Day 20 &21 in Japan: Ao Kigahaura etc



The long weekend derailed my one-post-on-Japan-a-day project, and I missed writing up Day 20 yesterday, so today I'll squeeze two days into one post.

On our 20th day in Japan, we caught the Retro Bus from Kawaguchiko to Saiko, another of the five lakes of Fuji (ko means lake), and went for a longish walk through the Kigahaura forest.





The blurb we picked up at the tourist office said that this forest, indeed the whole area, is absolutely splendid in cherry blossom time, and again in October when the maple trees put on their autumn fire. In September there are mushrooms, it said, trying to make that sound just as spectacular. In fact, it was a beautiful walk, which we had all to ourselves, presumably because what other tourists were still visiting the area were disregarding the warnings and climbing Mount Fuji, or visiting the various caves mentioned in the hand-outs. We skipped the caves, preferring the fresh air and exercise. We did see some fungus.



We had a late lunch in a noodle place back at Kawaguchiko. This photo doesn't hint at the exhausted look of the woman who took the orders, cooked, served and cleaned up. Not does it convey the after-the-storm feel of this room: a group of about 20 cheerful young people were leaving just as we arrived. We asked one of the men to recommend a kind of noodle to us -- he called out to a woman who, presumably, was known for her skills with English, and she recommended a dish which turned out to be excellent when the exhausted woman brought it to us.


That evening, the waiter from the hotel's restaurant saw us squinting at the map in the entryway that showed good places to eat. He explained that many if not most of them were shut, and drew us a sketch showing how to find a good place with Japanese food. Pleased to have guidance on the matter, we set out and found the place without too much trouble. We were the only guests in a tiny establishment. The waiter explained that there was only Japanese food and no English menu, and met our pathetic attempts to ask for guidance with puzzlement. Her face lit up when I asked if there was a set menu. 'Ah, set!' she said, and brought us a small tupperware container containing several small skewers with chicken on them. That looked fine, so we that's what we'd have. she looked a bit dubious, but passed on our order. It turned out that we got four small skewers each, one of which had chicken skin on it that was to be dipped in a small bowl of teriyaki sauce. Two had chicken meat, which was tasty though not plentiful. The fourth was gristle. I ate mine. It was gristly. Not our most successful meal -- and no self-respecting japanese would have thought of it as a anything more than a snack to accompany a beer. (Penny at least had a beer with hers. If ever I was going to be tempted to let alcohol past my lips, that evening may have been the occasion.)

On day 21, we hired bikes and rode around Lake Kawaguchiko. It's the one on the right in the little map above. This was just fabulous -- through lavender fields; past a flotilla of boats equipped with tiny outboards, each with one person on it, standing or sitting on a high stool, and all bearing the insignia of the Kawaguchiko fishing college; through a couple of tunnels. We stopped under a tree while Penny drew and I read. It was a day straight out of George Herbert, 'so cool, so calm, so bright, the bridle of the earth and sky'.



We stopped briefly at another paper doll museum. At first glance these dolls, all the work of Eiko Takagi, were not a patch on the one we'd seen two days earlier: the figures were smaller and didn't have faces or articulated hands. But what they lacked in specifics they made up for in their sense of life and action, particularly in a series of tableaux showing children's games -- blind man's buff, hide and seek, tiggy, and a game called rear-end sumo in which two children stand back-to-back on a box of some sort and try to knock each other off using only their bottoms, while others stand around barracking.



As well as the permanent doll exhibition, the museum was showing some wonderful works by a man by the name of Masahiko Matsumoto, though I may have noted that down incorrectly, as I can't find him on the web anywhere. His works were delicate paper collages, mainly of family life. As it happened I received an email from Tohby Riddle a day or two after seeing this exhibition, announcing publication of his new book Nobody Owns the Moon, and realised that part of the charm of these works was that they reminded me of the images Tohby has been creating in recent years, particularly in The School Magazine four or five years ago.

We stopped off for lunch at a place we'd seen the day before. It turned out to be another one-woman show, but this one was a little way out of town and much smaller than the other. Our hostess greeted us with the now familiar, 'Only Japanese food,' but when we looked pleased with the news, she relaxed and showed us to a seat by a window.



And after a longish wait, enlivened only by the sweetness of the view and the cool jazz on the audio (as was often the case in pleasant eating establishments everywhere we stayed in Japan), she brought us a delicious lunch. Not only was it delicious, but like so many other meals it was served up like a piece of art:


Posted: Sun - October 5, 2008 at 05:00 PM           |

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