Tsuwano

Japan is big and small. It's big when you set out to explore. But I'm constantly reminded how small it is, when our sports teams head out for the weekend. They take the bus or the shin (bullet train) to the ends of Japan, arrive the same day, play ball, and return a day later. I ought to be able to do the same.

Here I am in Yamaguchi Prefecture, southern-most in Honshu. It's here I want to explore before I head in all directions. I'm reading the Inland Sea by Richie, in preparation for heading that direction. I'm curious about central Honshu and the north. But first let's talk the West. Here on base we're told take the train. It's easier. The roads---avoid them. And anyway it's easy to see the roads don't go everywhere. Chugoku is not very wide. And yet there are not so many highways that cut across. Japan has surprisingly few highways. There's a lot of mountains in the way. The Chugoku Expressway runs down the middle of Chugoku from Osaka to Shimonoseki. Then there's highways that skirt the coast. Relatively few cut across from Inland Sea to Japan Sea. I live on the Inland Sea. I read that the Japan Sea coast is remote. And it certainly looks hard to get to. In short, I want to explore Yamaguchi, but it seems daunting. Go inland on local highways and take your life in your hands.

I've been using the Rough Guide. It tells of relatively few things in Yamaguchi-ken worth seeing. And there's huge gaps between destinations. Other guide books have even less to say. I get it in my head I want to go to Yamaguchi-shi next, that's Yamaguchi City, capitol of Yamaguchi-ken. I want to go to Tsuwano, I want to go to Hagi. The men behind the Meiji Restoration were from Yamaguchi-ken, did you know that? I want to drive across the island which is enticingly narrow down here. So off I went with a friend, Deborah, the elementary school nurse. She'd new this year, too. We both felt the same way. Life in the States was stultifying. Living in Japan is a breath of fresh air. We both miss our families, though. Her Mom's dead, my Mom is getting older. I have sisters in the states, a brother, nieces, aunts, cousins. But they're all over. One of my sisters is a Japan afficionado. She dreams of Japan. She loves sumo, ukiyo-e, kendo, early twentieth century Japanese novelists, the whole history. I also have a dream of Japan, the world-dream, the world that I find and create here.

Anyhoo, Deborah and I found and took the Sanyo Expressway from Iwakuni to Yamaguchi-shi. I'd never been on the Japanese Expressways before. I sort of had the feeling that it would be a strange and daunting adventure. Perhaps the entrances would be weird, and I'd take the wrong one, and go the wrong way. Or perhaps I might come across the end of the Earth and fall off. There might not be turnouts, rest stops, Western toilets, only Japanese toilets, mere porcelain holes in the ground, without toilet paper. Also, it was the first time I'd driven my new-used car on a road trip. The people on base here treat cars differently than people in the States. Everyone drives a used car, all of them cost about $3000, you buy one quickly. I'd bought a white 2000 Honda Capa, which was the first car I could fit in. And it allowed me to sit up without my head hitting the ceiling and see out without my eyes looking straight at the top of the windshield. In short, it reminded me somewhat of my Ford Ranger 1996. A friend of mine called it a milk truck. It's described as a sub-compact, but somehow it's roomy. I had a Daihatsu like that once. But how would the Capa drive on the highway?

It turns out that roads are roads. Once we negotiated the toll booth, which was not in English (don't get in the ETC lane), we did just fine on the Expressway. The top speed on the Expressway, and in all of Japan, is 80 km/hr. Japan is not Germany when it comes to speed limits. However, the Japanese blithely ignored them, and went 90, 100, or 120 kph. Not Johanys. The Capa seemed to swerve a little at speed, but actually handled well on curves. There were plenty of turnouts. There were big rest stops with all the amenities. There were Western toilets and toilet paper. I bought gas for double the U.S. and military rate here. It must have cost $5 or $6 per gallon. The Capa gets 40 miles to the gallon, so we drove all day and used half a tank of gas--5 gallons. We never did reach the ends of the Earth. There were lots of long tunnels. Misty mountains all around. You could see the sea off to the South. We merged with the Chugoku Expressway, got off at Ogori, took highway 9 north about 10 clicks and there we were in Yamaguchi. It took about 2 hours total. The toll was ¥26500.

