山ガール

山ガール　'Mountain Girl'

I was ready for climbing Annupuri. I had my brown knitted jumper, black trousers, thick socks (two layers, clearly), fleece and scarf.

'Yama Girl!' said Mr T. Uh, what? 'You're a Yama girl.' Uh, sorry, come again?

It turns out that Yama girl is an expression for hiking-loving girls. It's very fashionable in Japan for girls to be into their mountains. Above is a sample of the fashion expected of a bonafide Yama Girl - the central ensemble is especially popular. It consists of brightly coloured socks with variously patterned leggings and skirts/shorts. Possible not what I would think of as the number one appropriate kit for hiking, but, for the Japanese lady, indispensable. Also, note the sticks. No point trying to go up a mountain without sticks.

we managed without the leggings

As we walked up the 1083 metres of Annupuri-San, we met many a Mountain Girl. Another popular past-time seems to be mountain running. There's nothing more disheartening then being overtaken by a mountain runner, only to have them overtake you on the way back down fifteen minutes later.

she'll be coming round the mountain....

The walk itself was perfect: a steep steady climb through reddish tree-groves and thick ferns. The path was very rocky, and I fell over on several occasions, but that's part of the course. The only negative was the weather - at the top of Annupuri, we entered a cloud, and the view was entirely concealed. However, now and again the sun would break through or the wind would blow away the mist and a glimpse of beautiful green hills and white sulphurous peaks would momentarily be revealed.

Hana stopping for a drink

Poor Hannah. No one told her about the plan to go up Annupuri. She was full-steam ahead at first, but come the 1500 meter mark she started to look yearningly at the path behind her. "You can't turn back now, Hana," warned Mr T. But it didn't stop her from pulling at her line, desperate for the warmth and safety of the car.

near the start. still full of energy.

I learnt some useful Japanese onomatopeias on my climb. For instance, in moments of poor balance, you don't say 'oops' or even 'uh-oh', you say 'ototototo', with your arms held out wide. When the stones slip or dislodge under your step, you say the stones are 'zurizuri' -ing. When your knees hurt, you don't say they're sore, you say they're 'laughing'. When you sit in the sauna and let your muscles recover after a long walk, your body is 'jiwajiwa' -ing...  

made it!!!

Afterwards, we went straight to the onsen and recovered in the hot spring water which smelt faintly of gone-off eggs. Phew. We sat in the communal tatami-rooms, which are usual in the Japanese baths, and had a picnic of onigiri and corn on the cob. Mr T fell asleep immediately, snoring, and embarrassing Mrs T so that she had to apologise to the other people in the room. 

homemade onigiri

女子会 - Ladies' Night

Riiiiight....I get you.

Mrs T took me on a tour of Max Value supermarket in Kutchan. I'd never really been taken around a supermarket by a Japanese housewife before - i.e. someone in the know about grocery shopping. She explained to me what was tasty and what was not - how to pick out the best bulb of Japanese ginger and how to eat it (sliced raw on top of Soumen. Obviously). How to cook Horumon (um... some kind of cow and/or pig innards), chicken hearts and sliced cow tongue. She explained how it's better to buy fish from the '生’ or 'fresh' section and slice it to make sashimi, rather than get ready-made sashimi, which loses its flavour as soon as it's cut. The many mysteries of the Japanese fish section (what the hell is that weird yellowy-egg stew anyway?) were made clear to me. For instance, the yellowy-egg thing should be eaten cold on rice. The purple seaweed is purple because it's been pickled in a special sauce. Never buy pre-frozen fish, even if it's cheaper. Always buy fresh scallops. She introduced me to いももち or potato mochi and explained to me that you can actually eat those strange leaves you're often served in izakayas:

Yeah, you can eat the leaf.... It's called shiso.

Finally, she brought me to the sweets section. 'Do you eat sweets she said?' 'Um,' I said. 'Actually... I like chocolate.' 'Right,' she said, 'Aha,' she said. And proceeded to buy me three boxes.

fun times with the girls

In the evening, Mr T was off to play golf and drink with his golfing buddies. So, I was brought along to a 女子会 or a ladies' night. There were four of us together, sitting in an empty European-style cafe, drinking Moscow Mules. One of the women was a small, smartly-dressed lady in her sixties who had been to Germany on several occasions and who loved German classical music. The other, a skiing instructor, was in her thirties, wore a fleece and cargo-pants and had a tanned, rosy complexion. I noticed the way they spoke to my homestay mother, using the politest Japanese, and seeming a little ill-at-ease at first. It occurred to me then that she is, in fact, the wife of their landlord, and that they had been summoned to a ladies' night by her as a kind of social duty. In the same way that, in Japan, students are summoned to go for dinner with their professors as a matter of course, or an employee is made to go out drinking on a Friday night with his boss.

