Eiko and her friend Kaori were really awake when they came to pick me up. After making our introductions—I learned that Kaori does something involving sports and radio—we were off. Minutes into the trip, Eiko offered us each a cup of milk tea from her giant Thermos, and she didn’t stop feeding us all weekend. It was like being on a car trip with my Grandma Ingersoll when I was younger, when she’d always have root beer barrels, Werther’s Originals, and a full Ziploc bag of popcorn in her purse. Oh, and I learned that Sunday, we’d be touring Shizuoka-ken and Yamanashi-ken, but we were heading up to Nagano-ken(!) to spend the night, then seeing the Nagano area and Aichi-ken on Monday.
Winding through the colorful hills and into Yamanashi-ken, we stopped at a deluxe wayside/produce stand, then again for lunch at a soba restaurant where we watched a man make the thin buckwheat noodles by hand. The spring water used to cook the noodles makes this soba famously delicious, said Eiko's guidebook, as well as a plaque outside the door.
After a brief hike in a park adjacent to the restaurant, we moved along northward; Eiko’s guidebook said we could take a gondola ride in the foothills of the newly-snowy Japanese Alps.
Eleven peaks covered in clouds…but there was a bit of snow on the ground! Pretty exciting for Shizuokans who very, very rarely see snow fall in their city. The ropeway was closed—open in winter for skiers, and in summer for hikers to view the wildflower-covered hills, but not in between—so we visited a Suwa Lake overlook, then drove down into town to check out the lakeside and a well-known miso shop.
I’d been doing all right responding when spoken to and my brain had yet to melt, so over our coffee and miso cake I decided to ask Eiko and Kaori how they became friends. This prompted one of the best conversations ever. Here is a rough translation, although you have to imagine them speaking really slowly and repeating things several times (the whole trip they spoke in third person because pronouns confuse me):Me: So…when did you and Kaori meet?
(Laughter…not at my Japanese, I don’t think, but at the question, like they wondered when I would ask.)
Eiko: Well…Kaori was my student during my first year as a teacher; she was a first-year student at Yaizu Junior High School.
Me: Ah, I see!
Eiko: I am 55 years old, and Kaori’s age…
Kaori: It’s a secret!
Eiko: But Kaori is like my little sister. I’m a single woman…
Kaori: And I’m single, too.
Eiko: So we hang out together and go on trips like this.
Kaori: Sometimes it’s nice to have fun with just the girls, you know?
Me: Oh yes, I understand.
Eiko: Lindsay, how old is your mother?
(I told her.)
Eiko: Well then, I am your Japanese mother! And Kaori is like, your older Japanese sister.
Me: I’m so lucky!
And by the time we finished our cake, it was time to find the pension for dinner. The mansion was decked out in floral theme, far too intense, but the place had heated floors and Jacuzzi baths, and the pensioner served up a great dinner—especially the pumpkin soup with broccoli and crème fraiche, and the carrot sorbet with fruit and mint. The pensioner spoke English, so I scrawled my praises in the guestbook.
...everyone else was taking photos of their food, and I didn't want them to think I was some snobby, unimpressed American, thus not taking photos of my food...
We played rock-paper-scissors for bed assignments, watched the news, and road trip day one was complete.
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