So this is Portofino!
Good day. I'm Mike, a lawyer living in Hong Kong.
What did you think of our last article about the life of a fisherman? I hope you found it fascinating. I tried to imagine a situation where people of working age, children and mature age (or is it me?) live a normal life of economic and cultural wealth, not a retired pensioner's life. I have tried to imagine a situation where people of working age, children and mature age (is that me?) live a normal, economically and culturally rich life.
I'd like to go back a bit to tell you why I started thinking about it.
About four years ago, in the summer, a friend in Japan suddenly sent me a chat.
Why don't you go to Shikoku and buy an old private house?"
I've never been to Shikoku, and I can't imagine what an old private house would be like. But it sounds interesting, so let's go there.
I have decided to go to Shikoku with such a lax approach. I plan to stay two nights and three days. The flight is currently cancelled due to Corona, but there is a direct flight from Hong Kong Airport to Takamatsu Airport, which takes less than 4 hours. It is just like going from Tokyo to Hokkaido for a short visit.
I met Mr. K (who is now a friend of mine) at Takamatsu Airport, and we drove further to the city by the sea. Driving through Kagawa Prefecture and looking at the scenery from the car window, I felt a strange feeling.
I've never seen this place before, but I'm sure I've seen it before.
It's called déjà vu, isn't it? A house with a tiled roof comes into view in the rice paddies, and beyond it I can see Omusubi Mountain. Oh, yes, it's just like the picture in the background of "Nihon mukashi banashi" when the song "Boy, be a good boy and go to bed..." is playing. The picture in the background looks just like the one in "Nihon mukashi banashi" when the song "Boy, be a good boy and go to sleep" is played. This is the original landscape of Japan. It made me very happy.
By the way, when I talked to a local person about it later, he told me
"It's the opposite. The artist who draws the pictures of "Nihon mukashi banana" is from Takamatsu, and they are based on the scenery of Kagawa. That's why the manga looks just like the scenery in Kagawa.
Our destination was a seaside town less than an hour's drive from Takamatsu airport. Rather than looking around the houses, we started by experiencing the city and getting to know it. We drove along the coast to admire the scenery, canoed across to an uninhabited island to watch the sunset, and had a BBQ with locally grown vegetables, seafood and meat. The sea was infinitely clear and looked likeLike the Maldives (I've never been there ) and the sunsets were so red that they turned the whole sky red. Like being in the Aegean Sea The sunset was like a red sky. The islands nestled quietly in the Seto Inland Sea, the yachts in the marina, the fresh local produce and seafood. I feel completely at home in Portofino! The old houses were also unexpectedly beautiful. The old houses are not what you would expect, but they are magnificent Japanese houses, gated houses surrounded by walls and surrounded by fields. The roads are wide enough for a car to pass and have not changed in over 100 years. It would be nice to make this a holiday home and enjoy a relaxing holiday in the world of old Japan. At other times I might rent it out as a private residence.
By the end of the year I had bought a large 120 year old house and a plot of land for a surprisingly low price (by the way, under the real estate contract, this second-hand house is not valued).
The landscape here is precious, as it was over 100 years ago. How about preserving this and making it more livable? It would be a good idea to find a buyer for the house before it becomes vacant and is destroyed, and to renovate it in the same way, making it a holiday home that preserves the old town. In order to do this, a real estate fund should be set up to provide funds in a flexible manner. The management of the fund could be called " Alberco Di Fiso ". If the town becomes as famous as Portofino in the future, investors will get a good return on their investment. It would be great if the town is still as beautiful in 100 years time!
It was with this in mind that we began the renovation work. The renovation of an old house is more complicated than the construction of a new one, and takes more time and money. We had to be patient and slowly develop our ideas.
In the meantime, I had more and more opportunities to visit the area and I became friends with my neighbours. As I got to know the place better and better, I noticed a number of interesting things.
People who live in the neighborhood do not lock their gates or entrances in general.
Everyone who walks around the neighborhood knows everyone else.
They clean the gutters in front of their neighbors' houses if they find them dirty.
They pick fruits and vegetables for the day directly from their own fields.
They also share them with their neighbors.
The rice they harvest is shared with the rice harvested by others, and everyone shares it.
We often stand outside and talk.
When I greet a person working in the fields, we talk for half an hour.
They enjoy talking about nothing else.
Going to school Neighbors call me when they are worried if one of their children is not among the elementary school students.
I forgot to mention that I was born and raised in the countryside, so I had a similar life when I was little. I was born and raised in the countryside, so I had a similar life when I was little.
In 2000, when the construction work was almost finished, the Corona disaster changed the world. It became difficult for me to travel back and forth between Japan and Hong Kong, and I had more time at home to read and think. I started to think that the real estate fund I was about to start was not quite right.
More on this in the next issue.
