Day 6: Wajima (Morning Market, Kiriko Festival Hall, Ganmon Shore)

Still yet another day dawned bright and clear for our hour-long drive out the Noto Peninsula to the town of Wajima, the place famous for its laquerware.  For much of the way the road paralleled the Noto Railway that we chaperones rode on our first day here.  This time, though, we could see the views at a much slower pace.  For much of the way we were literally driving right along the shore of Nanao Bay.

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Our first stop was the Wajima Morning Market.  As we walked from the parking lot we passed the restrooms where a HUGE sea bass caught off Wajima was on display.  It was nearly six feet long and weighed over 340 lbs！We all had to stop and gawk at it for a few minutes.  The market itself was a big hit.  Individual vendors lined a narrow street selling vegetables, fresh and dried fish, abalone and other shellfish with established shops selling souvenirs, antiques, and of course, Wajima laquerware.  Darcy was immediately swarmed by students wanting to withdraw money from their accounts!  For the next 45 minutes we wandered the street looking at all of the fun things for sale, but by far, the biggest hit was the vendor selling little cakes filled with sweet custard!  Some of the boys bought two or three a piece (and that was just on our way UP the street)!

One of the reasons for coming to Wajima was for us to try our hand at decorating laquerware.  We found our way down a narrow street to a store/workshop set up to teach the delicate art of applying powdered ochre (jinoko) of different colors to laquer pieces.  The basic steps are: 1) paint a thin layer of adhesive over the areas you want to add color; 2) using a pencil-sized piece of bamboo cut on a bias, sprinkle the jinoko just to the side of the area with adhesive; then 3) use a soft-bristled brush to gently spread the jinoko over the adhesive.  By sprinkling several colors of jinoko and brushing them over the adhesive from different directions you can create gradations of color.  The whole process seems deceptively simple, but it is requires a steady hand and is very time-consuming.  It is very easy to understand why the laquerware is so expensive!

We were all given test pieces to practice on before we tackled our own piece de resistance.  The room was so library quiet as we all concentrated on our task that the instructor commented that he hadn't had such quiet students in a long time.  If only he were to ride with us on our bus!

We were done decorating our plates by noon, but when we came back out on the street we found a very different scene.  Most of the individual vendors were gone and the larger ones were just finishing packing up their stalls.  The “cake lady” had sold out and nearly all of the excitement of the street had gone.  It was time for lunch so we got back on our bus for the short ride to the restaurant and next destination, the Kiriko Festival Hall.

A "kiriko" is a lantern carried on portable shrines during summer and autumn religious festivals in the Noto region.  Neighborhoods would each have their own kiriko, and as each tried to outdo the other, the sizes of the kiriko grew.  The tallest were nearly 45’ tall and weighed over 2 tons.  It took over 150 people to carry them!  Inside the hall we heard a short lecture about the kiriko, then we were able to put on "happi" coats (festival coats) and take theself-guided tour, all the while hearing a recording of festival drums and flutes.  A short video showed us how the kiriko were boisterously paraded through the streets.  It was quite interesting and we all had a good time.

We drove back toward Nanao along the outer side of the Noto Peninsula where we could see a rocky coastline very similar to our own.  We stopped at Ganmon, a tourist stop, where we walked down steep steps to the shore to stretch our legs.  There were sea caves and tunnels in the rocky promontory to explore as well as excursion boats we could ride for a fee.  All the boys went out in a boat for the 20-minute tour.  We saw lots of large jellyfish (quite different from ours) in the water, and on the shore we saw Japan’s oldest active lighthouse (300+ years) as well as a more modern structure, the world’s supposedly largest wind turbine with a bladespan of over 180'.

It started to rain just after we got back on the bus, but it didn't last long.  A few minutes later we saw a pretty rainbow.  A short while later we were back in Nanao.  All the students were picked up by their homestay families and the chaperones went back to our hotel to get ready for dinner.  Tim Ashida took us to dinner at a local sushi restaurant for yet another culinary adventure.  It was quite the experience for us all!

