High above the vast blue ocean of Japan’s Inland Sea, I look through the window of the train and watch the many islands that make up the region go by one after the other.

I shake my head in disbelief; a year ago this was a dream. Now, the train is moments from reaching Shikoku, the smallest and least visited of Japan’s four main islands, which include Kyushu, Honshu, and Hokkaido.

I’m headed into the Iya Valley, a remote mountainous region that has long captivated my imagination with its lush fall foliage overhanging craggy mountain gorges.

In medieval Japan, the Iya Valley was a haven for warriors and outlawed clans on the run, most notably the Taira Clan after suffering defeat in the 12th-century Genpei War. I’m here with three of my best friends, the four of us seeking our own refuge after one too many nights in boisterous Osaka.

Locals alight from the train as it moves deeper into the heart of the island. Few remain besides the four of us.

The sky is grey and seemingly on the brink of rain. We pass green farmlands settled in the shadows of the surrounding mountains; we cross snaking rivers, the water bleeding into the darkening sky.

I read about the Iya Valley over a year ago when I began researching for this trip, my first visit to Japan. I was immediately drawn to this rugged setting, as the countryside is an integral part of Japan I felt I had to experience, contrasting the bright city lights of its unceasing cities.

After rolling across the island for about thirty minutes, we arrive at Oboke Station. We have plans to meet our host here, Shino-san, a local of the Iya Valley who opens up his home to travelers like ourselves.

I found Shino-san’s accommodation rather serendipitously on Booking.com. From my office chair on the other side of the world, I could feel the man’s sincerity through his less-than-perfect-quality pictures and generous use of emojis.

Over the past year, I’ve gone back and forth with him several times through emails, usually receiving a one-sentence answer next to an emoji of a Japanese and American flag side by side. This never failed to put a smile on my face.

After hours of accumulated research on the Iya Valley and its accommodations, I figured there’s no better way to experience a place than by staying with a local. From what I read, Shino-san knows this place like the back of his hand.

The train pulls into the station. It comprises a small wooden structure with a meeting room and an office next to the train tracks, the last threshold of civilization before entering a forgotten epoch. We hop off and pull our bags from the train and onto the platform, watching in silence as the train creaks away.

I take a deep inhale of cold, clean mountain air. My friends and I look at each other. I know we all have the same feeling: no turning back.

We step into the office and are greeted enthusiastically by a man and woman in broken English. “Hello!” says the man. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

He pulls out a map of the valley and slaps it on the table, drawing out an elaborate route with a red marker. Must be Shino-san, I think. He’s moving quickly; we’re just trying to catch our bearings.

He’s wearing a hat that looks straight out of the Australian Outback, plus a pair of black speed shades and a jacket with a New Zealand Fire Department patch on the arm — a look that gives the impression that we’ve just landed in Jurassic Park.

“This must be him, boys!” I exclaim.

“I don’t think so,” a friend replies. “This is probably a guide to take us to his place.”

The name Shino-san has a Zen-master aura to it. I guess we imagined somebody older and time-worn, who after hours of meditation would share with us the meaning of life. The man could honestly be forty or sixty; he bounces around like a frog, yet his face wears the wisdom of wrinkles.

“Are you Shino-san?” I ask. We probably should have brought this up already. “Yes, yes, yes!” he shouts, arms flailing towards the car. “I Shino-san! Let’s go, go, go!”

I don’t know whether I should be terrified or giddy. Either way, we pack into his car and throw our bags into the back as he cranks up the heat and takes off into the hills.

We do our best to communicate. All my friends and I can do is look at each other and smile at Shino-san’s one-word answers; mostly, we just burst into laughter to break the silence.

We whip through the hills, which alternate from wide mountain passes to tight one-lane roads. It’s December. The deciduous trees transition from amber, green, and honey yellow to bare winter branches. As we pass others on the road, Shino-san gives two honks and a wave, “Shino-san friend!” It soon becomes clear that everybody is his friend, as though he’s the mayor of the Iya Valley.

