The Japan Trip - Day 05

Today was a sad day, as we would be leaving the Hikidas. Hikida-san made one of his infamous breakfasts, full of bamboo shoots and nori. I have to make an interruption here and just say that I LOVE nori. I never used to eat seaweed when I was younger, but now it's like one of the best foods ever. I would eat it as a snack everyday if I had enough nori lying around. It's just that good.

It's even bigger and better.

As we were getting ready to leave, Yumiko-san came to visit us one more time, which was weird because I thought she had to go to work. We all said our farewells again, and said goodbye to Benny/Benni, who Hikida san had taken out of her kennel and was running around exitedly. He fed her one of the onigiri rolls that we hadn't eaten, which confused me because I thought dogs shouldn't eat processed food, which I thought the nori certainly qualifies as.

Hikida-san also brought with him the photographs we had taken the previous night, as well as some good luck charms from the temple. There was one which was supposed to be for our mothers as well. We accepted the gifts graciously and presented him with the dried mangoes, which looked really incapable of compensating for all they had given us in return.

Aki-san drove us to the train station. He was quite quiet all the way, I think because he was sad too. At the station, he directed us to the restaurant which the Hikidas had recommended the day previously, which apparently sold another Hiroshiman speciality, tsuke-men, or maybe it's just the Hiroshima variant. We said our final goodbyes to Aki-san, and last bro-hugs as well, and watched him walk back out into Hiroshima.

We wandered around the station for a while before the restaurant opened. There isn't much shopping to do at train stations, unless you're of the type who needs to get a local souvenir for your family because you're here for a quick business trip, and no they haven't tried this local specialty before, and no I don't have time to wrap it in nice paper but hey look it's all wrapped up already. I have to admit that it's a very efficient system, and the Japanese have really streamlined the process to such an extent that there isn't even a gift-wrap counter; they sell non-wrapped and wrapped versions of all the biscuit boxes and treat baskets and other assorted edible keepsakes.

The front of Bakudanya. They have cute waitresses!

We had lunch at Bakudanya, and the tsuke-men was delicious. I regret that I didn't order the one with more noodles, though. The dip was slightly spicy and you can spam all the ground sesame seeds as you like, which makes it taste so awesome. I found it so thoughtful that they actually have a spice scale, so that customers can choose their appropriate spiciness level. If I remember correctly, Bryan took a Level 7 (out of 20; anything more than 11 was dangerous according to their chart). I took a nice and safe and comfortable 2. Bryan's dip was clearly red and seemed to ignite the air on contact. A level 20 dip would probably spontaneously combust wheen you dipped your noodles in.

So simple, yet so delicious.

The rest of the day was mostly travelling to Tottori, our next station. There was a delay on the train to Yonago, which was our first and only delay for the entire trip. It wasn't very exciting (delays rarely are), it just meant that we were late at our next station, and had to ask for the next train to our next destination. We were in really rural areas now, nothing much but farmland and small scattered houses along the rail lines. The train stations also started looking more isolated, like deserted islands of civilisation in the green ocean of nature. It's the kind of station where you set the dramatic and emotional ending of a romance anime, where the main character is on the platform and his love interest in on the train, and the train starts going off into the distance and he just stands there and the wind blows. That kind of train station.

It's amazing how much story one building can contain.

It's a good thing I didn't come with a girl, because she'd probably declare her undying love for me but with a dramatic plot twist to explain why we can never be together before getting on a train and disappearing into the sunset. Sigh.

We arrived at Tottori station in a very slight rain (two drops every five minutes) and were stranded. We had no idea how to get to Tottori; we were intending to maybe take a bus, but apparently there wasn't one. In the end, Xi Min ended up asking an old man with a dog, and he managed to call a taxi for us. The taxi driver was also an old man, and in a small town like Tottori, must have been one out of all five active taxi drivers. I was very interested in the small device on his dashboard, which whirred through a few unreadable kanji before settling on one, which must mean something like "booking", but I wondered why it was located all the way on the left, out of his reach and not seemingly connected to the fare machine itself, which was in the normal place under the dashboard next to the steering wheel.


