If you made it all the way through my first post on Tokyo, then thank you! This second post corresponds roughly to the second week of Sanaë’s and my honeymoon in the Fuji five lakes region, Kamakura, Kanazawa, and the Noto Peninsula.
Soba with a view
The Fuji lakes region is an easy 2.5 hour bus ride from the center of Tokyo. The first hour of the drive is through dense urban sprawl, and I’m reminded again of the size of this whale of a city. I was rewarded at the end of the journey with a meal of cold soba and a beautiful view of Fuji behind Lake Kawaguchi. Sanaë had fallen ill, maybe from our endless trekking around Tokyo the previous couple of days, but she was still able to enjoy the sight. How I wish we had nature like this, two short hours outside of NYC!
Fuji
Fuji is the most enchanting mountain I’ve ever seen. At 3800m it’s not the biggest, but it is very prominent above the hilly countryside that surrounds it. What makes it so majestic are the gentle slopes leading to its summit. Sanaë compared it to a sideways breast, its snow-capped nipple peeking above the clouds. We were lucky enough to see it at all times of day and night.
My guide for a morning forest walk the following day proudly explained that he had climbed Fuji 600 times and expected to climb it another 400 before he died! He typically climbs in sports attire, but sometimes wears a white cloak and climbs on pilgrimage. He showed us a photo, and it didn’t look nearly as convenient as Gore Tex.
Forest bathing
Japanese has an incredibly rich vocabulary to describe concepts related to trees and forests. “Shinrin-yoku” means forest bathing, and I enjoyed all of its therapeutic benefits shortly after sunrise. I was in the Jukai forest, which translates to “Sea of trees.” The forest stands on top of a lava flow dating back to Fuji’s last eruption in 864CE. The iron in the hardened lava can reorient compasses (and GPS) if the device is held low to the ground, so if you’re trekking in Jukai, don’t do your compass readings lying down. Some hikers recommend bringing tape, like “le petit poucet” using pebbles to find his way back.
More ominously, the forest is nicknamed Suicide Forest, and apparently deserves its moniker. Over 100 bodies were found in 2003, which is an incredible number for just 30 square kilometers of forest. Volunteers roam the dense forest to recover the bodies for proper burial. When they come across campers, they gently urge them to leave the forest, assuming that they may be weighing whether to end their lives. Jukai’s reputation is a long time in the making. It may have played host to the tragic practice of ubasute, literally “abandoning an old woman” or the practice of abandoning elders to die in desolate areas during lean times. More recently, the forest was featured in the 1993 Japanese book The complete suicide manual, a bestseller with over 1 million copies sold. Japan does have a notoriously high suicide rate, but it has fallen significantly in recent years and is now on par with Finland and the USA (though still in the top 30 countries worldwide).
Happy travelers
We have been so fortunate to be able to take this trip together! Every day has brought its new fill of wonder, beauty, surprise, confusion, and deliciousness.
Tsunami alert
In both Kamakura and on the Noto Peninsula, elevation markers are a common sight along the shoreline, and signs like this one indicate the nearest elevation gain to run toward during emergencies. We were surprised to learn that tsunamis are relatively common in the Sea of Japan, and not just on Japan’s east coast facing the Pacific Ocean.
Tsunami roughly translates to “harbor wave.” Not as creative as “forest bath,” but it does the job. I had not realized how hard tsunamis can be to detect and to give advance warning for. In the open ocean, a large tsunami might only elevate the water surface 1ft, while spanning an incredible 100km. It can travel as fast as a jet plane, traversing the Pacific in a day or less. Japanese children undergo earthquake and tsunami drills as early as pre-school. All cell phones are equipped with an alert system that will buzz a precious few seconds before an earthquake hits. I had previously read that critical systems are connected to the country’s 800 or so detection stations, automatically stopping elevators and bullet trains and preventing ER room doctors from commencing new surgeries when a quake hits.
Beach goers
In Kamakura, we went for an early morning walk on the beach before the temples opened. Sanaë tells me that these big black crows, which are everywhere in Tokyo, are highly intelligent and will attack humans that get too close. Sanaë’s grandmother tried to touch one when she was starting to lose her mind in old age, and she got pecked on the forehead for her troubles! I did not know this when I shimmied in close for this shot. Sanaë also tells me the crows remember human faces up for up to nine years, and can tell if you’re wearing a mask.
Buddha in the cold
During the 13th century, Kamakura was the biggest city in Japan. Today, it’s a seaside surf town and a welcome escape from Tokyo, only an hour away by train. This massive Buddha was previously housed in a big temple. The temple was washed away during a 15th century tsunami, but the Buddha survived both that and more recent earthquakes. It’s either very auspicious, very heavy, or both. I also loved the arrangement of small gardens and temples at the Hasedera complex nearby.
Kawaii!
Kids in Japan are really cute. Sanaë tells me one of her regrets marrying me is how little pigment I bring to the genetic table. Sorry. Also, look at that teeny coke bottle!
Futons and buckwheat pillows
Sanaë and I really love Japanese beds. The mattresses are always very hard, and the quilts are very thick. Traditional ryokan inns set the futons directly on the tatami floors. In some places, the pillows are filled with hulls from buckwheat seeds—the original memory foam!
Omicho market
After Kamakura, we took the bullet train across the “Japanese Alps” to Kanazawa, on the Sea of Japan. Our first stop in Kanazawa was the covered market (Omicho Market) which featured a lot of the fresh seafood the region is renowned for. We saw eels, huge oysters, urchins (“uni”), and other seamongers. A lot of stands had the hanging change baskets in the first shot, convenient for quickly serving customers. Those unfortunate crabs in the second shot were still alive on the ice. At the vegetable stand in the third shot, the shopkeeper must have misted his produce at least ten times while we waited in line for a croquette (“korokke”). In fairness to him, his produce was beautiful. Look at those squash and beans: I can’t decide whether to be horrified about the individual plastic wraps we see in stores everywhere, or thrilled about the small portions sizes that presumably reduce food waste.
