Noto Hanto Adventure

Pnina's story:

In Takyama we rented a car, and embarked on a 5 hour driving adventure to Noto Hanto, a peninsula on the western coast of Honshu. Noto is a  word for "nose" Hanto: peninsula. It is a remote area, where fishing, sea-weed harvesting and agriculture are a way of life.. It is an area where steep, densely forested hills lining the coast, an area which is breathtakingly ruggedly beautiful. We were drawn to this area because of it remoteness and also because we heard about a very special secluded Ryokan (Japanese inn, built on the edge of the sea (Lamp No Yado, inn of the lamps, shown in the photo). We already knew in Montreal that we'll have a real challenge getting to Lamp No Yado, since we could not book it from Montreal. We eventually managed to find it on a Japanese web site, and Masahiro, our ex Japanese teacher booked it for us.

The car rental company did not have maps in English so we put our fate in the hands of our dear English speaking GPS (Marcel claims that it is a marriage saving instrument) . The closer we came to Noto Hanto, the more scarce were the English signs. But as Marcel drove forward we kept following the soft woman's voice: "In 700 meters turn right, keep going straight," etc. We were guided through on narrow steep roads, through forests, hills, valleys and quaint villages. Everything went so well, till we arrived to a hill top and our GPS soft feminine voice announced: You have reached your destination. We got out of the car enjoyed the beautiful view, the sea bellow us, then down below saw few beautiful buildings, which we assumed would be Lamp No Yado. We saw a very narrow steep road, somehow I suspected it meant for driving, but Marcel stated n a self assured manner stated; "We can do it" Of course we could not read the Japanese big sign, apparently warning of driving down hill.  To make a long story short, we ended on  a cliff, facing the sea, got out of the car, walked down to the Ryokan. Eventually the driver of the Ryokan, the only one who is allowed to drive down there. got our car back to the parking lot, at the top of the hill.

We spent the next day driving along the coast, visiting fishing villages, shopping in a  charming morning market (asa-ichi, in Japanese) where you can buy sea food, fruits and vegetables and local craft. We liked this little village so much, so we decided to go to the grocery store and buy some food for a picnic on the beach. We easily "identified" some cheese and tomato, but finding bread was more challenging. I got excited when I found  what looked like a loaf of whole wheat bread. (That's one western food item that i miss) But when we stopped for our picnic I found out that I've bought some kind of a brown creamy cake, which brought close to home the famous statement: "If they don't have bread, let them eat cake".

It was a bit hard to leave Lamp No Yado, in the nights we have been there we enjoyed communicating with the friendly young woman who took care of us (in spite of the language barrier). But it was time to go 'home to Tokyo, so we climbed the hill, got into our car, where we were very relieved to hear again the voice of our friendly GPS. We drove about 3 hours to Kanazawa, then hopped on a train, then into another train, eventually got back to our apartment "we have reached our destination"

Good night (Oyasso minasai) to all.
Pnina