Birthday and Beyond

If you had asked as recently as a month or two ago what I would be doing on my 71st birthday I wouldn't have thought that I might be having the best sushi I've ever tasted, Nodoguro, in Gyogyomaru, which is an izakaya (a Japanese pub) in Kanazawa. I don't know why that wouldn't have occurred to me, but hey, I'm just guessing. The chef (below) presented the Nodoguro sushi to me as a birthday present. According to Ayano, our guide, it's a very expensive sushi.

Below, the Nodoguro. And some ginger.

Elizabeth also presented me with a present, wrapped Japanese style, of sushi eraseres (a hot item for shoppers in this group) and chocolate almonds.

We visited several mountain villages today. One was a community center where we learned the traditional method of making sticky rice. You basically pound the crap out of it with a sledgehammer until it's a sticky, gooey, blob. An assistant, usually a woman for some reason, reaches into the wooden bowl between bone-crushing blows and flops the blob around.

After several of us tried our hand at pulverizing the rice, we sampled it (below). Very sticky. Warning: eat slowly so you won't choke to death. Unbelievably sticky and gummy. Scary stuff. It's a popular New Years dish. According to our guide, someone dies every New Year's Eve because they didn't eat it slow enough. From my experience I would suggest taking tiny bites and chewing each one for at least two hours.

At least the sticky rice made most other Japanese food seem normal and mainstream. Even so, here's Ayano at our lunch destination in another village explaining what the heck everything is on our plate. This is a ritual that happens every meal. She's very patient and kind. We love her.

The village restaurant staff performed a traditional dance for us.

Some of the staff provided the music for the dance.

Ayano, our guide, joined in.

As we boarded our bus, the owner and the entire staff came out to wave goodbye. 

We visited a traditional paper making shop and we each made three postcards. I'll use mine for sketching later.

Paper making in progress.

Robin uses the bus mirror to adjust some new earrings bought in the gift shop.

Thatched roofs are common in some of the mountain villages.

A village shop.

A traditional village house, 400 years old.

This man did a traditional dance for us.

Elizabeth has a traditional way of talking people out of their stuff. The man is hold a traditional percussion instrument. 

A view of a famous World Heritage village. We didn't have time to drive down to this village, and it was raining, so we headed back to Kanazawa.

Kanazawa Kimona

A quick post before our group goes to a Japanese pub for dinner, and to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I'm pretty sure our group are the only people in Japan that knows it's St. Patrick's Day, but in a couple of hours I'm pretty sure a few Japanese pub patrons will not only know it's St. Patrick's Day, but they'll also know it's my 71st birthday. Friend Elizabeth has started the celebration early by bringing a bottle of  Vodka & Diet Coke to our room. Sake soon to follow. 

Today we went to a Geisha shop part of town. Kanazawa has three Geisha areas. The one we visited is the oldest, with six Geisha shops. I never realized I like shopping. But really, the Geishas are very respectable these days. Dammit. No birthday or senior discounts either. Curses.

Robin San

My fine art work is now in what you might call my Japanese Period. In this early example I used the ancient draw-on-shaky-train technique. I didn't have a Wi-Fi connection on the train, so I couldn't research the outfit. So just pretend that the lovely subject, Robin San, has some sort of Geisha decorations in her hair instead of Comanche arrows or chopsticks stuck in her head. This Japanese style is easier than I thought. Also notice that, being a student of Japanese culture, I was able to include Mt. Fuji in the drawing. This stuff just practically draws itself. Maybe I'll call on some galleries while I'm here.

John San

On to Kanazawa

Before leaving Hakone this morning we had a western style breakfast at the hotel, shown below. Western style basically means no raw fish. I figured that one out all by myself. It also means knife, fork, and spoon instead of chopsticks. I had my heart set on biscuits and gravy, but reality showed up in the form of corn chowder, corn on the cob, and two egg shaped things.

Ayano gives us instructions before we board the train to Kanazawa.