After about forty minutes, we pull off at a viewpoint. Across the valley on the face of a steep hill, we gaze upon the Ochiai Village.

This ancient village is a collection of thatched-roof houses and plots of farmed land, where farming methods have remained unchanged for centuries. Shino-san sparks a cigarette as we take in the evening’s silence, our breath outlined in the cold, the valley becoming darker as the sun sets behind the distant mountains.

Already, he feels like one of us.

We pass cultivated land of green tea and sweet potatoes, taro root and squash before pulling into a single-road town. Perched on a hill above the town is a cabin. An American flag flutters beside a Japanese flag.

Shino-san points to the waving flags: “To show who’s staying with Shino-san!” It seems he truly is the mayor. His home sits like a medieval castle overlooking the village below. Now it’s our home too.

The cabin comprises a primary structure; an outhouse with a deck and a bathing tub that overlooks the valley; and a small structure, which appears to be Shino-san’s quarters.

It’s time to prep dinner. With no time wasted, Shino-san requests (by pointing) that we build a fire below the rice cooker and another fire beneath the outdoor tub. We work under the blackening night sky. The moon illuminates the clouds which gently float by, concealing and revealing the stars that look upon this land.

One of us tends the rice; one chops dry wood with an axe for kindling; two of us build a fire under the outhouse. The peppery-sweet scent of burning wood soon engulfs us.

When the fires are roaring on their own, we take turns soaking in the single-person outdoor tub. The fire we built underneath brings the water close to a boil. Lemons bob on the surface of the steaming vat. When it’s my turn, I stare out into the stark mountains across the valley, soaking my limbs after a day of travel. The setting is surreal. I smile and let my mind drift.

In the main cabin, there’s a large tatami room where we’ll sleep, plus a central living room accessed through sliding paper shoji doors. Around the room are miscellaneous items: scrolls, statues, hanging kimono, things relevant to a Japanese cabin that takes in visitors from all corners of the world.

In the middle of the room is a large open hearth, an irori, used to cook meals and keep the room warm. We bundle up and sit crisscross around the irori, waiting for Shino-san and sipping green tea from a large kettle that sits on a continuous boil.

Shino-san opens the curtain for his grand reveal. He places a covered wooden container on the hearth in front of us, as well as a deep bowl of the rice we’ve been cooking. The mouth-watering aroma fills the room. Before we dive in, there are a couple of ceremonies — as Shino-san calls them — to initiate.

We’re given a large notepad, a set of coloring pencils, and a notebook. Before we leave, we’re tasked with writing a note to Shino-san; something to remember us by and for other travelers to see when they visit. We put it aside to complete before we leave in a couple of days. Then comes the saké ceremony.

We were told to bring saké — Japanese rice wine served both hot and cold — which, honestly, was a primary reason I decided to stay here. I slip over to our tatami sleeping quarters and grab the two bottles we’d picked up as we left Osaka.

Shino-san gives us two small wooden blocks and a pen. We’ll write a message to hang on the necks of the bottles. Behind us is the mysterious saké room, still closed by a sliding shoji door. I get up, holding the bottles in my hand as Shino-san plays a song on his phone, building up the anticipation of the moment. We can’t help but burst out laughing.

I slide open the delicate door and carefully look around the room. The dry, cold air is shocking and feels similar to a wine fridge. On each wall are bottles and bottles of saké, categorized by different regions of Japan. A saké trove — bottles both big and small, all with wooden messages hanging from their necks in a variety of languages.

We have full access to the entire room and are given a blessing to try any bottle. There’s only one catch — you can’t finish a bottle that’s nearly empty. We place the bottles we brought on a shelf with a couple of open spots. Who knows what visitor will venture to try them? A piece of us remaining in this seldom-visited corner of Japan.

I choose first, a bottle from Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island known for its monster-sized seafood and unearthly blankets of snow. We pour the saké into each other’s glasses — never our own, as is custom — clinking them together as we let out a guttural kanpai!

We’re starving. Steam flows out of the wooden container in the middle of the irori as we take off the cover, revealing a beautifully roasted chicken and vibrant vegetables, still sizzling from the hot grill.