We arrived at the rental cottage and were surprised to find it empty. The cottage was huge, but also very dark and devoid of human life. We went in and called out a couple of times, but no one came to answer, even though there was clearly someone around because there was a pair of shoes at the front door. We walked around the back to see if there was anyone there. It really was a big place, very green, with a patio and a wire arch which in warmer spring would be a very beautiful floral corridor, but since it was still winter in the mountains, was just a very bare wire arch.

Great. A large abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere.

It was about twenty minutes before someone pulled up on the neighbouring tennis court. It was the cottage owner! Apparently, she was waiting at the station, and because of the delay, must have missed us somehow, and went back looking for us after we left the station. It was really nice of her to do so, since the drive back to town is about twenty minutes of difficult country road and sharp bends and steep cliffs overlooking vertical drops to the jagged rocks below.

She lets us into the house and explains some ground rules, in a mix of English and Japanese. In such a rural country town, there isn't much English anywhere. We dropped off all our bags and she offered to drive us somewhere for dinner.

The unexpected beerhouse in the middle of nowhere.

It turns out she brought us to a nearby beer house, which also specialised in pasta and western dining. She didn't join us for dinner though. We all ordered pasta, and before it came Bryan and I went out to take more sakura shots, in the slight drizzle. It was very, very cold: the rainy weather, coupled with the altitude, made it incredibly freezing indeed. My pasta was a dish of cream sauce with prawns and broccoli and it was delicious.

After our dinner the owner (who was called Inoue-san) brought us into town so that we would patronize the convenience store, which I assume also doubled as their supermarket. We bought food for the next day, because we were going on our hike, and wouldn't have any access to food the next morning. I tried a microwavable yakisoba and a normal soba for lunch the next day, and got a chocolate bun and some milk. Bryan and I also purchased some instant noodles, the Cup Noodle brand of Curry Cheese, and it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS when we had it later that night.

As recommended by two out of four gaijin.

Exploring the cottage was the next item on the agenda. It was huge, and probably designed for those kinds of school class trips where you get twenty or more people squeezed under a single roof. There were so many rooms. It seemed like there was a second cottage stuck together with it, like a semi-detached bungalow, but semi-attached as well, with a door connecting the two. There were countless beds. There was even an attic, but we didn't explore much because there were these insects that were crawling in to escape the cold. I couldn't identify them; they weren't cockroaches, but they were large and woodlouse-y, and even though I have never seen a woodlouse before that's how I would describe them. They were all sluggish though due to the cold. We found rooms on the second floor which were mercifully insect-free, and traversed the rest of the apartments. There was a number of study rooms with the classic Japanese heated table thing, kotatsu I think they're called. There was a room without beds, just futons folded up on one wall. There was a room with volumes of Shonen Jump!, a manga compilation magazine. There was a really creepy looking tradational Japanese girl doll, the kind that would turn its head to follow you around the room if you were playing Fatal Frame or something. There were three kitchens. I counted.

A narrow hallway with tons of indoor slippers. Note the save point.

The huge empty bathroom, with authentic stone bath.

You can tell this house was designed for more than the four of us.

A small study-area-slash-lounge.

A real kotatsu!

Bedrooms with tons of beds and insects.

The second kitchen. Yes, I said second.

Tatami mats and futons for the traditional touch.

HOLY CRAP THE DOLL IS WATCHING

The stairwell brings you to the dim, dark second floor.

One of the rooms, which shared a bathroom with another similar room.

That is a lot of Shonen Jump that I can't read.

A narrow bathroom, a squeeze to bathe in and keep out the bugs at the same time.

One of the many washrooms scattered around the house.

The insect-infested attic.

Bryan, still high from the karaoke machine at the Hikidas, wanted to try out the machine here. We switched it on and sang English songs into the middle of the night, which was about 10pm because we weren't supposed to disturb the neighbours after that.

We mostly only knew English songs.

*All pictures in this post courtesy of Bryan.