Japan – April 2023 – Hut hikes for beginners

Born-again-Ninja

We are going to Japan. This is by no means the first time, as intimates will know. All four of us have a special connection to this country. My wife has even made a brave attempt to learn the language last year. These language skills must be cashed in. Naturally, expectations are realistic in this regard, but that is absolutely down to Japanese, not my wife. I mean, she may not always be easy, but Japanese is very, very difficult. Anyway, then there’s our son. He loves manga and anime – Japanese comics and cartoons – and Pokémon. He also has a fascination for (war) history and despots, a theme that also has some ties with Japan. Our daughter loves Kawaii, cute, stuffed animals, plush or live, which is also a Japanese preoccupation. And finally, I myself count fermented food as one of my deeper obsessions. Kombucha, kimchi, miso, soy sauce, it’s all controlled rot, it’s all from the Far East, and I’ve either already made it myself or it’s still on my bucket list to make it myself. This also links to a hobby the four of us share: food. Food in general, and Japanese food in particular.

The first time we visited Japan – in 2008 – we were still without offspring. The second time – in 2014 – was a different story. Our children were one and four, and it felt like a pretty risky venture. Japan sometimes feels like a china shop with rice-paper walls. The last thing you want is to leave a toddler-shaped hole in one of those precious walls. We got off graciously, it all went well, and it tasted like more. Now, anno 2023, we have two adolescents in tow. Not that the danger is completely gone now; the potentially threatening hole in the rice paper has grown with our children. We are not even in Japan yet and we are already getting a taste. At the entrance to Schiphol Airport, a man strikes up a conversation with us. He has a familiar face, what do I know him from? Ah, a microphone, a camera…it’s the Dutch news, making a news item about the chaos at airports at the start of the Dutch May holidays. Some questions are asked, to which one of our family members, I won’t name names, unblinkingly declares that her parents illegally took her out of school earlier today to get ahead of the crowds. Lucky for us, compulsory school attendance officers rarely watch TV. Still, we feel a stain appearing on our previously spotless reputation. Luckily this is the Netherlands, loss of face ages before you know it. In Japan, that is a different story.

After a long flight with a transfer in Seoul, we land in Osaka. In 2008, Osaka was our last destination before going home. It was here that we boarded the plane again, with a huge hangover after a night of sake and karaoke. Osaka is the city of fun. This time, heavily jet-lagged, we walk around the Dotonbori district in the evening. The atmosphere is a bit like a fairground. There are eateries, shooting tents (archery!) and bars everywhere. It certainly isn’t stimulus-free, and the Asian vibe gets us straight away. And that feeling remains when we sit down in the morning for soup at a neighbourhood restaurant after a good night’s sleep. This is what we love. No frills, fluorescent lighting, bathroom tiles on the wall, a menu full of pictures and incomprehensible descriptions, and of course, above all, good food. I ordered soup with something mushroomy. We suspect it’s called ukabake, but google doesn’t give it away and, certainly under the influence of jet lag, all sorts of things get mixed up now (ukabake, uwabaki, obake, kabuki, bukake… Japanese remains a difficult language). Anyway, it tastes excellent.

Kyoto

We take the train to Kyoto. Kyoto is considered the cultural centre of Japan. For over a thousand years, it was the capital of the Japanese empire. Visiting temples alone here could take up all of your holidays. That would be a bit too much of a good thing. That’s why we have picked two to take a closer look at. Right after arriving in Kyoto, we throw our bags into a station locker and walk through the surrounding streets to Fushimi Inari-taisha, one of the most famous Shintoist shrines. It is a beautiful place to walk around, passing under thousands of interconnected red gates, the “torii” that symbolise the transition from the earthly to the sacred in Shinto belief. But it is also hard work. The whole complex is built on a hill. Moreover, it is sunny and the temperature is already starting to rise quite a bit, and yes, then there is also the jet lag. On top of that, it is busy and we are not quite prepared for that; to the best of our knowledge, the infamous Golden Week has not yet arrived.

