Lift Up Your Hearts!

For years we slept on a mattress on the floor, and we've always enjoyed camping, but both of us found it hard to sleep the first night. I think it had less to do with the futon and more to do with jet lag, but for whatever reason, both of us were awake much of the night. I also discovered that whatever body chemicals turn off bladder activity at "night" are basing their timekeeping on something other than darkness and desire for sleep. Nonetheless, we felt much better in the morning, so we must have slept a reasonable amount.

Porter was up first and turned on the kerosene heater, so the living room was toasty when the rest of us arose. We saw a little of Mt. Fuji through the balcony window, though it is far enough away to be mostly obscured while the nearer mountains were clear and beautiful. Janet lives in a valley with mountains all around—very handy for getting your bearings in a strange town. Porter and Janet found them very useful that way; being rather directionally challenged, I at least found them very beautiful.

Janet made us a traditional Japanese breakfast this morning: rice, miso soup (with tofu and pumpkin), and a delicious Japanese omelet called tamagoyaki. Since her lunches and dinners are almost always Japanese, she usually eats a more Western-style breakfast, but this was definitely a worthwhile experience. It's helpful to be reminded that many cultures do not sharply distinguish breakfast from other meals the way we do.

It could have been a disaster, but was not: while brushing my teeth this morning, one of my teeth simply fell out! Although the timing could have been better, it was not totally unexpected. The tooth represented one of my first crowns, and my only root canal, and back in November the crown had come off. When the dentist re-cemented it, she commented that there was not much tooth left to hold the crown, and next time a bridge would be required. I was hoping for more than four months' grace, but am grateful it broke off cleanly with no pain and only a small rough edge that would be fine if I could keep my tongue away from it, so we didn't have to seek out emergency dental care in Japan.

Our next adventure was a walking tour of Ryuo. The name of her town I found to be one of the most difficult Japanese words to pronounce. It means "Dragon King" and the closest I could get to the correct pronunciation was "lieu-oh." With some of the native speakers the initial consonant sounds more like a "d," but thinking of it as a "d" makes the pronunciation worse. We English speakers have a habit of saying that the Japanese can't pronounce "r," but they have just as good a case for saying that we can't pronounce that letter. Regardless of pronunciation, the tour of the town was lovely. We walked through Janet's neighborhood, observing the houses with their tile roofs, a few with solar energy devices, futons airing ubiquitously.

Water and land are not wasted on lawns here, but many homes have large garden plots. These are watered through a system of irrigation ditches that run from the river and along most streets. Now when Janet had mentioned the risk of falling into a ditch while riding her bike, I had pictured an America-style ditch, vegetation-covered soil with sloping sides. Wrong. These are concrete, rectangular, and deep, a true hazard for unwary drivers, bike riders, and pedestrians. In some places they are covered, but mostly they are open, unguarded trenches along the roadside.

I wonder if it worries the homeowners that they are watering their rice and vegetables with water that is well mixed with road runoff, not to mention the trash that accumulates in the ditches. In pre-automotive days, whatever washed into the system was probably good for fertilizer, but I'd be concerned about toxic contaminants now.

On our walk we visited the City Hall, the library where Janet had first met her friend Niko, the local shrine, and a beautiful park with model Japanese gardens and walking paths through labeled (in Japanese, of course) trees and plants. It was too hazy for a view of Mt. Fuji, but the Minami Alps and Yatsugatake were spectacular. Yatsugatake means "eight peaks," although there are actually more than eight, and the story goes that Mt. Fuji and Mt. Yatsugatake (which was once just one mountain) were arguing about who was the biggest, and Fuji in her anger smashed Yatsugatake into eight pieces. Perhaps in her remorse she hid her glory today so we could fully appreciate the beauty of Yatsugatake.

