Adventures in Wonderland
What a spring break I’ve had! The first half of it was pretty standard. I had an enjoyable first weekend and ended up sneakily taking Friday off from my secondary school in order to clean. And clean I did, for what felt like hours and hours. Gah.
Anyway, fast forward to Wednesday, where I was up far earlier than I’d even be up for school in order to catch an early bus from Takamatsu to Kobe. Once I arrived, I scoped out large coin lockers for my mom/aunt/uncle’s luggage..spending 1800 yen (3 lockers x 600 yen a piece) just to make sure we HAD the lockers and that no one else would take them. Jamie and my mom/aunt/uncle ended up having to catch a later train, so I met up with Maki and her husband Olivier and their daughter Hinako before they arrived. I’ve known Maki since I was 17, when we became pen pals and we’ve kept in touch every since. She came to visit Illinois when I was in university and again when I studied abroad (in Nagoya), and then we visited her our first year on JET (she lived and now lives again in Kobe). Since then she met her husband, Olivier, and they spent 2 or 3 years living in his native Belgium, where she had their daughter Hinako. They moved back to Japan in November and I finally got to see her again (and meet Olivier and Hinako)!
Jamie and the rest arrived not long after, and we sat down at Starbucks to grab a bite to eat and have some coffee. Unfortunately, that’s as long as Maki, Olivier, and Hinako could stay, but it was nice to see them all none-the-less. From there, thought it was raining, we headed up to the Kitano area of Kobe, which is a short walk or bus ride from Sannomiya station. It’s in this area that a particularly high number of foreigners used to live toward the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and you can tour some of the houses. There are quite a few still left, but there are also a number that are no longer there. It’s pretty trippy to be walking through a house built a the tour of the century, entirely western in style, and remember that you are, indeed, still in Japan. Not a fusuma door, tatami mat, or raised genkan floor in sight! The weather magically cleared as we toured four houses, and then it turned to rain again just as we found a pizza place to eat (they had a Kiwi working there!). By that time it was late afternoon, and we figured we’d better start heading to Kagawa. We said goodbye to Jamie (I hadn’t seen her since Jan. 3rd or 4th…likely the longest we’ve gone without meeting) and I managed to get us through the subway and on the shinkansen without much trouble. I was a bit dubious about taking the bullet train because there really isn’t any place to put large suitcases aside from the very back of each train car, but we lucked out and those slots were empty. Everyone seemed to enjoy the ride, but perhaps Richard most of all, as he’s a train enthusiast (he also collects dinner china once used in the dining cars…some of it is actually quite interesting). We transferred, of course, at Okayama, and managed to get seats on the Marine Liner by waiting for the later one. Once we reached Sakaide we dumped mom’s large suitcase in a coin locker, and then took Kay & Richard to their hotel and got them checked in. I was a bit concerned it’d take a lot of work, but in the end, it wasn’t bad at all. Mom and I made it back to my apartment a little after 9:00 and were in bed about two hours later.
Thursday was an early day; we had to be down at the bus stop by 7:53 in order to meet Kay & Richard at 8:20. We headed into Takamatsu and I stopped by the bus ticket center to get their tickets for Sunday, to the airport. Luckily it turned out that the bus originated in Marugame, not Takamatsu, so they didn’t have to spend nearly as much money on taxis getting there. Then we headed over to the post office so that Kay and Richard could withdraw money, and then it was on to the Kotoden Kataharamachi in order to head out to Shikoku Mura….except we didn’t get that far. Mom and Kay saw a store that caught their eye (in a section of the shotengai I would never have expected that to happen)…and they ended up spending the next hour or so looking over jackets and so forth. And when mom wanted to try something on, they took her up to the store on the second floor for that purpose. It turns out, there’s quite a cute little store up there, slightly expensive, but with nice things. They even ended up serving us tea (sencha, which just might be my favorite) and, thankfully, both mom and Kay bought things to justify it. ;p We were finally able to head to Shikoku Mura by then…and I’m glad we got a chance to ride the Kotoden…just to add to the variety (they experienced quite a few different kinds of transportation here: JR train, Omi Tetsudo train, Torokke sightseeing train, shinkansen/bullet train, bus, Kotoden train, subway, taxis and, of course, the kindness of our friends and acquaintances driving them around). It was a bit dubious walking up to the place, because I’d forgotten that it’s a bit steep and might not be the easiest climb. But, in the end, it was fine, and we made our way through the “museum” (it’s an outdoors and features old Japanese-style houses from around Shikoku) without much of a problem. I’ve been there, now, four times…and yet I always forget how cool it is, if you like that sort of thing (which I do, in spades). It reminds me of New Salem, except that houses are really from once-upon-a-time and not recreations.