The second temple we visit, the next morning, is Kiyomizu-dera. There too it is very crowded, or let’s say lively. Whereas Western churches are often a place to light a candle in silence, Buddhist shrines are more likely to be bustling with activity. You can secure yourself happiness in love here by walking the distance between two stones with your eyes closed. You can boost your prosperity by lifting an extremely heavy object. And more generally, you can influence the higher powers in favour of a multitude of good causes: safe driving, business success, children, victories, good relationships, health, easy birth, academic achievements, healthy legs, or simply the prevention of bad luck or the occurrence of bad luck… And for those who have trouble choosing: there is always the “variety of wishes”. Yet, it is something else that strikes us the most. Slightly hidden at the edge of the complex is the Tainai meguri. For a modest fee, you enter the interior of a temple – the symbolic womb of a female bodhisattva. It is earthly dark, and you are meant to walk by touch until you emerge at a turning stone. “Feel your own light in the darkness,” the entrance ticket reads. Your only grip in the darkness is a string of pearls along the wall, although I also seem to see a small light from a smoke detector that I secretly navigate to. Anyway, this is not suitable for claustrophobics. Or maybe it is; it is a wonderful exercise in trust. Confidence that you will find your way, and that the temple builders won’t try to trick you. Our children don’t like it at all, they want to get out as soon as possible. What does Freud say about that?

Kyoto also happens to be the city of geishas and of samurai. We have secured tickets for Azuma Odori, a highly professional geisha show, a spectacle of music, dance and theatre. The music takes some getting used to for the Western ear. It is full of pentatonics, say the sound of black piano keys, as well as micro-tonality, pitches that do not occur in our music at all. Either way, the all-female cast does a fantastic job. Equally memorable is the samurai museum. We are given a comprehensive tour of the history of Japanese chivalry – told in surprisingly understandable English and with a lot of humour. The tour ends with a samurai costume contest. And with a throwing-star contest in which your reporter convincingly finishes second from the entire crowd. For a moment I imagine myself incrowd, I am overcome by the feeling that I am a born-again-Ninja, a feeling that I am completely at home in this country. This feeling bursts like a bubble as soon as we exchange the samurai museum for the piglet café. I sit on a cushion on the floor and piglets crawl all over my legs. I don’t feel at home at all. I want it to end.

I almost forget to write about food! We visit two highly recommended restaurants in Kyoto. Both so hidden that you would never accidentally bump into them. The premium Wagyu beef restaurant is in a street full of restaurants, bars and brothels, behind a door in an obscure stairwell. After a brief introduction (“are you familiar with our concept” in Japanese, I guess), we get incredibly great food with absolutely no fuss. Even harder to find is the sushi restaurant, three high at the back of a shopping street. It’s so well-hidden that for 15 minutes we stand in front of the building, staring at googlemaps and almost give up. Once we find it, somewhere on the sixth floor, the four of us sit at the bar, where two very old men prepare the perfect sushi for us.

Aizu Wakamatsu

We head north on the Shinkansen, the high-speed train. Through the pouring rain, we walk to the train station, where Teun in all the hurry almost gets on the wrong train. In Japan, you feel that everything always works out, but still, this was a slight panic moment that could have been quite disruptive for our holiday planning, and for our state of mind. But once we are on the right train, the real fun begins. Firstly, you are not supposed to talk. How invigorating is that? You are meant to sit in your seat, be quiet and eat your packed lunch – bento box, which of course we do with chopsticks (proudly, because you know, peas and rice). Then a station changeover awaits us, in the middle of Tokyo. That’s a bit of a thing. We have fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is a sea of time when you have to get from track 5 to track 7 in a Dutch train station, but we are in To-fucking-kyo. This train station is as big as a city in itself. We are, of course, lugging all our luggage with us, which is already no mean feat. Meanwhile, among that luggage is a bag exclusively for souvenirs, which is already (!) quite heavy and, what’s more, it’s breaking down. We have to wriggle through gates that, for reasons that are unclear, do not appreciate our train tickets. And to make things more stressful, we have three train tickets per person, all marked with characters unreadable to us. It takes a Japanese person to do it. We discover – while time is ticking away nervously – that the gate only opens when you insert the three tickets in exactly the right order. After quite a few moments of internal cursing, we manage to catch the train.

Koryama is the final destination of our train journey today. All of a sudden, we are far away from big city tourism. There’s not a single tourist in sight here. I guess what helps is the fact that we are forty-three kilometres away from Fukushima; the fear of nuclear radiation has done little good here. We swap the high-speed train for a low-speed car, a Toyota Corolla, and drive to Aizu Wakamatsu in an hour and a half. I wrote about it before: the Japanese drive like old people. And they are elderly, of course, statistically speaking; Japan is the most ageing country on earth. You can also see it in the cars, there are many “kei cars” here; small, compact playmobil cars with undoubtedly all kinds of advantages but also the streamline of a shoebox. That said, a maximum speed of eighty kilometer per hour on the motorway is actually quite relaxing.