We stopped at a small store to pick up some interesting Japanese snacks and generally look around and take in the culture. As might be expected, some things were strange and others very familiar. We could have purchased the same brand of vitamins I buy at Albertsons; however, Albertsons doesn't sell "sick masks." When you are sick in Japan, apparently the custom of overwork will not allow you to stay home and recover, but courtesy demands you attempt to protect others by covering your mouth and nose with a mask. The mask also generates sympathy. :)

Returning to Janet's apartment, we switched from pedestrian to bicycle travel. Janet had borrowed bikes for us from two generous friends, which was wonderful as pedal power was a major means of locomotion for the week. Our first ride was rather rough, for several reasons. Several months ago Porter and I had been in pretty good shape for biking, thanks to our routine of four bike rides a week, including a long one on Saturdays. But that was interrupted by eight weeks of being out of town, followed by an accident that totaled Porter's bike the second week after our return. He replaced the bicycle a week before our trip, but that was not enough time to re-train our muscles. Secondly, standard Japanese bicycles are quite different from American ones. On the plus side, the seats are much more comfortable! But they are so low that our legs didn't come close to full extension when pedaling, which resulted in strain on the knees and much loss of power. The arrangement is supposedly more stable (which is important, as you will see) and allows you to wait at intersections without getting off the seat; you just put your feet down. However, it meant that even in the lowest gear I could not ride up the hill that led to our luncheon destination. When I realized this and decided to walk my bike up the rest of the way, my body was still in American mode: to dismount, I flung my leg over the seat and down. The seat being so much lower, however, in the process I kicked the back wheel, which sent me sprawling. Porter, behind me, was surprised I wasn't badly hurt, from the looks of the fall, but I wasn't, not in the slightest. [The problem also works in reverse: on my first ride after returning home, I nearly fell over trying to put my foot on the ground while remaining seated.]

Janet was pleased to be able to take us on roads that she found much less scary than the routes she had used earlier in her stay. I'm glad I didn't know just how bad the earlier routes were when she was taking them, and equally glad we decided to bring our helmets with us. (Bike helmets are rarely seen in Japan.) It was hard to appreciate the beautiful scenery while concentrating on maintaining a narrow line between traffic speeding by on the right and the yawning maw of the irrigation ditch on the left. To make matters worse, our traffic instincts were wrong; the Japanese drive on the left side of the road.

Nonetheless, we made it safely to the top of the hill and a very lovely restaurant. Shedding our shoes at the entrance, we were seated at a low table designed to accommodate inflexible Western bodies: we were able to sit as we are accustomed with our legs extending into a pit below the table. Our Japanese fellow-diners ate sitting in seiza, which is apparently comfortable if you are used to it, but quite painful to me.

The reason for attending this particular restaurant was to eat houtou, a local specialty dish with wide, thick noodles in a large bowl of soup. I won't name the many ingredients in the soup because I can't; this was the first of many experiences of eating by faith not by sight. It was good, and very filling. Water and tea was plentiful at the table. While waiting for our food, we enjoyed the beautiful view.

After lunch we biked to Dragon Park, where Janet likes to run because distances are marked on the path. Normally Dragon Park provides the best view of Mt. Fuji in the city; Janet says the view from her balcony is the second best. But again, though the day was beautiful, there was enough haze in the distance to obscure her. We enjoyed walking around, taking in the view, watching people play on the fields and playgrounds. People were happy and friendly and responded with smiles and greetings to our "konnichiwa." It was here that Janet "toilet trained" her mother, teaching me how to use the Japanese "squatty potty." Nearly flush with the ground (pardon the pun), these toilets are particularly great for public places, as they are much easier to keep clean than the kind we are accustomed to. They are also surprisingly easy to use. Before I tried one, I couldn't picture using it successfully, but it's really no problem at all.

We rode home without accident, feeling more comfortable with our bikes, though I was still very nervous between the traffic and the ditch. The construction of the houses and roads is such that there are many blind corners, and we had to learn to use (and trust) the large, convex mirrors set up at the intersections.

For dinner, we walked into downtown Ryuo for kaiten-zushi. This is a sort of fast-food sushi, not the very best (but quite good for all that!), popular with those in a hurry, families, and groups of people with varying appetites. Customers are seated at tables along a long, winding conveyor belt upon which various sushi dishes and accompaniments revolve. Diners merely reach out and grab whatever looks interesting. The tables are provided with chopsticks, napkins, condiments, cups, glasses, cold water, hot water, and green tea powder. There's also a small terminal from which you can place special orders, which eventually come by on the conveyor, labeled with your table number. At the end, you summon the waitress, who totals your bill based on the number (and sometimes color) of the plates you have accumulated. I wasn't very hungry (we'd had a huge lunch), but enjoyed shrimp and several plates of my favorite tamago (egg) sushi.

After walking back home we were definitely ready for bed, but Janet stayed up late making potato salad for tomorrow night's church dinner.