Chapter 57: CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Reads: 197
Comments: 1

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

When I got up the next morning, my body was still kinked up from all the driving. I sure don't want to do any driving today if I can help it.

"What's somewhere famous near here that I can get to easily," I asked the Okusan after eating my traditional Japanese breakfast.

"Oh, why the closest would be the asaichi morning market. It's been in existence for a thousand years and it's very famous."

"A thousand years? But that would put it in The Heian Period when Kyoto was still the true capital of all of Japan! Not governed by one of those Shogun generalissimos that lived in a faraway city like the Edo Period."

"That's right. But it's a long walk from here. You'd better go there on your bike." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "And you'd better leave right now. All the shops close at noon."

"How do I get there?"

She gave me the directions. It seemed it was across the bridge I had turned back at yesterday. "Be careful of all the one-way streets, though. They can be confusing."

"Hey little buddy, look there's a street named Asaichi Morning Market Street! It's one-way all right. But it's in the direction we want to go in."

Be-Beep!

But as we drove near the market and all the small shops -- outside stalls really -- lining it, there were signs reading "No Thru Traffic Allowed 7:30am to 12:30pm except on second and fourth Wednesdays of each month".

"Well little buddy, it looks like I'll have to leave you here so I can walk along all these different outdoor stalls."

Beeep!

"My God, look at how many of them there are!"

I walked along the street where all the different stallkeepers were busy behind their large tables crammed with their wares. I couldn't believe the variety of stalls, each selling a particular kind of seafood, like freshly caught crabs or shellfish or different kinds of fish that had just been caught or other things including fresh vegetables from nearby farms. And as the crowds of customers, mostly women, went by them, the stallkeepers kept shouting out things to them like, "Oh, Ikeda-san? I've got some really big oysters today that I've saved just for you!"

Apparently just about all of the shoppers were locals buying their daily groceries.

But many of the stalls seemed to be running low on things to sell and a few were already closing, hanging up their tables against the wall behind them. I glanced at my watch. Almost noon! I hurried along the street to see as many of the stalls as I could before they too closed.

There was one that was selling some really beautiful lacquerware. It, too, looked like it was closing. I looked at the the soup bowls and rice bowls and all different types of eating and Japanese brush writing utensils, each with beautiful designs painted on them.

Then I looked at the prices. Jesus!

"Excuse me Miss, but can you tell me why these utensils are so expensive?

She smiled. "That's because they're Wajima-nuri."

"Well, what's so different about them?"

"I'm closing my shop now and it would take me quite a long time to explain. But there's a whole museum devoted to Wajima-nuri that explains the whole process and a shop that sells them that stays open until the museum closes."

"Can you tell me how to get there?"

"Oh yes. It's quite close really."

"Thank God! There it is at last, little buddy. Those damn one-way streets made me go such a long way out of my way when I could easily have walked here in no time. But I don't know what would happened to you if I'd left you back in the morning market after it closes. Here they've got a parking lot at least."

Be-Beep!

It sure didn't look like much of museum from the outside. More like a store with large show windows or something.

After I payed the entrance fee, I found myself looking at signs -- painted on lacquerware, natch -- explaining the whole process. My God, it takes a hundred and thirty some-odd steps just to make one piece of lacquerware. Think of all the hours of labor it must take just to make one piece. No wonder they're so expensive!

But that was just the entrance area. Behind it were library-like shelves fill with all different kinds of Wajima-nuri, mostly bowls and and cups and trays but also different Japanese brush writing apparatuses and even chopsticks. All with beautiful designs painted on them, many with Mt. Fiji and almost all with flowers. There were also photos of the lacquerware craftsmen at work. Man, they must really have patience to keep applying layer after layer of lacquer to each one of those!

When I had finally finished looking at all the displays in the museum, I knew I just had to have a Wajima-nuri as a keepsake. I went to the shop selling them. First, I looked at some bowls that had all different sorts of patterns painted on them. Then I looked at the prices. All were way, way, too expensive for me. Then I noticed the chopsticks. They, too, were expensive but nowhere near as much as the bowls and other ware. I decided I'd buy a pair of the blue ones. Then I noticed there were many being sold in packages of two pairs. One pair in blue and a shorter pair in red.

