We wish you a wonderful life.

Takamatsu, Japan

Saturday, August 3, 2019

What a difference a day makes.

After our restorative self-proclaimed sea day yesterday I’m ready to dip myself in SPF 50, don my too-cute-AND-packable hat from REI and head out. 

We keep meeting people who go ashore in Japan and take a train here or a ferry there. I don’t see how they do it. The public transportation system is supposed to be wonderful and easy to use but all the signage is in Japanese characters so how do you know which train/ferry/subway to take? This morning at breakfast, the young man refilling coffee cups said he just had a chat with his supervisor because I guess he was late getting back to the ship yesterday. “All Aboard” time for crew is usually an hour before that for passengers and I guess he missed the crew time. He told us he took the train from the pier into downtown Takamatsu. There was just one train, no problem. However, when it was time to come back there were SIX trains leaving. He asked for the one to the pier and the reply was, “Which one? There are seven piers.” Ruh roh. And that is precisely why Susan and Jim, directionally challenged on a good day, rely on a guide and driver to get us to and from.

When we arrived this morning around 7 am there was a jazz band on the dock to greet us. The cruise pier is part of a lovely park that stretches along the breakwater to the harbor entrance. It appears to be a favorite jogging, bike riding and dog walking path. The immediate area around the gangway from ship to pier is marked with temporary chain link fencing and the usual Japanese Customs checking for fruit and vegetables, otherwise the rest of the pier is open to the public. I keep thinking how much fun it would be as a child (or grownup) to go to the pier and watch the cruise ships come in. I’m guessing that Kochi is too small for the giant ships, but the Maasdam slips in quite nicely. We’re liking these musical greetings in the smaller ports.

Takamatsu is on the island of Shikoku, long isolated from the other islands by the natural barrier of the Seto Inland Sea. It’s now connected by three bridges but still is off the beaten tourist track. Like the rest of Japan, the island is mountainous, but unlike the other cities we’ve visited Takamatsu seems much more rural with farms and fishermen. 

The population is 400,000 or so, a crossroads compared to Tokyo, Yokohama and Kobe. As we drove through the city, there were the usual eight or ten-story apartment buildings but also single family homes and parking lots! Tucked in amongst the homes and businesses are small  rice paddies, beautiful, lush and green this time of year. Lots of commerce, stores, bowling alleys, Pachinko with the endless signage that we’ve seen at every stop. Definitely no laws regarding size and location of signs! 

We stopped for a red light in front of a gas station. Jim noticed that boxes are painted on the ground showing you where you are to stop your car for a fill up. We left before I could tell if there were attendants or it was self-serve. I did see a young man in the ubiquitous dark pants, short sleeve white shirt and black tie talking to a lady at her car but could only guess his job.

We decided to take a short, three-hour excursion (it’s still ripping hot and humid. So hazy we didn’t realize until the sun burned some of it off in the afternoon that there are several islands close by with ferries going back and forth) to a Bonsai farm and the George Nakashima Memorial Gallery. Nakashima was a Japanese-American who studied forestry at the University of Washington then switched to architecture with a masters in that field from MIT. He finished school in the depth of the Depression, so wandered the world as our guide Naru put it, “as a Bohemian” before beginning his career as an architect. He was interred at a camp in Idaho during WWII where he met and studied with a master Japanese woodworker. As a result he became a furniture designer who melded his various influences to create the definitive American Craftsman furniture style. His design is clean and modern as tomorrow, looking like Danish Shaker with more delicacy than Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he worked on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, by the way.