Yamaguchi is a bit sleepy. Our ostensible goal there was the flea market held in a downtown park every first Sunday of the month. There must have been a hundred vendors, and hundreds of customers. There were old coins, old pottery, lots of fabric swatches which attracted the Japanese, old kimonos, old military uniforms and paraphernalia, beat up chotchkes and furniture. The stuff was pricey, and junky. A shiny Japanese bugle was ¥13,000, $125. No way. Off in one corner, an old man had a blanket on the ground and some little things, and I saw a pretty wood vase with a flower design for ¥300, less than $3. I knew it was for me. I hadn't eaten, there was a Danish stand (Japanese Danish), I asked the vendor for an apple turnover, he spoke Japanese at me rapid patter, obviously offering to cut one up and place it on the free plate for me. Two middle-age ladies were laughing at him and me. He ostentaciously offered them to me, they laughed, then he thanked me, and I thanked him back, and the ladies laughed even harder, saying, "Dozo". All very good fun. I did see a few marines in civvies, one with missing arm, looking at samurai swords. After a while the Japanese vendor chased them off roughly. One of the marines, the armless one, caught my eye and shrugged.

After we'd done the flea market, it was still morning. We ate in the downtown shopping arcade in a Japanese restaurant. We had to take off our shoes and eat at the upstairs counter overlooking the arcade, since all the tables were sit on the floor type. Each table was in its own little alcove with curtains and screens. There were wells to place your feet so you could actually sit up, but Deborah wanted a chair. The place was all wood, and we ate the typical ten-plate or bowl fixed price meal for a very good price, ¥1000. There is no tipping in Japan.

The day was young. I wanted to spend more time in Yamaguchi, but I'd come back later and meander. I hadn't told Deborah about Tsuwano or Hagi. She was disappointed with the flea market. Was she interested in further adventures? Let's go to Tsuwano! says I. Where is it? Oh, about an hour or hour and a half into the moutains. Long as you get me get home alive, says she. So we headed out of town highway 9 north. Immediately there were fewer cars. We drove along river valleys, low mountains on both sides, one narrow valley seeming to lead to another, passing pretty villages and riding along pleasant rivers. This was truly rural Japan, emerald fields, blackgreen mountains. There were lovely rest stops along rivers with multiple places to stop and eat. Eventually we entered deeper into the mountains. There were windy roads, steep ascents, cliffs at road's edge you could fall down thousands of feet. Suddenly we were there. On our left, down in a valley, off the beaten track, a small town---Tsuwano.

We headed down, under a great red torii leading precipitously into the narrow valley. Across on the other slope hundreds or thousands of gaudy vermilion toriis wound up the hill from the town to a shinto shrine high in the hills. Somewhere above the shrine was the castle. Swiftly we were down in the town. We parked at the train station. Parking is cheap in these towns, a hundred yen ($1) an hour. It was a Japanese holiday, and we saw a number of buses letting off Japanese tourists to wander the streets for a while.

The place to start looking around is Tono machi, says the guide book. Tono machi is the main street. Deborah and I wandered down it. For a while we wondered what it was that made Tsuwano so special. But then we started coming across the old buildings. The street is narrow, filled with Japanese tourists, and the old buildings are of blackened wood and white plaster with tile roofs. We entered a sake shop in an old building. Then a shop of beautiful wonders, pottery and wood and many tasteful (and expensive) souvenirs. Out the back of the shop was a lovely garden. And there was one of those tables. Most of the Japanese things I've found easy to resist. But these tables are made of a single giant slab of wood, very long, the edges rough, following the original contours of the wood. Magnificent. Weigh a ton. On base there are semi-annual bazaars to which vendors come from all over Asia, bringing antiques, chotchkes, and also these long, rough tables which are so gorgeous. Deborah agreed.