Still, after a beer and another moscow mule, the evening lightened up, and the ski instructor described her exploits (off-piste down Youtei-San...) and the upright, retired lover of Classical music ended up explaining to me that I ought to marry before I was twenty-seven. (Why twenty-seven?)

When we arrived home, we were greeted by the amazing sound of Mr T's deep, satisfied snoring.

初雪 or first snow

clear day

Today is the first day of snow on Youtei-San. By the time I got up, the snow had melted. Autumn is here, says my homestay mother. Autumn is here, says the news reader on Niseko Radio. Autumn is here, says Hana as she barks outside the door to be let inside.

On my walk I see the leaves changing to yellow and red with the light of the sunset. A year has passed since I arrived in Japan and I'm strangely excited to be seeing the Kouyou 紅葉 again - the autumn colours - now that I understand more about life here in Japan. At least, I think I understand more than I did a year ago...

lunch?

I think of Frances Hodgson Burnett (as you do...) and her description of those moments when you're alone and you come across a 'majestic' scene and 'you know you will live forever and ever'. But, in those moments, I think precisely the opposite . Only a week ago it was balmy summer and now summer has gone and I will never have a summer in Japan again. It's a sweet sadness, a melancholy, about how everything must change, and move onwards, and end. It's not about living forever, rather it's the realisation that everything will fade away. And that the fading away is not so bad, after all, because it can be beautiful, like the reddening, dying leaves are beautiful. Or the pink light of the setting sun is beautiful.

Hana peering down at me as I arrive back

As me and homestay mother watch TV together, Hana pads around the living room, refusing to settle down and sleep. She looks forlorn and lost, her triangular ears pricked up, she sits down here, then there, waits by the door, then in the kitchen. T-San has fallen asleep in Hana's usual spot (I'm guessing it's a futon, not a kennel....) and Hana has no idea what to do with herself.

"What shall we do with you?" says my homestay mother, scratching her behind her ears. "What shall we do?"

popping out

Old Man with Taiyaki

On Wednesday, I cycled to the local library (actually, a 'children's play centre' which basically means a library where you can't tell the children to be quiet) for the morning. Before it opened I had a bit of a jaunt around Niseko. No one was around outside: everyone was in this place, the supermarket. 

This is where I surreptitously took a picture of the Taiyaki maker - he must have been about 98 years old, bent completely double over the fish-shaped grids. (For those who don't know - let's have a gratuitous picture of the Taiyaki:) 

They look like fish but don't taste like fish

I tried to ask whether they had dried fruits. I tried to speak Japanese, but it turns out the word for dried fruits is, in fact,ドライフルーツi.e. dried fruits. This painfully reminded me of the time I spent ten minutes describing eye-drops for dry eyes to a pharmacist (in the end, it turns out, in Japanese it'sドライアイーor Dry Eye) and the time in the conbini when I needed a spoon (スポーンor Spoon) and in the cafe, asking for butter (バター　or butter) and so on and so on...

Monkey in the supermarket. 

I cycled here and there (あっちこっち行って来た）and then gave up in exhaustion. A neighbour stopped me in the library and said how she'd passed me in the car - big hills around here aren't there? she said. Yes, I said. Yes, there are.  

Homemade Okonomiyaki on a special grill

For those who don't know, Okonomiyaki is usually referred to as Japanese pizza; however, it bares no resemblance to a pizza whatsoever. It is in fact a kind of cabbage omelette or tortilla, cooked on a griddle-like object, and onto which you can add extra ingredients - prawns or squid or pork - and afterwards, dry seaweed sprinkles, bonito flakes, and the obligatory, slightly mysterious 'Okonomiyaki sauce', which is brown and... well, I have no idea what it's in it really. 

My homestay father (let's call him T-San for short) poured me the usual Sapporo beer (no better in the world) and an extra tipple of Shochu mixed with hot water or Shochuoyu. Shochu is a distilled spirit made from sweet potato or potato, whereas Nihonshu - what we know as Sake - is made of rice. 

