special tofu restaurant with as a Swiss group with Saskia from the Swiss embassy in Japan (who wrote the swiss.vitality Koji article about me) and Leonardo I mentioned earlier on, who was doing an exhibition as artist in Tokyo at this time.

She even went further, did things I hadn’t time, like going for the huge Gundam statue in Tokyo bay or visiting one of my first friends, Megumi-chan, who lives now in Hiroshima. Then she embarked with her brother on this beautiful island called Yakushima, which served as an inspiration to Hayao Miyazaki when creating the famous anime Princess Mononoke. All things I got to catch up my dear friend! And next time when we are both in Tokyo we gonna see all the things we didn’t this time;)

My-Gay-Me in Shinjuku Nii-Cho-Me

Nii-Cho-Me stays for Second District and is very near to Shinjuku main station – a station where you can get lost very fast and very often. I happened to walk a lot passed this district in the past without even knowing or caring a lot about it, last but not least also because I didn’t care about myself enough these days. However, interested in changing this, I set myself the goal to visit bars and make some friends in this area, once I arrived in Tokyo. But first I am not used to this normal bar visiting culture and secondly a quite shy guy when it comes to this – other than talking about and rushing into political activism or ideologies. So it stayed with a short walk through the street and it took my friend Noemi to give me some courage to enter these bars first.
It was absolutely great, we enjoyed lots of talks, drinks, met beautiful people and with time I would even go by myself. Not only this, but as I mentioned in the very beginning of this page I ended up drinking every night there til the morning and the very first train. From overly kind staff people to very gentle and funny friends I discovered a new part of Tokyo and my life here and I am very thankful for this.

Fumi-san’s Birthday at Mitake Valley

The last days of March we went hiking together. Outside of the city, the West of Tokyo, in a valley called Mitake we celebrated Fumi-san’s birthday altogether. Within a beautiful landscape we set up a delicious self-made Pick-nick on the rocks of the riverside, sang together and bestowed the birthday child with a heart-shaped cookie.

The Nantoka-Bar from shiroto no ran

Shiroto no Ran is the group who was born exactly one month after the disaster of Fukushima and started the first big anti-nuke demonstration in Japan, where we haven’t seen big demonstration for a period of over 30 years. However, it had a huge impact and led to continuous actions and the uprising of great alternative societal structures. One epicenter of them was shiroto no ran, based in Koenji (which would be between Shinjuku and Kunitachi, my homebase) with a certain amount of different recycling shops and bar/cafes. Amongst them the Nantoka-Bar (nantoka means “anything”, so for nantoka baa means “any bar”). I talk about Nantoka-Bar and Shiroto no Ran more in the pages of 2012 and 2016, where I met lots of these people and one very special Person, Ogura-san, the partner of Tsurumi-san. She was doing the “Vegan Bar” every first and third Wednesday a month in 2012, that’s how I met them and we ended up being very good friends and I would stay at their house for many times and weeks. Celebrating this, us and Nantoka-Bar, we almost had to that once again and in the last week before my departure we ran the Bar for a night;)

Homecoming or Hanabi forever…?

One of the last events was the maybe world-famous hanabi which means flowor-blossoming, hear cherry-flower-blossoming. Normally this would be in the end of march, but because we had a very warm January and February this year, it would delay the blossoming of the flowers other than a cool and frosty time would let the tree held back and let the blossoms pop out as soon as it gets warm. Still we got to see some blossoms at my last weekend in Tokyo and so we gathered all friends and went to the riverside of Tachikawa with another great self-made pick-nick.

After this we headed for Kakekomi-Tei where others would join for my Bye-Bye party. Yes it was time to say Bye to everyone once again, but not sayonara which means “see you most probably never again” but “dschaa, ne, mataa” (so, see ya soon). In these last weeks in Tokyo I started to think a lot about my life, how and where it will go on. I met all my beloved friends in Tokyo again and even made new ones in Aichi and also there, like everytime anywhere in Japan, a being-home like feeling appeared and grew stronger every time. So did the wish to come back very soon and for even longer.

I considerably came to a decision already in Japan, that I definitely want to try out living here for a longer time. A lot of things and reasons I can describe but there is also the unknown, yet to be understood and not being able to grasp what it means to me, being in Japan. For example catching doraemon, sitting in Yoyogi Park, partaking another life, other peoples or even societies life. The nature which feels so different, the far distanced yearning to another world, not only because you don’t know it, no, the opposite, because you know that there is something out there.

If it’s a far away tower like in a fantasy tale or a gate to the spiritual world or another political cafe (tribute to cafe lavanderia and may your spirit live on!), it’s the somewhat nostalgic feeling I get. The same I happen to feel when I am listening to Psytrance, which is by the we not an unknown culture to Japan at all. If it’s Miyamoto-san with whom I am producing Koji, who is a Psytrancer or Tsuyoshi Suzuki, the most famous Japanese Psytrance artist I lately made friends with, or the very beautiful space called DJ’s Bar Cave – Koenji Cave, I stumbled upon the same generation Psytrance culture and bearers of the original spirit. And I am extraordinarily happy to have met these people and places here, it let’s me feel once more connected to my other home and friends and as well always to nature up to a certain spiritual level.

If it’s discovering Cyber-Trucks, Sake or catching doraemon, I feel like heading towards an unknown destination, following the line of life, the beat of the heart and the beacon of hope – for love, for peace and for rebellion!
This last picture is dedicated to all of my friends who partake in my life, also to you readers; to everyone who wants to and does visit me, there is no request, but much more a quest: bring the same photo of you;) Thanx!