...and the main hall
Summer grass -- all that remains of warrior dreams Basho, TNRttDN 夏草や兵どもが夢の跡 芭蕉「奥の細道」 After extensive vacillation and more than a few regrets I decided to wave goodbye to the eastern seashore and head inland to Hiraizumi, instead of hitchhiking on to Kesennuma. My acquaintance of yesterday, Mr. Sikorsky (I never did learn his first name), joined me for what turned out to be a grueling 6-hour trek. Ferry, wait, train, wait, train, wait, train... the schedules were close to pessimally designed, leaving hour-long waits between each half-hour hop. But after becoming intimately acquainted with train stations in anointed places like Onagawa, Ishinomaki, Kobota and Ichinoseki we finally arrived at our destination. During the reign of the Fujiwaras, Hiraizumi was said to rival Kyoto in "grandeur and sophistication" (as Lonely Planet puts it), but now all that remains are the temples of Chusonji and Motsuji, both of which are mostly in ruins at that. Basho discovered this as well and penned the famous haiku quoted above, with the end result that now Basho is more idolized in Hiraizumi than anywhere else. You can't throw a rock in Hiraizumi without hitting a Basho statue, a Basho monument, an inscribed copy of a Basho haiku or at the very least a coffee shop waving its "As mentioned in Oku no Hosomichi!" banners. Just the same, after staying the previous night in a shrine, it was interesting to come to Hiraizumi and spend the night in a temple! Motsuji -- yes, the other famous one -- operates a nice youth hostel on its grounds, 2700 yen per night and that includes entrance to the garden and treasure museum (which would be 500 yen). The garden has reportedly been carefully preserved from the Heian era, 1200 years ago, and it seems downright un-Japanese in its liberal use of wide, grassy spaces. This was until I realized that half the open spaces had scattered rocks and a "Kanjikanjido was here" post stuck in the middle; what is now a huge garden was once a huge temple complex.
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...and the main hall |
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After all this hedonistic monk-eying around (groan), I figured it was time to do something about the Zen part as well. So when one of the affable caretaker/priests came up and asked if I have an interest in doing zazen, the answer was obvious. Even if it meant waking up at 6 AM, once again... So at 6:30 the next morning a groggy column of would-be acolytes, hands in gassho (prayer position), tiptoed their way across the temple to the main hall. The head monk proceeded to give an animated if mostly incomprehensible lecture on the salvation of all living things and the use of zazen to achieve enlightenment. After another lecture about proper zazen position -- including the warning that any lapses in attention would be rewarded with sharp raps of the stick of kindness -- it was time to start. I've done meditation before, but never "formally", and it was a strange feeling to sit there early in the morning, eyes closed, with the smell of damp tatami in the wind, semis and birds chirping outside... maintaining the very strict half-lotus-back-straight-hands- in-mudra pose was somewhat tiring, but hearing the monk tiptoeing around punctuated by occasional bursts of WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! concentrated the mind wonderfully. And no, I didn't get hit. =P After a quick breakfast (nattoo, aargh!) and a quick loop through Chosonji (not bad, but I've seen it all before and paying 800 yen to get in left a bad taste in my mouth) it was time to set forth. I again vacillated extensively about where to go -- Morioka? Yamagata? -- but in the end I picked the most random option: I went to Naruko Onsen, a hot-spring resort tucked in the mountains of Miyagi-ken. The place gets all of one paragraph in LP and isn't even mentioned anywhere else, but it was nicely on my route and, it being a drippy day, I figured it'd be a nice change. Damn straight! Oh, and of course Basho was there too. I picked the first ryokan (of 2) mentioned in LP and booked a room for the night at a cost of 8000 yen. 8000 yen is not "cheap", but it's not bad at all for a ryokan. Not only was there space with 12-hour notice, but I turned out to be the only customer! The very friendly owners were astonished to see a gaijin show up and were even more astonished when I showed them that their little ryokan is mentioned in the LP. Sure, Ryokan Eisen may not be the classiest place around, but it's cozy, comfortable and above all comes with two separate ofuro, one of them an outdoor rotemburo (my first!). Both baths use actual hot spring water (a toasty 74 degrees C, but cooled down a little before use) and, best of all, could be used at any time including after dark, when the floodlights light up the garden around the outdoor tub. I arrived early and, when I wasn't soaking in the baths, spent the rest of the day chilling out, sitting on the balcony writing postcards, watching the rain drizzle down and coat the green mountain valley with thick white mist. And being glad that I spent 1500 yen on trains instead of hitchhiking. The meal wasn't bad either. Here's a list of the main dishes, quoted from memory: tuna sashimi, grilled eel, fried salted ayu (Japanese miniature trout), pork sukiyaki, chilled fresh cucumbers with sweet miso dipping sauce, roasted corn on the cob, shrimp and vegetable salad, hiya-yakko (tofu with bonito flakes, ginger and onion), pickles, miso soup and rice, plus tea, sake, and watermelon for dessert. Do excuse me if I left out a few dishes. A few steps above youth hostel or shokudo fare, I assure you.
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During the night, the drizzle turned into an outright downpour, effectively trashing my plans of hitching down to Tsuruoka. After a wonderful and massive breakfast it was time to bid a sad farewell to Naruko. The trains to Tsuruoka were next to empty, but the scenery was gorgeous, outside the tunnels at least. I was planning to stay in the Tsuruoka YH, but I'd been unable to reach them, and some investigation in Tsuruoka revealed why: the place was under construction and not taking customers. Since Tsuruoka & vicinity lacked any better alternatives, I had to opt for the Hotel Washington, a posh-looking and all too expensive (7000 yen) business hotel with rooms the size of cubicles. For entertainment purposes, a booklet entitled "Digi Pero Channel" had been tactfully placed on the bed. The booklet informed that pay-tv containing "nuudo eiga", translated to English as "funny movies", is available for 1000 yen/day. Purely out of professional interest I investigated the wiring system, which left me rather worried about its fire safety. Just the same, the system is clever and essentially unhackable: a button press is sent down to a switch somewhere, which turns the TV's separately piped-in video channel on. Since no signal appears in the room unless paid for, there's nothing you can do, unlike traditional systems where all you have to do is bypass the scrambler. Oh well, it appears that I'll be deprived of funny movies like -- and I quote -- "Za FUCK3 20 Part2". I don't like Tsuruoka. This is not entirely due to the city itself, as I was annoyed by paying that extortionate sum for a mediocre room, by returning to the hotter coastal areas after the nice and cool mountains, and probably above all because I was again in a large, noisy, ugly urban city, instead of the peace, quiet and natural beauty I was looking for and found in the mountains. But even discounting all this, Tsuruoka -- like most cities in Toohoku -- looks like a Japanized version of a rural East European town, all dusty shops, rusty sheds and faded hand-lettered signs. Lacking anything better to do, I went walking around, and my mood did improve once I arrived at the large central park and its tranquil Shonai Shrine. As I arrived, a pretty Shinto priestess was busily intoning sacred texts as an older fellow stood at attention, cap in hand, watching as his sparkling new big blue garbage truck was ceremonially purified. After a surprisingly good teishoku (even if it did include raw octopus) I retired to my cubicle and plotted the course of the next few days. Cheers, -j.