A long-standing mystery explained to me... 

a (british?) walk in the rain

where in the world are we?

On the 25th, it rained all day without stopping. I felt like a child who was being kept in doors against her will - when will it stop raining, mummy? Etc, I spent the afternoon hermiting in my room, making cups of tea and trying to stay out of the way.

Finally I ventured out for a tentative walk. It struck me how a rainy day made the landscape of Northern Japan looks exactly the same as England (Note: Not Wales)... I stepped in puddles and drew my coat tight around me against the cold. (I was warned not to go too far in case I catch cold. And did I have a proper coat?) The Hokkaido farm dogs watched me suspiciously as I passed. So did the famed Hokkaidan ostriches.

Apparently the eggs don't taste of anything (too big and watery)...

But the sausages are delicious. 

In the evening, my homestay father came home in a bad mood and shouted at me up the stairs - 'Erine-San! ONSEN!' My homestay mother whispered to me as I was putting my boots on hurriedly in the porch that he'd had a disappointing day - something to do with his estate agent business - and so she's making him go to the onsen to recover and wash the day away. 

She certainly knew her husband well. On the way home, he cheered up considerably and quizzed me about all the different directions a person could jump in English. Jump in? Jump on? Jump out? Jump at? Jump off? Jump up? There was a feast of crab and tuna waiting for us at home - the winnings from the Golf tournament - and whatever disappointment seemed entirely forgotten.

Youtei-San wrapped in clouds

the secret garden

I've been thinking about this book for months. Out of nowhere remnants of the story came back to me - wasn't there a boy in a wheelchair? Roses? A robin? A spoilt girl from India? Perhaps it was something to do with living in Tokyo for the year: Tokyo being the antithesis of Frances Hodgson Barnett's Victorian English idyll that drew me to the book. That, and struggling with my own waves of homesickness.

"Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy spirit. "The sun is shining - the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The flowers are growing - the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic - being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me - the Magic is in me. It is in me - it is in me. It's in every one of us. Magic! Come and help!"  - Colin's Spell.

The Secret Garden is a manual on how to raise children. Burnett advises fresh air, exercise, company, and, no matter how far away, a loving mother. Added to this - or the sum of these things - is the 'Magic' of nature. God's presence in other words, which cures all ailments. Ailments of the body (muscular atrophy, rheumatism, jaundice) and the mind (hysterics, depression, grief) and even defects of character (selfishness, greed, general unpleasantness).

The garden cures the lame Colin - whose disease is all in his mind - and the sour Mary - whose ugliness comes from being a spoilt colonialist's daughter, made 'yellow' by India. The children are in today's terms 'traumatised' by neglect and abuse. No one cares for them: their mothers dead. Dickon, the 'angel' of nature', is blessed not only with a loving mother, but with a house-full of siblings, and the creatures of the Moor, with whom he communes and who brings him closer to the 'Magic' - to God.

A secret garden I discovered yesterday....

Burnett spends an awful lot of time on the physical recoveries - rounding faces, tight stockings, popping buttons; the exercise programmes they devise for themselves; and the food they eat. In fact, Colin and Mary reject the 'fine' food of the estate's kitchens and have cream, milk, bread and buns sent to them from Dickon's mother. Presumably this food is imbued with a mother's love, and its simplicity equates to 'naturalness', and so hurries on their strengthening muscles and rosy cheeks.

Colin starts off as the best character in the book: hidden away in a dark corner, truly going mad with solipsistic illusions of deformity and death. He has terrible tantrums and black moods where he is convinced he is going to die at any moment. He cannot even look at his mother's portrait. The garden cures his paralysis and atrophy, but it doesn't cure his personality. Instead, he ends up being rather dull, serious, preaching 'curate'-like figure, who is bent on scientific discoveries.

Although very of its time with its interest in science, it is difficult to understand why Colin suddenly introduces the word 'scientific' - in the secret garden of all places - where surely 'Magic' and the unfathomable work and spirit of God are king. Another slightly odd thing about the book - which often gets picked on - is how the end never delivers a full summary of Mary's development. It's completely cut short in favour of a close description of Colin's relationship with his father...