The food is amazing: chicken and venison, rice, vegetables, and miso soup. We’re ravenous and haven’t had a home-cooked meal in weeks. Throughout the meal, Shino-san points at one of us and then to the saké room — the signal that it’s our turn to choose the next bottle.

He tears off the day’s date from a calendar and places it on the floor, setting each bottle that we try by the date: a reflection of the damage done, the collection of bottles growing throughout the night until it feels like we’ve covered all regions of Japan.

Shino-san laughs with us and makes fun of us in a convoluted mixture of Japanese and English. We discover we are the first visitors from Los Angeles. Eventually, Shino-san bids us an oyasumi nasai — goodnight. My friends and I hang back, reveling until the small hours of the morning.

“Wow, new saké record!” laughs Shino-san as we stumble into breakfast at 7 a.m. Whether this is an accomplishment or a hindrance, we’ll soon find out.

We observe the collection of bottles in front of yesterday’s date. My head aches thinking about what we’ve done. After we finish the breakfast that Shino-san has prepared — miso soup, fruit and rice — we feel slightly better. At least that’s what we tell ourselves as we prepare for the day’s adventure.

The sun is just visible over the mountains. A thin coat of frost lingers on the dark green trees. Shino-san is a master navigator of the narrow mountain roads, as if we’re a toy car zipping along a remote-controlled track.

“Ninja route!” He exclaims as we pass what we think is the turnoff, instead taking us down a side road that he’s clearly driven thousands of times. These mountains are his playground. We’re lucky to have him as a guide.

The Iya Valley feels prehistoric, as if we’re scientists sent to research the beasts that call these dense forests home. We cross intricate vine bridges from the 12th century, overlooking pristine mountain gorges.

Hiking through the damp trees and along the Iya River brings a sense of peace; I’m more hungover than I’ve been in years. The icy river water is my salvation. We’re out all day, as Shino-san’s determined to show us every site before the sun sets.

In the evening, we visit one of the valley’s natural onsen — hot springs. It’s dusk. We’re exhausted. This is our last stop before turning into another homemade meal at the cabin. We’re reluctant and just want to get home, but Shino-san urges us that it’s worth it.

From the summit of the hotel which operates the hot spring, Hotel Iyaonsen, we’ll take a cable car down to the bottom of a mountain gorge.

We pile into a tiny cable car that squeaks against the tracks; we look at each other with panic in our eyes. If this is how we’re going out, so be it. One of us presses the blinking red button to unclasp the brakes. The cable car releases with a sudden jolt.

The cable car glides along the 75-degree tracks through trees that cling to the last of autumn, their leaves fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. We reach the bottom of the gorge.

Submerged in the hot spring, we sit in silence, listening to the gentle lapping of the spring, in awe of the surrounding mountain faces, molded cleanly from millennia of rushing water. The sound of silence is the heartbeat of our planet.

Shino-san prepares a superb final supper: oden — a Japanese stew made of tofu, hard-boiled eggs and fishcakes; rice with mushrooms; pickled vegetables and miso soup.

We guzzle green tea and sit on fold-up chairs on the deck outside, talking to one another, listening to the richness of the valley. As we stare up at the moon, Shino-san points out the bright light of Jupiter glimmering beside it. The smell of firewood provides a sense of comfort and home; this has felt like home. We’re sad to leave.

The next morning, we take down the American flag while Shino-san plays the United States national anthem from his phone. The next visitors will raise their own nation’s flag. It’s a hilarious and inspiring moment that epitomizes Shino-san. He’s a man who loves everybody, no matter where they come from. If you can laugh with him, you’re a friend.

We don’t have to speak the same language, but we felt comfortable with him. That’s what travel does. It isn’t necessarily our commonalities that connect us, but the willingness and curiosity to delve into what makes our cultures different.

Shino-san drives us to the train station and sees us on. He stands on the platform waving an American flag, becoming smaller and smaller in our wake as we look back.

We laugh at the scene — laughter the common language of our visit — as we travel back to our familiar world.