Wajima and the Noto Peninsula

Saturday, October 7, 2017

After a traditional Japanese breakfast –  several forms of seaweed, miso soup, tofu, fish, salad, mushrooms, rice (of course), and a soft boiled egg (try that with chopsticks!!) – we were off on a full day of experiences along the coast of the Noto Peninsula.

We visited the local morning market, which featured lots of lacquerware and fish – bet you could have guessed that!  Among the highlights were lots of fresh fish hanging from their mouths like laundry on a clothesline and dried octopi, which looked somewhat like ghoulish Halloween decorations.  The women manning the stalls (oxymoron??) were delighted to chat, despite the fact that  we shared  no common language!

From the market, we walked a short distance along the shore to the Wajima Kiriko Art Museum, which showcases the fabulous lanterns that are carried through the streets in an annual local festival. The towering main hall is a wonderful setting for these multi-story high creations of light and lacquerware and the sloping ramps along the perimeter afford wonderful views of the intricate creations from multiple vantage points.  They are lit and carried through the streets on the shoulders of hundreds of men amid raucous displays of music, light and dance.  This is a holiday weekend in Japan (Monday is Sports Day!!), and as we drove through small villages later this afternoon, we saw several lanterns being readied for local evening festivities; it was nice to have had a chance to learn about them beforehand.

After another traditional Japanese lunch at a local restaurant, we headed up the peninsula, stopping first at a salt production facility dedicated to the preservation of the unique (and uniquely inefficient) way of making salt in Noto.  In a nutshell, the process consists of flinging seawater over sand, raking it repeatedly with special tools, using special shovels to load it into specially constructed boxes, pouring concentrated sea water over it, boiling it for two days and extracting the salt. The fact that this can only be done when it’s sunny and any rain halts the process for three days ups the inefficiency score considerably!

Then, it was on to Kami-Tokikunike, the home of the local “head man” to see how the very upper crust lived.  The Tokikuni family arrived on the Noto Peninsula in the 12^th century and the current paterfamilias is off the 25^th generation.  The current home was built in the 19^th century to replace the original, and its construction took 28 years.  Everything from the height and design of the ceilings to the decorative elements and the layout of the home is indicative of the status of the family and the dignitaries they received there.

Our last stop was at a series of terraced rice paddies, which seemed barely workable to us.  The individual plots were so small (especially in comparison to the enormous rice consumption in this country!) that it seemed unreal.  One of our group, who has worked and lived extensively in Asia described them as “extreme” and nothing like he’d ever seen.

When our group gathered tonight for dinner, we all wore our kimonos for a photo.  Dinner was another traditional Japanese meal that began with each place set with a number of dishes, which were added to as the evening went on.  There was far too much food for most of us and there were lots of full plates left on the tables as we went back to our rooms.

 

In a follow-up to yesterday’s description of Japan’s amazing toilets, I’ll enter into the record that today we encountered our first “normal” toilet – no bells and whistles, no heat, no spray, no instruction manual – and it worked just fine!  I have forgotten to mention that, alongside the typical modern wonder toilets we’ve seen throughout the country, we do often still see the option of traditional Japanese models – a study in contrasts, to be sure!