On our first night outside the big city, we sleep in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel in the luxury segment. In this case, that luxury starts with valet parking. Subsequently, we are welcomed with macha tea and there is free soft ice cream and craft beer. Before dinner, we have a quick soak in the onsen, the beautiful ondoor spa, followed by the undisputed highlight of staying in a ryokan: kaiseki, haute cuisine Japanese style. It is not our first ryokan experience but it is magnificent every time. In the morning, too, it’s a feast: first a dip in the onsen and then a finger-lickingly sumptious breakfast.

Limori Yama, Yamadera and Zao onsen

Close to the hotel is the mountain Limori Yama. This is a place with a tragic history: in 1868, some 20 junior samurai warriors committed ritual suicide here. The incident happened during the Boshin War in which the Shogun and the Emperor were fighting for power. The samurai, teenagers still, were part of the Byakkotai, the “White Tigers” unit. They thought – wrongly – that they had lost the battle and committed seppuku. Even more uncomfortable: on top of the mountain are memorials from the early twentieth century, donated by the Nazis and Italian Fascists, in tribute to the samurai. The mountain is also home to the elegant Sazae-do: a small, all-wood temple, with a spiral staircase in the shape of a double helix. This way, incoming and outgoing visitors do not get in each other’s way.

After visiting the Yamadera temple, beautifully situated against a mountainside, we drive to Zao Onsen in a couple of hours. The route passes through a forested mountain landscape with snow-capped peaks. Along the road, cherry blossom is in bloom. And Japan wouldn’t be Japan without a musical road, a subtly ridged road that elicits a tune from your car as you drive along it. We spend the night at a simple ryokan in Zao Onsen, a ski resort.

Kakunodate and Ganiba Onsen

After an early breakfast, we drive further north. The weather is beautiful. To our left, a volcano appears in view, Mount Chokai. It looks a bit like Mount Fuji, and owes its nickname “Dewa Fuij” to it. We make a lunch stop in Kakunodate. This village is known for two things: cherry blossom and samurai history. Viewing the flowering cherry trees along the river is a particularly favourite pastime of the Japanese. This is called Hanami – flower-watching as a tourist activity. We walk around buke yashiki, the samurai district. There are the beautiful houses from the time when the Satake clan ruled here. We visit the miso-soy sauce brewery where I buy a jar of miso to make Japanese pickles at home (tsukemono misozuke: briefly fermented vegetables in a miso marinade).

We continue our way north. We drive past forestry areas and past crater lake Tazawa. The snow is getting closer; there are remnants of snow everywhere on the roadside. The small village where we spend the night is called Nyoto Onsen. Nyoto is Japanese for nipple. I had noticed earlier that day that the hills in this part of the country are strikingly bosomy. I didn’t want to bring it up myself – fear of accusations of gendered appropriation? – but when the Japanese incorporate it into their town name, I have to mention it. Nyoto refers both to the shape of the hills and to the milky spring water that comes out of them. Just so you know.

The ryokan where we spend the next two nights is called Ganiba Onsen. Ganiba is Japanese for crab, and that theme is cleverly worked out in the hotel, crab motifs are visible everywhere. At six o’clock, dinner is served. At 5:58pm, the phone in our room rings, it’s the receptionists asking us to come to the dining room. Once again, we are served a fine example of kaiseki, with a stuffed crab, of course, as well as an integral fish that we get to fry ourselves at the table. These are things we wouldn’t necessarily choose from a menu, but a Japanese chef is allowed to serve us anything. It’s a matter of trust. In the forest behind the hotel is an outdoor onsen – a rotemburo. The norm in modern times is for men and women to bathe separately, but this is a konyoku: a mixed bath. Inside the hotel, by the way, there are separate baths for men and women. A small minus: partly due to the lack of curtains in our room, we have a very poor night’s sleep, even though, of course, the phone call rings at 7:58am asking us to come to the breakfast room. The incredible breakfast compensates for all of this. And we take it easy today. It’s holiday time.

Aomori

On Sunday, we drive to Aomori, the northernmost destination of this holiday. Aomori is located at the top of Honshu, Japan’s main island. As we drive off, the rain is pouring down heavily. We drive past a wildly flowing river and a reservoir. There is a lot of snow along the road. The buildings in this region look a bit dilapidated. It is misty, but as soon as it clears, Mount Iwaki rises in front of us on the left. Aomori itself turns out to be a pleasant modern town, situated on a bay. Across the bay is Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four big islands. You can get there by train, through one of the world’s longest tunnels. We have lunch at the Furukawa fish market. At the entrance, you buy vouchers for consumption that you can use to whip up your own selection of sashimi and other delicacies at the market. It is small and delightful, we feel like we are in heaven.

