Nagano
It's a bit of a cliche among Japanese-watchers here - the hordes of tour buses descending on tiny villages throughout Japan, disgorging amazing amounts of people who take photos, have a quick look and jump back on the bus for the next 'sight', never really lingering long enough in one place to savour the moment.
Forgoing a Saturday morning sleep-in, well-earned after returning to work, we went for a trip with Big Holiday (Bi-gu ho-ri-de) to Nagano. Every seven years, the temple of Zenko-ji in Nagano prefecture unveils to the public the oldest image of Buddha in Japan. The posters had been up at Kamoi station for a little over three months.
The tour guide was a little Japanese lady in her forties, who by all accounts appeared to be going for the world speaking record. From the moment we left Shinjuku she talked and talked and talked. One of her first lines was, as she noticed the nodding heads (sleeping on the bus, no matter the time of day, seems to be the Japanese national sport), "I'll be quiet now, so you can sleep." Maybe that's a Japanese figure of speech, because she paused for all of five seconds, then, like a swimmer gasping for air, launched back into her spiel. This is an excerpt of what she said:
"Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Zenko-ji blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Nippon blah blah blah blah blah blah sakura, kireina desu ne, sugoi desu yo! blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..."
She managed to point out nearly every sakura between Tokyo and Nagano, no mean feat. Just when you think she'd made good on her earlier promise, she started again.
The first toilet break was an eye opener. Where an Australian rest stop would consist of a servo, dodgy toilets that only a key from the attendant could sss, Japanese rest stops are massive supercentres of toilets, smoking areas, souvenir stalls, complementary Japanese tea, and hordes and hordes of tour buses. At each rest stop, there were never less than five tour buses. The elderly Japanese are there for two things: free tea (and woe betide anyone who stands in their way - it's worse than feeding time at the zoo!) and the toilet (where the tea from the previous rest stop departs the station, so to speak).
Zenko-ji is nestled in some quiet alleys in a peaceful little town. Peaceful that is, until we arrived. Our driver is in his spare time a member of Japan's precision driving team. He loved taking these tight corners with not much more than the proverbial bee's privates on each side of the bus. On more than one occasion, we thought he'd got the bus stuck in a narrow lane, only for him to rev the engine and get out. It's easy to be cavalier when it's not your bus.
Zenkoji is pretty impressive as far as Japanese temples go - its huge, with a massive facing arch and a courtyard. A large incense cauldren spews smoke which people brush over themselves for luck. Our goal was the main pole, erected just two days earlier. We weren't alone, either - hundreds of Japanese people were in the line, patiently waiting their turn. The famous images were inside the main building. We chose not to line up (saving at least an hour), and so could only see them from about 20m. It's hard to say what our impressions were from such a distance - and after all, we've seen a lot of gold Buddhas here. Maybe not an anticlimax, just not as awe-inspiring as we thought it might be.
We had lunch at a soba restaurant (Nagano is famous for soba, as well as apples), and then Kanako, Ide and Katayama wanted to buy some souvenirs from the stores flanking the road to the temple. I got a chance to sample some apple-flavoured sake (definitely an improvement over regular sake, which is like liquid industrial cleaner except it doesn't taste as good), and some miso and soba ice cream. Then it was back on to the buses for the trip to the hotel.
The hotel was a ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel. The word is Japanese for "no towels". Just tatami floors and futons. I was so tired, one futon was enough, and I was out like a light. One futon is equivalent in comfort to sleeping on concrete.
We were last on the bus the next morning (we seemed to be the last ones on the bus after every rest stop too. I think the Japanese are just eager beavers, as opposed to our fluid interpretation of 'departure time'). Most people slept as the bus wound its way down the mountain, snow still visible here and there.
After 2 hours, we stopped in a little town called Iida, home to Motozenkoji tmple. This temple holds 33 images of Buddhas, with sand in a laminated bag collected from nearby temples, so devotees can do their one-stop worshipping without the bother of piously tramping from place to place. The granny behind me was impatient to pay her respects and donate her money, bombing her 10Y pieces from outside the 50m arc into the collection tin. Underneath the temple is a pitch-black, wood-lined tunnel, where it is said that you can find the key to enlightenment. Don't ask me, though; I didn't find it. I'm as unenlightened now as I was then. Kathleen found it, though. Maybe I'll ask her.
Back on the bus for an amazing spread at a nearby restaurant ('conveniently' located above a massive souvenir store), before we drove on to Takato. By now, it was pouring with rain, and looking like a miserable day.
Takato is one of the most famous ares for cherry blossoms (sakura) in Japan. In Tokyo and Yokohama, its common to see two or three trees clumped together, in tiny patches of green not yet concreted over. For two weeks, when the trees blossom, Japan is perhaps the most beautiful place on Earth. Takato has hundreds of these trees lining the hills of a deep valley. On a clear day, with snow on the high peaks in the distance, the view is amazing. On a wet day, with rain turning the ground to mud beneath our feet, it's enough to make you ignore how wet and ugly the weather is. Takato must be the only place in Japan with a distinct lack of cement paths.
The Y500 conbini umbrella managed to keep the rain off. No doubt the women dressed to the nines, with open-toed high heels, tramping through the mud and puddles, didn't see it in quite the same light. Unfortunately, the rain, mud and steep hills conspired against me, and some of the nearby Japanese learned a few new words when I took a spill. It wasn't funny then, and it's not really funny now.
By now, it was 4pm, and time to take the expressway back to Yokohama. We weren't alone, either, and the service areas were packed with tour buses, filled with tourists returning to their homes late on a Sunday night.
