"Japan has four seasons" you'll often hear. Some gaijin get all huffy about this phrase, as if the Japanese were boasting. I think that it's just one of those set phrases, a conversation-starter memorized in school. Besides, I come from a land that doesn't have four seasons, so I'm pretty impressed, especially with the colors of autumn.
Tonai-sensei and the Missus took me on a drive trip to view autumn leaves. JQS refused to go and I didn't make him. The Tonai's seemed extremely disappointed not to be able to show him the sights. And they also expressed worry about leaving a 10-year-old alone for the day. I'm not worried. JQS has been a latchkey kid since he was 8 and he's extremely grown-up.
Tonai-sensei is a madman on the backroads and his wife kept telling him to slow down and then biting her lip to keep from nagging him in front of a guest.
We went to some shrine where we had to hike a long way up the mountain. The we had lunch at some small village which was having some sort of fall festival. We bought roasted chestnuts in little paper bags which served as great hand warmers when stuffed in your pocket. I bought some dried local fruit, including dried persimmons, to use for the Christmas fruitcakes.
We also stopped at this river to feed the koi. The roadway was on a bank, high above the river. However, a bamboo trough was rigged up so that you could buy a 100 yen packet of food and pour it down the trough to the fish. The fish knew the drill well and were gather at the downspout thrashing around waiting for more food.
Doing a little research now, this is what I think we saw: the Yabakei Gorge, the cave called Ao-no-Domon, which was dug through solid rock by Buddhist priests equipped with a chisel and hammer, and the Rakan Temple.
Here's a Japanese site on the Yabakei Gorge that I found. It is so much fun to do this research online, now. I have a brochure in Japanese that looks very much like this site. So at least I know I'm in the right place. Someday I hope to be able to read more about it. Conversely, the more I know about what was there, the more I wish I could see it, this time with eyes wide open and a clearer understanding. Not that I didn't enjoy myself at the time. But it was all a blur of feelings and sensations. Perhaps I should be content with just being, but somehow I prefer thinking about being. I want to know, not just be.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
November 05, 2002
Share Your Thoughts
Unlike Texas, Japan has four seasons.