Our last week of travels.
Fri 10/14: Last night Anne was in the smoking room playing Scrabble on her pad. A young Black man asked if she was American. Turns out he was born in Detroit's Hutzel Hospital and now lives in Atlanta. He was in Japan, hoping to marry his Japanese girlfriend. Three contacts with Americans in one day. It's another rainy day. We're driving north again, this day for three hours toward Nikko, with our guide Billy and new driver, Kamata-son. A Canadian couple has joined us for this last week. The driver handles about 25 hairpin turns in our little bus to take us up a mountain to the Toshogu Shrine among Japanese cedar trees. We visit Lake Chuzenji and the 100-meter tall Kegon waterfall; we see some red-faced monkeys in our drive through the mountains. Trees are beginning to change colors now. We spend some time walking through the large Rinnoji complex of Buddhist temples. It's curious, but Billy explains that when you see Buddhist temples, there will be a Shinto shrine nearby; and vice-versa. He and Kim both told us that Japanese people may be born Shinto, will be married in a (Christian) chapel, and have a Buddhist funeral. Everyone gets cremated. We stay in another onsen, and Anne has a fine meal with the group tonight. I know we are going to have backaches tomorrow. The beds are hard as a rock, and the buckwheat husk-filled pillows are just awful, also hard as rocks. We don't take a therapeutic soak. I don't think I've told you there's an option on most of the toilets; you can add the sound of running water. Some toilets play it automatically.
Sat 10/15: Sure enough, backaches for both of us. Honestly, the Japanese are very clever, polite, innovative and appreciate fine things. But they are very mistaken about comfortable beds and pillows. We have another three-hour drive north today. Our highway is west of the Fukushima disaster, but it's on our minds. We reach Matsushima and take a little cruise around the bay; it's considered in the top 3 scenic views in Japan. And the day is just lovely. We see seaweed and oyster farms out in the water. Miyagi oysters are big here. Anne and I have shrimp and pork for lunch. Back on land, there's a direction sign painted on the sidewalk indicating which way to go in case of a tsunami. We visit Zuiganji Temple complex and are glad for a short touring day. Oh no, another onsen. There were two weddings here today, it's a busy place. The tops of the beds are maybe 16" off the floor. There are four legless chairs around a short table. We put a chair on each of our beds and kinda sit normal. The pillows might be a bit better tonight than last night. And again, no soak. Neither of us go to dinner. The customer service gal, Melon, looking after our group was so glad to be able to speak English with us; she was born in Taiwan, went to college in Pasadena, CA, and now works in Japan. Retailers are pushing Halloween here. Apparently it's more of an adult holiday: little kids do not go trick-or-treating.
Sun 10/16: While at the Chusonji Temple in Hiraizumi, we saw a traditionally-dressed Shinto bride in a lovely white kimono and a white hood on her head. It irritates me when Billy explains that women were thought to have horns, and the young bride would cover "them" with a hood before she moved into her in-laws home. This progressive country has a very male-dominated culture. On a beautiful day at this World Heritage site, we view the Konjiki-do (Golden Hall), covered with gold leaf, now inside a protective building built around it. Japanese cedar trees make the area so beautiful. Many fields have been harvested, but there are still so many rice fields turning golden yellow. We walk up a long incline to see the ruins of the former Morioka castle, which was ordered destroyed by Emporer Meiji (reigned from 1867-1912) who was modernizing/westernizing Japan and eliminating the strength of many powerful samurai families. Anne and I have normal pizza for lunch at a Pizza Hut in a large mall. Tonight we are at another therapeutic bath hotel, but with nice beds and pillows and chairs with legs. The hotel is on the Towada Lake, the caldera of a volcano from 200,000 years ago which is today still considered active. It has a 44km circumference and is surrounded by mountains and trees. Japan is just beautiful. No soak tonight.
