Tampopo-no-ie, House of Dandelion

This is Samegawa Village. South of Fukushima. This is where the "Tampopo-no-ie" is located. It's a welfare service center to provided training and support for independent living for persons with intellectual disabilities. This trip is planned so we can see the different between Tokyo and places outside of tokyo.
We were brought to the old place first. This center started in 2003. They had to moved as this place is on a steep hill and is not very safe.

Some of the staff of Tampopo-no-ie telling us the background of Tampopo. We were briefed for about 15 mins and the 5 of us were told to have a discussion and imagine 5 years ago when this center were setup.....what are the plans to find work for the PWDs. There's no major corporate companies here....only agriculture stuff and small population...... Not easy....We came out with bamboo basket, packaging, growing vegies, making jam......within 15 mins..not bad yeah? Feedback was most of the ideas is not bad but not sustainable! hahahaha

After that we were bought to the new place.... These are packages of Udon noodles...very cute.. you can customize the design. Here you see parent announcing the birth of their child and printed it on the Udon packaging to distribute. There's also the Nissan company who ordered the udon with a picture of their car to be given to the customers.
ohhhh had lunch there...One of the best food I've ever tasted....the vegies and miso are grown and made there. And the fish is very fresh too.....oiiisshi

The udon making section of tanpopo.....

Letting us taste their homemade blackbean miso.....oiiiishi X10 times!

I told Keiko now I know why she came with us to Fukushima! So many good food! ....look at Matsuura..... enjoying her miso........

Salad dressing and miso in a packaging...... The develope the recipe here. One of the special one is "Egoma" dressing... not sure if you've heard of it but it's a special product of Samegawa.

Pumpkin vodka......too bad they only produce limited bottles end of the year.....

That's their signboard in front of the building.

After Tanpopo....we went to a local farmer's market Temamekan. This is where the farmers around here bring their products to sell.

Cheap and fresh veggies

Egoma ice-cream...taste like black sesame

Later we met the staff of Tanpopo for dinner near our hotel. Bought us to a Japanese style food & drinking place.

Deep fried garlic...the whole bulb.....oiishi

Of course must have sashimi

This is konnyaku....dip it into soya sauce

Grill fish....

Staff of tanpopo-no-ie

More staff of tanppopo-no-ie. The lady in front on the right....She's the director of Tanpopo-no-ie. Shiarawase-san (I think that's the spelling) Fantastic lady. Her relationship with the village people is so good....she got some of the raw products for free! And they have some land to do some agriculture work for free too.....

Dinner was good....beer was good....food was good....the staff were very friendly.......it was a fantastic night.....