"Miss, can you tell me why these pairs of chopsticks have the blue pair longer than the red pair?" I asked the saleswomen in the shop.

"The blue ones are for men and the red ones are for women."

"Hmm. Let's see . . . Oh, that pair there has chrysanthemums painted on them. Isn't the chrysanthemum the symbol of the Emperor?"

"That's right. That's a popular theme for small pieces of Wajima-nuri."

"In that case I'll take that package there with the two pair of chopsticks."

She gave me a knowing grin. "One pair for you and the other for your girlfriend?"

"Ah . . . yeah . . . well . . . sort of anyway."

Hey! A guy can hope, can't he?

When I left the museum, it was still only around three in the afternoon. I'd learned from the signs in the entrance of the Lacqurware Museum that there were other museums in Wajima that were devoted to other crafts like one that had all sorts of tall kiriko Japanese style candlelit lanterns. But none of them really interested me and it was too late to go somewhere else on my bike. I decided I'd just go back to my minshuku, have a nice long soak in their ofuro and then go to one of those sushi shops as soon as they opened and still not be very crowded.

As I was relaxing in the tub, I thought about what I wanted to do tomorrow. I think I'd seen enough of Wajima city itself. But those few sections of the Noto Peninsula coast I'd putted along as I was coming up here from Kanazawa were so different from the southern coast of Shikoku that I really wanted to see more of them. And Wajima was only half way up the peninsula. Could I possibly go around the whole northern coast of the peninsula in just one day?

When I got back to my room, I still had plenty of time before any of the sushi shops opened. I studied my roadmaps. Yes, there was a route that went all along the northern coast of the Noto Peninsula. And Route 249 covered most of it. I sure won't have any trouble getting out of Wajima like I did getting out of Kanazawa.

I went to back to the main drag to find a sushi shop for dinner at just after five. Yeah, just as I thought, most of them had very few, if any, customers at this hour. I passed by the sushi shop I'd eaten at last night. It was completely empty now. But I didn't like the attitude of the unsmiling itamae sushi chef there. And there were so many others to choose from. I decided on one that didn't have quite as nice chairs at its counter but had, if anything, more kinds of fish in its refrigerated glass display case at the counter's edge and no customers as yet.

"IRASSHAI!"shouted the chef with a big smile as I entered, giving me the usual "Come in and Welcome!" greeting all shop and storekeepers give to all customers coming into their shop.

I sat down on a chair at the counter and asked without much hope, "Do you by any chance have nodoguro?"

He shook his head slightly, still smiling, "Well, not the tsurimono. It's still out of season. But I do have the trawled net kind."

"Huh? What's the difference?"

"The tsurimono has to be caught one by one using a rod and real. That's what makes them so expensive But the other kind is caught by trawling it a huge net behind it at a deep depth to capture dozens of them at once. They're not as nice to look at. But they taste almost as good. And they're a lot cheaper."

Japanese eating with their eyes again. But I'm an American, dammit! And I eat with my stomach. "Let me try a plate of the net kind."

He quickly slapped two pieces of sushi together and smacked the plate in front of me with the usual "Omachido".

It looked just like any kind of whitefish to me. Cautiously I took a bite of one of the pieces.

Wow! Who cares how it looks? I sure as hell don't. "Can you make me a whole platter?"

"You mean twelve pieces?"

"Please."

When I got back to my minshuku, it was still too early to go to bed. So I studied my maps for making a circle route around the northern part of the Noto Peninsula tomorrow and back to Wajima again. As I calculated the distance I discovered it was going to be an even longer drive than I had thought at first.

But by God, come tomorrow little buddy and me were going to do our damnedest to make that drive!

Submitted: October 24, 2024

Romance romance japan gaijin travel-in-japan japan-1970s

Like
Shelfit

Chapters

T
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64

Add Your Comments:

Sign in to write a comment

Comments

B Douglas Slack

Traveling around and finding interesting places is a cool pastime while on vacation. I used to do it all the time. Most of the museums I poked around weren't set up to handle English. In one of them, there was a young college student dying to try out his English skills. We hit it off and he translated. Later, he took me to a great sushi parlor and I paid for a lot of tasty food--and a corresponding amount of beer, mostly Sapporo.

Bill

Mon, November 25th, 2024 1:33am