Day Five: Meeting the Mayor - Soroptimist International - Updated!

Shortly before 9:00am on Tuesday we were ushered into a most official-looking meeting room at City Hall to meet Nanao City Mayor Bunpei Takemoto.  After his short welcome speech, it was our turn for an official greeting.  Kai rattled off his speech to much applause and delight by our hosts.  He then presented the mayor with our gifts of a bronze sculpture of an otter in a kelp frond, newly canned Monterey Bay sardines (you may have seen a recent article about them in the Monterey County Weekly), Sees candies, and a book in Japanese about the Japanese immigrants in Monterey over the past 100+ years.  He seemed to be geniuinely touched by the gifts.  This was followed by individual greetings by each of the students.

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I couldn’t help but smile to see each of your children individually introduce themselves to the assembly and separately to the mayor in strong, clear, confident voices.  Please see the video in the photo album linked above.  You should be proud of your child.  We certainly were.

Once the official business was over, we piled onto a bus to drive up into the nearby hills to a Camp Herman-type outdoor lodge where the local chapter of Soroptimist International hosted us for an afternoon of activities.  It was Kaitlyn’s turn to greet our hosts on the group's behalf.  She, too, did very well and received a very warm applause.

Activities: we all made a pottery dish in the shape of a large leaf.  The students all seemed to have fun making the dish, but even more fun making small bugs,frogs, and other micro-creatures to put on their leaf.  The plates will be glazed, fired, and delivered to us later in the week.

Next up was making mochi (pounding rice cakes).  Here is a case where pictures tell the story (see web album).  The rice is a blend of regular steamed rice and sweet sticky rice.  It is put into the “usu” (mortar) and then pounded with the “kine” (mallet).  It is a two-person process: one person does the pounding while the other turns the rice after each blow and pats it with water to keep the rice from sticking to the mallet.  When done properly, the team work in a regular rhythm while chanting, “Pe-tan, pe-tan, pe-tan.”  The rice is pounded until it forms a smooth, dough-like consistency.  It is then formed into small balls and either rolled in sweet soy bean flour (orange) or slathered with sweet bean paste (red).  Hand-made mochi eaten while still warm speaks to the Japanese soul very much the same way fresh bread just out of the oven speaks to us.

One other fun thing about mochi is the moon.  Instead of seeing a “man-in-the-moon,” the Japanese see a rabbit pounding mochi.  Look at the web photos, then see if you can find the rabbit at the next full moon!  (Hint: the rabbit has just completed the downstroke with the mallet.)

Following lunch we went down to the nearby lake for a fishing derby with prizes to be given to the team of three that caught the biggest fish or the most fish.  We were each given a bamboo pole and udon noodles for bait.  I shouldn’t have been surprised at the intensity of the competition!  Nothing less than cut-throat!  While everybody caught fish, Matthew Grebing caught the biggest fish at 15.2”, then Cedric at 14.4”, and Darcy at 13.2”.  The Joey-Matthew G.-Vincent team won the team prize for the most fish.  Everybody had a good time (except maybe the fish, but all were released!).

We finished the day at Fishermans’ Wharf, a large,  two-floor pavillion with souvenir shops, restaurants, and a fish market on the first floor and sit-down restaurants on the second.  I don’t now how they found it as fast as they did, but we were there all of five minutes when I saw half the kids lined up at the gelato shop!  We will be hosting the Farewell Party at the Fish & Chips Restaurant on the second floor on Saturday night.  Just as we walked back to City Hall, it started to rain, but otherwise we have had very good weather.

The chaperones went to dinner with Mr. Yachi at an "okonomiyaki" restaurant.  Okonomiyaki might be described as a savory pancake with vegetables cooked on a large iron grill, then topped with various toppings such as a thick worchestershire sauce, flaked nori (seaweed), dried bonito (jack tuna) shavings, and pickled ginger.  The pancake itself  is "as you like it" (okonomi): Frances had shrimp, Darcy had tofu, and I had squid.

