Day Twenty-Three

When I dream, I dream in images, but when I recall those dreams, I just recall feelings. Moments. Bits and pieces

When I was young I used to dream of being in Japan. I'd imagine that I was a young kid, just a year or two younger than I would've been at the time, walking to school on a hot summer's day with the endless rice fields wavering in the humid breeze, and the buzzing of the cicadas ever present in the soundtrack to my life. I'd wait at the train crossing as the arms slowly lowered to stop the single car on the lonesome country road. That familiar sound, a sort of jaded klaxon absently warning me to keep clear of the tracks as a morning train rushed by without a second thought to the people it passed. I'd cross paths with the driver of the car without a second thought, it was too early and too awkward to acknowledge each other, and the cicadas were so loud in my ears I scarcely would've heard him.

Today, I lived that dream.

With my backpack on, walking west along the tracks early in the morning toward Matto station, I had to remind myself that I wasn't 12 years old. There was no schoolteacher waiting for me, to begin classes for the day. My bag was full of camera odds and ends, not books. But the cicadas chirped and buzzed, as though to outdo each other, the arms came down to let the train pass unimpeded, and the driver of the solitary car wouldn't meet my eyes as he passed by. What life was this...and when was I going to wake up?

Lindsay and I drank enough of our cold coffees to start having a conversation - and the spell began to break. Here I was. I'm twenty five. I have an agenda. Linday's here too. Then the real schoolkids started coming down the stairs, in uniform, to catch trains into Kanazawa. It took that to remind me that I wasn't one of them. 

We rode the train into Nishi-Kanazawa, switched to a local line, and rode that until we ran out of track. 

Kanazawa is not what I expected - but it's really quite amazing. I imagined a sort of separation between the old and the new, the industry and culture. But in Kanazawa, ancient and contemporary are literally neighbours. 

We walked up a main thru-way following signs for the temple district, turned down an alleyway, and in seconds, reached the first of many temples. It was old. Ancient. Exactly the image that "Ancient Japanese Temple" invokes. Old, closed wooden sliding doors. Giant iron bell, weighing in excess of 600 pounds, with a small sapling as a striker. Beautiful curved-tile roof to hold the weight of the snow. And dozens and dozens of shrines to mark the lives of generations past. We were also the only ones there. 

It was very serene, and very meditative. After this morning's dreamlike haze, it was the last thing I needed to try to stay grounded. I found myself saying less and less aloud, and snapping more and more photos to make up for the silence.

We went from this temple to one we'd read about. The so called Ninja Temple. While this temple was not in fact operated by Ninjas, it's called this because of its numerous tricks, traps, and secret rooms and staircases. Much to my dismay, I was not allowed to take photos inside, so I have one photo of the beautiful main room I took from outside, the rest will have to live in your mind's eye.

Imagine two way sliding doors, slide the door one way and it leads to a passage, slide it the other way and it opens into a narrow staircase to another floor. There was a rule imposed by the Shogunate at the time of this castle's construction that no structure be more than three stories. The temple is constructed to appear to have two stories when viewed from the outside, but inside contains at least four stories,, with numerous rooms and halls occupying space between them, for a total of seven "levels". The coolest thing to me about this was that this temple was built in defense of the Shogun, so they had to disobey his law to better protect him. Interesting. 

There's a secret prayer room for the commander of the structure. He can look down upon the main chamber, but no one would know he's there. The stairs leading into one of the side doors have panels of paper in between each step, which allow light into a secret room below - people in this room used the passing shadows to spear the feet of enemies ascending the stairs. At least seven rooms on various levels overlook a well on the ground, surrounded on all sides by the temple. The well has a secret passage within it that goes all the way to Kanazawa castle, so that the Ninja Temple can be quickly and secretly evacuated if need be. Certain floorboards can be lifted to allow access to a narrow staircase that leads outside, and the floorboard has the groove for the above sliding door built in, which acts as a lock so it can only be opened from the inside. There's even a hidden Hara-kiri room, for the disgraced commander to privately commit suicide. You can only enter through a revolving door that won't open from the inside, so once you're in, you're in. Room sizes in Japan are measured in how many tatami mats cover the floor - this Hara-Kiri room is 4 tatamis, and 4 is an unlucky number among the Japanese....a number that means death. 

