Chapter 10: CHAPTER TEN

Reads: 891
Comments: 1

CHAPTER TEN

“Oh, you're all getting back at a good time,” the Okusan called to us from the genkan entranceway. “I just saw three tour buses on the main road heading for the parking lot. And the rain seems to be letting up, too.”

“That’s a relief,” Kenji said. “This will make going to Takayama a lot drier. Our motorcycle suits aren't completely waterproof.”

Stepping just inside the genkan, all three of us gratefully put our rather heavy bamboo umbrellas back into the rack. Then Kenji and Akiko headed for their room to change into their motorcycle suits and collect their luggage.

As Kenji was finishing strapping all their luggage saddlebags onto the back of his bike I hesitantly asked, “Ah, Kenji, could I just try sitting on your bike for a few seconds? I'd like to see how a real motorcycle feels. It's so much bigger and different from my cub.”

Kenji considered for a second, slowly nodded. “Okay. But don't try and start it. It is a lot different from your cub. And don't shove it off its stand, either. It's a lot heavier than yours, too.”

“Don't worry I won't,” I said and eagerly mounted the monster’s saddle and grabbed the handlebars. “Wow! It's so much higher! And wider! And even with the engine off I get a real feeling of power. Is this a 250cc?”

“No, it’s a 400. You can tell by its license plate. 250s don’t have the dark green border along the edge of it.”

“No wonder it feels so powerful. I’ll bet this thing is really fun to drive on the expressways!”

“Yeah,” Kenji replied but without any of my enthusiasm. “If you can find one that isn't packed with bumper to bumper traffic, that is. And it sure isn't fun when you get to toll booths. They charge us just as much as a car. Anywhere from 20 to 35 yen per kilometer.”

“What? That's a lot more than the train costs!”

“And the Inspection for it is coming up next month. I'm going to have to work lots of extra hours at my part-time job to pay for that, too”

“How much will that cost?” When he told me I exclaimed, “My God, that's more than I paid for my cub!”

“And the mandatory liability insurance for it costs more than a car’s. I'm thinking of buying a 250 instead. They at least don't have to have Inspections. You're probably better off with your cub. Believe me it's much, much cheaper.” Then he smiled. “But you can't put your girlfriend on the back of one like I can.”

“Kenji!” Keiko exclaimed.

Kenji just waved his hand. “Come on, Keiko

. He knows we're not married.”

Just then the Okusan came out of the entranceway. “Are you two ready to leave?”

“Yeah, just about. Dave, you'd better get down off my bike now.”

Reluctantly I did so. “Thanks for letting me get on it Kenji. I’ve heard you have to take a special motorcycle driver's license test to drive any bike bigger than a 50cc. Is it hard?”

“You bet it's hard! And expensive like everything else about larger bikes.”

“Still, I just might want to get that license. Some cubs are 90cc, I know. I’ll bet they have a lot more power.”

Kenji paid the Okusan for their stay, mounted his bike, pushed it off its stand and gave his hand to Keiko now all dolled up in her pink motorcycle suit to pull her up behind him. As he put the bike in gear, he and Akiko waved V-signs at us and started off.

I V-signed back and now it was my turn to call along with the Okusan, “You be careful!” – the standard sayonara for bikers I was beginning to learn.

After Kenji and Keiko drove out of sight the Okusan asked, “David-san, are you going to see the washi paper-making exhibition this afternoon?”

“Well I thought I would. But now that weather has cleared up I think I’d like to go to one of the other villages that have gassho-style houses. And I want to have a chance to see how well my cub can run without all that luggage strapped to it. Yamanaka-san said there was another village near here that also made saltpeter for the daimyo.

“Oh, you must mean Gokayama. Some people like it more than Shirakawa because it’s smaller and doesn’t have as many tourists.”

“How far is it?

“Well, it only takes us about thirty minutes by car from here. It shouldn’t take you much longer on your cub.”

It took us more than an hour. But I didn’t care. My cub seemed a hell of a lot peppier without any luggage weighing it down and I found steering it a lot lighter and easier, too.

The village of Gokayama didn't impress me as much as Shirakawa. Yeah, there was only one tour bus parked in front of the “Welcome To Gokayama” sign and a lot fewer tourists were wandering around it. But by now I’d seen plenty of gassho-style houses and there weren’t as many of them here. And going around and entering a few here and there, I found there weren’t any guides either. I had to read the signs in Japanese on the outside of each house that explained where the houses had been brought from and rebuilt in the village for preservation. A lot more tiresome than in Shirakawa.

One sign did interest me. It explained how they made saltpeter for gunpowder. Though reading about it was nowhere near as much fun as listening to Yamanaka-san giving us whole shitloads of whizzbang explanations, the sign insisted that it was the only village in the region that produced saltpeter for the daimyo, making me certain that Yamanaka-san exaggerated even more than our last guide had warned us.

But the sign also stated that the villagers used only the excrement from silkworms to make it. On that point I think Yamanaka-san’s whizzbang explanation was far more on target. With shitloads of all other kinds of excrement plus urine to use as raw materials, I don’t think the villagers would have limited themselves to just silkworm excrement. The sign maker most likely was trying to prettify as much as possible what must have been a very nasty, smelly and distasteful task for the villagers even if it was necessary for their livelihood.

As we were putting up a somewhat steep incline on the way back I found I only had to down shift into second and could do a good thirty or so for most of it. “Hey little buddy, you're really moving without all that extra weight on you!”

“Be-beep!”

As we putted along the beautiful scenery of the Japanese mountain countryside that had become so familiar with a river paralleling the road and green rice fields on the other side and hemmed in on both sides by majestic cliffs, I found myself looking forward to leaving Shirakawa tomorrow and spending the whole day putting through it again.

I did have to downshift into first to get us over the pass that must have isolated the people of Gokayama from the people of Shirakawa and both from the rest of the world with the shitloads of heavy snow that Yamanaka-san had gleefully told us about.

When we putted back to the minshuku in Shirakawa, there was a large sedan parked in front of it and the Dannasan waved to me from the edge of the trees nearby cradling a straw basket full of what looked like tree leaves on his arm.

“What’s the Dannasan doing?” I asked the Okusan as I parked the cub next to the genkan.

The Okusan smiled. “Oh, he’s collecting leaves for tonight’s dinner. We’re having vegetable tempura and fish.”

“These fish are delicious!” said Mrs. Machida beaming. “Where did you get them?”

Sitting next to the Okusan to make room for the Machidas and me around the rest of the irori the Dannasan said, “From the Shogawa River. That’s the river that flows through the village. Fish from it was an important source of protein for the villagers back in old days.”

I took a bite of my own fish. It did taste good. And watching the others I discovered I could eat them bones and all and the salty flavor and taste of the smoke from the fire they had been broiled over made them really good. I tried the tempura. “This tempura is fantastic, too!”

The Dannasan laughed. “And cheap! The ingredients for them literally grow on trees here. When guests are staying with us we try to eat as much food as we can that we can get right here in the village like they did in the old days when they couldn’t get food from anywhere else.”

The Machida's children, a son just starting elementary school and a daughter maybe two years older were gobbling down their fish and tempura, obviously finding it a special treat. Ha, their diet must be quite different from the meat and potatoes I always ate when I was their age.

Submitted: April 06, 2019

Romance romance japan gaijin travel-in-japan japan-1970s