Mon 10/17: It's a fine morning to take a walk along a river flowing from Lake Towada and see various waterfalls and the Oraise Gorge. Lots of apples are grown in this area, both red and yellow. And they are all called 'Fuji'. Next we see the Nebuta Warasse, a museum about Nebuta Matsuri in Aomori. We see lantern floats here crafted from paper, wire and bamboo -- but they are incredible. The detail, the color, the size. Just awesome. We lunch in the museum's cafeteria: baked fish (I'm thrilled to have cooked fish), then raw tuna, salmon, mackerel. Forgot to mention: every breakfast I take a little something I am not familiar with. This morning I thought it was something wrapped in seaweed. Found out it was a cooked (not sure how) fig, but it was all black. Didn't taste fermented. We took a short walk through the fish market. At the train station, we thank and say goodbye to Kamata-son. We take another bullet train, the Hokkaido Shinkansen, across the Tsugaru Strait. And how do we take the train across the water? In an underground tunnel. We're under the sea for about 30 minutes. We weren't nervous, but we were both glad to see land again. We're in Hakodate which is on Hokkaido Island, Japan's northernmost island. Hakodate was Japan's first Port city, opened to trade in 1854. We meet our new driver, Sato-son, and he drives up a steep Mt. Hakodate in the twilight on twisting roads to take us in to the observatory so we can look below at the city lights and the Tsugaru Bay around the mountain. Bus loads of people come up here for the view.
Tue 10/18: Early this morning we walk through the city/fish market and see some weird fish stuff like octopus heads and squid swimming around in a tank and people catching them with a claw from a pole. It's brisk today, chilly with wind. We head over to the Goryokaku Pentagonal Fort site, built in 1868 to defend against Russian invaders and later destroyed during a Civil War between the shogunate army and the superior army of the Meiji government. Now it's a lovely park. We head north and see that the crops are in and the land is ready for winter; this island gets a longer winter with plenty of snow. We do see quite a few greenhouses. They grow potatoes, a cold-climate rice, sweet corn, pumpkin. We have lunch at a spot along the Uchiura Bay where there are steamy geysers; this restaurant has several steaming stations outside. They sell you a pot of uncooked veggies and pork or oysters or fish. You put this pot inside the hooded steamer and go inside while it cooks. Already on our plate was a tasty baked fish, rice, soup, and a hunk of dark pink 'cod roll', which we promptly put into our soup to cook. Each of us took a small bite and put it down. Then we learned Billy wasn't saying 'cod roll'; it's 'cod roe' (poor man's caviar). So you're eating the sack that holds the roe inside the female's private parts. I am just not into this at all. By then, Billy was carrying our steamed meal to the table. We enjoyed the cabbage and onions. Anne enjoyed a vanilla and sesame twist ice cream cone. At Lake Toya, we head up the Mount Usu Ropeway to get a good view of a Mt. Showa-shinzan, created in 1943 by a volcano eruption; that mountain still steams. Billy tells us that the 2007 G-8 meeting was held in this region. Over the roadway are some hanging arrows pointing down. On the left, the arrows at the edge of the highway are red and white striped. On the right side, you see them with white and yellow stripes. When the snow gets so high you can't tell where the road is, you stay to the right of the red and white stripes, and stay out of the oncoming traffic to the left of the yellow and white arrows. Hard to explain, but it makes sense when you see it. We see our first windmill farm in Japan here. Just yesterday we noticed kids in the train station taking books out of their bags and stamping in their books. The stamp stands are set up at tourist sites and places of interest, and kids stamp their books as a souvenir reminder that they were there. My photographer got a couple pictures of the various stamps. Anne and i walk into our room at our last therapeutic bathing hotel, see the tatami floor mats, two legged chairs, a short table with four legless chairs -- and no beds. I get the fold-a-way cot housekeeping rolled in. Anne is sleeping on four or five matresses piled on top of each other with another four quilts on top of them. She sank into this creation about 10". She'll have to roll her way out in the morning. We've got just two more days until we return home.
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