Encounter with a samurai
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2010
1
14
41
Trip End
Nov 22, 2010
Kakunodate, Tohoku, Japan
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
After the difficulties yesterday in trying to find the right place to exchange my rail pass voucher, everything today worked out perfectly - found the right trains, didn't miss any (yes, yes, I know there's a bet out there as to how many trains I'd miss ;-) I was amazed again about how well the Japanese shinkansen work - the places where the doors of the cars are are marked on the platform, car numbers are displayed on the platform so that you can queue up exactly where the doors of your car will open... As a result, it really just takes a minute or two for everybody to get off and board... The Japanese travel light, I realized today - this may also be because they are only going on short trips (even though they may be for a few hundred kms). The luggage compartment was tiny in any case and with my big bag (which I had difficulties closing, I must have bought a lot more than I thought in Tokyo...) and two suitcases it was full...
Again, a little food comment - at the stations there are plenty of places that sell bento boxes of all kinds - and my God, was my bento yummie!
My trip took me up North to Tohoku, the Northern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. I went past Morioka, which some of you may remember hosted a ski worldcup back in the 90s. The whole trip took about 3.5 hours and after an hour the train had really left urban Japan behind and I got wonderfully scenic views of mountain ranges and farmland. Leaves have only started turning colours, so I might be a little early for that... Most interesting about the train ride - the girls selling drinks and food as well as the train attendants bow at the entrance of the car before coming in and when leaving (leaving is particularly interesting, since they have to turn back to face the passengers for that)... The Japanese don't seem to notice, i always felt this urge to bow back (which would be totally silly while sitting on my seat, but hey)
Arrived in Kakunodate early afternoon - and was immediately hit by the cold. Tokyo was a nice sunny 18 degrees in the morning when I left, but here it can't have been more than 10, with rain and an icy wind... Tohoku region is known for meters and meters of powder snow - on one mountain they do a ski race at the end of June (and it is NOT a glacier!) And after today, I believe all that... Tohoku is quite an isolated region, particularly the Northern part where I am, so the contrast with Tokyo could not be bigger. Kakunodate has about 30,000 inhabitants, but it feels like a village. It has several streets with original samurai houses from the 17th century - most of them are just private residences, some allow you to walk around their gardens, two were turned into small museums and one opened three rooms for guided visits. The whole tour around the town was a bit strange, as I was the only longnose tourist and most other people walking through the houses were ladies wearing kimonos (not sure if it is common for Japanese tourist groups to travel in kimonos, but there were at least 2 big groups - and I kept wondering, did they not have cold feet since they only wore socks and sandals?) Anyway, in the last house I was shown around by the son of the family, a direct descendent of the samurai family that has owned the house for hundreds of years - so technically, he's a samurai too! He did not seem very comfortable with his English and did not only make his comments orally but had them written down in very large font size on paper as well, which he held up for me to read while he was speaking... Very bizarre, but then, I was so happy to be given an English tour that I did not mind - in most other places I was unable to read anything since everything was in Japanese only. The junior samurai told me that his family had traditionally been accountants (samurais have not been fighting for a long time since Japan did not have any wars for hundred years or so until the feudal system - and with that the samurai status - got abandoned) - and accountants were apparently very high in the ranking of samurais, so the house of the accountant samurai was the biggest in town.
However, being a samurai apparently did not mean that one would be rich, and many samurais needed to earn a little extra - and started producing items out of cherry bark. Could have bought half the shops but reigned myself in considering my full bag...
That I am now really in rural Japan was obvious again when I went out for dinner - the town was totally quiet (as small towns are on a Tuesday evening). Finding a place to eat entailed the usual difficulties of not being able to read the signs (is this a restaurant?) - but I don't care that much about embarrassing myself anymore (I don't know how to behave according to Japanese customs anyway) so just went into a place that I thought might be a restaurant - and yes, it was! Well, "restaurant" is a big word - let's say it is the village tavern where people sit at the counter and watch telly... I had the local specialty there - kiritampo nabe (which turned out to be a chicken soup with something that I later checked on the internet is newly harvested rice pounded into a paste and then charcoal grilled before added to the soup, and chicken, mushrooms, spring onions and some green grass vegetable) accompanied by 5 side dishes - edamame beens, Japanese pickles (among others a tiny eggplant - wow, was that good!), some radish with a green vegetable that I did not know, some mushrooms with again sth that I did not know - all in all, a feast - and that for just 1500 yen (approx 12.5 Eur)
But like every small town, nothing much to do here after dinner (and dinner in rural Japan is early, restaurants close at 8!) My neighbour in the hotel is already fast asleep and snoring away happily...
