Tuesday, October 29
We were up and packed bright and early for our first travel day. The cab whisked us to the entrance to Tokyo Station that leads directly to the platforms for the Shinkansen (bullet trains). I had another pleasant but terribly confusing conversation with a young woman at the JR Rail ticket office. I wanted to reserve seats. She passed across two train schedules. Both were marked „sold out.“ I said „no reserved seats available?“ „No.“ „So which train is more likely to have unreserved seats?“ She pointed to one of the schedules. I said „Great.“ At which point she gave us four tickets for reserved seats. OK!
We wandered around a bit looking for somewhere to have breakfast that didn‘t consist of soup (I know, once a gringo….). We found a place that specialized in…beer and pancakes. Or rather beer and „pan cakes,“ thick pancake batter baked in a pan. Good, though! And the coffee wasn‘t bad either. We were finding that Japan‘s reputation for being extremely expensive isn‘t always deserved. Yes, you can spend an enormous amount of money. But you can eat extremely well for less than you would pay in New York. Our breakfast was eight bucks a piece. Not elegant, but perfectly tasty.
Then on to one of the moments to which I had really been looking forward: a visit to the famous bento box shop in the middle of Tokyo Station. The place is an absolute trip: packed to the gills with shoppers, with yard after yard of bento box choices. Everything from sushi roll appetizers through boxes with many courses and on to self- heating boxes for beef and eel. Sue chose a box that contained, rather than small compartments, many packages of rice with meat toppings in what looked like banana leaves.
I went traditional, with the “Tokyo Box” built around smoked salmon, rice, a tasty little meat ball, and tons of vegetables that defied identification.
Connie chose a lovely little box with more than a dozen appetizers.
With the larder well stocked, we made our way through a couple of ticket checks to the platform for our Shinkansen, which was bound for Toyoma on the Sea of Japan. The platform is organized brilliantly; you know not just where your car will stop, but where to stand for the door nearest your seat. Like it or not, this is just a society that works; as Vladimir says, with typical Vladimirian understatement, “They make the Swiss look like sloppy swine!”
Once aboard, we whirred through the landscape on the smoothest train ride of our lives. I was blogging away, looked up, and we were half way across Japan! We changed trains at Toyoma, boarding a mountain rail car that took us deep into the Japanese Alps. These are landforms like I’ve never seen in North America or Europe. Deep, steep, twisting glaciated valleys that are characterized by a bumpiness that glaciers don’t leave behind in North America. The mountains were cloaked with dense foliage–for all its reputation as a logging area, we saw no clear cuts–and cut with rushing streams and rivers. We passed at least three large hydroelectric dams on our trip.
Vladimir is always fascinated by the technology, and there was a lot for him to see on this leg of our journey!
We guessed that the train reached a height of around 5000 feet, passing through a series of tunnels, before descending into the high valley where Takayama sits. The town seemed pleasant; more on that tomorrow.
A cab took us on a long drive out of town and into a deep, remote valley with a rushing stream. We had booked one night at a famous ryokan or country inn, Wano-Sato.
The cab dropped us at the gate of the inn, where we found a sign saying “leave bags here” so that the “stuff” can carry them down. The inn was visible below us through the trees, nestled alongside the stream.
Two staff members were soon pounding up the path from the main lodge; they brought our bags down on a cart while we were welcomed into the inn’s main room with a cup of tea and a delicious, though mysterious sweet. The main room is organized around an open hearth in the center of the room; the hearth is ringed by cushions for sitting and eating.
The Bans were housed in a suite of rooms in the main building, while Sue and I had an ancient thatched roof cottage.
This was our introduction to traditional Japanese living. Inside the front door is an antechamber where one leaves “outside” shoes. Beyond that is a first sitting room with a huge picture window looking out on the stream.
Beyond that is the main room, where one both eats and sleeps (the staff lays out futons while one is out and about). The alcove at the back is called Tokonoma: framed by beautifully lacquered rough logs, it contains a flower arrangement on a slightly raised floor and a scroll on the back wall.
The sliding doors on the left give onto a balcony overlooking the stream; to the right is another small room all ready in case we want to put on our own tea ceremony.
No stay at a ryokan is complete without donning the appropriate attire: the yakuta is an enormously comfortable and surprisingly warm cotton robe. Sue looked just a little bit better in hers than I did in mine.
To the eternal shame of my traveling companions, I was the only one to take advantage of what for many travelers is the principal joy of the ryokan: the onsen or hot spring bathing chamber. The onsen at Wano-Sato is lovely: the entry to the men’s side feels like a high class sauna, but the pools themselves are in a rocky grotto with water flowing out of the rock. After you scrub down and rinse yourself off, you slip into the very hot water and enjoy some unusually relaxing contemplation…while you turn into a prune. I was soon joined by two other men; we soaked in companionable silence. The water temperature is not recommended for travelers with heart conditions! 30 minutes did it for me, but you do emerge with a deep sense of well being.
Next on the ryokan agenda was a Kaiseki dinner. In many ryokans, this is served in the guest’s room, but, since we were two couples, we ate together in a lovely dining room in the main lodge.
Warning: too much detail follows for those of you less interested in food!
Kaiseki is an evolving tradition, a meal composed of many courses in a set order. The chef strives to present only local, seasonal ingredients; the dishes are arranged with artistic flair on dishes and vessels chosen to enhance the appearance of each dish. Although some of the garnishes are leaves and flowers, others are edible garnishes that resemble actual plants.
Each course was wonderful, but some stood out. The composed appetizer with shrimp and wasabi was arranged around an edible porcupine!
The sushi course, presented in a lacquer box, rivaled our sushi from Tokyo; we all agreed that the squid was one of the best fishes we’d ever tasted.
The star of the show, though, was the Hida beef course. Japanese beef, or Wagyu, can be any of four breeds of cattle. There are then regional variations. Kobe is of course the best known in the United States; in Central Hokkaido, Hida beef from the region around Takayama is the most prized. The beef is brought to the table raw, sliced in two inch squares that are about 1/3 of an inch thick. The beef is so thoroughly marbled that the flesh seems to shimmer like a mosaic. Cooked briefly on a hibachi and dipped in garlic salt and seasoned soy sauce that has been spiked with freshly grated wasabi, the meat literally melts away in your mouth. This is not the bold, beefy taste prized by eaters of steak, but a delicate, enormously subtle, almost evanescent flavor.
The meal ended with two rice courses but we were only able to nibble a bit at each.
The inn serves warm sake around the fire in the main room after the meal. As the room information brochure says, “Please come to the fireside, enjoy conversation, and share feeling with other guests.” We were so full we could barely waddle—it’s hard to imagine staying more than one night—and we were a little worried about Vladimir “sharing feeling” with the other guests, so we called it a night.
When we returned to our cottage, the table in the main room was nowhere to be seen and two very inviting futons occupied center stage.