March 2 

I got up for another tasty meal at the Kohshinzuka, then packed my things, paid, and left around ten.  A couple headed for Magome arrived at my lodging the same time and for a short while lead the way, until they stopped for a rest at a curve in the path.  They overtook me at the next town, when I again got rid of one layer of clothing.  Hardly a day goes past without somebody commenting on how this winter’s been much too warm in Japan.  That was the last I saw of them, and including them I could count the people I met on the trail on both hands. 

Despite the quiet, my mind wouldn’t stop.  I soon found myself thinking about how to narrate my trip for my blog.  A kind interpretation is that I am a social person and interested in sharing my experiences in an interesting way, or that I strive for literary quality in my blogging.  A less kind interpretation is that I’m far too self-absorbed and, like most bloggers, ascribe far too great an importance to what I feel like uttering into the great world wide void. 

After a while the path bifurcated, and I chose the path down past the Odaki and Medaki waterfalls.  The characters mean Male Waterfall and Female Waterfall.  Odaki tumbles from a greater height and spreads out about four meters across, more imposing than Medaki with its more focused stream, but Medaki falls into rougher, more treacherous ground.  I nearly fell into the creek when climbing on the rocks to get a picture I liked.  Does that mean that males like to impress, but really, females are the dangerous ones? 

Soon I made it to the pass, Magometoge, at 801 meters above sea level.  The pass also separates two prefectures, and I crossed over from Nagano-ken to Gifu-ken.  According to my hosts in Otsumago, not long ago the towns in Japan were reorganized, with smaller towns being integrated into larger ones.  In only one case did a town switch prefectures: the town of Yamaguchi, to which Magome belongs.  So all the internet resources I had read spoke of nothing but Nagano, when now the trail crosses from one to the other.  Even past the pass, trail markers still bore inscriptions saying Nagano-ken.  I suppose the authorities had other priorities after the switch. 

I overexposed the last pictures at Medaki and forgot to switch the setting back.  Now all my pictures of the walk down to Magome and the first few of the town have this bleached look, like in some apocalyptic thriller movie.  I’d noticed them looking too light right away, but always put it down to the LCD display not performing well in the sun. 

The first shop in Magome sells alcohol.  Of course.  And I really wanted to try local nigori-shu, and the local beer that proclaimed itself the best in the world, and the other local oddities.  I will have to return when I’m not abstaining. 

I proceeded as the night before: go to the tourist information center, ask for a minshuku with an irori, reserve.  This time I picked the Tajimaya, where I deposed most my luggage before ambling back to the different shops.  I tried gohei-mochi in one – didn’t hold a candle to that I had the night before.  The walnut mochi I had was good, especially along with the buckwheat tea.  Most of the vendors were glad to see someone, and thus ready to talk.  Several shops were closed, waiting for the season to begin.  I bought wooden items at the Yamashiroya and found other fine craft I didn’t buy in other shops.  Again, I’ll have to return for future purchases. 

Next, I walked downhill with two purposes: scout out the highway bus station and find the local onsen.  After the “wooden” bridge made of concrete I passed an elementary school on the way and who should be picking up his wife and kid but the guy who had just sold me his wooden items, who thanked me again and wished me a safe walk.  Finding the highway bus was easy enough – reservation was impossible, though, until the guy back at the Tajimaya did it for me on internet.  Finding the onsen was a bit harder, because it involved a longer walk downhill, but the directions were simple enough: follow the road, turn left where it makes a T.  And there it was: the Kuarizohto – not something to do with Risotto, but a transliteration of the German “Kur” and the English “Resort.” 

I almost panicked at the entrance when I saw the TV images of what the place was like.  Most of them showed women in bathing suits in a very western-style pool.  No onsen?  But the clerk reassured me there was one, and I headed to pick up my towel.  I don’t know how healthy it is to follow my regimen: get in the hot bath, sit on the edge of the hot bath, get back in, stand underneath the falling water outdoor for a shoulder massage, get in the outdoor hot bath (rotenburo), sit on the edge, get back in, get in the sauna for five minutes, get in the cold water tub and pour cold water over my head and wait until the spots in front of my eyes go away, get in the sauna again, get in the cold water again, get in the outdoor pool again to finish it off.  But sitting in a slightly alkaline rotenburo with a light breeze caressing your skin and the sun flooding the place with golden hues reminds you that while life down here isn’t perfect, it can get close. 

It could have gotten closer if buses ran back to Magome later than they do, but they don’t, so I had to walk back up.  I probably walked a longer distance down to the onsen and back than from Otsumago to Magome. 