Aomori attracts many visitors every year with Aomori Nebuta Matsura, a summer festival where huge floats (“Nebuta”) are carried through the city in a procession. It has to be an amazing spectacle, in the first week of August. For the rest of the year, you can admire a selection of the finest floats at the museum, which opened in 2011. The Nebuta depict aggressive warlords and scenes from Kabuki theatre, all in brightly coloured motifs lit from within. While marvelling at the visual spectacle, we are treated to a performance by the marching bands and dancers who musically accompany the processions.

Osarizawa and Appi Kogen

On Monday, we drive to Appi Kogen. On the way, we stop at Osarizawa, a historic copper mine. It is said that thirteen hundred years ago there were mining activities here. We walk a kilometre-long route through the mine, where the work and life of the workers is depicted. It is an open-air museum, well, an underground museum. Ellen I think it’s pretty cool but our kids hate it, they would rather be outside as soon as possible. They don’t like dark inside places, and just like in the dark temple a few days ago, they want this trip to end. It’s not like you have to crawl or anything, and there are lights, but still: you walk through the earth’s crust for a while. The relief among our youngsters is enormous when we get out. As a consolation we let them look for gems in sandbox in the museum shop, they like that activity a lot better.

In Appi Kogen, we sleep in a minshuku, an inn that is slightly simpler than a ryokan. The owner, an über-friendly Japanese man in a cowboy hat, informs us that we are his first Dutch guests since the visit of a business traveller 15 years ago. Especially for us, he has decided to cook “western” food: steak with potatoes and lettuce, served with forks and knives and all. “Is Wagyu okay?” he asks. Our son, chef-to-be, looks at him euphorically. How rhetorical can a question be? In the morning, we are treated to croissants, yoghurt and coffee. On the one hand, Western food is obviously not what we come to Japan for, but on the other, it is such a sweet and hospitable and typically thoughtful Japanese thing to do. And when a Japanese person cooks across the border, you can be sure that the result is at least as good as – or even better – than the original. He is visibly relieved that we are enjoying his food. There are extensive goodbye photos and he has some small gifts for us, there’s even a gift for the cuddly toy of our daughter. So sweet!

Tono, Hiraizumi en Zao onsen

We continue on our way towards Hiraizumi. Mount Iwate(san), the snow-capped volcano, is gleaming in the sunshine. On the way, we stop in Tono: we are going for a bike ride. You might say, familiar territory for Dutchmen. But it’s a risk. What´s the state of the rental bikes? Will the tiny bikes hold our weight? And how will our adolescents react? Will Ellen’s back hold up? Can we find our way? We park our worries and get on our bikes. Tono is in a quiet valley, a farming landscape, with a spiritual dimension here and there. This happens to be the supposed home of kappas, mythological creatures that tend to harass people. Especially at the waterfront, you should fear them. Pro tip: give them cucumbers, they like them just a little more than human flesh. Apparently, we managed to favour the kappas; we manage to do a nice lap of cycling and eat a delicious tempurah lunch along the way.

On the way to Hiraizumi, we drive past flooded rice fields. In Hiraizumi, we sleep in a minpaku, a Japanese homestay. A very friendly elderly couple rents out a room in their house. That house – I think we would call it a bungalow – is “very old” according to our hostess, as old as 30 years. We wisely keep quiet about our home in the Netherlands – built around 1870. This does seem like a cultural thing: Japanese don’t build for eternity. There are temples here that are considered centuries old, but are rebuilt every few decades.

By the way, we are very fortunate in Hiraizumi; the next day the Spring Fujiwara Festival starts in the town, a big three-day festival. Just around the corner from our homestay there is a fair, and a little further on, legends are being acted out on a stage, with dancing and wild music. The mood is buzzing. It is only a quarter past ten in the morning but glasses of sake are already being handed out. I get double portions because Ellen still has to drive and saying no is quite difficult in Japan. It is a lively crowd; there are long queues at all the eateries, but we are just in time to see the grand procession after lunch.

