Japan Trip 1014 to the END

We fly/flew to the USA 10/18. SO final Blog for a bit (unless one of you two says something).

Link to photos (again hope to clean the photos up one day): https://photos.app.goo.gl/HYNeJsKfwk4f96reA

Neat link to a 3D map of Tokyo (and surrounding) zoom in pan tilt this one! Click on a moving train and get real time info!: https://minitokyo3d.com/

Jess” words:

Some thoughts from the train/bus/train trip from Tsuruoka to Yamagata:  I felt, enclosed as we were in still-green forests which clothe the mountains from head to heel, and advance to the train line, and crawl over anything untended, that the whole of the forest was one living organism.  And I tried to feel how that forest felt about humans, their roads, their cities, their quarries:  what I finally figured out was that the humans were part of the organism, not interlopers on a virgin forest or fighting nature tooth and nail, but more a part of the whole.  Up until then I had thought that Japanese became excellent gardeners in self-defense, to fend off the inroads of the green, but I began to believe that their elaborate tree-trimmings and trained, formal gardens were more of a whimsical dance with the green as their partner, as they are part and party of the spirit of the land.  Kami make a lot more sense in that view.

So, after a day of rest, we came to Yamagata and took a light stroll around the foundations of yes, another castle.  We have been greeted by school children sheparded by their teachers, we have been hailed by young men coming out of the park from practicing badminton, who wanted to practice their English.  It’s interesting to be recognized as strangers and greeted as welcome visitors. 

In Tsuruoka, where we went for a day’s tour of the museum that was hosting a sword exhibit as well as local boats, handcrafts, and a whole farmhouse packed up and moved to the museum. . .wonderful stuff.  If you were a Japanese farmer and needed something, you made it, from woven mats to plows and everything in between. 

After the museum we went and found food, at a lunch place solely inhabited by the owner/also the cook.  We struggled with the usual communication issues, and then another patron came in, a woman who teaches Japanese to, currently, Malaysian students.  They don’t want to learn Japanese, in part because of the multiple writing systems, when they already have both English and the English alphabet. . .I feel the pain on both ends of the equation.  She was a friend of the owner, who, it turns out, also publishes an annual booster book for the region, and whose daughter is a judo coach.  WE passed on a much admired Denver Judo patch.

The Japanese are a frugal people:  among the foods we have been fed have been burdock root, and most interestingly (from this cook’s perspective) what’s left of the soybean after it has been cooked and squeezed for soy milk to turn into tofu. None of it was bad.  Most of it was interesting in taste, texture, and aroma. 

Back to Yamagata, our current locale:  Another small Japanese hotel room, compared to our sprawl in an eight tatami room in the marvelous Tamokan guest house in Haguro Machi.  We came here for the express purpose of visiting Yamadera, home of a monastery on top of, yes, another thousand or so stone steps.  These stone steps were wide and made of a rough volcanic stone as opposed to the last set of slippery steps.  The ascent is wonderful, through cedars and other trees, up stone cliffs, with be-aproned statues of gods and buddhas all through the climb, and a spectacular view at one end of the top, and a spectacular monastery and temple at the other end.  There was also one of the ubiquitous drinks vending machines up there.  I have no idea how they keep it stocked.

Tomorrow we are proceeding halfway (or less) to Kyoto, just to keep from doing it all in one day.  Then we’ll spend our last two days in Kyoto before going for the next long flight back to the states.

More when next I get to the computer.

Jim’s comments:

FIN FIN FIN tired FIN