Apology

I owe you all an apology for falling behind in my posts.  My excuse is that after we parted ways with the students at City Hall, Frances, Darcy and I had to go back to our hotel and change for dinner with our Nanao counterparts at the Kagaya Hotel.  While this name might not mean much to you, think Waldorf Astoria or Ritz-Carlton for an idea of its elegance.  The Kagaya hotel has been rated the #1 inn in Japan for the past 29 consecutive years!  It is the hotel where the imperial family stay when they are visiting the area.  The president of the hotel, Mr. Oda,  is a close friend of former-mayor Dan Albert and a great supporter of our sister-city relationship and the Junior Wings program.  He treated us to a fabulous eight-course dinner that took nearly three hours to eat.  It was quite the cultural and culinary experience!



This evening (Day 6) we had a similar, yet very different experience.  Tim Ashida took us out for sushi to taste the local seafood.  While very tasty and a lot of fun, it was another meal that took three hours.  Throw some jet-lag in the mix and I hope you will understand why I'm getting behind.

Day Four: Chaperones Day Out

Today is Sports Day, a national holiday, and so the Nanao students and families are home from school and work and our kids are with them.  We won't see them until tomorrow morning.  We have had our cell phones on all day, but nary a ring.  No news is good news and we're confident the Junior Wings are having a great time.

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We pulled into Nanao Station yesterday afternoon at 4:23 after a three-and-a-half hour ride from Kyoto.  The weather was nothing but clear blue skies and puffy white clouds.  With ten minutes to go before we got off the train we had a pep talk for last minute instructions and reassurances, but all were very excited for this stage of their adventure to start.  Once the train stopped and the doors opened, the students ran across the platform to the wicket to the cheers and hollers of the Nanao students.  Posters, balloons, flowers, hugs, noisy introductions, nervous parents and siblings, awkward pauses; it was very much like home.  We piled into cars and headed to Fisherman's Wharf for the Welcome Party.

Official welcomes, speeches (mercifully short), buffet dinner, student speeches (Joey delivered his Welcome speech with cool aplomb), chaperone introductions, more speeches (also happily short and funny), games, then suddenly it was over.  The students found their suitcases and then were gone.  After some final arrangements and confirmation, we chaperones were delivered to our hotel where we found clean, comfortable rooms with nice firm beds waiting for our jet-lag-induced collapse.

Morning dawned cool, bright and clear.  It promised to be a beautiful autumn day. Since the students were with their families it was to be our day out.  Wo what did we do?  We washed a train station!  Huh?  Yes.  Since our hosts are the Jaycees of Nanao, we felt obligated to accept their invitation to spend the day with them which meant participating in their day of public service  removing graffiti and washing windows at a local unstaffed train station.  Actually it was kind of fun!  A reporter came and took our pictures for the local newspaper.

After about an hour we finished up, then boarded the one-car train for a ride out to the end of the line where a small festival was being held to celebrate the local railroad.  The thirty-minute ride through rice farmland, tile-roofed villages, and bamboo and cedar forests was beautiful.  We could often see the dark, sparkling blue of their version of Monterey Bay with the Toyama Mountains in the far distance.  As a thank you for our effort, the Jaycees and we were given box lunches and a commemorative pair of chopsticks by the railroad company.  We also bought some grilled corn from one of the festival booths.

Back in Nanao we walked through the Komaruyama Park where we saw statues of Toshiie Maeda, his wife, and his horse.  Maeda founded Nanao in 1581.  From there we walked through the local temple grounds where Mr. Yachi would often ring the bell as a prank with his friends when they were school kids, only to be chased off the priests.  Finding ourselves on Ipponsugi Street, the historical shopping area in Nanao, we strolled along, stopping in many of the shops and chatting with the shopkeepers.  I'm not quite sure why, but we were virtually the only shoppers on the street and so the keepers had plenty of time to talk (and some of them had quite a lot to say!).  Unfortunately we were a bit pressed for time because we had to be at the local radio station for interviews!