Off down the street. For a while the fun consisted of these old buildings, of which there were many. But then as we approached the river -- little rivers are everywhere in Japan -- the street was lined with narrow canals -- a meter wide -- filled with carp -- white, orange, gray -- and behind the canals, walls and gates -- and behind the walls, old samurai houses with their gardens -- a lovely stretch of road -- Deborah and I snapped picture after picture -- wandered through old blackened huge gate-doors into gardens and shrines -- there was a little gothic Catholic church -- I had been cranky during the morning -- but now I mellowed -- I felt happy, at peace -- I felt wonderful really -- it was hard to say why -- and I didn't need to -- I felt lovely -- I asked Deborah hadn't we mellowed -- well you're more wide awake, she said -- evidently she wasn't feeling the same -- I was carried back to some other time - this is why you come to Tsuwano -- there's magic in the air -- we came to the bridge -- there's neat stuff on the other side, too -- but I'll be back -- we needed to head back -- so as not to be driving in unknown mountains on little highways for the first time in the dark -- but our eye was caught by a great stone torii guarding the entrance to a little alley lined with shops on one side, disappearing around a corner, with a pretty shrine roof visible back there somewhere -- we thought we'd just check it out before turning back -- I found another little present -- the most lovely small pottery bowl of red clay with a glaze to die for -- translucent, celadon over the red clay, become many colors, cracked, not ¥30,000, like the ones in the old store, but ¥500! I bought one. The bowl is so beautiful it makes me want to be a better person. We wandered down the alley. At the end of it, a smaller stone torii leading into a garden along the river. To our right the alley went past the shrine, a stone wall, a wooden building, what looked like a bronze roof. I stayed and took pictures out front. Deborah wandered in and never emerged. I waited and waited. I surmised she'd found glories. But I didn't want to see them yet. Next trip. It was time to go. I wandered back up the alley. I sat and waited outside the little souvenir store. Finally I went looking for her. She came around the back of the shrine. "You've got to come see this."--"I knew you'd found glories," I said. But I wouldn't go see. I think this shrine in the valley is connected via the toriis to the shrine way up the mountain. She'd found something. It awaits my return. We took a parallel street back the way we'd come.

A note on the carp. They outnumber the humans 10 to 1. They were originally placed there as a food reserve against famine.

We were the only non-Japanese there all day -- till the end near the shrine another couple -- out here the Japanese look at you - even in the arcade in Yamaguchi the women would look at us and laugh and talk excitedly to their companions -- some would bow and laugh in a nice way -- one woman passed us by and said, "Good morning" -- Deborah said the men really looked her over -- I don't think I got as many looks -- Japanese women are many of them thin -- Deborah is shapely -- but we both got looks that we don't get in Iwakuni or in larger cities

Ogai Mori's house is in Tsuwano.

Do they speak English out there? Not so much. Or, no.

Then came the difficult part -- driving two hours straight across Honshu. At one point we were ten clicks from the Japan Sea. But we turned the other way, took highway 187 winding through the mountains. This time there were no rest stops, to towns, just a few hamlets, mountains, and windy roads. About half way across we entered the valley of the Nishiki river and followed it for miles home to Iwakuni. There came a sea change in the feel of things. In the middle, toward the Japan Sea, there had been a sense of peace and beauty. Now that evaporated. There was something meaner as we drove along the Nishiki toward Iwakuni. Eventually we saw the sign for the Sanyo Expressway, which was where we'd gotten on twelve hours before. We had made a big circle. The whole road back took two hours. It was six o'clock, dark. I wanted a meal to cap off our experience, but Deborah was exhausted and I dropped her off at her quarters. I dined alone at the club, reading the Inland Sea by Donald Richie.