The secret garden itself - the roses, delphiniums, daffydowndillies, crocuses - and the Red Robin who observes all, is a paradise of meditation and new awakening. (By meditation I mean the kind of clarity of thought that sometimes steals up on you when you go walking or running or swimming). And Niseko too, I believe, promises this same kind of awakening.

I'm now willing to be transformed by nature and my own secret discoveries - I want to be made 'ruddy', red-cheeked, dishevelled by the outdoors. I want to go round marvelling at nature, running and jumping* and skipping (where did I put the skipping rope again?). After spending so long in classrooms and commuter trains and apaato's in Tokyo, I want to go outside and see the Magic for myself. Experience it like Mary experienced it - take it as medicine for the soul.

For all its old-fashioned values, The Secret Garden offers a vision of how we could choose to live our lives - positively, energetically, simply and full of hope (even if I'm not sure if gardening can really cure advanced rheumatism...)

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throw's ones head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stand still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising sun - which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so.

* In reality, this involves me huffing and puffing uphill on a bike, wishing that I had just for God's sake taken the effing car....

mayoral election

Breakfast

Today is the day of the Mayoral Election. It's a tight-run thing. There is only one candidate, but a rival could appear at any moment. A rival candidate has until 5pm to declare her or himself - so naturally we are all nervously watching the clock at home. Meanwhile my homestay father, his friends from the neighbourhood and the current mayor, cruise around Niseko in landrovers wearing orange anoraks and caps which read 'WE LOVE NISEKO.'

I am now a proud owner of this jacket.

In the afternoon, I visited the 有島 武郎 memorial site. Arishima Takeo is (was?) a famous Japanese novelist from the Meiji period who moved to Hokkaido to 'get away from Tokyo's petit bourgeoisie'. I was told that no one read him anymore, because his Japanese is old-fashioned and barely comprehensible.

The man himself, giving us his blessing

The memorial park is, like the rest of Niseko, quiet and unpeopled. It is rather confusingly laid out - but maybe that is a just a feature of 'memorial parks' generally. There is a crazy pink-handed clock, a spiked tower, and stripes of lavender planted here and there. Once you get through to the other side of the brick paving, the little paths that lead nowhere, and the swinging-benches, the memorial park seeps into Niseko countryside. A stream trickles around the tower and down past cornfields and flowering ditches. For a moment I think I hear hundreds of dogs panting simultaneously, before realising it's frogs croaking, hidden in the water. I don't meet another soul.

Writer's Retreat... or a Witch's Hat?

On doing more research (Wikipedia) it turns out that Arishima in fact ended his life by committing double suicide with his lover in 1922. His body was not discovered for weeks 'due to the isolated location'...

I see

To end on a more cheering note, here is a photograph of my homestay father's Japanese Sake collection:

There's more, but I couldn't fit it all in. 

pumpkins and a bike tour

I leave after breakfast, trundling along the gishi - gishi unpaved roads, zipping down the hills, and across the vast swathes of fields.

My Steed

Sometimes I think I'm in a mid-western American state. A house every half a mile. A silo in the distance. But sometimes, when I came to the crest of a hill or a bridge, I am startled by a country of green mountains and endless woodland so that it seems I've landed in the middle of the Black Forest.

I am so alone as I cycle that noises from the bedraggled edges of corn fields scare me into pedalling faster.

You'd be waiting a good long while for this bus

I stop at farmer's markets and viewing platforms. These little stopping stations are full of people, especially families with young children, enjoying the 'famous Niseko cream pie' or sitting on the 'must-sit-on' red tractor or jumping onto the huge bale of hay dumped next to the car park for everyone's enjoyment. The cafes all seem to have a American ranch theme. I sit for a while, confused, watching people stow yet another bag of potatoes away in their car.

A boy enjoys the tractor experience

In an onsen by the ski slopes, I lie with a white napkin wrapped round my head and my head on my arms. The koi carp in the pool next to me slide over each other's backs like eels, so close to me they almost touch my fingers.

I'm not joking about the pumpkins

***

When I return home late, having got myself lost, it's immediately clear my homestay mother has been worrying. "Where did you go? Was it scary? Did you fall off? Did you eat lunch?" I apologise profusely and feel terrible. It gets worse when I reveal that I didn't have lunch - "I should have given you an onigiri! I thought of it as soon as you left!"