When we finished, it was back to the Kotoden (after grabbing a bite to eat and letting them look through the gift shop) and on to Ritsurin Koen. The weather, which had started out sunny, but turned cloudy while we were at Shikoku Mura, turned beautifully blue in late afternoon, and the evening was filled with my favorite sort of warm, golden light. It made the park beautiful, even though many of the sakura trees were still only at about 75%~80% in bloom. There were a fair number of people there, largely due to hanami, but I don’t think it really took away from anything…we even saw a few couples dressed up in wafuku (one girl was even wearing a katsura! :o), which was a first, even for me! Unfortunately, neither the tea house nor the (very nice) gift store were open by the time we reached them, but we still had a pleasant time while we were there. As much as I inwardly (and unfortunately somewhat overtly) complained about mom and Kay stopping to shop in the shotengai earlier in the day, I ended up being thankful for it because we it turned out that we had over an hour to kill. We tried fixing it by walking back to the Kawaramachi area from Ritsurin, but were still in a bit of a fix….so we ended up walking almost all the way down to Mitsukoshi, which for all intents and purposes might as well be called the end of the shotengai. By the time we turned back, thankfully, it was time to meet everyone for dinner.
….which was interesting. I hadn’t given a second thought to the fact that, due to the size of the group, we’d have to eat on the second floor of Maru. Moreover, I’d completely forgotten that all of the seats on said second floor are Japanese style, meaning we’d have to sit on the floor. Mom, Kay, and Richard, while gung ho about trying nearly anything, where understandably not so thrilled about this. They didn’t let it affect dinner, but I feel somewhat guilty for not having giving it any real thought. ^^; Whoops.
Dinner was good, though, and five of my friends were able to come (Nick, Angelina, Matt W., Lily, and Mike). There wasn’t a whole lot of mixing, but it was important to me that they actually meet, so it meant a lot. ^^ We ended up getting back to Sakaide after 10:00 and Kay and Richard headed back to their hotel and mom and I headed back to my apartment. Contrary to what I thought would happen, the taxi drive was quite chatty….though it was one of those times where he wasn’t saying or asking anything all that interesting, but of course mom wanted to know what he was saying.
Which was actually something quite bizarre about this trip…all the translating of the mundane. I mean, not that that’s bizarre…but sometimes I had to remind myself (or even be reminded) that even the little things had to be translated. It reminded me all over again how fortunate it was that I came to Japan already knowing Japanese. Still, sometimes when you’ve spent the day translating and trying to make sure you’ve understood something and explained things correctly, you just don’t want to bother translating the mind bogglingly average conversation you’re having with your taxi driver.
The following day, Friday, happened by accident. Sort of. I’d planned to take them to Zentsuuji and Marugame castle and maybe Banshoen. But at lunch with my JTE’s on Tuesday, Shiraishi-sensei, who’d just retired, offered to drive us around, and even offered to sign us up to make udon. So at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, she picked the four of us up from my apartment, and away we went to Ryonana, to make udon and have it for lunch. It was my second time making it, because we’d done it as our cultural “lesson” for the mid-year seminar two years ago, only this time we didn’t get to stomp around on it (no, really, that’s what you do…obviously it’s covered in something-nowadays plastic-and is hygienic). I feel slightly bad for Richard, who was getting more help from Shiraishi-sensei than I think he really warranted, simply because he’s a guy. The truth is, as much as Kay can cook, it’s Richard who does their cooking for them on most days. In fact, Kay admitted she pretty much never gives a thought as to what dinner will be, because it’s Richard’s to handle. Not that always making dinner makes you magically talented at making udon, but still. That’s my only complaint from the whole day, however, so it means that the day was a pretty good one.
