Japan Trip 2019, Day 13: Family Day

Today’s is a shorter post which will, I’m sure, not be unwelcome after yesterday’s marathon effort.

We spent today with Madoka, her two daughters, Teruka (7) and Shino (2), plus her sister Yuna, and her sons Hiroki (6) and Ryota (20 mths). As you can imagine it was a full on day, but enjoyably so. Planning it went through several iterations, and changed again on the day, but in the end we were introduced to new food experiences, a shrine, and a children’s playground. We also got to know Madoka a bit more. Japanese people are known to be shy, but as Madoka’s husband confirmed last night, with her agreement, she is not shy. This doesn’t mean she’s brash, but that she’s confident about engaging with others, including foreigners, and that she enjoys discussing ideas. She was frustrated that we couldn’t discuss more ideas, given our language challenges, but we covered some interesting ground nonetheless.

Lunch at Torigoe Soba Aitaki, Hakusan

Madoka and her sister put a lot of effort into planning lunch, with the original plan being a restaurant in the country that served seasonal river fish. It’s too complicated to explain why we didn’t go there, but we didn’t mind as we were happy with any local experience, and Aitaki soba restaurant was the real deal from our point of view. The restaurant was one of those dark wood restaurants that people like us would have driven right past not knowing it was there. It was traditional Japanese style, which means taking your shoes off at the door, and sitting at low tables on the floor. When we arrived, we were served – instead of the usual water or green tea – roasted soba tea.

After some discussion, and with Madoka’s recommendation, we chose cold soba with soy sauce soup. The meal came on a tray with a plate of soba, a little dish containing a fascinating crunchy vegetable that looked like tiny fern fronds, and a bowl with a dish for a lid. On the dish were the condiments: wasabi, grated daikon, and thinly sliced green onions. In the bowl under this dish-lid was the soy sauce. To eat, you added the condiments, to your taste, to the soy sauce, and then dip the noodles into the soy sauce before eating them. When you’ve finished the noodles, you top up the soy sauce with hot water (in fact, some of the water in which the soba was cooked) and drink it as a soup. It was all really delicious.

Then came the pièce de resistance, Soba Purin (or Soba Pudding) which was a bit like a crème caramel. It came served with, would you believe, a soy sauce syrup. Garnishing the top were some roasted buckwheat seeds and a tiny green leaf (probably mint.) So, so delicious, and fine for me being soba, eggs and cream, rather than milk.

Shirayama Hime Shrine, Hakosan

Next stop was one of the biggest shrines in the region, Shirayama Hime Shrine. It is apparenty the head shrine of more than 3,000 Shirayama shrines in Japan, and is dedicated to Mt. Hakusan, and is believed to give good fortune, especially to those asking for a good harvest, a good relationship and good future in business/occupation!

Under Madoka and her sister’s guidance, we learnt to bow when we passed under the torī, and they led the way with the purification ritual and the bow-clap-pray routine. We also took part in the omikuji ritual which we’ve not done ourselves before (though we’ve accompanied another person doing it). This involves buying, for Y100, a folded slip of paper with fortunes written on it. If you get a great fortune, you keep it, but if you get a bad or not so good one, you tie it to a tree or, in our case, a rope pyramid, and let the god/s turn it into a better fortune. My fortune, according to Madoka and Yuna, was so-so – it apparently kept reiterating “be careful speaking”! Len’s was a little better but not one of the best either. So, we both tied our omikujis to the pyramid and now hope for the best!

Here are the classifications of Omikuji fortunes:

• dai-kichi (大吉) – great blessing
• chuu-kichi​ (中吉) – middle blessing
• sho-kichi (小吉) – small blessing
• kichi (吉) – blessing
• sue-kichi (末吉) – ending blessing
• kyo (凶) – curse
• dai-kyo (大凶) – great curse

Shishiku Park, Hakusan

By this time, we thought it would be good to do something for the children, so it was decided that we should go to Shishiku Park, which is quite a big complex. There’s a fast-moving gondola up the hill, and, from the top, hang gliders were having a wonderful time. (It is, apparently a well-regarded spot for “flying sports”.) We, however, kept our feet firmly on the ground and played with the balls Madoka and Yuna had bought, or on the gorgeous adventure playground. It included a very long slippery dip made of rollers rather than our usual smooth slide.

Len spent some time playing ball with the two older children, while I had more relevant grandma practice entertaining 20-month-old Ryota, a gorgeous little boy.

There was still some talk of going to the fish restaurant and/or having coffee, but in the end we decided that it had been a long day – we’d started at 10.30am and it was now approaching 4pm – and should call it quits. Such a special day, though, and we are so grateful to Madoka and her sister for the thought and effort they put into giving us some interesting experiences. For all the sights in the world, these sorts of times are really, for us anyhow, the stuff of travel.

Day’s end

We got back to our hotel around 4.30pm and, boring, it was washing time. We know this hotel, and its well-organised coin laundry area. So, while it took time, it was accompanied with a minimum of fuss, and I could even fold my clothes immediately they came out of the drier. What more, says Len, could I want!

For dinner, we decided to go izakaya-style to avoid more filling set meals and the like. In the end, though, we found Torinobo, a yakitori restaurant, which was perfect – and which, we suspect, is a mum, dad and daughter operation. We had some edamame, and then shared 18 yakitori sticks, including vegetables (such as peppers, asparagus, soy beans), quail eggs, prawns, beef (for Len), pork, and a variety of chicken meats (including livers, and gizzards.) Some were served with salty or sweet soy sauce, while others were plain. For drinks, Len had a Sapporo beer on tap, and I had a local cold Fukumitsuya Sake, which was graded very dry. It was – and it was lovely, and just right with the yakitori. When we paid our bill, the mum (if we are right) gave us a little gift – a lucky 5-yen piece, I think (though I didn’t open mine, as I think it’s luckier wrapped!)

Now, we hadn’t drunk any coffee all day, and felt a cuppa would close out the day perfectly. We ended up, because it was open, at Mito Sunglasses + Cafe! What an unusual and stylish – but friendly – place it was. The coffee was fine – Japanese-style filter – but we shared a waffle dessert which was, ooh la la, a matcha-flavoured mochi waffle, that is, it was made with rice flour and had that lovely chewy texture. What a day I’ve had today, diet-wise! We are sad to be leaving Kanazawa!

And some Stills…

And some Movies…

Click here to view today’s video clips

Today’s Challenges …

• Entertaining children who don’t speak your language.
• Finding a place to eat for dinner, by roaming the streets, as you do, with Google at the ready.