1985/7 Japan

A coffee shop in Sojiji
17 November 1985
Posted 18.11.85; received 22.11.85

Greetings to you on this cold, monkeys-wedding day. It was lovely talking to you on Thursday, mom. I trust all went well with your final exam and I look forward to reading your essays. I’ll bet you’re both looking forward to Keurbooms. I have no idea yet what I will be doing on Xmas day. This will be the first one away from home without anyone from home to spend it with. As I said – it might be better if you send me a phone number where I can contact you at a given time on the day. Otherwise I have to stay at home until early afternoon before you’ll be up and about to call me. Perhaps you could breakfast at a nearby hotel and await my call there?!

Last Tuesday I took a bus to the village of Ohara in the mountains north of Kyoto. I visited two temples while there. The first was an hour’s walk from the station. Up into the hills. With the sun coming out intermittently to highlight the reds and yellows of the trees and to dapple the water of the clear mountain river. Dense silent forests. And nothing to disturb the sounds of the bird and the river except the local bus playing Greensleeves from a mike on its roof! At the temple I was given green tea and sticky cookies in a room overlooking the bamboo grove and the mountains across the valley. Then back into the village to the second temple. The buildings are difficult to describe. All wood and brass and ivory and straw. Graceful curved roofs of tile or thatch. ‘Restrained elegance’ is the phrase used most by the Japanese. And as usual a beautiful and serene garden. A pond filled with carp – black and orange and red and peach. Tall cypress trees and moss covered earth instead of lawn. Carefully pruned pine. Stone lanterns. No flowers or riotous colour. Restrained, controlled and very pleasing.

The street leading to this temple was very narrow and crammed with shops and restaurants. Crammed too with camera-toting, stiff-arm posing Japanese. Red and white paper lanterns everywhere. Pottery bowls and paper umbrellas for sale. Temple bells and mobiles and bamboo mugs. Herbs and pickles and spices and candy. At a shop with barrels filled with pickles I stopped to sample from little bowls. Recognized ginger from its smell and taste tho’ not from its pink colour. Something fishy, something familiar. But the rest a mystery. Steaming mushrooms bottled while-u-wait. Restaurants with their wares advertised in wax models outside. And inside a wonderful Japanese invention. Low tables with heaters attached to the base. The top surface can be lifted and a quilt draped over the legs. The surface is then replaced and you sit on cushions with your legs under the table and the quilt wrapped about your hips. Lovely and warm. (Last night Kato-san gave me one of these for my room!!) I stopped at one little stand to buy mashed rice balls on a stick dipped in a thick brown sauce. And sat on a nearby bench to eat them. The Japanese don’t eat AND walk at the same time. Eating is done sitting somewhere set aside for that purpose. Even ice-creams. If I break this rule I get stared at even more than usual. And you hear people whispering about the ‘gaijin’ – foreigner.

On Wednesday morning I went shopping for the first time at one of the big supermarkets. A simple enough excursion one would think, but frought / frawt / frorte with untold dangers! There you are faced with ten different types of milk (you THINK it is milk) – so which to choose? I got home with skim milk. Yuch. Packets which may or may not contain flour. I asked a lady and managed to get home with flour. You can only buy packets on which the instructions are DRAWN, not written. And the prices! One spanspek can cost ¥4,000 ($20!!). Cheese is out of the question. As is meat. So it’s eggs and bread and cauliflower and pumpkin and potatoes and spaghetti. Even in this land of rice, rice is expensive. I have no idea what the local vegetables ARE let alone what to DO with them, so the slightly cheaper produce is unattainable – at least for now. Anyway – I DID manage and my little fridge is full.

Friday was a special day for 3, 5 and 7 year olds. During which they are dressed in their best traditional garments and taken to a shrine service by their doting parents. I picked a shrine in the south of Kyoto and got there early to look around before the kids arrived. Vermilion and ivory buildings. Thatch and tiled roofs. Red torii everywhere. A tori is a gate which is always found leading to a shrine and is the surest way of telling a shrine (Shinto) from a temple (Buddhist). In the precincts of this particular shrine are apparently 10,000 torii – donated by worshippers. Thye form a tunnelled 4km walkway around the mountain there. Amazing.

The kids arrived at 10am – parents in tow. I must have taken at least 25 photos between then and 11am. They looked just wonderful. The girls in oranges and reds and purples and bright greens. All bows and bells and ribbons. Tiny feet in tiny tabi (those white socks with the big toe separated from the others). Elaborate hair decorations. Fans and little handbags. The boys in sombre greens and blues and blacks and gold. Wide pleated skirts and long-sleeved kimono-type jackets. Fans and tabi too. A day of sunshine and vermilion and pigeons. Of posing and adjusting and posing again. Of pouts and smiles and tears and giggles. Wonderful stuff indeed.

I will be sending your Xmas presents next week. They are NOT to be opened or FIDDLED with or GUESSED about until XMAS DAY!!! OK. Or else. Especially you, dad. And if you DARE to figure out what yours is BEFORE the 25th I will NEVER forgive you. 

Take care now
Love to the Paynes and Oupa
And Mark and Glynis when you see them
Love
Gail

PS Hello to J&J too