I hope I concealed my disappointment well when I arrived in the dinner room.  We ate in a room separated from the irori, which was reduced to decorative purpose, and of the eight guests only one was Japanese.  I had been lonelyplanetized!  At least it’s through Lonely Planet that the quiet English printer opposite me had found the Tajimaya.  Of course, one could argue that the night before was even worse, as there was no Japanese guest…  But the Tajimaya suffered in comparison on nearly all points: ordinary food, impersonal service, and the necessity of having to make my own bed.  The toilet had a single 40-watt bulb for two stalls, both just large enough to sit down and rest my head against the opposite wall.  When I stood up, the dim bulb suddenly seemed frightfully bright as it hung at eye level, barely 20 centimeters in front of me.  The Tajimaya only had one point in its favor compared to the Kohshinzuka: the heater didn’t go out. 

Even so, I wouldn’t mind if someone assigned me to the task of exploring the touristic possibilities in Tsumago and Magome.  Any offers? 

March 1

I left on an improbable direct train to Nagoya, the “Urban Liner,” rolling leisurely through valleys and rice paddies without a single stop until Nagoya.  I read most of the way, in Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go.”  The story deals with abstract, but not-too-distant problems in an incisive way, and without ever mentioning current topics such as abortion, genetics, stem-cell research, or nanotechnology, offers a commentary on them or at least a new point of view from which to think about them.  At one point the narrating character, Kathy, reported how another character, Ruth, said something, but Kathy knew she meant something else; at another point, Kathy mentions how she could see someone else get himself ready for a certain reaction.  Throughout the book, Kathy reveals herself as keenly perceptive of the concealed feelings and true desires of other people.  I realized, after one such instance, that this sort of insight eludes me completely, and wondered: am I immature in that respect, or incapable of empathy, or just plain self-centered?  Or are people like Kathy a convenient literary device that allows an author to develop characters, but doesn’t exist in real life? 

In Nagoya, I changed to the Rapid to Nakatsugawa, where I changed again for a few more stops to Nagiso.  Nagiso has no convenience store, only a supermarket, where I bought two drink bottles and some chocolate, because I was about to hike to Tsumago and had read in a few places that there are no places to buy food there.  That turned out to be untrue, but I had bottles in plastic bags dangling from my backpack for the next two days. 

I had heard of Tsumago and Magome from Quirky Japan and was hoping to get away to someplace quiet for two days.  The two towns lie on the old Nakasendo postal trail between Tokyo and Kyoto and have been restored to Edo period looks.  Behind the Nagiso train station a little sign points to Tsumago, and soon the path rises sharply out of town.  Fortunately, it levels off, but the first climb had me peeling off layers and walking with even more stuff dangling from my backpack.  With my laptop inside, I imagined myself an urban heir of the old messengers. 

The hike to Tsumago from Nagiso takes 3.7km, so it’s short.  I took a detour 1km from Tsumago when I followed the side trail up to the old site of the Tsumago castle.  The castle and any immediately recognizable ruins are gone; the only intimation of a former castle comes from the odd network of paths around the flat top of this spur.  The top is now fitted with picknick shelters and offers a view of the whole valley the train runs along as well as up the side valley down onto the town of Tsumago.  If I blocked out the roar of traffic form the main valley, the castle site stood silent, and I felt alone and peaceful for the first time in a long time.  I also felt it’d be even better to not be entirely alone, but to share this place, this discovery, this quiet with a friend.  Of course, I didn’t stay serious and pensive for too long, but started to consider the things to do when completely alone in this place.  Why, I could moon a whole entire village without them being any the wiser! 

I didn’t.  I ate brittle chocolate and headed back down and into Tsumago.  At the tourist information bureau I asked about accommodations.  The lady showed me pictures of several minshuku, literally “people’s lodgings,” and I picked the smallest one with an irori, a square hearth in the middle of the main room.  The lady phoned the Kohshinzuka and asked if they could accept a foreigner for the night – though she did add that this one spoke Japanese.  I later asked the owner what they did when someone didn’t speak Japanese.  “Egao de,” “with a smiling face,” he said. 

What I didn’t realize was how far the lodging was in the direction of tomorrow’s goal, Magome.  Walking there took me halfway to Magome as counted from the Nagiso train station and well away from the Tsumago town, into the older settlement of Otsumago.  I got there as the sun had already set and dusk was settling in over the valley, and was greeted by the owner’s wife, who seems to run most of the hospitality operations.  Four generations live in this house: the owner’s mother, who cooks; the owner and his wife; his son and wife; and their children. 

The first thing I did was take a bath in the hinoki (cypress) ofuro.  This cypress wood exudes a fragrance that in itself already relaxes a bather; the warm water does the rest.  As the only guest that night in a place that takes up to thirteen, but usually limits itself to eight because the women do the cooking themselves, I could take as much time as I liked. 

