Postmark: Beppu September 23, 1989

[Today is] a national holiday for the Autumn Equinox. Being Saturday, I didn’t have to work anyway. The Japanese don’t seem to have the custom of giving you the Friday before or the Monday after off if a holiday falls on a weekend–at least no one mentioned it to me. But JQS goes to school on Saturday morning and because it was a holiday for him, we decided to take a day trip to the southern reaches of Oita prefecture to the small town of Bungo Taketa.

The local train was so crowded that we had to stand, packed in so we couldn’t move at all, for the first hour and a quarter. Characteristically un-Japanese, I hadn’t the slightest idea of what there was to see or where it was. However, after buying a picnic lunch, we found a garden park at the top of a hill. Next to it was the restored house of some artist. [Tanomura Chikuden.] We paid the ¥500 admission to go in (about $3.50) and had the place practically to ourselves. We were allowed to wander all over the house and I just sat on the tatami and rested in one room that looked out onto a small lawn bordered by a steep hillside. It was so peaceful that I resolved right there to build a house that has a room with a view. JQS kept chattering at me so that I couldn’t maintain a peaceful spirit very long.

After exploring the town a little bit, and unsuccessfully because JQS’s feet and spirits were dragging, we went back to our garden on the hill. There was no one else there. That probably sounds simply like description but it is actually a statement of wonder. There was no one else there.

We stayed there an hour because neither of us felt like facing Japan again any sooner than we had to. I hadn’t realized how unrelaxed we’ve been since we’ve been here. People are constantly watching us. Although I tune them out most of the time, I tend to keep myself and JQS under a tight rein. We can’t really explore, or shop, or go to a restaurant, or ride the train without being on our best behavior. I had heard other foreigners complain about it before but it didn’t seem like a very big problem to me. Only the contrast of being in the garden unwatched made me appreciate how rare and wonderful it was to relax and be ourselves and enjoy Japan.

Notes from 2009

Too bad we didn’t do our homework before taking this trip. I’m not sure why we chose to go to Bungo Taketa. It’s a tiny town about the size of Mobberley. The main attraction is the ruins of Oka Castle. If we had only walked a mile in the other direction we would have been able to spend the whole day gazing down at a forested panorama.

Now I can look on the internet and see all the sights of Bungo Taketa that we missed when we were actually walking around it. I recognize some of the places: the old walled houses.

1989-09-23 Saturday