Olympics
Look at this beautiful origami in time for Japan’s 2020 summer Olympics. The Olympics will take place around Tokyo, on Hokkaido—the northernmost Japanese island—and in Fukushima, the epicenter of 2011’s nuclear disaster. I’m sure the event will bring much needed tourism dollars to that region. Some of the events will take place in new venues, and others will occur in the older stadiums that previously hosted the 1964 Games. Those Games were an important milestone for Japan, raising the curtain on 20 years of incredible economic growth following wartime devastation.
Most importantly, the 1964 Olympics were hosted in October, not July like the upcoming ones, and this difference is mired in some controversy. Tokyo summers are hot and humid, and heatstroke is not uncommon among more vulnerable populations. It is widely rumored that the July timeframe was chosen to cater to US television networks who bring in the bulk of Olympic revenue. Are event organizers putting athletes and spectators at risk to ensure the largest and most profitable TV audiences? Crazier things have happened. Japan is experimenting with some remedies, including artificial snow cannons to spray on spectators. But test participants were reportedly soaked after a few minutes… some fine tuning is necessary.
Baseball
A recent survey found that baseball is the most popular sport in Japan, far ahead of soccer and sumo wrestling, which tied for the #2 spot. Baseball in Japan is an American import, but by no means a recent one. It was played as early as the 1870s during the Meiji Restoration, when Japan underwent a regime change and rapidly transitioned from a policy of deliberate isolation to one of studying and adopting a number of ideas popular in the west spanning everything from industry and representative government to the arts and empire building.
Kanazawa’s trees
Look at how much help this gorgeous pine is getting! We really enjoyed Kanazawa’s Kenroku-en garden. The name means “Garden of the Six Sublimities,” and it has the enviable distinction of being one of Japan’s three “perfect” gardens. What are the Six Sublimities, you ask? They work in pairs: Spaciousness & seclusion; artifice & antiquity; abundant water & panoramas. Or, my somewhat more accessible translation: a garden that looks beautiful in all four seasons, and from any vantage point. It’s interesting to me that the French and Japanese both have a historical penchant for manufacturing very manicured landscapes, but each culture expresses such different aesthetic values through their gardens.
Work crew
It takes hard work to maintain the Six Sublimities! If you look closely, you’ll notice that these three gentlemen are quite elderly. We were struck by how often people doing manual labor seem old enough to be well into their retirement years. Earlier this year, the government considered increasing the retirement age from 65 to 70 or even 75.
This older workforce was especially visible on the Noto Peninsula, where we saw a lot of road construction crews. In the town of Wajima, we saw firsthand some of the challenging demographics at play in Japan: The population of 30k has fallen 40% in 45 years, and is likely to continue falling with half of the current population aged 65 or older.
Bath pics
Baths are very popular here, so we thought we’d take some bath portraits!
Drive-thru
An unusual feature of the Noto Peninsula is the Chirihama driveway, a 10km strip of beach that’s packed down and safe to drive on. I was a little stressed (and Sanaë a little more so) that at some critical moment, I would forget to drive on the left side of the road. But it wasn’t a problem. The speed limits, at least on the Noto Peninsula, are very slow. Some roads were limited at 30km/h, substantially slower than Usain Bolt’s sprint (possibly mine too?).
We ran into some trouble with the police, which some of my less charitable friends will say was inevitable. The fault: not stopping at a railroad crossing. In my defense, there was no stop sign! The police took well over half an hour to issue our ticket. They wanted to know my profession, whether this was my first time to Japan, last night’s hotel and tonight’s hotel… Passports had to be photocopied; names had to be written out on four different forms; it was painfully slow. The upshot: I’ve never seen handwriting quite as neat and precise as this officer’s. I had ample time to study it as I pointed and attempted to explain why the middle names on my passport appear as initials in my drivers license.
Fire chief
On Noto, we ran into a team of firefighters practicing their rappel down a cliffside for emergency response. The chief wasn’t too busy to chat with us for a few minutes. When we mentioned we were visiting from NYC, his first question was what we thought of the Yankees!
Wild Noto
We both loved Noto, and would gladly spend a little more time there. It’s one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever done, and I’d love to come back with a bicycle. The rugged wilderness and small towns were a welcome contrast with the endless concrete of Tokyo. The Noto coastline is all sharp cliffs, uninviting especially in foul weather. But drive a mere kilometer from the coast and you find yourself in rolling hills densely covered with pine trees and alpine flowers, sprinkled with wooden dwellings reminiscent of Alp chalets. It’s as though two of my favorite regions of France, Bretagne and the Jura, had crashed together in an area only slightly larger than Cape Cod.
Ferry stop
This man checks the ticket for the small tourist boat at the Ganmon Cave—it’s a leisurely job in the off season! We didn’t see any other tourists in the spacious food hall / visitor center. The happy musical jingles were playing just for us and the lone cashier. Perhaps the tourists are all already on the boat?
Noto market
Look at that octopus in the morning market at Wajima. The market runs up a main street in this small town and features abundant fresh seafood and fruit (especially persimmon) in simple and well kept stands. Nearly all are run by elderly folks. One stand sold a surprisingly beautiful assortment of freshly baked and delicious (we checked!) French breads and pastries.
Fishing on the cliff
I really wanted to ask this man what he was fishing for, 100 feet up from the surf, but we were running late to return the car and besides, I wasn’t entirely confident in my ability to scramble over to him and back in one piece.