Well relaxed, I sat down in the irori room in front of a meal of local food: mountain vegetables like Haruna with its subtle, rich taste, mountain roots, dried persimmon, salted and fried nijimasu (rainbow trout).  With a few exceptions, such as the shiitake mushrooms, everything was fresh and homemade, and everything tasted like it, in particular the gohei-mochi, rice balls on a skewer fried with a walnut sauce. 

During the meal the owner, who does roadwork for a living, came to talk with me, and even sang a song about life in the Kiso region, how it’s cold in summer, but still a great place to travel to and through.  His granddaughter Haruna (different characters from the vegetable) sang and clapped along.  He explained and showed how the suspension system for the kettle above the irori worked and was made of three different trees and incorporated a fish for good luck.  First, from the rafters above, a bamboo pole hangs down.  From its top a rope goes down to a fish made of pine and ties around the fish’s tail.  A stick of plum tree with a hook on its lower end fits through a vertical hole in the fish’s head and is guided by being stuck up the bamboo pole above.  The kettle hangs from the hook on the plum stick, and because of the friction in this system the plum stick can be lowered and raised as the flame grows and subsides. 

I slept a deep sleep that night, until the heater switched off and the room cooled down to a crisp 9°C, which made my scalp cold.  This was the peaceful, quiet place I had been looking for, a family that lives for hospitality in a house over 100 years old, with a smoke-blackened main room that contains things such as an old WWII radio they remember listening to to hear if their father was being released from duty.  The only modern addition is the bath and the toilets, nevertheless made of wood, and the only jarring notes come from the large styrofoam block on the fishpond and the stickers above the toilet remote control that say “push” and translate the characters for “big” and “small” with “feces” and “urine.” 

And all this for 7500 yen. 

 

February 28 

Nagao-san had found a train schedule for me on his cell phone, which I followed even though I’d arrive in Kyoto over half an hour before the time Naomi and I had agreed on.  I purchased another bottle of sparkling water and waited on the sunny platform for the train out of Gifu.  It would have been faster to take a less direct route, using the Shinkansen bullet train, but Nagao-san’s route was cheaper, and I quite like the slow, methodical plod of the regular trains.  They look just like the train at the end of “Spirited Away.” 

I got off at Kyoto after exactly two hours and walked toward the wicket gate, already thinking about where to go to the bathroom and where to find a coin locker in that huge train station, when one of the people rushing past me whirled around and shouted “Stephan!”  If my heart hadn’t stopped, I would have dropped my bags.  It was Naomi, who had been on the same train, it turned out, and had thought we’d agreed to meet an hour earlier than I had remembered. 

A toilet and a coin locker later we were on a bus for the Ginkakuji, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It had started to drizzle and the drizzle intensified once we arrived.  Ginkakuji means silver-plated temple, but it isn’t silver-plated.  It’s the thought that counts, apparently.  The most striking aspect of the temple site, aside from the Ginkakuji building, is the double sand sculpture consisting of a large truncated cone with a dimple in the top and an expansive free-form with diagonal stripes reminiscent of a soccer jersey.  The free-form stood about a foot above the ground, the outer walls rising at the same steep angle as the cone.  I can’t begin to imagine how long it must have taken to make this sculpture, nor how much continual upkeep it requires.  Desite this admiration, I preferred the garden and its luscious green to the temple buildings, especially in the rainy weather with occasional slants of sun. 

As we left, the rain stopped.  We had lunch in the Cafe Bear; I had an omchiizukaree, a thin omelet wrapped around a lot of rice and a bit of cheese, with Japanese curry on the side.  In the corner stood a darts machine with a video playing J-pop; the machine would make a robotic coughing sound at random intervals.  We both had matcha ice cream for dessert – I ordered it without asking Naomi after she’d admitted to not having tried any yet. 

From there, we headed to the Ginkakuji’s cousin, the Kinkakuji.  As if on cue, the sun shone for that visit and reflected off the gold plating and the water, giving at times the impression that the temple floated in mid-air.  The visitors there differed from those at the Ginkakuji as well: instead of couples and groups of three we had a large Chinese tour group, more Westerners, and an odd couple of a Western blonde not my age and a Japanese guy with stringy hair dressed in black and leather. 

I enjoyed discussing aspects of living in Japan with Naomi, herself a dual citizen of Japan and Switzerland.  We know each other from Basel, so even though we’d often spoken, we’d never touched on Japan in the way we did now.  We shared our stories of “How do you like the Japanese men/women?” and how we felt ambivalent about living in Japan, we shared coping strategies and funny moments.  Naomi said when describing her experience of Japan and Switzerland that she felt as though there were two parallel worlds that she switched between, like our world and Narnia, both real, but with few if any intersections between the two, which makes it so hard to describe Japan to someone who hasn’t been there.  And seeing me in the “wrong” world felt weird to her – and vice versa – but we both enjoyed a good Swiss German afternoon. 

