Yesterday the weather was so bad we decided not to go to Kuronama Onsen. I was extremely disappointed as just a day before yesterday I’ve bought myself a beautiful blue yukata with an amazing red obi and shiny Japanese flip-flops zori. This sin was a result of our bike trip to Gion and Pontocho, traditional geisha districts. In the beginning we weren’t quite happy cause the mythical area seemed to be deserted by geisha and taken over by tourists. We expected to see a place where time stopped somewhere around the fifties, looking just as it was pictured in Memoirs of a Geisha book and movie. Instead we got densely lit alleys packed with nightclubs and just one or two spots where tea houses still stood their ground.

We decided to cross the Shimo River and venture through Pontocho which turned out to be just one long street so narrow that two bicycles could barely pass through if only it wasn’t forbidden to ride a bike there. Crowds of American tourists poured through the tiny street acting as if they just entered lunapark. It actually made Pontocho have slightly lunapark like touch and I didn’t like it.

When I was buying my yukata in a special kimono shop, we saw a geisha choosing hair-pins and rushing out in no time. Than we spotted a geisha gracefully floating through Pontocho, holding hands with a man in a light linen suit, both of them looking just immaculate. They were gone from our sight in seconds. The man was probably geisha’s danna, her most prominent client, a patron and lover. He probably was also already married but this is how geisha’s world is.

The two woman we saw weren’t enough to satisfy our appetite and we still didn’t feel like we saw enough geishas. We wanted more, we wanted to see geishas rushing from one tea house to the other, geishas everywhere!

No such thing happened.

We strolled, slightly disappointed, chatting with some Yamada-san about Japanese grammar. As the talk became more complex, we stopped to hear better. With some dark corridor behind mine and Kasia’s back, we tried to keep an eye on the street not to loose any interesting sight. Yamada-san was getting excited about keigo, polite way of speaking which is not master even by some Japanese, thought expected to be used in many situations. We heard some noise behind us and as we turned to see what was happening, we came face to face with a maiko, geisha apretiance, her white make-up just inches from our faces. I caught a glimpse of her eyes and a slightly frightened expression in them. Maybe she thought we might run after her to take pictures or stop her on her way to a teahouse or a restaurant where she probably was rushing. Not longer than just a moment passed and we saw her green obi knot swinging slightly and disappearing into the darkness of the street. Where the darkness came from I don’t know, but it was as if all the colourful neons where gone, and the maiko just melted into the cool night air. Magic.

As a souvenir from that evening I have my beautiful blue yukata and whenever I’ll wear it, I’ll think of the geishas and maiko we saw. Here comes time for some clever thought but not being able to express anything sophisticated in English I’ll skip that part and move onto the point when me and Kasia went to Funaoka Onsen next day.

As already mentioned, the weather was crap and we couldn’t go to Kuronama and I couldn’t show off my new yukata and generally it was bad. Rain was pouring down from the early morning and by no power we could get up from beds. Around noon we finally set off for Funaoka, an onsen just half an hour away from Hannari. It was built in 1920’s and it’s a tiny, traditional, charming place where time has really stopped in Showa era. The customers are mainly elderly ladies, though there was also one young girl, one woman we called a sumo wrestler and she actually might had been one as she was bigger than four usuall Japanese women put together, and one gaijin. The gaijin girl obviously didn’t know she should wash up before getting into the baths and we shared our distress over this with Japanese woman we chatted to, soaking in hot water and trying to be as Japanese as only a Japanese can be. I think we did quite well and we were not the weird outsiders anymore.

And there is so much more I could write about but I can’t, cause the super fast Nozomi train (yes, the fastest train on Earth that levitates instead of using rails and yes, I’m sitting in one right now) is just about to reach Tokyo and I have to change to get to my Yamanashi destination. I just ate a 1000yen bento and it was the prettiest bento I ever had, thought I’m not sure if it really should cost 1000yen. Anyways, it was good and now I’m not hungry anymore and maybe I can deal with my bike packed into a bag and my bike panniers that were certainly not made to be carried around in a hand. So I’ll stop writing now or otherwise I would start telling you how delicious my yesterday’s supper was. Hannari owner Kosuke arranged it to celebrate Kasia’s arrival and my departure. We went for yakiniku, which is... No, no, no. Stop. I have to stop to go and get my bike from car number 8 (I’m sitting in number 16...), so that’s it and you can google yakiniku if you want your mouth water.

Next stop, a horse breeding farm in Yamanashi!

Bye!

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Powyższy post powstał w pociągu, a teraz - po przesiadce z Nozomi w podmiejski, a poźniej w jeszcze jedną ciuchcie, jestem już w stajni. Droga od dworca na miejsce, jakieś 20km, przebiegła bez problemowo, ale jestem dość zmęczona i zaraz idę spać. Wstaję o 6 rano! Przerażające, ale o 7 budzą się koniki.

Paddy Field, bo tak nazywa się stajnia, jest skrzyżowaniem Ameryki z Japonią i choć dziki zachód nigdy mnie nie pociągał, to Dziki Wschdód chyba mi się podoba! Napiszę więcej, kiedy nie będą mnie bolały plecy od noszenia roweru w worku. Choć z największym prawdopodobieństwem przez najbliższy czas będą mnie bolały plecy od noszenia siana ;)