Japan Trip - Vol III

As it turned out, I never gave y'all the third installment of my vacation. Instead, you got to read about my mole catching cats, who have subsequently been erroneously walking around like their shit doesn't stink.

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To Tsumago We Go

Our first day trip took us to two nearby towns. First we hit up Tsumago (SU ma go) where we visited an old district of houses and buildings. It was hard not to take pictures of everything because not only was everything cool and old, but also quite photogenic.

The picture below is an example of how the Japanese folks like to control nature. What was once certainly either a waterfall or just a beautiful rocky stream is now a cascading concrete waterfall and riverbed. Despite the non-natural state of the river, it's still very pleasing to the eye. I encourage you to click on the picture to see it full-size.

You can also see the smoke in the background, which looks like maybe they're manufacturing something but in fact is what I like to call Public Incense. In the rural areas, people have little smolder piles of what I think might be cedar branches or some similar item. The smoke keeps bugs away and provides a very pleasing scent to the air. Everywhere you go you can smell this delicious scent.



Here's a closeup of the waterfall, you can see the textured concrete tiles used as the riverbed. Sweet.



Here is a shot of my sister standing on the main road. The bluish gray mountains in the background could be seen pretty much everywhere we went. Unlike here in the US where we use ratty ass knotty pine, the shops, restaurants and homes in this area are almost all built of cedar, which grows in abundance all over the countryside.



If you look closely you can see red lanterns hanging in some of the entrances to the shops. They were preparing for a festival, which we missed, but what seemed like it would be a neat thing to catch. Eh, you can't catch it all and we got goheimochi instead (to be seen later).

This last picture is one of my favorites from the trip. The traditional architecture, bluish gray mountains and general kickassery makes me just want to pack up and move to that house. Well, almost.

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Make Way for Magome

Or next stop on that trip was to Magome (mah go may). The sights and sounds were pretty similar to those of Tsumago, with one major difference - Goheimochi. Below is a shot down one of the streets, once again backdropped (is that a word?) with a beautiful mountainscape.



It would have been easy to meander in and out of the shops, looking at all of the wares the shopkeepers had to sell, wishing you had more time/money/luggage space so you could take it all home, but we were really in Magome for one reason only - Goheimochi (AKA The Moch).

As it was described to me, Goheimochi didn't sound like anything I was willing to knock old ladies down for. You ready? Grilled rice balls on a stick, with some sauce. Abbey kept insisting that we hurry up before the place closed, lest the trip be in vain. Since I didn't know any better, I just followed along and when we got to the Goheimochi spot there were only a few left. We dropped a few hundred yen on a pair of sticks each and one bite later I would have drop kicked a nun if she was in the way of some Moches. Before leaving I had to drop another hundred yen (or was it 150?) on another stick. Them shits is delish, son!



Some poor losers showed up after our bingefest only to find there were only three sticks left. Sucks to be you, player.

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Stay tuned for more vacation reports. In the meantime, life is pretty much the same as usual.


Over and Out,
Old Coot