Lift Up Your Hearts!

A stay at a Japanese-style hotel includes breakfast, and we had arranged for ours to be at 8:00. This was truly a Japanese experience, as the table was not one with a pit underneath, so finding a comfortable position for sitting was an issue. The food, however, was delicious, and quite varied, including rice, miso soup, and a variety of vegetables, including more pickled plum.

While waiting for Kasia to come get us, we conversed with the young man at the front desk, who I believe was the son of the owner. That's how we made the discovery that one of his friends is also a JET teacher, and knows Janet! When Kasia we drove to a place in the mountains where we hoped to hike and see some waterfalls. There was a guard/caretaker there who met us and apparently raised some objections, though I don't know what they were. He and Kasia conversed in Japanese, and he led us to a small shrine, instructing us in a pattern of clapping and bowing. Porter, Janet, and I did not want to participate, but if Kasia objected she didn't complain, and she was the only one of us he could see, so we got away with merely standing respectfully. After that we were cleared to go, and he led us to a footbridge swaying high over the river.

I am not comfortable with heights, as those who saw me working on our roof will readily attest, but I had no problems with the swinging, bouncing bridge. For one thing, there were hand rails, which made all the difference in the world, and for another—well, the motion was very familiar to me, being almost exactly the same as that I'd experienced many times on Tom Sawyer's Island at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Turns out the Disney experience isn't completely unrelated to the real world, after all. :)

We hadn't gone far before coming to a smaller, fixed bridge with a gate that barred our way. The warning sign was all kanji, and Janet's and Kasia's best efforts at deciphering it were that the trail was closed until April.

At first we backed down, and went off on a different trail, but that led away from the river and was clearly not what we wanted. Kasia pointed out that the caretaker had actually given us his permission (after apparently appeasing his conscience at the shrine), and it was, after all, very nearly April. So we cheerfully untied the gate and went on.

The climb was steep, but not difficult because there were metal stair-and-handrail structures to aid traversal of the toughest parts. For the most part they seemed sturdy enough even to me, although at one point the trail detoured because one of the bridges had fallen into the ravine instead of providing an easy way across it…. After enjoying the river, the woods, and the hike for a while, we began to think about lunch, and retraced our steps, very glad to have braved the warning sign. The weather was perfect for our adventure, the first warm spring day of the season, according to Kasia.

While climbing downhill, I landed wrong on a place where the metal stair was buckled instead of straight, and twisted my ankle. Janet, who was behind me, must have begun praying immediately, because although the pain was sharp my ankle felt as good as new after no more than a half dozen steps. That was a relief, to be sure!

For lunch Kasia took us to the Organic Café, one of her favorite restaurants. Once again the meal (fixed, though it changes daily) contained small servings of many different foods, including the only brown Japanese rice we saw during the entire trip. There was only one item I was not able to eat, and that's because it looked, felt, and even tasted so much like a large glob of pork fat. I knew that couldn't possible be, since this was a vegetarian restaurant, but still my stomach rebelled. Subsequently we learned that it was some form of marinated potato! Such is the power of mental images, even inaccurate ones.

For dessert we made a trip to one of the most famous spots in Kiyosato, the Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project (KEEP). In the early 1900's, an American named Paul Rusch brought Christianity and dairy farming to the area, as part of his commitment to "bring food, health, faith, and hope for youth to a desperately poor region of rural Japan," particularly after World War II. The area is now famous for its dairy products, and our experience at KEEP was a good example of why.

One popular dessert in Japan is called "soft cream," which is very much like our soft-serve ice cream. When we inquired at the KEEP store about what flavors were available, we were told there was only one: "milk." I have no idea what "milk" might be as a flavor, unless it was the pure flavor of good milk itself. I am not much of a vanilla ice cream fan, and though this was white, I'm pretty sure the flavoring wasn't vanilla. In any case, it was some of the most delicious ice cream I've ever eaten, and a return to KEEP is high on my list of priorities if we ever make it back to Japan!

Kasia took us back to her apartment where we relaxed for a while, and were privileged to hear her play the o-koto, a traditional Japanese harp-like instrumentshe is studying. Because Kasia had an appointment in Kofu, she drove us to the Kofu eki. There we met Janet's friends Bonnie, Atley, Courtnay, and a few others. After a snack and some good conversation at Tully's coffee shop, we drove to the Browns' house for Bible study. It was good to be more awake this time! But I was still not at my best. That these folks are much younger than me is made clear by the hour at which they meet. After 8 p.m., I'm doing well to be coherent, let alone have any intelligent contribution to make to a discussion. What's more, I rarely do well with fixed-question Bible studies (or any studies) led from a study guide. Nonetheless, it was great to be part of the warm fellowship of those people. And to sit at the warm kotatsu table, which felt wonderful on my ankle, which had not liked the long car ride and had rebelled by stiffening up. Atley, God bless him, decided to pamper the old folks and take us all the way back to Janet's apartment instead of just to the train station, so it wasn't nearly as late as it might have been when we returned home.