After we finished making it, we had it for lunch…and we had no trouble believing it was ours, because of the funny shape of the noodles. Still, it wasn’t bad, as far as udon goes, but somehow I get the feeling I wouldn’t be nearly so forgiving if it’d been anyone else’s. ;p
We then headed to Zentsuuji, and that gave them all the opportunity to see my local countryside, on a beautiful day, all from the comfort of a car. :D I think they liked it, or at least found it interesting, but none of them seemed gung ho about doing kaidan meguri…which disappointed me. ;p I also meant to pick up a staff from the henro store, as I thought we’d be walking back that way, but unfortunately….we didn’t! Alas! I’m determined to buy one and use it for going to at least ONE temple, damnit! We took a bit of an ice cream break after that and then, once back in the car, headed for the uchiwa museum in Marugame. The museum isn’t huge, and I’m nto really sure you can really call it a “museum” anyway, but the guy who was there demonstrating how uchiwa are made was really nice and answered our questions. He seemed pleased that I liked uchiwa so well, and admitted I was the first foreigner he’d met who really knew anything about them (I have 70+ tacked up on the walls of my stairway/hall). He asked when I’d learned about him and, to be honest, I can’t really remember, so I just told him that I’d known them from the first time I was in Japan. Surely I knew about them before that…but I guess I really only started being enthusiastic about them once I was living in Marugame (4 ½ years later, and countless times writing my address, and I still have to remind myself to tell people I live in Marugame, and only identify Hanzan if they ask further…those first 7 months when I technically didn’t live in Marugame had quiet an impact on me, I guess!). I know it seems fairly bizarre to be so enamored of a type of fan, but its history with the city is important and I’m just the sort of person that sort of things works on. ;p I’m defensive of udon because I live in Kagawa and I‘ll boast about it if it becomes necessary…it doesn’t even matter that I could take it or leave it….it’s identified with the place that I live, and the place that I live is a part of me….so therefore, it’s worthy of being defended. Maybe I’ve lived here too long…I noticed that I did a lot of saying “we” in reference to Kagawa/Marugame, though I am not natively Japanese, nor a citizen. Unlike using aspects of Sanuki-ben (dialect), this is something that has happened without my realizing it and without my forcing it (that said, the aspects of Sanuki-ben that I do use are completely natural to me now…so much so that I do it without thinking and I end up feeling awkward using standard Japanese. It comes off as too formal.) Talk about identity crisis! ;p
Okay, so where was I…right, the uchiwa museum! Mom picked up several nice uchiwa…I bought two, a blue one made of indigo cloth and another that’s been cut into slightly to create an unusual shape. The latter was made by the gentleman we spoke to…it was my indirect thank you! One thing I learned that I’d been wondering about forever was whether or not “Marugame” was a specific type of uchiwa, or simply a designation on where it was made. Many of the ones you see at the museum have flat bamboo handles and I thought that maybe that was the distinction, but it turns out that it’s the far simpler answer: it’s the name of the place they’re made. Certainly there are different types of uchiwa. That is, they’re all “nantoka” uchiwa based on their shape (oblong, square, etc.)…but no matter what kind they are, they’re all “Marugame” uchiwa if they’re made here. Of course, in the end, I think Marugame is probably the most famous place for uchiwa (it’s claimed that 80-90% of the country’s uchiwa are made here…who knows if that’s true)…so no matter where I go, when I see regular ol’ round uchiwa, it makes me think of Marugame, regardless of whether or not they were made here.
…..aaaaand that’s more than enough about uchiwa. :3
From the uchiwa museum we headed over to Banshoen, a beautiful Japanese garden in Marugame that like…hardly anyone seems to know about. The price is a bit steep (1000 yen, or roughly $10), but I imagine it’s because they don’t get nearly as many visitors as Ritsurin does. It has several particularly beautiful features including its largest vermillion bridge, its main pond with its 8 views of Lake Biwa (I think the person who had the garden commissioned was originally from Shiga…or rather Omi, as it used to be known), and its 600 year old pine tree shaped something like an umbrella (they started manipulating 300 years ago, we were told). There are also buildings that hold a collection of hina ningyo, pottery, and art…but I’m less enamored of those….they’re modern and are somewhat incongruous in such a traditionally Japanese setting.
By the time we finished looking at the park, we were finally getting seriously hungry and I so we headed to Osumi, the okonomiyaki place near Sakaide station that Nick and I go to with some frequency. I thought it was quite appropriate that we went this time with Shiraishi-sensei…without her, I never would’ve known about it in the first place.
