Food glorious food

Beppu 21/3

Just got back to our room from dinner at the Beppu Nagomitsuki Ryokan where we are staying, and I have to say that I am feeling a little uncomfortable. I guess it is my own fault. There was no-one standing with a gun at my head forcing me to indulge in all 16 courses of wonderful Japanese cuisine offered to us, but in my defence, the chef poking his head around the corner as dishes were presented and smiling beamingly as empty plates came away from tables did make me feel obliged not to offend.

The last time we spoke we had one day left of our Michinoku walk. Well, we still have one day left. That snow that blighted us the previous day just kept coming and we woke to 0 degrees and a nice cover of snow, and the promise of more to come. It took us all of about 5 seconds to agree to bail on our last day. Weak, I know. So we breakfasted in style and bid a fond farewell to our Ragaso hotel hosts, who had our wet weather gear dried and folded and our boots all ready to go, and we caught our little train (in stead of walking) to Jodogahama Beach. The only problem with this was that we arrived way too early for our room, which was not available until 3:00 pm, so because it was still a bit bleak outside, we just made a nuisance of ourselves lounging in the hotel lobby. Of course as soon as we got into our room the weather cleared up a little, so once we got ourselves organised we decided to go for a bit of a wander down to the beach.

If you look at the tourist brochures for Jodogahama beach you will see a beautiful calm beach setting and a backdrop of rugged rocks with the water gently lapping against them. This was not the Jodogahama beach that presented itself to us. What we got was a very angry sea pounding those rugged rocks and waves crashing over the Seawall onto the beach access road. We had to be careful that we didn’t get swamped. We were mesmerised by the roiling seas and crashing waves, but a fresh sprinkling of snow snapped the trance and encouraged us back indoors.

Dinner tonight is a buffet, which sounds a bit ho-hum. But there is nothing dull about this meal. There were so many different things, most of which bore little resemblance to anything I had previously eaten. So how do you choose. If you take a little bit of everything you end up with a mountain of food you could not possibly eat. We decided to take some time to observe the locals to understand the order in which we should eat things, what sauce goes with which dish, what soup goes in what pot, how do you handle particular dishes, and what is popular and not. After a good amount of observation, we collected our trays and darted into the fray. Despite the observation, I probably ended up taking a little of everything, mixed up the sauces, put the soup in the wrong pot, tried to eat custard with chopsticks, and ate the things shunned by the locals. I definitely ate a mountain of food, much more than I needed, and certainly enough to make me feel gloriously contented.

From here we take a bus to Morioka, then a Shinkansen (very fast train) to Sendai, a local train to Yamadera for a temple visit, than on to Utzen-Chitose and another train to Tendo where our bed for the night awaits. Then we have another couple of days of fairly complex travel with lots of quite tight train and bus changes. Although our cases are quite small, they are still a bit cumbersome when you are racing between platforms or trying to get in a commuter bus, so we decide to pack a couple of changes of clothing in our day packs and try the highly acclaimed Takkyubin (courier) service to send our cases ahead to Beppu at the other end of Japan where we will be in three days time.

Given our inability to communicate (English is definitely not widely spoken in the north of Japan), we were probably a little ambitious thinking that we could arrange the takkyubin in the 15 minutes before our bus was due to depart. Luckily the concierge knew that we were catching a bus and made it her business to go out to the bus stop (in the snow) and make sure the driver did not leave without us. We did finish sorting out the courier just in time, and rushed out to our bus stop, accompanied by the concierge, who waited until the bus pulled away and then cheerily and enthusiastically waved us goodbye.

We have marvelled at how Japanese hotel staff seem to anticipate our needs and have a bit of a sixth sense about who we are and what makes us tick. Well it seems that bus drivers have the same gift. The snow continued to tumble down throughout or bus trip and added a magical air to the journey. But about an hour into the two hour journey, Beth turned to me and informed me that she really needed to go to the toilet. What I was meant to do with that information I am not sure, and as my mind grappled with how I could respond in a positive way, the driver pulled off the road into a wayside stop with cafe and public toilets, then opened the doors to allow those in need (including Beth) to make use of the facility. The rest of the trip was more pleasant than it might have been.

