5/17/21: Japan with Modern Adventure x Mark Bitterman

You're invited: Japan 2022!

Travel to Japan with me! I've wanted to organize an adventure with you for years now, and we're finally making it happen. Of all the places I’ve been over the years, Japan is at the top of the list of places I’d love to explore with lovers of The Meadow. How could the timing be better, since we've been bottled up for going on a year now. This trip is going to be insane, and I hope you will seriously consider coming.

Join me May 20-26, 2022 with Modern Adventure on a 6 night / 7 day culinary adventure to Okinawa and Kyoto, Japan. We'll savor the ancient traditions and rituals of harvesting salt, explore the subtropical beauty, unique culture and rich climate of Okinawa, embrace the philosophy of wabi-sabi, and find beauty in the small and humble. And of course, we'll eat. A lot!

I bet you didn't know this, but you're on my VIP list. You're one of the small handful of people on this planet that truly "gets" The Meadow, and therefore are top on my list of people I'd like to invite to take this trip with me. We have just 10 spaces available.

The first 6 people to book and use code MEADOW250 with receive $250 off! Expires May 31, 2021. Click the link below for full trip details with daily itineraries and more.

Let's travel together!

--Mark

Salt, Earth & Sea

The bonds that make up salt are a wonder. Free floating in the great oceans, untold trillions of ions, each charged with its own individual energy. The extra electron in every anion is a burning invitation to some oppositely charged cation to come hither, yet drifting around out there in the watery vastness, each is oblivious to the invitation of the other. The sun’s evaporation of the sea water from an open salt pan changes all that. Attractions quicken, become irresistible, and in a vanishing moment, spontaneously bond to form crystals of purest salt.

Salt brings out flavors, harmonizes them, and shows food in its true light. In this way, it reveals to us the true nature of the world around us. And through every meal thus animated, salt connects more energetically to one another. At an atomic level, at an animal level, at a human level, salt is about living connections. And there's no country than embodies this connection more than Japan.

How like little ions in the great oceans are we all. Flitting through each of our everyday lives, yet intimately interconnected with the world around us. Waiting for a moment of spontaneous and irresistible excitement to bond us all together more closely. A chain of 150 islands scattered in the turquoise waters of the South China Sea. Green-waving fields of upstate New York. A little shop in Portland, Oregon. And all of us touched by one another.

Japan with Mark Bitterman? 3 reasons why...

You feel Japan's ancient beauty in each fleeting moment.

Each step has been a transient gift connecting you to the present. The azure, mineral-rich sea foaming at your feet, tiered temples alongside a matcha-colored river, misty forests and mountaintop meditations. You’re learning from local masters as you go—all about Japan’s enduring art of the simplest things: ceramics, sake, soy. And salt, at its most ancient, pure and elemental. Japan, like no place, rewards those willing to breathe in, look close and feel deeply.

The Japanese are the most interconnected with salt of any culture in the world.

We'll tour famed Japanese salt factories, like the Yagaji Mars Salt Factory and the Hamahiga Salt Factory in Okinawa, and get an unparalleled behind-the-scenes view of salt production, starting with its harvesting from the crystalline waters right outside to its place at the dinner table. Plus, you'll be going there with this fella who's written 4 books on salt (what?!) and won a James Beard award for one of them.

We’ll get a secret glimpse into the world of Japan that we can savor for the rest of our lives.

If you're passionate about art and design, and the natural world in all its glory, and interested in salt and how its made, and love flavor, this trip is for you. We’ll be awestruck by ancient rituals and generations of artisans. We’ll explore what makes Okinawa and Kyoto so profoundly unique and uncover how a single salt crystal held in the palm of your hand can be the most enlightening thing in the world.

Prepare yourself for a week of wonder. We'll visit local food markets, taste local delicacies like awamori, the national drink of Okinawa, visit Nakagusuku Castle, Mount Hiei, famed salt factories, tiny farming villages, and more. And of course, along the way we'll taste everything in sight, exploring all the umami Japan has to offer.