The father has won a frozen crab in the golf competition. We open the box together and stare at it. "Wow." "Big, isn't it?" "Yeah." We sit together on the floor around the low living room table. Dinner is pumpkin and homestay mother explains the recipes to me - she explains to me what shoyu is, mirin, sake. She then sits with me for thirty-minutes and helps me with my reading exercises.

I am not sure whether she wants to help me or not. Is she lonely all day in this big house while her husband is at work? Or does she want to do her own things? Does she want to sit and explain kanji to me in the evenings after a glass of wine, or would she really rather be in bed at eight-thirty? I'm reminded of those Victorian women who 'take a companion' in their widowhood...

In any case, I've yet to find out.

a day out

The SL arrives. Two Minutes Late.

My homestay mother takes me on the steam train. As the only foreigner, our fellow travellers' attention seems to be split between eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Steam Locomotive ('SL' in Japanese if you please) and myself. The platform warden stands next to me and stares. Now and again he motions for me to step back.

"Train's coming," he explains.

It comes in a cloud of smoke, juttering and chugging its way down the line. The children wave energetically.

"No electricity," my homestay mother explains. "So slow. So dangerous!" I try and tell her that in Wales all the trains run on diesel, but I can tell she doesn't believe me.

Smoke billows from the engine

We wind our way through the Hokkaidan countryside, brushing past forests and glades, glimpsing Youtei-san from his many angles. Photographers hide in the bushes, balance on ladders, perch next to the tracks on little stools - so that they can get a good shot of the Steam Locomotive. I laugh. My homestay mother rolls her eyes - "so serious!" she complains.

***

She takes me to the local library where we meet her old friend Yama-San and the librarians (all women - they're such close friends, she says). We spend a long time peering at the YA books and the cooking magazines. Then she takes me to ski resort after ski resort. One more famous than the next, but all of them empty. Ghost towns in the non-season. Huge, ugly apartment buildings jut out of the ground. Hotels as big as Tokyo offices. Vast restaurant and souvenir complexes. All, all, empty. The roads are being dug up and broadened, ready for the winter season.

"Usually there are many Australian tourists. They come here and eat a lot, drink a lot, stay for week after week, having a great time. Great memories."

"But now..."I say, a little sadly.

"Sometimes," she says, encouragingly, "people come to see the view. Sometimes."

***

"The on-demand bus arrives at half five! So prepare yourself!"

My homestay father waits downstairs. He asks me if I cried when I phoned my mum and dad and I tell him I don't. "But you're an only child aren't you?" he says, perplexed. 

I get into the mini-bus. Just me and my homestay parents, all sitting separately. We're joined by Yama-San and his wife, who both used to teach in High Schools in Tokyo. I don't know where we're going, what we're doing. Happily, it turns out we are going to the Sushi-Ya in Niseko. 

They spend a good long time explaining to me all the different types of fish which decorate the central plate. How to hold chopsticks; drink miso soup; how to mix ginger and wasabi with the soy-sauce. How to drink sake overflowing from the cup as if you're kissing a woman - no, better than kissing, more intimate, Yama-San explains.

Thy cup overfloweth 

The wives talk about a local author who has written an erotic novel based on a Love Motel. 

"Will you read it?"

"No. Absolutely not. I can't. Will you?"

"I don't know. No. Maybe. Will you?"

"Out of the question. You?"

"Me too. But still. Isn't it interesting?" 

The last platter of sushi is a positive battle. "Eat it!" "No, no, you, please..." "No, I insist, I can't possible..."Dances of politeness and embarrassment are few, however, compared to the merry, luxurious mood in which the evening passes. An evening laced with sake, laced with good company, anecdotes and travel stories. I'm laughing all the time. And sometimes I think I even understand the joke. As when the waiter brings us a plate of seafood and my homestay father puns,

"Ikaga desu ka?" (Is this alright with you?) "Ika ga desu ka?" (Is this squid?)

My homestay mother groans. "Bad joke," she complains, shaking her head. "Low level."

Only the beginning

We arrive home. Outside the house I stop and look up at the sky and, for the first time in a year, it seems, I see the full canopy of stars. The moon bright and un-touched, like a newly-minted coin. And before me the rigid form if Youtei-san - that almost-Fuji of Hokkaido - more beautiful, perhaps, than the holy mountain - rising up in the night-time sky.  

meeting the neighbours

On our way

"Let's do the rounds."

My homestay mother picks up the phone and announces to her neigbours - who all seem to be listening on the same line - "Everyone! We're on our way!"