Yes, we were interviewed for a monthly radio program that focuses on Monterey and they wanted us to tell them about our thoughts and impressions of Nanao and the similarities and differences with Monterey.  It was fun.  Once done we went back to the shopping area to visit the shops we missed, then to Mister Donuts for coffee and donuts and a tour of the supermarket.  Dinner was "okonokiyaki, grilled vegetables, and cold beer.

We meet the students tomorrow morning at 8:30 to visit with the mayor, then we spend the rest of the day with the Soroptimist Club to make clay pots and have a black bass fishing derby (weather pending - there's a chance of rain).  It should be a lot of fun.

Day Three: Kyoto-Nanao

Alarm clocks?  Who needs ‘em!  We were all up by 5:30am, some as early as 4:30, even though breakfast wasn’t until 7:30.  Breakfast was the same as yesterday -- good.  We were going to try to go back to the Nijo Castle and the Kiyomizu Temple, a World Heritage site and one of the seven modern wonders of the world.  Our train wasn't until 1:13pm so we figured if we could get ourselves to the Nijo Castle right when it opened at 8:45am, we'd have enough time to see both it and the Kiyomizu temple.

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The kids were great.  We were at the bus stop at 8:09 to catch the 8:12 bus (which came four seconds past 8:12!).  We walked into the Nijo Castle grounds at 8:49.  Wow, what an amazing building.  The castle buildings were built in 1603 and served to protect Kyoto as well as provide a residence for the shogun when he visited from Edo (Tokyo).  One of the distinguishing features is of the main outer palace building is its “Nightingale Floor,” a veranda that runs around the perimeter of the palace that squeaks when you walk on it.  Rather than squeaking like a mouse or a wheel, the squeak sounds like a flock of nightingales or seagulls crying in the distance.  The squeaky floor was purposefully built to help prevent any surprise attacks by the shogun’s enemies.

Back on the bus, we rode across town to the Kiyomizu Temple.  We climbed a long hill with souvenir shops tempting us on either side all along the way.  We promised the kids more shopping if we could stay focused all the way to the top.  We made it, along with seemingly half the tourist population in Japan!  It was crowded!  We did see all we were there to see.  We were surprised to come across a live violin-piano performance – initially it seemed a little incongruent at a Buddhist temple -- but the music was so beautiful that it no longer seemed incongruent at all.  We tried to take the Lover’s Walk between two stones (you start at one stone, close your eyes, then try to walk to the other stone about 15 yards away).  If you make it, you will supposedly find the love of your life.  It was way too crowded and no one made it successfully, so you might need to provide some counseling to your child in a few years!

Back down the hill we went, darting in and out of the shops all along the way.  Nearly everyone bought something, but again, it seemed most of the things were for friends and family members back home.  Some even bought gifts for other Junor Wingers!  You all have very considerate children!  We made it to our bus stop with enough time to spare to buy mochi out of wooden boxes from a very kind grandmother at her shop that must have been selling mochi to temple visitors for generation upon generation.

Our 20-minute bus ride to Kyoto Station was a nose-to-armpit experience.  The bus was very crowded (at least for those of us up front).  We made it to the station with no problem and we were happy to find our platform was just inside the wicket.  We couldn’t have missed it if we had tried!

We’re now on the train and our 8-month journey to Nanao will be complete in twenty minutes!

Day Two

Dawn came early at 5:30am, but many of us were already awake.  We waited impatiently for 8:00 to roll around so we could eat breakfast buffet-style of scrambled eggs, sausages, toast, spaghetti salad, miso soup, rice, and orange juice.  By 9:00am we were on the bus to our first stop: Ryoanji Temple to see the famous meditation rock garden.

For companion photos, see:

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While it is still only the first day, we are impressed by all (and I mean all) of your children.  They are minding their manners and following instructions.  Ryoanji Temple is a very quiet, meditative temple and it was important for us not to disturb the contemplative mood.  They all sat quietly on the veranda looking out over the stones temporarily lost in their own contemplative moment.  Things were different, though, when we hit the souvenir stands!

