Gankoyama News: NewsArchive

A special mountain bike tour will be held from January to May 2010

January 13, 2010 4:23 PM | Article | Trackback(0)

A special mountain bike tour will be held from January to May 2010
(excluding 1st - 3rd May).
There are 2 different courses you can choose - Course A and Course B.

Course A : Hillside and Ridgeway Long Course　(6-7hours)
On this course you visit a shrine surrounded by large Japanese cedar trees and walk to a nearby waterfall．You also trek up a mountain to a lookout with a view of the area.

Course B : Single Track Mountainside Course (2-3 hours)
On this Course you trek along a mountainside that has sunlight filtering through the foliage.This is a fun and exciting course.

You can do Course A and B over 2 days for 9, 500 yen which includes bike rental.

OR

You can do Gankoyama Master with either Course A or B which costs 9, 500 yen.

Please contact us in advance to check the availability.
(preferably 5days before your intended arrival date)

1 week camp

March 3, 2009 10:03 AM | Article | Trackback(0)

Gankoyama holds a special workshop which is called the [ 1 week camp]. During this workshop you can learn about sustainable culture intensively in a Japanese forest. Participants can experience things which we have been doing here over last 10 years in just one week. The 4 major things you will learn and do during this workshop are listed below:

(1) Tree House Master (build a tree house with an instructor)
     Learn about Japanese-style carpentry, tree climbing, rope work skills and how to use a chain saw.

(2) Edible wild plants and organic field experience
     Pick edible wild plants, grow shitake mushrooms and other organic vegetables, make compost and cook seasonal wild plants and vegetables.

(3) Infrastructure of eco-village (lecture only)
     Photo-voltaic energy generation, bio-compost toilet, management and maintenance of Japanese forests.

(4) Survival Skills
     Build camp fires, cook on open fires and in oil drums and learn rope skills as well as water filtration techniques.

People need to make reservations for all of the tours at Gankoyama on our English web site and if anyone has any questions about Gankoyama or the tours they can also send us an e-mail from our web site: www.gankoyama.com.

Workshop for Sustainable Tourism in Japanese Forests

February 6, 2009 1:43 PM | Article | Trackback(0)

The development of Japanese culture has been influenced greatly by forests. Japanese people have been protecting forests by continually planting and growing new trees and then cutting and using them as sources of energy and for building. Globalisation has destroyed many local economies in Japan and forests have been

ruined because they have not been sufficiently maintained by people.

Forests are the largest renewable resources we have in Japan, and sustainable biomass energy and the usablity of Japanese forests is receiving more attention and creating more hope. During this workshop we are going to discuss how to revitalise local economies and make forests a financially viable resource, as well as learning about tourism and Japanese forests.

Date : Monday 16th February, 2009

Time: 11:00am - 15:00pm

Location : Gankoyama, Chiba

Price : 1500 yen for adults (including lunch- pizza cooked and prepared on site), 500 yen for students.

Schedule :

10:00 : Meet at Gankoyama

11:00 : Lecture on the effective use of forests by Tetsuro Kuniyasu (Vice-President of Japanese Forest Instructor Association)

Lecture on forest-guiding/rangering and the challeges/problems the guides/rangers face by Woody Kobayashi (Vice-President of Chiba Forest Instructor Association)

12:30 : Lunch- pizza cooked in oil drum oven

13:30 : Making a bionest, field maintainance in forest

14:00 : Questions and Answers

15:00 : Leave Gankoyama

Intern Student Wanted

December 7, 2008 2:16 PM | Article | Trackback(0)

Intern Student Wanted

Company Name : Gankoyama Tree House Village
Location : Minami-Boso, Chiba, Japan

Requirements:
Business Level Japanese or English
Good at dealing with people
Responsible and reliable
Have an international driver's license

Description of Position
Help guests build Tree Houses, cook in a wood fire oven and make handicrafts at our Tree House Village in Chiba. Forest and vegetable garden maintenance in the off-season.

* Guests and staff eat and do activities together so they need to get along well.
* During the summer holidays a lot of our guests are Japanese families so you will need to communicate with a lot of Japanese children.
* Accommodation + 3 meals a day are included

If you are interested in this position please contact us.

Articles about Gankoyama

September 8, 2008 4:05 PM | Article | Trackback(0)

Tokyo Notice Board (November 14-20 2008) : English Free Paper

Outdoor Japan (September 2008) : Your guide to travel & the outdoors

Metropolis (August 2008) : Japan's No1 English Magazine

Panorama (June 2008) : Italian site

Japantoday (June 2008) : Japan news and discussion

Japanzine (June 2008) : Japan's National English Magazine

Gankoyama 10th Anniversary

May 11, 2008 2:39 PM | Article | Trackback(0)

Since Gankoyama was established 10 years ago it has practised a consistent policy of protecting the environment. It does this by managing its current use of natural resources. In actual terms, it makes maximum use of the available natural resources; the Sun, water, trees, soil and wind. We can keep on using these natural resources in our every day life if we use them wisely.

This culture of using natural resouces was probably a technique established in the Edo period and is something which we should be proud of. For example, the life cycle of Japanese forests has been contolled and manipulated artificially by humans to create firewood and timber. In South Boso, Chiba, a lot of matebashii trees (local trees) have been planted as a windbreak. These trees are used for firewood or to make grips for farming tools. Wood from these trees is also used to smoke mackerel, which is called Namari-bushi and is a popular local food in this area. If a moderate amount of these trees are not cut down by people, the forest will become too dark due to the massive amount of leaves in the canopy and the forest will be ruined because the fertility of the soil will be lost. This cycle of using and maintaining trees protects the forest environment. If you understand and enjoy supporting yourself by using the nature at hand you will become a Tree House Master.

Owner's Column Started

April 30, 2008 12:33 AM | Article | Trackback(0)

Gankoyama has been telling people about the problems facing Japanese forests and the environment and has given them hands-on experience with renewable energy and how to live a sustainable lifestyle for the last 10 years. As Gankoyama has been operating for 10 years we thought it would be a good time to start a Japanese email magazine, which will be translated into English for this site and will be known as the owner's column.

We had a great weekend

March 21, 2008 12:21 PM | Article | Trackback(0)

We had a "demo" tour on March 15th and 16th. It was raining very heavily in
the Kanto area the day before the tour (Fri 14th) so we were bit worried
about the weather but, fortunately, it was sunny over the weekend. Five
people of various nationalities joined the tour. We did a short
bush walk, made a bow and arrow from bamboo, watched a tree climbing
demonstration, learnt about renewable energy, cooked meals and drank around
the camp fire etc. The tour participants were particularly interested in
making the bow and arrow (especially the guys) and renewable energy to our
surprise. The feedback we received from them and the experiences we shared
with them over the two days will really help us
improve the tour so we would like to say thank you once again to those five
people.

Gankoyama