Fun With Bamboo and Irradiated Yuzu

Yes, usually when I'm not taking Japan's semi-privatized rail network to task and spewing bile at other hallowed institutions I am indeed having fun and generally riding the winds of adventure over here. Exhibit A: my trip to the Kyushu Folkcraft Museum a few weeks back.

On recent weekends visiting Maia in Kitakyushu I think it's fair to say the two of us have started to hear that terrible dull thud and soft chafing sound as we scrabble around at the bottom of the city's activity barrel with our tin cup. The typical Japanese thing to do when bored would be either to go shopping, drop coin after coin into a pachinko machine or maybe just smoke a pack of fags in a cafe somewhere, but we can't abide by any of that. Unfortunately, museums (all museums, not just here of course) rotate exhibits only every so often, there are a limited supply of really delightful sit-n'-drink-n'-stare cafes, very few game centers have the much sought after Puyo-Puyo 2 cabinet and onsens are virtually non-existent/constantly booked in advance.



On a recent weekend though I did, in a flash of divine recollection, remember that we'd never been to that darn Kyushu Folk Craft Museum, despite the plethora of signs pointing towards it. So up into the hills we went and around the Kawauchi Reservoir, which, were I an eviler, Snidely Whiplash sort of fellow, say sits poised to take out a good quarter of the population of Kitakyushu were it ever to break its dam. Somehow the sight of this reminds me of the junior high and elementary schools that occupy the slopes of Sakurajima in Kagoshima and how the unfurling ticker tape of human history contains so many proverbial instances of us taking cover under that big oak tree during the thunder storm while telling ourselves the lightning could simply never strike here. Never, no way.



After several kilometers the twisting reservoir road and trusty ol' Cartrain deliver us to a daper brick building that reminds me faintly of a train station--either that or the setting of an Agatha Christie novel. This is the Kyushu Folk Craft Museum. Somehow I was expecting something, I don't know, more wafuu (Japanese-style) with the architecture. It's cool though, there are tasty crackers from Hita in the lobby, bamboo battleship models and the ticket ladies are a nice bunch. Several buildings dot the grounds, each one a studio and sales floor for each of the handcrafts of Kyushu: bamboo carving and shaping, glass blowing, metalworking, ceramics, lacquer ware, mother-of-pearl inlaying and, uh, the art of the packrat.



Things like ceramics are best left to the mountain villages like Onta and Arita, both of which are world famous, so I wasn't so much impressed by that hut as I was with the others. Metalworking, bamboo art and the eclectic collection of artifacts from yesteryear were, I thought, the most impressive areas. The old man working his industrial lathe in the metalworking building was incredibly kind and had a mind and spirit that reminded me of my own grandfather so much it was eerie. The galaxy of goods he created using only bits of milled metal, PET bottles, mason jars, test tubes and other odds and ends speaks of an unrecognized, working man's genius. Best of all though was easily the bamboo house, for it was there that I found a handsome old-timey Hobbit/Chinese Kung Fu Master pipe for the reasonable price of 500 yen!

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Maia and I headed back with high hopes to Tsuetate Onsen last weekend to see if we couldn't sample some more of the twenty or so different rent-by-the-hour rooms available there again...and snap towels at each other in peace. We browsed the big board and found a couple nice rooms, but after riding the rickety "monorail" down the slope (I gave our chances for surviving the ride 50/50) the attendant told us those rooms were either occupied or out of service today. I think the exact marking for those rooms was kyujitsu, which means "day off", or "vacation day", but that brings up a whole new host of questions. In the end we decided the room we had before was the best way to go--not a bum deal, even if we weren't exactly walking a knives edge of adventure. Oh, but how wrong we were.

You may recall from my previous post that this onsen room--room #17, if memory serves--contained the grapefruit-like yuzu citrus fruits floating ever so merrily in the bath. Well, this time the yuzu were still there in force...and I mean IN FORCE! The damn things were the size of volleyballs! These fruits, obviously the subjects of bizarre Japanese experiements into growing human beings from plant matter, were nevertheless amazingly fun to toss around the bath. We even invented a game involving the yuzu and a floating hula hoop that's like a cross between basketball, water polo and curling. Good times.

And though we still love Tsuetate Onsen the truth as of this past weekend is that we've found yet another, even more amazing place to soak the ol' bones in. Unfortunately we have no pics to back up the claim, but soon enough you'll see them here, for even a pack of Clydesdales couldn't hold us back from this reasonably priced, conveniently located paradise. Whoa nelly!

--Matt