Tamatsukuri Onsen (Sunday, October 3)

This area, on the shores of Lake Shinji, is said to be one of the first hot springs and that remains what draws visitors here.  The ryokan that Andrea booked looked lovely and remote from the Internet pictures.  Little did we know that, after being picked up at the train station, we would arrive at the ryokan to see that it was in a row of hotels backed up against a mountain (under which presumably is the source of the springs).  Tour buses were everywhere, taking tourists to their destinations (Andrea refers to the strip as Atlantic City).

Still, once inside the ryokan is quite peaceful and pleasant.  You have no sense whatsoever that you are in the midst of a destination resort.  It is modern and fairly unlike the Asadaya at which we stayed in Kanazawa.  You can walk to your room with your shoes, and only when you get to the room do you take them off.  Meals are taken in a dining room (spacious and clean with translucent screens hanging between the tables for privacy), overlooking a garden. 

The baths are worth dwelling on for a moment.  Although our room has both a small indoor bath and an outdoor hot bath, there are public, single sex baths that have both indoor and outdoor baths.  You enter, put your clothes and towel in a basket, grab a washcloth and go to the cleaning area.  This consists of handheld showers, about three feet off the ground, at which you wash yourself.  There were probably a dozen of these showers in the men’s bath.  After you have washed and completely rinsed all the soap from your body (getting soap in the bath would be a “pool clearing” event such as those that kids will occasionally trigger at pools in the US!), you soak in one of the baths, each of which is probably about 6 yards square.  The bath is for soaking and relaxation, and it is quite hot.  But it is very relaxing and a cultural experience to boot.

My run on Sunday morning took me up along a river on a lovely winding road.  I passed by nice homes, all of which appeared to be involved in some sort of agricultural pursuit.  And it seemed as if many of the homes, even very modest ones, had carefully crafted gardens adjoining the house, where someone had taken the time to sculpt the bushes and place the rocks in the appropriate Zen position.  It was nice, and the area could have been in France.  Not the ugliness that I have noted earlier in the blog

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Ah yes, the obligatory sightseeing.  Matsue is the close by city, about a 10 minute train ride from our ryokan.  It appears to be the main city of Shimane Prefecture, although I am not sure of that.  The big draw is Matsue Castle, which is a commanding presence on top of a promontory outside the city (photo attached).  It was built in the 1500s and was designed not as a residence, but for protection from invaders.  Sort of a Japanese Alamo.  Our next stop was the Lefcadia Hearn residence.  Hearn was a writer for Harper’s at the turn of the 20^th century, who came to Japan and stayed.  He wrote books about Japan for English-speaking audiences, and by all accounts was beloved by the Japanese people.  The guy lived in Matsue for about 18 months and they have a museum for him and have turned his home into a landmark.  We also visited another Samurai residence – it’s sort of like going to Colonial Williamsburg or Plimoth Plantation, except they don’t have people “in role” there to explain (and they’d probably be speaking in Japanese if they did).   We finished it off with a visit to the Shimane Prefectural Art Museum to see a special exhibit by a famous (now dead) pottery maker.

It rained torrentially.  Fortunately the ryokan staff had handed us umbrellas before we left for the train and we at least had some measure of protection.  But we were glad to get back into our room to dry out.

One final observation.  At the train station  in Matsue, which is the case at most train stations of any size, there is a store that sells all sorts of confections, typically with some sort of bean paste filling, all of which are exquisitely prepared, wrapped and boxed.  It is almost like walking into cosmetics at the ground floor at Bloomingdales.  There are counters everywhere filled with these delicious treats.  They will often occasionally mix in some Western type breads and pastries to accompany the assortment.  And then there are other things – bags of dried fish, vacuum sealed little clams for miso soup, and other things too numerous to mention.  It is hard for me to imagine how places like this stay in business, but there you have it.