Around six I headed out to Yagi to meet Joël Kuster, my “kohai,” who had just visited the nano tech the last week, but this time we chatted away the evening in French (instead of Japanese with Japanese friends) at a Tofu restaurant.  I had Diamond Guarana, a non-alcoholic guarana champagne with what looked like a home-made label, in a glass that said “5 Jahre St. Nikolaus Weinclub.”  The waiter didn’t know where the glass came from, and the drink still tasted like fizzy dissolved gummy bears.  We shocked the waiter again when I just gave Joël my unfinished rice bowl when he asked for more. 

On the way to Joël’s we passed a house where the owner appeared not to have checked the dimensions of his car before buying it.  The carport gate, instead of closing parallel to the road, folded out like an accordeon, and instead of being locked it was tied shut with metal wire. 

 

Tuesday, February 27 

The taxi driver had to phone Nagase Integrex to find out where exactly to go, but did in the end get me there.  He suggested waiting for me, but as I didn’t know my schedule I told him that wasn’t a good idea.  Nagase Integrex had been very helpful in helping Nanosurf obtain the rights to the name Nanosurf, and I enjoy the “duty” of visiting the company and smelling the machine oil and marveling at how clean their manufacturing halls are.  My only disappointment is that I can’t look up in those halls and see my name on the overhead cranes. 

Nagase Integrex makes high-precision grinding machines and their current special project is making the mirrors for the Okayama observatory.  After again showing each other how our product line-up has changed in the past year and a delicious Japanese lunch with almost no splashes from my soba (buckwheat) noodles, I headed back to the hotel, dead tired, and plunked down for a nap. 

I had hoped to meet my friend Yuko that evening, but we got our wires crossed and so I ate out with Mr. Nagao from Nagase.  We went to an Italian place, where we had Hida beef, mushroom cream soup, noodles with a four-cheese sauce, potato-cheese gratin, and what was labeled “helshiipohk” – healthy pork.  I’ve rarely had pork with so much fat and salt, so I’m left wondering what was healthy beyond the Japanese belief that pork is healthier than beef.  But it tasted like something out of this world. 

After the restaurant we went to a sunakku, a snack bar, which turned out to be the one we’d visited two years ago, and the mama even recognized me and remember I was from Switzerland.  The girls were different – I don’t think girls ever work there very long.  A snack bar is a place where Japanese salarymen can go after dinner to relax, drink alcohol, eat a few snacks (hence the name of the place) and chat with a hostess (which I would have thought would be cheaper at home, but nobody asks me).  This particular sunakku also boasted karaoke equipment with a reasonable selection of songs (but no Johnny Cash).  First mama hosted us for a while, until President Nagase came on in with a German guest and a number of employees.  One of them, Morimoto, sat down with us, the others in the larger karaoke corner.  Mama moved to them and we got Aiko.  Soon talk turned to whether I was married or had a girlfriend.  This is not, by the way, an unusual question for a Japanese to ask.  When I said no, and somehow evaded the “why?” question that followed, I was asked how I liked Japanese women – for the second time that evening.  That’s where I wish I could speak English and be well understood.  I wish I could say that even though as a whole Japanese women are of course beautiful, I plan to marry only one woman, and that project is completely disconnected from how much I appreciate the women of a certain nation.  Or tell them that I don’t think of women as a group, but as individuals, and for that reason the nationality and ethnicity of a woman becomes a secondary issue.  Instead, I have to give half-baked evasive answers such as “Japanese women have one problem: they don’t live in Switzerland.”  Of course Aiko said she wouldn’t mind living in Switzerland, especially when she found out we were born the same year.  Then, because I’m in a grey zone where I don’t know what is joke, harmless flirtation, or intention, I need to explain that geography isn’t my only criterion either.  All the while, because of my Lent decision, I’m drinking Oolong tea like there’s no tomorrow, so I suppose this obvious reminder of my difference in belief means that when I say I think religious convictions need to match up the topic ends.  I think giving up alcohol for a while is just bizarre for a Japanese.  Fortunately, karaoke comes along and provides a distraction as one after the other launches into songs like “Stardust” or “Desperado.”  When it’s my turn, I pick “It’s Now or Never,” not because I’m that good an Elvis impersonator, but because trying to karaoke “Hotel California” taught me to choose songs I know well and that have a clear melody.  It was just a bit high, so that the “It’s” always sounded like a strained “huts.” 

I’m wired from all the oolong tea, and then back in the hotel it hits me: I won’t be able to drink alcohol at the nomikai (drinking get-together) we’ll most likely have with my old colleagues at Nippon Steel.  That’s annoying.