Essay - Travels
- No.1
2000 Summer - spa, mountain, sea and forest No.1 -
flying Yasu, Tomi and RamenSummer vacation in 2000, when it is hot, go to the hot place! Let's go south!
Me "Yasuko" and my husband "Tomi-chan" swung aboard the subway as soon as we arrived at the Fukuoka airport from Komatsu. We went directly to famous Ramen shop "Ganso Nagahama-ya". "Welcome!" "Nama! (hard type)" "Kae! (another noodles)" Orders flew back and forth in high spirits in the inside of the shop. Boiled noodles jumped into a bowl of Ramen from colander one after another. As everyone slurp up noodles energetically, at first we were looking around with curious eyes. But its atmosphere was contagious at once and we slurp up, too. And we ate our fill with the sweat of our brow. Tonkotsu (white, milky, pork based one) soup was excellent!!
We hurried into a taxi and went to Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art where an exhibition of "The art of Eikyuu(1911-1960, Japanese avant-garde artist)" was held. We saw his fresh and free world, and felt his inner universe of spirit. It seemed to me that his paintings were mixed Joan Miro Paul Klee and mandala. Tomi & Yasu tour left for "Next!"
We rushed to Makoto Siina's (1944- ,essayist) photo exhibition at Fuji Photo Gallery. I'm a lover of him for a long time. I enjoyed every bit of his works that I felt tremulous excitement like a boy. I thought that seeing the original in practice was important.
We bade good-bye to Fukuoka, and headed straight for Kagoshima. We requested a rent-a-car as soon as we arrived at Kagoshima airport. But beautiful receptionist flatly said "We have only a car without automatic transmission and a low displacement car, because the consecutive holidays close at hand...". We didn't back down easily. "Maybe you have canceled car." "Probably". Our tenacity were fully rewarded, for we got the new car. We were happy "It's a good sign! We are lucky!"
Myoken Ishihara-so was the inn we stayed at this night. We went JTB (tourist bureau) and ask to arrange our travel in advance, but a receptionist showed little enthusiasm for the resevation of its inn and she said "We have little information about this inn." My sixth sense told me that it was better, and I made a reservation directly. As my friend worked at the tourist bureau, I've heard about the hotel which tourist bureau wanted us to stay differed from the one they wanted to stay.
take a hot spring bathI hope that the inn should have up to ten rooms. And I also hope wooden house, room with tatami mat, not using the fluorescent, wooden or stone ,if anything open-air, bath. Myoken Ishihara-so met all the requirements, and besides, they used mules which were made of vine. We were really pleased. I thought twenty-two thousand yen a night with half board per person wasn't expensive. We soaked in the hot spa, listened to the murmuring of a stream, looked up a starlit sky and thought tomorrow.