Issue 13 - candles, snow, hotsprings
A possibly weekly email about what's been going on in my brain
12 - 18 February 2023
I'm beginning to get my travel legs back, I've already repacked my bag several times to make it easier to get to the essentials. I've of course taken too much, which I'm constantly reminded of by how heavy and unwieldy my suitcase is. Even just within this week I've started to see patterns in the hotel rooms: the same taps, the same linen, all from a few different conglomerates. Even the breakfast buffets begin to blur into one with the same scrambled eggs, wiener sausages, and blindingly hot coffee. I've got a lot of train vocabulary stored now as well, so booking seats, the sides the doors will open on, all on ready access.
Otaru
The main draw of Otaru for my last day-trip out of Sapporo was the Snow Light Path Festival - where a stretch of the canal path is lit up with candles, and food vendors wait at one end. I'd watched a YouTube walkabout so I kind of knew what to expect, but I arrived earlier in the day to reccy everything and get a feel for the town regardless. I spent a sizeable portion of the afternoon waiting in line for char siu ramen at a shop with only eight seats, and if it wasn't some of the best damn ramen I've had (caveat: I've not had a whole lot of ramen). That wait did give me ample time to decipher the menu so that when it was my turn I'd practiced what I was going to say.
Sated, and after a quick coffee at a cosy cafe with a car in it, it was dark enough to start making my way down the canal path.
Bedlam.
Jostled and squeezed, people walked two or three abreast on a path that could reasonably only accommodate one in either direction, selfies were taken while people politely waited out of shot, there was clambering, skidding, and shouting. After a full uncomfortable trip down the whole path I decided not to try again and headed home. A shame as the event looked fantastic, but any traffic control (like a one-way system) would have made the whole experience more enjoyable.
Noboribetsu
Noboribetsu a hot-spring resort town up in the mountains, a good twenty minute taxi journey from the nearest train station. It uses local sulphurous water to feed the hot-springs in all of the hotels, meaning as soon as you step out into the town proper you get a nose full of stale fart smell. It grows on you after a while and you stop looking to nearby pedestrians for the one whom dealt it. Nearby is "jigokudani" or "Hell Valley" so called because of the almost barren, alien landscape and the steam belching continuously from the ground.
The draw is of course the hot springs though, and while you can trip around the town, visiting each of the hotels and sampling their particular take on baths, I opted to stay put. Being British (or maybe just a lightweight), I could only stay in the baths proper with their 40+ degree water for a little over half an hour. The rituals bookending the dips - undressing, cleaning, redressing, avoiding eye contact - took up the majority of my time, so little and often then.
In between I explored the town, wandering up to the footbath nestled in a ravine and around jigokudani. And that's it. With a good fifty to seventy centimetres of snow, a lot of the walking paths and forest trails to lakes and overlooks were closed off, which seems obvious in retrospect. So in less than a day or so I'd exhausted a lot of the available sights meaning it was back into the onsen where I could dwell and have A Lot Of Thoughts.
Special note though of the dinner and futon arrangements, the former of which is delivered to your room, but both performed by hotel staff, establishing a weird awkwardness while things are being set out. Should I look on inquisitively, or acknowledge and leave them to their task, or something else? Inquisitiveness usually won out, especially as it often lead to brief conversations, my favourite one of which has been listing all the places I'm going on my journey to a very surprised young woman - her asking in English and me trying to answer in Japanese.
Yokote
After a brief lay over in Morioka - the second best place to visit in 2023, it's charms must take more than an evening to bear fruit - I arrived in Yokote for their kamakura (igloo) festival. With several sites dotted around the town, the main allure is in the evening with the "milkyway" on the riverbank and Yokote Castle lit up with its observation deck open until 9pm. Between all that there are food vendors and market stalls and, I found out from the tourist info leaflet, a "bonden parade" the next day.
It was, in all, quite lovely. The "milkyway" installation of hundreds of tiny igloos, all lit from within by candles, was arresting to see from the nearby bridge and wonderful to walk around down below. The castle was surrounded by full-size igloos and restaurants, while the panoramic view from the top was understated but appreciated. Best of all though, it was busy without being crowded and lively without being raucous, a local celebration without the commercialisation of some of the other festivals I've been to thus far.
This did extend to the bonden parade which turned out to be utterly inscrutable to me. There were large sticks adorned with paper streamers and decorations, hauled around by burly men in matching uniforms and straw snow boots. There was singing, applause, and then awards for what felt like every group. I remain baffled by the minutiae but appreciate the enthusiasm throughout.
Unfortunately a bit like Noboribetsu, there isn't a whole lot else to see or do in Yokote outside of the festival. So after looping around all the festival sites a couple of times, it became a waiting game for the evening.
Language
A few people have asked me about how my language learning has panned out now that I'm here. Short version: mixed bag. I feel like a lot of me getting by has been on context rather than understanding, so when I ask for a taxi and the hotel staff says something that contains "15 minutes", I can extrapolate that's probably how long the taxi will take to get here (and it will get here, it's not "round the corner"). There is a rhythm to a lot of the hospitality interactions that is more culture than language, but when things go off-book, its definitely deer-in-headlights time. Many staff have been endlessly patient with me, explaining menus or directions or checkout times, while others have barraged me with inscrutable vocabulary and I've probably been cluelessly rude in my reponse. When lucidity is needed though, I break out Google Translate, proffering my phone up like the modern Rosetta stone it is.
So sometimes I feel like I can do this language thing, booking tickets, ordering food; other times I feel like an exasperating foreign oaf, scrying for meaning in a deluge of otherness.
10-day itinerary
- 19th Feb - transfer to Aizu Wakamatsu
- 20th Feb - Aizu Wakamatsu
- 21st Feb - transfer to Nikko
- 22nd Feb - Nikko
- 23rd Feb - Nikko
- 24th Feb - transfer to Tokyo then onward to Ishigaki
- 25th Feb - Ishigaki
- 26th Feb - day trip to Iriomote island
- 27th Feb - day trip to Taketomi island
- 28th Feb - transfer to Naha, Okinawa
This was hand-crafted by John.