Expanding my view of Japan
I'm just going to pretend I'm not leaving Japan in a few hours, and share a story of my adventures with my host mom, Asae-san, last weekend!
First, some background:
As I mentioned in my first post, Asae-san makes sandals. She sends kits to people all over the country, and also crafts pairs for kids whose families can't afford shoes. Toward the beginning of my time in Japan, I noticed Asae-san using a beautiful ruler (pictured in the preview to this post) made of wooden mosaics when measuring her designs in the living room; it reminded me of an intricate quilt pattern. She told me that the wood design is a piece of traditional Japanese art called yosegi, and that she knew of a place where we could learn how it's made!
So fast forward to July 22nd and we were off to Hakone, a village about a two hours' rent-a-car drive southwest of Tokyo. The route was pretty straightforward until we hit the mountains, at which point the road essentially became a slalom. We zig-zagged our way through an incredibly green forest, stopped at a lookout spot to try and see Mount Fuji (it was too foggy, but the view was still pretty), and ate some delicious soba (noodles) for lunch.
Though our original mission was to observe how yosegi is made, Asae-san and I had a lot of things we wanted to see while in Hakone. She had gone hiking in the area before, but hadn’t explored much of the village itself. Over the course of two days, we visited:
The Hakone Venetian Glass Museum
This was a little weird because, as the name tells us, the museum was full of Italian glass. But it stood against a backdrop of beautiful Japanese mountains full of Japanese flowers and trees. The experience turned out to be an interesting mix of Italian and Japanese aesthetics! I made a sunflower broach, and Asae-san made a pair of earrings.
Odawara Castle
We then met up with Asae-san’s trail-running friend, Seiji, who drove us to Odawara Castle. When you are asked to picture a Japanese building, the castle is probably very similar to the image in your mind. It was originally built in the 1400s; however, it couldn’t withstand the earthquakes over the past 500-some years, and was rebuilt several times until the municipality completely restored it and turned the inside into a museum. You can climb to the top of the castle’s tower to look across Hakone and the village of Odawara, which is especially beautiful during the sunset!
A yosegi workshop, where we made our own wooden coasters
The original thing that led us to Hakone in the first place! While we waited for the lesson to start, Asae-san and I marveled at everything from yosegi boxes, to keychains, to kitchenware, to jewelry. We were also able to peek through a window to watch the artists at work. I wish I could have taken pictures of the intricate pieces, but we (understandably) weren’t allowed. I did, however, snap some photos from our lesson, as well as some yosegi pieces in a nearby omiyage (souvenir) shop!
Yosegi is made by gluing different colors and shapes of wood together, sanding/buffing them, and covering the finished product with wax. We worked with relatively large pieces of wood to make our coasters, but the experts use pieces that are just millimeters thick!
The Kamaboko (fish paste) Museum
I didn’t know there was such thing as a fish paste museum until we walked inside, put on our aprons and hairnets, and set to work learning how to place the ground fish meat perfectly onto a block of wood. Pictured is my (kinda sad) finished product – the instructors made much prettier cakes! :)
A beautiful shrine on Lake Ashi
There are TONS of shrines in Japan, but I don't think I could possibly get tired of visiting them! There's just nothing quite like this in the US.
Azito guesthouse
The other super cool part of our little excursion was that we stayed in a traditional Japanese guesthouse! Our guesthouse, named Azito, was situated on the steep slope of one of the mountains, and housed a small bar on the first level. The second level was comprised of a few rooms divided by sliding rice paper doors; each had a floor made of tatami (bamboo) mats, a traditional inset closet with sliding doors, and two futon (sleeping mats). We had to leave our shoes in the bar to keep the sleeping areas clean. I had never been in a place like that before, so it was exciting and intriguing to see!
In sum, visiting Hakone was refreshing! Tokyo is an amazing city to explore, from its traditional shops, restaurants, and shrines; to its plethora of museums and galleries, quirky anime stores, and technological innovation. But I was glad to take a short break from the crowds and the rush of the metropolis. I think it is easy for those of us who do not live in Japan to picture the entire country as looking like a sprawling urban landscape with Mount Fuji towering somewhere in the middle, even if we know otherwise :) Travelling just a couple of hours outside the city reveals a whole other dimension of Japan. Similar to how the United States cannot be boiled down to New York City, Japan cannot be boiled down to Tokyo; I hope I can visit again some day to discover more of the countryside!
Thank you, Asae-san, for a great trip last weekend – and thank you for an amazing six weeks <3 I'll be writing my final reflection journal while I'm on the plane; I can't believe I'm already heading back the the US!