Hana is excited. She doesn't bark but she criss-crosses us as we walk, stopping to stand in the ditch, letting her nose glide along the grasses. The sun is out and I can see Youtei-San looming over the valley, striped in green shadows. Clouds catch on the summit as they drift pass.

Big Carrots

The neighbours have a huge vegetable patch - what I'd call a farm - that has 'grown' out of all control. It spreads across two acres with greenhouses and tea-houses and picking-gardens. They're a retired couple living the good life. The wife - her skin dark and wrinkled form the sun - pushes a wheelbarrow along the furrows, a broad straw sun-hat hiding her face.

"We have eight types of potato. And three types of sweet potato," the husband explains. His eyes moving between me and my homestay mother, not sure how much I can understand. He takes us to the drying shed and shows us boxes upon boxes of this precious root vegetable. He even snaps a sweet potato open, showing off the bright purple flesh.

Pumpkins Everywhere

"Do you want a box? Please take some!"

"No, no, I already have plenty at home," my homestay mother replies, embarrassed.

"Go on! You'll take a box, won't you?"

"On the way back," she says. "We're just off on the rounds." But we don't go back.

Greenhouse

Carrots dry on the ground. A family from Alaska have built a green wooden dome which resembles a camouflaged observatory, watching the crossroads. A huge German shepherd lies langorously on the veranda.

As we walk we come across...

"Hana is scared of her," explains my homestay mother as she tugs at Hana's lead. Hana digs her paws in the soil and whines. "We'd better go home."

When we arrive home, a box of potatoes have been left outside the door. A bunch of spring onions trail from the garden wall. My homestay mother stops in her tracks.

"Oh, dear me," she says.

arrival at the tree castle

Hokkaidan Wooden House. Hand-Made.

"Is it all made of wood?" I ask, standing in the middle of the vast sitting room, my chin in the air, looking round the solid tawny walls, seeing how the grain traces the boundaries of the room, the eyes of the wood peep out on our small tea-drinking group. The heavy beams, their splits, the low table and hand-made chairs, all come together to create a sense of warmth and security - a fortress against the endless mountains and fields and forests thinning into horizon. The house stands alone; a long way off the main road. After the paper-mache Tokyo apartment blocks, it is strong and healthy, embracing me in the darkening evening. 

"Not wood," my homestay father says. "Trees." 

He opens the newspaper again. Next to him a line of Japanese sake boxes clutter the floor. I don't know whether they are full or empty. Beautiful blue-stained sake cups lean against the bottles. 

"What kind of sake do you like? Beer?" he asks me.

"Yes, beer. And wine. And Nihonshu."

"Beer, then," he says. "Nothing is more delicious than Hokkaido beer." He opens the fridge and shows me where the beer is, when I need it. 

My Bedroom

***

My homestay mother gives me a guided tour of the farmer's market. Daikon. Pumpkins. Mushrooms. Lotus root. "Here, aren't they big? Aren't they fresh-looking?" She talks nervously and quietly, almost murmuring to herself, so I'm not sure if she wants me to listen or not. It's as if my listening is an accident; my response always a little unexpected. "My neighbours grow their own vegetables so I don't have to buy any. I have five pumpkins waiting in the kitchen. I'm getting fatter and fatter. Who's going to eat them?"

Big Mysterious Vegetable

A man in the shop sees I'm a foreigner and speaks to me in English, but after he's been talking for a while I realise it's not an English I can follow. Then he gives me a document detailing the different kinds of potatoes available in the area.

"You shouldn't let him speak to you in English. Say you speak Japanese!" says my homestay mother, laughing. "Strange man."

*** 

Hana, the dog, chases her own tail round and round in tight circles. She's a white Akita, a Japanese snow husky. She likes me, I think. She sits next to me and licks my elbow. My homestay mother explains she never wanted a dog but,

"There were four of them. Four puppies. A local boy found the box left in the forest, just thrown away. He managed to give away three but there was only one left - Hana. She was the 残り物 - the left-over. So we took her in. That was eleven years ago now."

Hana guards the house

She ruffles Hana's neck and Hana, panting after her walk, watches her mother closely as she speaks. 

“どうぞよろしく！” she says to Hana. "Say hello to our guest!" Hana lifts her paw to me and taps my palm, softly, as if to check that I'm really there.