In the course of the afternoon, we say goodbye to Hiraizumi. We drive to Zao Onsen where we spend another night in a mountain hut before driving back to Koriyama. But as easy as the journey has gone so far, this afternoon things are going rather bumpy. First we are trapped in front of an electronic toll gate that won’t open. ETC only, and we don’t have an ETC card. Whoops. Driving backwards is not an option. After some desperate moments, a toll official comes to our aid, followed by the driver of the car behind us. “Are you from Oranda? Aaaaaaah, we were behind you at the fair!!!!!” Together, they enthusiastically give us instructions on how to get out of this spot. Next, we need to refuel along the motorway. Complication: we have lost our handout, a plasticised A4 sheet which states in Japanese what fuel we need, how much, and how we want to pay, “regular – full – cash”. Using our hands and feet, we manage to get through it, and the four (!) tank attendants can start working on our order. So for a while we experience how our compatriot Makusu Verasatapu must feel in the pit stop. Things get even more challenging in Zao Onsen. As we approach the destination we encounter a firm barrier, it becomes clear that the road to our mountain hut is closed due to snowfall. We are expected to leave the car in the valley and take the cable car. Last run up: 5pm. And it is now 4:56pm. You would say: run! But where to? That is not clear at all. There is no panic but slight stress. Eventually, we manage to get a hotel employee on the line who arranges a pick-up for us. A sturdy diesel van drives us straight up the mountain, using a service road that is open, next to the ski slope.

Relieved, we spend the rest of the evening and night in what looks like an european alpine ski hut, but Japanese style. There are lots of dogs running around, a few alcoholics and a leashed cat. There is a public bath, a pool and a table tennis table, and several people parade around with skis, even though, to the best of our knowledge, there is no decent piste. After a surprisingly quiet night, we are taken down by the diesel van. We drive our rental car back to Koriyama. There, at the train station, we marvel at the streamlined shinkansens that glide into or race past the station every few minutes. It is a mighty sight. We board the high-speed train to Tokyo ourselves, armed with a fancy bento box.

Tokyo

It’s a short walk from the train station to our accommodation in Tokyo. We are in the middle of Shinjuku, one of the busiest districts, of one of the largest cities in the world. In any other country we wouldn’t be able to make it through the crowds, lugging our suitcases, but in Japan this is very do-able. After dropping our luggage, we take the metro east. In search of Pokémon and manga, we take a somewhat unsatisfying wander around the city, through huge department stores. After this complete overload of stimuli our accommodation, a fine ground-floor flat, feels like a soothing oasis.

We find stimuli of a more pleasant kind at teamLab Borderless, an immersive exhibition made by a group of creative scientists and artists. It´s a busy spot, so we´ve made reservations in advance for this. Bags and shoes are left at the entrance; you have to undergo this performance with bare feet. We were also warned that there is a chance of getting wet. The opening act, a huge ball pit, does not bode well for my wife’s back, but everything that follows is painless and enchanting, a phenomenal spectacle with projections, lights and reflections.

As the sun shines brightly, we check out Tokyo Tower, a red-and-white copy of the Eiffel Tower. At the base of the tower, hundreds of koinobori fly in the wind – fish-shaped flags. It is a fervent wish of our daughter to visit a shiba inu café, a place where you can cuddle Japanese purebred dogs for a fee. However, the place is far too crowded, there’s a huge queue. For a moment, I am under the delusion that we can avoid this aspect of Japanese culture by buying a cuddly comfort animal. Until we walk past the otter café. There is no queue for this one. We are all given overalls to wear, are told to decontaminate everything not covered by overalls, strip ourselves of all accessories, and then take our seats on the floor in an enclosed space where a dozen of crazy otters tumble all over us for half an hour. Ou daughter loves it. I endure it resignedly. In a final act, we are allowed to observe a three-week-old baby otter from a distance in the nursery. So very kawaii.

Then we must visit the inevitable: “Kitchen Street”, a kitchen hardware heaven. We like to buy kitchen accessories when travelling, souvenirs that actually get used, usually something as simple as a ladle. Here, we fall for a slightly more expensive but oh-so-pretty piece of kitchen equipment: a Japanese chef’s knife, inscribed with our family name in characters. While we wait for the knife to be ready, the children get a hands-on lesson in making tamagoyaki, a rolled-up omelette.

The journey is almost at an end, it’s our final afternoon in Japan. As we walk into the metro station, Teun trips over a step. He falls awkwardly on his arm and he´s in a lot of pain. It is immediately clear that soemthing is very wrong, and that we need to seek medical attention. After consulting the emergency service in the Netherlands, a taxi driver helps us out. What a sweetheart. As he drives us to the hospital, he calls ahead to the hospital that we are coming. Japanese don’t like surprises, even in the ER. We get ready for a long wait, and for a lot of google translating. Ordering sushi with hands and feet is one thing, but explaining to a non-English-speaking doctor what happened to your son is another. There is also the immediate question of whether we will be able to fly tomorrow; with an arm in a cast, that is not a given. Fortunately, it is not too bad. Although it is a complex fracture, we are helped very efficiently, and the arm can be temporarily and flight-friendly bandaged, provided we visit the hospital at home for a ‘real’ plaster cast.