We had half an hour to spare in Morioka to buy Shinkansen tickets to Sendai, and we hoped to also arrange seat reservations for our more complex travels (three Shinkansens) to Beppu in a couple of days time. Again we were a bit ambitious and underestimated the communication difficulties. Which meant that we were unable to get the train to Sendai that we were aiming for. But not to worry, we booked a train an hour later, which just meant that our stay at the Yamadera temple would be a bit shorter than we had planned. The bonus was that we had an extra hour in Morioka to stretch our legs and wander around the retail outlets in the station precinct. As we wandered Beth was approached by an attractive, well groomed woman, who asked if we were tourists and whether we would mind being interviewed for a local television show. To my surprise Beth said yes. We were ushered outside where an interviewer, cameraman, and sound guy awaited, then we were asked to talk about our travels so far. It was quite a pleasant chat (the interviewer spoke excellent English), but I doubt that we were the tourists he was looking for. A transit hour in Morioka hardly constitutes a useful tourism story. But who knows, if you are ever in the area, make sure you tune into their tourism channel, and you might see us.

Our stopover at Yamadera initially looked like a bad idea when we stepped off our little local train into a town which looked like it had seen better days. We knew that the temple we were here to visit involved 1000 steps us a steep hill just out of town. There was definitely a very steep hill out of town, but when we looked up, all we could see was an old wooden structure, not at all grand, hanging of the side of the hill. It didn’t really look worth the effort. But we were here, and we needed a walk, so off we went. Turns out the temple complex started just outside of town and it was quite amazing. Memorials and headstones carved into the rocks and beautiful old wooden building lined the 1000 steps all the way up to the temple, which was not the old building we saw from Town, but something far grander. We had a lovely time here.

After our quick visit to the temple we continued on our way to Tendo, a small Onsen (thermal spring) resort city, where hot spring water is channeled straight from the ground into bath houses. We have thus far not been quite brave enough to try out the public baths, basically because total nakedness is mandatory and we haven’t quite come to grips with that. Our hotel however, has a private room with a bath available for use, so Beth makes a booking. I am really not a “luxuriate in a bath” kind of person, so I really haven’t got excited about the bath house aspect of our Japan travels. But I have to admit it was very nice to sit and soothe away travel weariness in a deep steaming hot bath. I might be able to get used to this.

Our food excesses have not abated. This time we have a private room where waitedr come in a progressively deliver beautifully presented and delectable morsels building to the grand finale of a wonderfully tasty sukiyaki cooked at our table. Again way more than we would normally eat.

From Tendo we have a relatively light travel load (just two local trains) to get to our next destination of Matsushima Bay. Matsushima touts itself as the third most picturesque location in Japan. It is very beautiful, but I think that the scenery we encountered further north was more spectacular and beautiful. Eye of the beholder I suppose. Because of Matsushima’s top 3 billing it is a magnet for tourists, and even though the weather is pretty gloomy on the day we arrive, the tourist presence is strong. There are about seven or eight big boats (each carrying about 100 passengers) making hourly trips out onto the bay heavily laden with tourists (including ourselves). We did enjoy the boat trip amongst the hundreds of little islands dotting the bay, and we also enjoyed a walk out to one of the islands accessible by bridge, which was very beautiful, but for some reason not all that popular with the other tourists. Find8ng a nice little cafe hidden up a set of stairs and serving nice coffee and cake capped of a lovely day.

Next day is a very big travel day. A 7:00 train to Sendai means that we forego breakfast, then three Shinkansens and a bus to get to Beppu 10 hours later make for a long day. We had originally intended arriving at Beppu around 6 pm, but when I advised the hotel proprietor, I was told that no, 6 pm was not suitable. We needed to be there by 5:30 pm, because dinner was a Kaseiki meal (very flash apparently), and being late was not an option. Hence the early start. We also needed to upgrade one leg of the journey (at a not insignificant cost) to a faster Nozomi Shinkansen. As it turned out, we arrived at 5pm and dinner did not start til 6pm, so we were able to have a wallow around in our private Onsen, change into our Yakulta, Hanten and slippers and make our way down to dinner with more than a minute to spare. It was well worth the effort, the meal was nothing short of spectacular. Thank goodness for the forgone breakfast, it would have just taken up space for more worthy food .