Day 9 - The Limits Of The Ancient Japanese Language - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan

 

Day 9 - The Limits Of The Ancient Japanese Language - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan  

The distance between our Furofushi Onsen hotel and our next hotel was too long to walk in one day, so we allowed two days to cover the distance.

But because there is very limited train service to take us back to our hotel at the end of our walking day, we took the early morning train to our stopping point, and then walked backwards to our hotel.

This way we would be covering the distance without the stress of needing to catch the last afternoon train.

We ate a wonderful breakfast in our hotel, of mostly seasonal vegetables and fruit.

The vegetables were pickled, steamed, baked, raw or prepared in many different seaweed dishes.

We took with us some snacks, mostly dried apples and persimmons.

I did see on the map that there was possibly a lunch place, about midway in our route, serving soba noodles, where we could rest and eat a small lunch.

We took our hotel’s shuttle bus to the nearby train station and went about an hour by train to Todoroki Station, figuring that the 20 km back to Furofushi onsen would take us no more than 6 hours, even if we were to stop for lunch.

We began walking south, down the National road.

The coastal road was very scenic, with lots of rocky outcroppings on small islands close to the shore.  The waves today battered these islands, giving a very dramatic look to the coast.  

There were several commercial fishing boats not far from the shore, and we were told that this is a very prolific area for tuna fishing.  

We stopped to rest and have a tea break twice today, both times at empty bus stops that had signs showing that the local bus ran only three times per day. 

These stops helped me recover from the heat of the day, which was hard for me.  

Jules seemed to be doing a bit better than me with the heat.

Autumn is still not yet here in northern Japan, but fortunately the wind was blowing gently from the sea, providing moments of relief. 

Midday, about halfway through our walk, I wandered into an old style convenience store, the only open shop on our route, where I bought a couple of persimmons that will ripen in a few days.  

The lady who ran the store, along with a couple of her friends who seemed to come in daily on their exercise walks, were so happy to see and chat with us.

I liked the way they explained to me when it would be OK to eat the persimmons.

They pointed to the top of the fruit, and asked me if I saw how “blue” it was.

I saw that it was still greenish on the top.

They said that when the fruit is no longer blue and turns orange like it is on the bottom, it is ripe and ready to eat.

I was wondering why the old ladies used the word blue instead of green, so I looked into it.

Japanese people historically referred to both green and blue using the word "Ao" (青) because the ancient Japanese language had fewer words to describe basic colors.

The word for green that is used today, "midori", (緑) is a newer word that was added to the language fairly recently.

This linguistic habit persists today, so "Ao" is used to describe unripe fruit, green traffic lights, and green things that signify youth or immaturity. 

This historical trend, continuing today, led to terms like Ao-ringo (blue apple) used to describe a green apple and Aoyasai (blue vegetables) instead of green vegetables. 

The ancient Japanese language didn’t have many words to describe items that didn’t exist in those times, like TV, air conditioning, computers, etc.

So the Japanese use variations of English words or sometimes French phrases, to describe these items or situations.

At lunchtime, we stopped at a very quirky little ramen shop that had only a small counter with four stools.

A couple had just finished their lunch and were heading out, so we sat down, happy just to rest our feet and drink some cold water.

The tiny eatery offered only three kinds of ramen dishes, all made with a local specialty they called “sardine broth,” (Niboshi ramen), which is made from dried sardines, a delicacy of the Aomori region.  This sardine broth ramen has a smoky, umami rich flavor. 

For us, the friendly lady omitted the pork, and washed off the noodles in boiling water. 

She then insisted on discounting the already inexpensive price of our meal, because we didn’t have the meat.

She served her ramen with fresh bamboo shoots, which were very good, and so were the noodles, but the portions were huge, so we ended up leaving half of it.

We reached our hotel right at the time we planned, at around 4:00 PM.

We did our laundry and relaxed in the iron rich hot springs overlooking the blue sea.

Dinner was a buffet of sumptuous foods, and because we had already sampled everything yesterday, today we only took the dishes that we liked the most.

Sending you love and light,

Tali

Walked today - 20 km.

Walked to date - 140 km.