Our next stop was Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavillion Temple.  Near the entrance was a large bell visitors could ring for a 200 yen fee.  Several of the boys decided to do it and they sent beautiful, deep tones floating over the temple.  After going through the gate and rounding a corner, the Golden Pavillion was suddenly right there in front of us.  I think it was at that moment that many of the students fully realized where they were, having learned about the Golden Pavillion back home and now there it was right in front of them.

The temple sits on a small island out in a lake and the slant of the roof and verandahs give the impression that the temple is floating in the lake.  Even though the entire temple is covered in gold leaf, it is not ostentatious, rather it sits in the lake like a swan, beautiful, but humble.

We wound are way along the paths through the garden to an outdoor tea garden where we rested for a while and drank macha with sweet bean cakes with a sprinkle of gold leaf.  The hot, frothy, bitter tea perfectly offset the very sweet cake.  More souvenirs!  Again, the chaperones were impressed by the way all the students were buying souvenirs for family, but very little for themselves!

Once outside the temple we found our way to an all-you-can-eat restaurant for lunch, Japanese-style.  Everyone found things they liked and all were quite full by the time we got back on the bus.

Next stop, the Imperial Palace.  The palace and its grounds sit in the middle of the city.  The moment we walked through the gate, we were immediately surrounded by something much of Japan doesn’t have – space!  To help the students understand how luxurious the space is, we walked the full length of the grounds – nearly a mile -- along the wall of the palace (the palace is closed to the general public so we couldn’t go in).

From the palace we walked another half-mile to the main shopping area of Kyoto.  We split up into three groups (each with one chaperone!).  We met an hour later and everyone had found some kind of treasure to bring home.  Some of the groups had re-fueled on coffee and ice cream while the others found a Mister Donut shop.  Either way, caffeine and sugar kept our feet moving toward our last stop for the day, Nijo Castle.  Even so, we were seven minutes too late.  The gate had closed for the day.  We were going to have to try again in the morning.  One last bus ride took us back to the youth hostel.

Dinner was grilled fish with white miso, tofu, rice….  Everyone tried at least some of it.  Later, I noticed several students munching ice cream sandwiches from the vending machines.  You can probably guess who they were! 

Jet lag and the long, long walk, followed by a hot bath or shower put most of us to bed by 8:30 or 9:00.

Day One: SFO to Kyoto

We have made it to the Youth Hostel here in Kyoto without a hitch.  We had a very smooth flight all the way with only a couple of bumpy spots.  All the kids have been great; their behavior has been quite good (except for the incessant whistler on the plane!)  Immigration and Customs were a piece of cake, although we did have to wait in line for 45 minutes or so because we had been seated near the very back of the plane.

Mr. Yachi, one of the chaperones who visited Monterey, met us at the airport and together we got all of our luggage shipped off to Nanao and ourselves on the train to Kyoto.  It was still daylight for most of the way and all the kids were impressed by what they could see: the tightly-packed houses interspersed with plots of rice, cabbages, onions, and all kinds of other crops, the small size of all the cars, Tonka Truck-sized bulldozers, and so on.  They were also impressed by the tile roofs of all the houses.  It was fun to see their eyes shining with wonder, "Whoa...this is like so totally amazing!"

Kyoto Station itself is a marvel of architecture and as we came out of the wicket, I saw jaws drop as they looked up at the Kyoto Tower all lit up against the night sky.  "Totally awesome!!"

We wound our way up to the 10F of the connecting department store to a restaurant arcade devoted entirely to ramen noodles.  Even the ones who said they weren't hungry happily slurped up a bowl.  Once fed, we found our bus that would take us uptown to the youth hostel. Nearly everyone promply fell asleep!

The youth hostel we're in is truly fabulous and everyone is eager to see it in the morning light, at the moment though, everyone is very soundly asleep.  All is well and tomorrow promises to be a beautiful day.