Mom, Kay, and Richard all had standard okonomiyaki with chicken…but mine, mine was decked out. I got what I always get, the “おすみモーダン”, the “Osumi modern”….”modern” okonomiyaki comes with soba noodles. To that, I added mochi, friend garlic, and what was new for me last time: kimchi. DELICIOUS. Happily, Kay and Richard liked it, too, which was quite a relief, because I wasn’t sure they would. I’ve found that there’s very little wiggle room when it comes to okonomiyaki…you pretty much like it or you don’t (or you’re like me, I guess, and love it). Needless to say, then, that I was pleased that everyone enjoyed it and, even better, didn’t have any trouble making it themselves. Places that make it for you might be just as delicious, but I really wanted them to experience going to a restaurant where they had to make it themselves. It’s just part of the experience of traveling in Japan! Hmmm…come to think of it, all of the dinners we had in Kagawa were all meals that you had to make yourself (shabu shabu, okonomiyaki, and yakiniku). Yeesh.
After we finished eating it was back to the hotel for Kay & Richard and back home for me and mom. Shirashi-sensei was lovely and offered to bring Kay & Richard to my apartment the following morning, as it was on her way for her own plans that day. We actually got home quite early, not much past 7:30, but it allowed me to finally watch the last episode of the US version of “Life on Mars” (pretty good, until the last ten minutes…which were totally fucked up…I’m trying to erase it from my mind) and start in on one of the books she brought me, “Graceling” (a good book with an interesting story. Nothing spectacular, but one I’m not sorry I read, or paid for, though not particularly sophisticated)
We were up fairly late the next morning…at least late for the trip, at around 7:20. Kay & Richard arrived a little over an hour later and the four of us walked down to my junior high. Thankfully, being a Saturday, there weren’t that many people around. I wasn’t that I didn’t want them to meet anyone, but I was worried about running into too many new teachers, people I’d have not yet met because they only just started coming on Wednesday. There were a few students there, members of the basketball team, and I was happy to see how friendly they were. They actually ended up running into us again two other times, which was quite funny. ;p I showed them the staff room, my desk, some of the classrooms, etc., which they found quite interesting, all being former teachers themselves. One of the things they were less enamored with was having to change into slippers….no outdoor shoes in the building, of course! Lucky me, I have my own indoor shoes. :D
We were there for about forty minutes before heading back to my apartment, and it wasn’t too long before Miwa and her parents arrived to pick us up.
We headed then to Iya Valley, specifically to the kazurabashi (vine bridge), which took a little while. It didn’t help that it was raining…that part of Tokushima is breathtaking enough as it is, but I wish it’d been sunny…because it’s absolutely stunning. We stopped for a few minutes to take pictures of the koi nobori stretched across the river, and then again to have lunch, for which the Umesawa’s paid. It was still raining when we reached the kazurabashi, but by extension it meant that there were few people willing to take a chance crossing the bridge and allowed me to take pictures of the bridge as I’d never seen it before in person: essentially empty of foot traffic. It wasn’t closed, however, so me, Kay, Richard, Miwa, and her dad braved the weather and took our chances making the crossing. Only Miwa’s mom and my mom stayed behind, watching from a distance. It was particularly precarious for me, because I was trying to hold my umbrella and take pictures at the same time. Probably not smart, but I somehow managed it nonetheless.
We didn’t stay too long after we crossed over, simply because there really isn’t much to do in the immediate area once you do. If the weather had been nicer I could’ve explored the river bed, but alas, that was denied me. We did walk up the road to the large omiyage store they built…which I can’t really understand the purpose for. The omiyage aren’t that great and the whole thing is an unfortuante eye sore. I mean, I realize it’s there, also, to handle the number of people who come to see and experience the bridge…but damn.
From there, the Umesawa’s drove us along the Yoshino-gawa (the longest river on Shikoku) toward Mimi-shi, to a part of Waki-machi called udatsu-cho. Udatsu-cho is a street in Waki-machi that has retained much of the look it had in the Edo period (1603~1868). A lot of it was closed up (that is, it appeared that there were more shops, but they weren’t open), but it was still awesome. Udatsu, it turns out, are these special fortified sections at the ends of houses built in such a way as to keep fire from spreading from one building to another. Nearly all of the houses along this street had them, indicating that it was an affluent area…and, well, it was just really really neat, even if we really couldn’t tour the houses (only into the ones that were functioning as shops and open). I was really pleased, but that kind of thing is right up my alley (I love New Salem after all!). Once we’d strolled back to the car, we decided it was best to head back to Kagawa; we were losing the light and, frankly, we were all getting hungry.
