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MY TRIP TO JAPAN, OCTOBER, 2001
By: Dixie Hughes
Monday — Oct. 22
This morning we met in the hotel lobby to walk to another building (about 3 blocks away) for the first lecture. This was on a local poet, Miyazawa Kenji who is quite famous around here. A very well spoken young lady told us about his life and read a couple of his children’s stories. From there we loaded a bus and drove to city hall to meet the mayor. We had to wait a bit but enjoyed the view of the river and of the cars coming into the garage. They have to pull up onto a turntable that turns them at the right angle to go in or out. Very clever!
Then we were shown into a very nice reception room where the mayor came in to give us the official greeting (and presents — a pin and a lovely set of cloth coasters made with the local blue fabric). We even had TV coverage - made us feel pretty special.
After lunch we got on the bus and went to the local handicraft center where we watched them make cookies, candies, dye the blue fabrics — fantastic designs — and all sorts of interesting objects from wood working to metal casting. I spent too much money on really good things, of course, but it was a very well set up display of the local specialties.
Horse decorated for spring celebration
Morioka has a special festival in the spring honoring their horses for the history of assistence, so several of the museums we saw had statues of decorated horses.
After the craft place we went up in the hills to the "hot spa" which is a public bathing place. Only 7 of our group chose to participate, the rest of us rode the bus to the top of the hill, which is a local ski area. The lodge at the top was very large and had a great gift shop. To get there we went through the "snow shed" which is a pretty good sign they get a lot of it up in these hills.
We went back and picked up the bathers — they had very red faces; I guess it was quite warm water — and then finally back to the hotel just in time for 6:00 dinner.
(Incidentally, we were joined on the bus this afternoon by 7 or 8 English language students — ladies in their 30’s or 40’s — who take lessons for 2 hours every Friday from our guide Yukiko. Some of them spoke very little English, but they were all friendly and helpful.)
This hotel has three restaurants and we have to sign up for which one we want based on the menu for that meal (lunch or dinner). of course I look for the one that isn’t fish. Anyway it means we don’t all eat together but I guess the smaller groups each meal makes it better.
This evening was supposed to be a concert down at the other building but our dinner lasted so long I decided to skip it. Better to get some washing done and get caught up on my rest.
Morioka is a bigger city than I had expected — our guide, Mikiko says there are 290,000 people. They have musical cues on the street lights — it plays "If a Laddie meets a lassie coming through the rye"!
Tuesday - Oct.23
We woke up to pouring rain and had to walk the 3 blocks for our morning lecture. The front desk loans out umbrellas — pretty cool. Fascinating to watch out my window and see the men in business suits riding bicycles with an umbrella.
The lecture today was on the Climate and Folklore of the district — a fellow from Pennsylvania who has been here for 10 years; he and his wife are missionaries — talked to us. It was much easier to understand than some we have had, and he was pretty interesting. He told us that latitude wise Japan stretches from the northernmost island which is even with Toronto to the southern Okinawa which is even with Mexico City, so the varieties of climate are extreme. There are 4 main islands — Honshu is the largest. He lives in the town of Tono, which is 1 &1/2 hrs SE of Morioka. The word "tono" means "far away field" and it is famous for the "Legends of Tono" a book in which many of the old legends of the area were recorded and published. He read us several of them which are replete with Kama (female gods) that reside on mountains; ghosts; Koppa, the troll like creatures that live in water; and long nosed goblins called Tengu.
After lunch we took a bus ride with our volunteer helpers again to the Iwate Prefectural Museum which has historical and archeological displays that were very interesting. The Japanese museums we have seen seem to have many diorama and models of the historical structures which makes it easy to see.
Our next stop was at a fantastic Zen Buddist temple called Hoonji. It was built in 1394 but moved here 400 years ago. It was described as the place of the 500 deciples because of the hundreds of lifelike statues all along the walls in the one room — fantastic display. They were supposedly carved of wood by 7 sculptors in 1700’s.
The main room of the temple was set up for an upcoming funeral so had an extra display that usually isn’t there. An ornate chandelier type thing with thousands of gold bells and glittery things hung over the main room — someone mentioned it would be a real blast in an earthquake. We even saw the room with the little cushions where the monks and monk wannabes do their meditating.
After dinner was the Kimono dressing demonstration at the other hall — there were 10 or 20 lovely ladies in kimonos there to demonstrate and display the traditional wear. Only single ladies have the very long sleeves that hang down. A black kimono signifies the wearer is married. If you see a kimono with a repeat pattern, it is one of the cheaper ones; the wedding kimono often costs a million yen. At most weddings the bride must change kimonos 4 or 5 times — 2 or 3 hour ceremony at which each guest gives about 30,000 yen ($250) to help defray the wedding cost. One of the visiting ladies did a lovely dance and then everyone posed in their finery.