I could go on and on - suffice to say that the Ninja temple totally lived up to it's name, and was incredibly bad-ass. 

What I said before about past and present being literally neighbours wasn't an exaggeration. These temples, in spite of being in the so called "Temple District", were literally surrounded on all sides by contemporary houses. Sometimes inside the temple grounds would be a house built up, complete with small garden, family car, and clothing line. It was very bizarre. House. House. House. Temple! There's just not a lot of room in Japan it seems. It's an island - and they're full. 

We wandered about in the suburbs/temples for a while, then started searching for something to eat. Kanazawa had far less plentiful food choices than either of the cities we'd been in, and we found ourselves walking in the direction of the main downtown to try to find anything. 

We crossed a bridge over a dammed river, and suddenly things changed from rural & temples into city and city. It was tremendously sudden. We stopped to eat some ramen at the first ramen place we saw - both of us were pretty hungry.

We'd seen a sign at various points throughout the day pointing to a garden near the area we were in. We decided to try to find it, having heard it's one of the nicer and larger gardens in all of Japan. We walked over the river, up a massive hill, through the streets, and around corners, but the signs just led us in circles and we had no luck finding what we found out later was in fact one of the largest gardens in Japan - I don't know what we were doing wrong...but we tried pretty hard.

It had been a long day, we'd started really early - but we wanted to try to connect a little more with the gracious and kind people who'd invited us to stay. We picked up some groceries back in Matto, and headed home to cook. We'd discussed with Kathy on the phone that we could all do a potluck - which Lindsay and I held up as some small step towards repaying the kindness of these folks. 

I made a rice-less stirfry (to accommodate a gluten-free diet) and Lindsay made a salad, and we headed downstairs to Kathy's apartment, just four floors below ours. Brittany and Andy were there already, lounging as both of them had worke during the day and Andy had come down with a bit of a cold. 

We all sat down on the tatami floor and shared food and stories. I mostly sat back and listened, as the four JETs got talking about how localized the Japanese was in their areas, and comparisons began between Kanazawa (where we were) and Kochi (where Lindsay's from). It was very cool to get to hear all the JETs talk shop, I felt like a bit of a fly on the wall, but it was neat to see Lindsay in her niche, talking to other English instructors in more or less the same boat as her, two Americans and one Brit. We learned a bit about local habits, local customs, and what there was to do in Kanazawa. We kept hearing talk about a mountain, Haku-san, that was nearby, and eventually Kathy got her photos out. The mountain looked incredible, and her photos from the mountain road of steep cliffs, deep valleys, giant grasshoppers and waterfalls only whet our appetites. The mountain was only accessible by car...so Kathy offered to lend us her car...two people she'd only met the night before - which struck me as an incredible gesture of good faith. Overblown by her excessive kindness...we of course demanded more - as I noticed an instrument in the corner I wasn't familiar with...that looked kind of like a Zither.

Kath explained it was a Kotto, and that even among the Japanese they aren't played very much anymore. If I'd ever watched a Kung-fu, or seen a Japanese movie, then i'd heard the Kotto, and probably heard one of it's most famous songs "Sakura Sakura" (which of course, I answered yes to both). I asked if she'd play us a piece, and she said yes.

While tuning it up, she explained a bit about it. It being a classical Japanese instrument, it does have a certain amount of history, but apparently now, it's largely ignored. The average Japanese person has never touched a Kotto, despite them being available in most music programs in schools. She played us a piece that she'd been rehearsing for a recital at the end of september, she was going to play in front of her whole village, in full Kimono, etc. She'd repeatedly assured us that she was performing for us just one part of a whole ensemble that would be playing the piece - but in spite of that, it still sounded amazing. 

Then she was nice enough to let me play. It's a very cool instrument...it's supposed to be picked with these fingerpicks you wear, but they were too small for my fingers, so I just played it like a bass. Since there are no frets, the strings are all tuned together to be in a particular key, so it's quite easy to sound like you know what you're doing. But after sitting down and trying it myself, what I was really floored by is that Kathy had been reading the piece she performed from Japanese notation, which of course is written in Kanji and Hiragana, written top to bottom, and right to left...she was able to read, and play 13 strings while turning pages without breaking a sweat. I was really impressed.

We left after the potluck to get some sleep, to prepare for the drive up Haku-san in the morning, but not before saying goodbye to our new friends.

Mountains await!