….which was something was going to take an unfortunately long time to rectify. Our path ended up taking us back to Takamatsu, which is 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Marugame. I was pretty intent on mom/Kay/Richard (especially the latter two as they’d never had it) having kaitenzushi (for lack of a better term: conveyor belt sushi)…so the Umesawa’s were nice enough to drive all the way back to Utazu, because it was a place I was familiar with. Well…I should’ve known that, being a weekend night, it would be absolutely packed, because it was…and we immediately gave up the idea. Then we headed over to Marino, but I pretty much figured that would be a lost cause before we even really started….and I was unfortunately right. We then headed back toward Sakaide, hoping we’d see something…and while we did…they were all….not where I wanted to take my folks on their last night in the country. When we reached Sakaide, we ended up turning down 438, which feeds into Hanzan. As that’s the bus route to and from Hanzan and where I used to, once-upon-a-time before I knew better, ride my bike to get to Sakaide station…I knew we were screwed the moment we turned on it. There’s just nothing there, for kilometers and kilometers. I tried to mention it, but it seemed to go unheard…so, figuring we’d be even more screwed if we passed it, I piped up and told them about Sumiya, our local yakiniku place. We got really lucky…there was a group leaving just as we arrived and, happily (esp. for me…it’s been ages since I’ve had it) we were able to find enough space for all seven of us. I’m pretty pleased that their dinner was something as nice as that..especially as the Sumiya’s way of heating the fire to cook everything is a little different from places like Daifuku or Goen.
We dropped Kay & Richard off after when we were finished eating (the Umesawa’s paid for that, too! Wah.) and then they dropped off me and my mom. Ridiculously, I stayed up until after midnight…and had the worst time trying to stay asleep because I was paranoid about not waking up when my alarm went off….which was set simply in order to wake mom up. I went back to bed and she woke me about twenty minutes before the taxi came. We got to Marugame station without trouble and, thankfully, so did Kay & Richard (something I took care of the night before when we dropped them off. Made sure we got a taxi ordered for them and where they’d be going). About ten minutes later (we made really good time in the car and got there thirty-five minutes before the bus ^^;), Matt J and his sister arrived! I was pretty shocked because I didn’t know she’d be leaving then, so when I initially saw him in the car, I thought I was seeing things. Once his sister and my mom/aunt/uncle were gone, his J-”mom” was nice enough to drive me to Sakaide station, where I wanted to go to pick up my bike (it’d been there since Wednesday). Not the most fun filled thing, biking back from Sakaide station at 6:00 in the morning, but I needed that bike! ;p I didn’t go to bed right away when I got home, but stayed up reading “Graceling” until around 7:30...when I finally went back to bed. I didn’t spend the rest of the day in bed, however, and I was up again at around 12:30. Lazed around for a little bit, then met up with Marty for dinner (Mos Burger) in Utazu. I will admit to buying something that is completely ridiculous for a twenty-eight year old: this adorable, sheep/monkey, hybrid looking stuffed animal. I *cough* named it Brennan, because my kinda sorta maybe monkey stuffed animal (they’re from the same line of stuffed animals) is named Booth. I know, I know, I ought to be embarrassed….and yet…I’m embarrassed that I am not embarrassed. Is that possible?
So yeah…that rounds out my time with my folks here. All in all, it was absolutely great. It was fun having them here, although a little more taxing on my language skills than I anticipated. This was mostly because I had three people wanting to ask questions and say things to others instead of one…and I was on my own. I didn’t have Jamie there to handle part of it! That said, I kinda got to talk about Japan at length, which is not really something I get to do very often (and really, I’ve learned on return trips home that people just don’t give a crap, something I didn‘t notice as much before I came…if the information you’re trying convey is much longer than a sentence ;p), so that was fun. The one minor drawback was that it was an acute reminder of how short a time I have left here and it’s terrifying and sad, even though I miss home and do look forward to being there again (I need to get on finding a job…which will help me feel far less anxious). It’s a whole jumble of emotions that I’m probably feeling overly dramatic about…people move from country to country, place to place all the time and it’s not traumatizing. ;p I suppose if the economy were better and I felt that I had more to offer potential employees…GAH. Okay, I’m not doing this in this entry anymore, because it was lovely having them and we had a fantastic time…and even though I still act far younger than my age, I do hope that my aunt and uncle were able to see me as an adult…at least somewhat (something I still suspect my oldest brother and sister-in-law are still kind of incapable of doing…I’m not saying that to be mean, just rather…a statement of fact)!