The Gallery is in front of the furniture factory. Nakashima died in 1990 but factories (and I use that term loosely—the one in Takamatsu is very small and all furniture and accessories are made by hand in both locations) in Takamatsu and New Hope, PA still follow his designs and philosophy of sustainable forestry. Most everything is made of walnut from trees that have fallen from storm or age. We wandered around the building and found stacks of walnut boards, at least 18” wide and 2 or 3” thick by 20’ long, under tarps, drying and aging. Inside are examples of his iconic designs, some in a museum setting-look but don’t touch- others available to admire and touch with chairs to sit-test. Nakashima made “live edge” tables decades ago. Some of his most spectacular pieces are massive dining or conference tables made from slabs of walnut, cut and bookended and connected with joiners that look like butterflies. The gallery docent showed me pictures of Nelson Rockefeller’s home in Pocantico  Hills in the Hudson River Valley furnished with the 200 pieces of furniture he commissioned from Nakashima. Note to self: research to see if that house is open to the public. 

Jim bought some small accessory pieces but we had to pass on any furniture. Our new apartment is too small plus we’d have to both sell kidneys AND cash in a 401K to pay for it. A girl can dream...

The area is home to the famous Ritsurin Park Gardens and also 40 Bonsai farms. We stopped at one and were shown around by a young man who is a fifth generation Bonsai farmer. “Farmer” seems too rustic a term for what is really an art. His grandfather was carefully pruning a beautiful pine nor more than a foot tall. Most of the plants were conifers but with patience and skill many trees and shrubs can be trained—maples, azaleas, persimmon and even a blueberry loaded with berries. We wandered around through hundreds of Bonsais from new ones to the pride of the family, a large one over 200 years old. Of course we are prohibited to take live anything back with us which nipped the temptation to buy one in the bud. Oh, and the prices also gave one pause. The “starters” are around US$50 but the more mature Bonsais are in the 100s and 1,000s of dollars range. 

Not only is it a nice change to be in a less populous and frantic place but we also have a fantastic guide, Naru. She was a journalist in Tokyo who was sent on an assignment to Takamatsu. She liked the area so much she moved there and switched professions and is now a professional guide. Her English is excellent, she enjoys showing visitors the charms of this island and she is a bundle of energy.

As in the rest of the country, small convenience stores are everywhere and a source for everything. Naru was concerned that we stay hydrated, so had the driver stop at a Lawson’s, one of a chain. I was so curious about what was in these stores plus I’m on the hunt for the flavored Kit Kat bars found in Japan, so I was off that bus and into that store in a heartbeat. It’s like a 7/11 on steroids. I mean that little place carries EVERYthing! Naru steered me away from the Kit Kats I found (“Get them at the airport.”) and when I told her I’d had a green tea ice cream cone the day before she led me to the ice cream freezer and chose a green, very green, ice cream bar. I don’t know what is in Japanese ice cream but it is so creamy but doesn’t taste overly rich. That ice cream bar was divine. I saved the stick and the box it came in on the off chance that I might ever find one in the US of A. Once again, a girl can dream.

I always have my nose pressed to the window as we’re driving around. We passed what we thought might be a baseball or soccer stadium but Naru said it was a bicycle race track. Betting on bicycle races is a big thing. It was next door to a fencing studio and an archery range. 

I also spotted a few larger stores, what I assume were supermarkets because of the huge photos of fruits and vegetables on the signs. One of the little oddities we’ve noticed as we travel around is that all the signage is in Japanese characters, quite often there is an English phrase on the building describing what they sell or just some random sentence. My favorite was on the front of a supermarket: “We wish you a delightful life.” 

We sat with a foursome last night at dinner. Jim was having a long chat with one man about golf in Tennessee. Next to me was (I assume) a retired astronomer from Ireland now living in Florida. I tried to engage him in Star Talk (A tip of the hat to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s podcast) telling him about our star gazing in the South Pacific and watching the Space Station fly over in Florida but he was having none of it. At least I didn’t confuse astronomy with astrology although now that I think of it, seeing his face as I asked him his sign might have been priceless. Sometimes the conversation just doesn’t flow so we took a break from the dining room and tonight had dinner for two in the Pinnacle Grill. It’s quiet, great service, good food and a nice view out the window as we sailed under the bridge, twinkling with lights, that links Honshu to Shikoku.