Pine grove near hostel
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores... Basho, TNRttDN 子もいづれの年よりか、片雲の風にさそはれて漂泊の思ひやまず、 海岸にさすらへ… 芭蕉「奥の細道」 I set off at 9 AM sharp. After a dazzlingly complicated array of train and bus transfers, I found myself thumb in the air at Hasuda PA, exactly 2 hours after departure from home, which by Tokyo standards is very fast indeed. I hadn't even managed to stand there and grin like a maniac for 10 minutes, when I was rescued by an unlikely angel: a family pulling up and asking (in English!) where I'm going. They were going to Tochigi, which was good enough for me. In the end, it turned out their English wasn't that great, but Pop's company has lots of gaijin so he knew how to speak gaijinteki-na nihongo (hakkiri yukkuri kantan-na!). We got on well enough, and as they were on their way to pick up Granny for a weekend excursion to their summer house, they decided to take me along. Granny lived out in the middle of nowhere (a pretty good description for much of Toohoku), and everything in sight was straight out of Totoro, including Granny herself, or at least her voice.
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Pine grove near hostel |
Some 150 km down the road I was deposited at Nasu, only to be picked up right after a quick lunch by a truck driver. In awe I clambered up to the giddy heights (most truckers in Japan don't take hitchers because company rules forbid it), but the driver turned out to be a quiet young half-Chinese guy. Emphasis on the quiet: he didn't speak much and steadfastly refused to continue any conversation beyond 2 lines. Fine, I sat there and enjoyed the scenery... and I had plenty of time for that since halfway to Sendai he turned off the expressway onto a mostly clogged national highway. Nevertheless, I was dropped off near a train station well past Sendai at 5 PM, which means the 400-odd kilometers took me 6 hours. Not bad. Two local trains and a short taxi ride later I arrived at the Paila Matsushima Yuusu Hosuteru, having spent a total of 1910 yen to get there. (For reference purposes, just a one-way Tokyo-Sendai shinkansen ticket is around 15,000 yen.) It's only been 12 hours, but being a yuppie yamabushi has turned out to be a heavy job -- literally. My pack is half-empty, and individually all this gear is light, but when added together... and carrying half a dozen books, all more or less indispensable, doesn't help. And my UG 12-eye combat boots, which I brought along for the assault on Dewa Sanzan, are killing my feet after 4 months of sneakers. No pain, no gain! The next day, surprisingly painlessly up at 7:30, it was time to backtrack to Matsushima. It had rained since I arrived in Sendai, and it was still either drizzling very lightly or just very wet and foggy. It would've been pleasantly cool, but with humidity was 100%, moving around was sweaty indeed. Just the same, I liked Matsushima. Even on a summer Sunday, there weren't too many people, and (mostly by accident) I got my day off to a great start at the Kanrantei Pavilion. I was only going to the museum, but the ticket lady offered tea for 200 yen, so I decided to give it a shot. So there I was, sipping matcha (tea ceremony tea) and munching on the two included wagashi (tea ceremony sweets), facing a misty panorama of the Matsushima coastline, sitting cross-legged on the tatami floor in a beautiful classical pavilion. Wonderful.
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Bridge to Fukuurajima |
Up next was the Zuigan-ji Temple, a total contrast. Tickets (600 yen!) were sold from vending machines outside, tour groups were herded about by flag-waving guides politely yelling into megaphones, and the main hall had been turned into a museum with everything partitioned off or in glass cases with neat little explanations. It wasn't bad at all as far as museums go, but not quite what I had in mind. And I couldn't get a decent picture of the wonderful moss-covered Kannon statues outside, the one that would've been good was blurred because I was too lazy to use my monopod! Grr. Something a bit closer to what I did have in mind was found at Fukuura-jima Island. Connected to the mainland by a long bridge, the island is crisscrossed in all directions by paths small and large, paved and muddy, well-trod and overgrown. Thanks to my combat boots, I was able to stomp around and do a grand tour of the island. Some very sabishii spots, in the Bashoan sense, meaning something along the lines of lonely, sparse beauty that the mist only added to. The Chilis' "Under the Bridge" kept running through my head, a seemingly random choice but the feeling evoked by that song is similar. Again by contrast, the next attraction, the Matsushima Tower, turned out to be a rusting relic sitting there since the 60s, worrisomely propped up by two extra diagonal pillars. I returned to the hostel and pondered. Some 3 km away was Otakamori, one of The 4 Famous Places to view Matsushima Bay, and with the cloud cover breaking up the sunset might be nice. Earlier in the day, I had attempted to find some of the other Famous Places, until I realized that the map had no scale and even the closest ones were miles away, not just around the corner. But it was already 17 and dinner was at 18:30 sharp, did I have time? Well of course! So, at military pace, I hiked the 3 km, arriving at Otakamori a sweaty 30 minutes later -- only to discover that ha, the observation point is another kilometer up a hill. Stomp stomp! I arrived at the top (running into some Israeli gaijin astonished to see other non-natives on the trail along the way) and was treated to a beautiful pre-sunset; I shot a whole "roll" but the camera as usual managed to be unable to distinguish overcast sky and gray seas. Regretfully, with my pre-paid meal I felt the clock breathing down my neck, so before sunset I left and, once on the road, stuck out my thumb. Yet again, within seconds I was picked up and deposited at the hostel's doorstep, this time by the Kuroda family, who were also vacationing nearby.
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Watanabe-kun |
After all this asceticism, it was about time to engage in some hedonism -- long live the ofuro! I experienced this Japanese tradition for the first time at Matsushima and was instantly hooked. To quote a memorable description, ofuro consists of "a bunch of men sitting in a tub naked", although it's worth noting that the water of such a tub varies between hot and boiling. Now, being a veteran of Finnish saunas and even German nudist beaches I thought I was pretty jaded, and the water temperature certainly didn't cause any problems (not hot enough if you ask me!). Nevertheless, I was still forced to lift an eyebrow when I was joined in the tub by a beautiful, long-haired, naked Japanese girl. Unfortunately, the days of kon'nyoku (mixed bathing) are long over and this girl was not only chaperoned by Pops, but all of 5 years old. Ah well. And so, after a long chat with a Mr. Watanabe, it was time to retire to bed. Some final thoughts... It's impossible to write about Matsushima without quoting what it is probably the world's most famous haiku (by Basho, of course): Matsushima, ah! Ah, Matsushima, ah! Ah, Matsushima! This tends to strike people as either quaintly Japanese or just as plain stupid. I tended to fall in the latter camp, but now that I've been there, I'm starting to understand. "Matsushima" means "Pine Island", and indeed, pines and islands, separately and together, are what Matsushima is all about. Generations later, the pines and the islands are still there, and Matsushima well deserves its status as one of the Three Great Views of Japan. Tomorrow Kinkazan! Cheers, -j.