Our first train of the day was a bullet train. Very comfortable. Very fast. Very smooth. Very quiet. Not only was the train quiet, the occupants were very quiet also. Talking was discouraged. Might disturb the quiet locals who are quite conservative. No mobil phone chatter. Whenever a train staff person leaves the train car to enter the next car, he/she turns around and bows to the people in the car he/she is leaving.

I downloaded a map of Japan so the GPS on my phone would show where we are, even with cellular service turned off (Airplane mode). The blue dot shows the location of our train as we head towards Nagoya where we switch trains and head north to Kanazawa.

If you drop your hat, you should ask a train station attendant to retrieve it for you. I pretty amazed you'd have to suggest that to people.

A quick, random photo shot from the train window.

More Hakone

Hokone, which I thought was the name of the town we're in, is actually this area that Mt. Fuji is in. I think. Not sure. Today we traveled by bus to a lake near Mt. Fuji, visited a Japanese art museum, took a ferry across the lake to a very nice hotel for a fabulous buffet lunch, then visited an Open Air Museum that was basically a magnificent sculpture garden that included a Picasso museum.

In the small town we're staying in, there's a famous private school for girls. During the war many families that had money moved here or bought a second home here for safety from bombing raids in Tokyo. Some of the school girls today are from Tokyo and take the train daily to this school, about a 1.5 hour ride one-way. This morning we were walking through town when a train stopped and these girls got off and walked toward the school. 

We passed a local tofu shop where fresh tofu was being made, from Canadian soy beans.

The weather made a magnificent recovery from yesterday's snow storm. The sky was crystal clear and Mt. Fuji was brilliant white with fresh snow. 

Our ferry ride across the glassy smooth lake took about 30 minutes. The ferry was almost empty, an advantage of traveling this time of year. This is Bob and Ann from Seattle. Mt. Fuji, in the background, was obscured by clouds just an hour later. 

Elizabeth and Robin on the bow of the ferry, with some sort of pirate-themed ferry in the background.

The Picasso Museum, located on the grounds of the Open Air Museum, held a great collection of Picasso paintings, pottery, ceramics, and prints. Very inspiring. Favorite Picasso quotes seen in the museum: "Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why do we love the night, the flowers, everything around us without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people think they have to understand." Also: "To copy others is necessary. But to copy oneself is pathetic."

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a shop that created a certain style and technique of wood inlay art in 1892. This man is the 7th generation of his family to own this shop.

The inlay technique involve and ingenious method of creating wood patterns and slicing thin veneers of wood from a master block.

Our group watches a demo of the technique. They might look bored, but they were really fascinated. Really. After the demo, the shop sold quite a few products.

Tomorrow we bus to a train station, take a bullet train and eventually end up in Kanazawa.

Raw Fish

Raw fish is very popular here. Not just for sushi, but for every dish. Very popular. I finally realized that what's actually happening here is a Japanese government plot to turn Americans into Japanese. But I won't really believe it's working unless we start wearing Kimonos. 

OhMyGod, It is working!

Going with the flow, I'm relaxing in my kimono and drawing with my favorite Sushi Pen, wondering when this Japanese thing will wear off.

Mt Fuji and Hakone

Today our bus took us to the Mt. Fuji Visitor Center, then to the hot springs resort town of Hakone where we'll stay for two nights, with a side-trip thrown in tomorrow.

They say that the Mt. Fuji Visitor Center observation floor usually offers a great view of Mt. Fuji. A snow storm kept that from happening.

A tourist contemplates "Snow Falling on Cedars."

The drive from the Mt. Fuji Visitor Center to Hakone took a lot longer than planned: winding and slippery mountain roads. Watching a movie about Geishas on the DVD screen helped pass the time.

View from the bus window as we creep along the snow packed highway. Notice the "Snow on Cedar" theme we got going here. Also some kind of critter crossing warning.

-

More from the Snow-on-Cedar genre. Not a great shot, but hey, it's from a moving bus.

Our room in Hakone is nice and roomy.