Wednesday — Oct. 24
A side light entertainment is the tall building they're building across from our hotel - I can look out my window each morning and watch the iron workers tight rope walk along the beams. Another small building (bar?) across the way has the set of fish on the roof to protect from fire.
Today’s lecture was on Nitobe Inago, who wrote "A Bridge Across the Pacific. Turns out one of our tour group had a great aunt who was married to him, so she was very interested in his life. He was born here but came to U.S. and married a Quaker lady; he eventually became under Sec. General of the League of Nations. I left half way through the lecture to email home about my camera shutter that won’t shut — anyway the afternoon excursion was to his museum (about 1 1/2 hrs. away) in Hanamaki.
Nitobe museum
The walk to the museum goes over a bridge that has a stream filled with the large goldfish (coy?) that Japan is famous for.
The museum had a great model of how the Nitobe family contributed to regional development of rice field cultivation. We passed many rice fields on the bus and they have banks built up around each one so they can control the irrigation. Our guide told us that rice is government controlled now and is not grown as much as in the past because many younger people prefer bread. There were also examples of sammurai armor and models of some of the large floats carried in parades
model of float carried by many celebrants
Anyway, after dinner we went down to the local English conversational school, which is in the same building as our lectures, and visited with some of the students — they were very cute, and trying very hard. I did the Mountain song for them and they seemed to like it.
Thurs - Oct. 25
Today was our big excursion - a day long bus ride to see an apple orchard and two temples. It was tiring but very interesting, Our volunteers entertained us on the bus with songs, and snacks, and stories and snacks and origami and snacks — and then we had a big lunch. Even the skinny people are feeling bloated, I think. We did learn what animal represents each year we are born in - I'm a hare. (Skip's a rat - Hmmm?)
Anyway, the first stop was at an apple orchard where they grow the big huge apples we have seen in the stores. Some of the apples are wrapped in paper so they don’t turn red, and some had a character symbolizing "happiness" stuck to them so that the part under the symbol stays white. They also had reflective sheets under the trees to make the bottoms of the apples turn red also. Pretty cool.
The next stop was for a huge lunch next to a temple. The lunch was already on the tables waiting for us — must have been 12 or 13 little plates of something on each tray. I don’t think I have known what I’ve been eating since I got here, but I try everything. The only one I really didn’t like today was some sort of deep fried tofu — most of the rest was really good.
The temple we saw next is a Buddist temple dedicated to good health (I think) — I bought a charm for hanging in the car to prevent wrecks. Never can tell when you might need some extra help.
Then back on the bus to go to the "Golden Temple" which was the first one to be declared a national treasure. It was a pretty long hike up from where the bus let us off and an even longer one back down. The temple was lovely but I especially enjoyed the crysanthemum display that was up there. Definitely some huge flowers they grow here.
Beautiful display
I liked the flowers better than the temples
We got back in time for me to email before the "farewell" dinner — our last night in Marioka. Our volunteers showed up in lovely kimonos and looked so sweet — then a drum and dance group showed up that made quite a special performance. There were 2 dancers, 6 drummers and a flute player — they are part of one of the groups that practice and play for a special festival in August. Fantastic costumes. Our volunteer helpers also sang and danced for us and we did a few songs back — we don’t know many. Of course, I had to participate with one of our camp songs — but most of them seemed to like it. It was a very long dinner though and now we have to pack for Kagoshima.
Today was our big travel day from Morioka to Kagoshima — it started very slow since we didn’t have to have our luggage out until 9:30 and on the bus at 10 for a 12:00 flight to Osaka and then wait two hours for connection to Kagoshima. So we sat around and relaxed for awhile and that gave us time to catch up on our visiting. The one guy on the tour who has been sick most of this week is enough better to travel with us but the doctor told him not to try to fly home yet. We all feel so bad for him to be spoiling his trip so badly.
Anyway, we caught the bus to the airport and ate our box lunches before we went on — easier to carry that way. This time I remembered to take my scissors out, so I made it through security just fine. It was only a one and a half hour flight to Osaka — Yukiko (our Marioka guide) went with us this time — and when we reached Osaka we explored all the shops. I got some cute little blow up paper balls for grandkids.
Then we caught the flight to Kagoshima where a bus took us an hour drive to our beautiful hotel right near the water — at least it’s sure nicer than the last one, but it was hard to tell since it was dark when we got here. Our new guide told us the fog in the sky is from ash from the local active volcano — it erupted 89 times last year! You can see a fine film on the parked cars — reminds me of the St. Helen times.
I told Mabel we could trade around so she will stay in with me, and Helen will have my single room. Since I didn’t pay for a single room, it’s only fair — besides the double rooms are much nicer with a balcony facing the water and the single rooms are on the back side with a view of the parking lot (but I didn't know that ahead of time.)
We had a nice dinner and orientation meeting — now we’re pretty tired.
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