Day 4. 2nd day of shvil
Yuasa to Hidaka
We were still full from the previous night’s spectacular dinner, but breakfast was as ridiculously elaborate as our previous meal, but a bit weirder. There we were, happily sitting in our comfortable Japanese cotton dressing gowns, opposite a dashi broth hot pot with mushrooms and vegetables, a Japanese layered omelette, a bowl full of tiny pickled white-fish, a smelly herring and seaweed dish, pickled tofu, sweet potato and tuna, a dish that remains to this day unidentified but was delicious and fresh pineapple for dessert. Every part of every dish was peeled, shaped, set and manicured in exactly the correct manner. And it was seven, bloody thirty in the morning. Did our chef/host start the preparations as soon as we finished our dinners, nine hours earlier? Our hosts had made us feel so welcome, their inn so magnificent and the food far better than amazing, that we left feeling that we had experienced something very special, hugging our hosts (an extremely un-Japanese custom) upon departure.
Our taxi took us to the Gonossi-Oji ruins, which were so ruined that we really couldn’t see anything, to start our day’s trek. Not long after passing the ruins we didn’t see, we found ourselves searching for the correct white bridge to cross over a river, amongst five white bridges. Once again, we honed our skills in misunderstanding instructions, wandered around in circles, went up 300 metres only to return and generally ensured that we continued our tradition of getting lost at the beginning of a day’s hike. The question that arose was were the instructions vague, our tour leader incompetent at understanding written instruction or did we all have combined cognitive decline? The truth is probably a combination of all three possibilities.
Eventually we found the correct route and immediately regretted it. Another steep incline to get us going, albeit along a dirt road and not a mountain track. The road narrowed and climbed through a forest, changing to a long, cobble-stoned path that was really quite charming, though much more difficult to walk on than a dirt road. As is usually the case when you arrive at a peak, or a pass, the road descends. thankfully along a nice gentle decline, sometimes through dark forest and sometimes through more open sections that afforded beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. Occasionally we came across very large but solitary cherry trees, in full blossom and surrounded by regular green birch and pine. I’m assuming these single trees were wild, natural cherry trees and they were quite a sight, randomly standing amongst other less spectacular trees.
We also noticed along the way stone picnic tables in meadows, overlooking views or under trees, as if someone had put a lot of thought where to randomly place these stone tables. When a stone table in a clearing beckons, who are we to ignore the siren’s call? We had been walking for a couple of hours and there was no more perfect place to stop. After our enormous breakfast, which followed our enormous dinner, hunger was not really an issue, even if we’d burnt off a few calories over the morning. But we managed to munch on our trail mix, energy bars, nuts and halva because there was, after all, a table in front of us begging that we put something on it.
There are those that find the sound of waves washing up on a beach relaxing. Others find a babbling brook soothing of their nerves. And then there are people like myself who find a dark forest with birds chirping and frogs croaking their route to nirvana. If I’m not panting my way up a hill, wondering where the next gulp of oxygen is going to come from, I often like to walk twenty yards behind my friends so as not to hear or be part of their conversation, and just take in the serenity of the surroundings. They have dubbed me the Gamai Lama, a nick-name that may be meant as disparaging, but which I actually quite like. I was definitely doing my Gamai Lama today.
After a few ours of pleasant walking through varied countryside, we came upon a clearing at the end of a bitumen road and a single country shack. An elderly couple were sitting in the doorway, slicing and trimming fresh bamboo shoots that they had obviously cut that morning. As we passed, smiling and looking as friendly as we could given that we had no real way to communicate, the lady of the shack presented us with a gift of cans of a cold sparkling beverage. We gratefully accepted her unsolicited gift, happy to be able to have an icy cold drink whilst walking. Unfortunately, the can of fizzy soda turned out to be undrinkable. Imagine a can of Sprite with three tablespoons of sugar added to it. A sugar boost can be quite pleasant, but a diabetic coma a little less so. We bowed and smiled, this being the only way we could thank them for their generosity and as soon as we were out of vision, tipped the sparkling syrup out. Do regular Japanese actually drink these hyper-sugerated concoctions, or do they just pass them on to each other as gifts, hoping that someone else will take them off their hands?
We continued on our merry way and eventually the forest gave way to a village, where after visiting a beautiful temple, we are invited into the home of Mrs Yamashita. The house is not really special in any touristy way and that is what made the visit so interesting. Over soft drinks and Japanese snacks, overlooking her beautifully manicured garden, we were allowed a peek into the life of an average Japanese family. We took some photos for Simon’s gardener, Morrey, in order for him to get some ideas on how to improve Simon’s garden, thanked Mr’s Yamashita for her hospitality and walked twenty minutes to Mr Yamashita’s black bamboo workshop, the last of its kind in Japan. He and his son produce 200,000 pieces of bamboo a year. The bamboo can be as thin as a ballpoint pen, a few centimetres long, or forty centimetres thick and three metres long. The process of selecting and cutting the bamboo, then heating, straightening and polishing it is all done by hand. It’s no wonder that no-one else is willing to continue this labour intensive work, but he and his son were proud that they were continuing the family business that goes back five generations. Mr Yamashita and his son were especially impressed when we showed them the photos of the black bamboo forest we had walked through the day before. We were especially impressed by the pens we received, made from black bamboo, with our names engraved onto each pen. In these modern times, when walking in a foreign country can easily be organised on-line, we have already, over the first 30 hours of our trek, seen the importance of paying a company that specialises in such tours to arrange both the logistics of transport, and great, authentic accommodation. However, the true value added is in the meetings with locals, explanations in temples, hints on other things to see and do, all contributing to a far more meaningful experience than what we could have organised ourselves.
This had been an easier day’s walking and we arrived at our ryokan, overlooking the beautiful Wakayama Bay, with enough time for the usual hot bath and cotton robes and an afternoon shloof. To our disappointment, we learnt that it is customary to prepare the futons whilst the guests are at dinner, so unless we wanted to sleep on the tatami mats, which actually was a temptation and probably would have done the job, we were faced with relaxing in our robes in the lounge area before dinner. Even if we didn’t get our shloof, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours.
In a worrying sign, we noticed Yoni walking from the lounge area in what he thought was the direction of his bedroom, but was in fact the wrong direction. Worse still, the man who is the one giving us our walking instructions and is acting as our guide during the day, mistakenly wandered into Simon and my room in the middle of the night when returning from the bathroom. Is it any wonder we always get lost.
As is always the case, I can’t ignore dinner. Once again based on fresh fish, tofu and vegetables that were presented to us pickled, steamed, raw, fried and other cooking methods that only the Japanese know. We had been eating so much fish that even my shit was starting to smell of fish. In any case, tonight’s meal was merely deliciously excellent, which was a step down from last night’s extravaganza. Poor us.
