SHOWA KINEN PARK

Some of the beautiful flowers in the garden

Six stations away from Fussa where we are staying is Showa Kinen Park, a  vast garden with lakes, cycle paths, forests and swimming pools.  Of particular interest was the Japanese and Bonsai gardens. 

We met a group of students and, surprisingly, one of the stayed behind to talk as the rest of the group moved on with their old teacher explaining the layout of the landscape.  He spoke English.  This is rare in Japan as very few people know the language.  He told us he was part of a group studying gardening and that it was very difficult, especially the cultivation of bonsai as it needs attention on a daily basis.

The miniature trees in the bonsai area were especially beautiful with small, balanced trees, as all the gardens we've seen in Japan are.

We ordered a snack from one of the many restaurants.  Being vegetarian, we were stumped. None of the ingredients were in English and we had a hard time explaining that we didn't eat fish or meat.  Pork!  he asked hopefully.

No, no meat of fish! By this time, the cooks were having a good laugh that here were foreigners who didn't eat meat or fish, a rarity in Japan as it is in other countries in the east.

Nevertheless, there was a suspicious gelatinous piece of what could have been squid on the plate and I left it there along with other fishy morsels.

Altogether, a great memory of Japan a couple of days before we leave.

Canal leading to the Emperor Showa Museum

THE CASE OF THE PURULENT PIMPLE

THE IMPECCABLE CLEANLINESS OF THE SUNSHINE  MIND

It all started quite innocently, with a reddening appearance of a pustule on my butt... bum sounds too British/Canadian and crude, but I'll use it later.  

The thing, and I don't want to give the dignity of naming it anything else because it's begun to give me no end of trouble, like the effect of George's Magic Medicine, has grown to Titanic proportions in my imagination and...well, let's just call it a man boil, although the Japanese doctor at the hospital has elevated it to the rather noble status of an  abscess on the old Gluteus Maximus. 

Now, I do have a rather high resistance to pain, but without the pain killers and the subsequent ingestion  of some kind of gut-settling antacid, I would rather sleep and pretend this wasn't happening, which I've started to do without the soporific effect of a good dram which I can't have anyway because of the antibiotic I have to take.

The Japanese hospital is cleaner than the cat houses in upmarket Thailand. If fact, the whole city of Fussa is surreally clean and I found myself taking a photo of a very rare and unusual phenomenon, a butt discarded in a gutter outside the hospital - that is of the genus nicotianao and not the result of some kind of unusual amputation.

Anyway, for a twenty bucks (or 2,000 yen) I can get myself attended to by a very ancient and gentle doctor who resembles Lao Tsu as I imagine him to have been.  His bedside manner is impeccable and I'm hoping he doesn't remember Pearl Harbour and the subsequent melee at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as he tends the abscess with a 10 cent plaster.

They move around silently in their crisp whites and as I lie face-down on the table, I half expect to hear a mono-tonal voice from Kubrcik's HAL in the corner, Hurt him as much as you want, but don't turn me off.  You need me!

Well, antibiotics now for another week and nothing to drink except milk and non alcoholic wine, a misnomer if there ever was one, like ginger tea.

The final irony is that after traipsing through some of the most foetid and foul places on the map, I end up with this in Japan.  Was it something I did in my last life?-Emperor Hirohito's revenge, perhaps.

The last twist is when leaving the hospital.  I spot a sign above a hairdresser's:

THE UNCANNINESS OF THE UNLIKELY CO-INCIDENCE

I think back to my old friend, Dr Quaisar Alam in Bhodgaya - he should have been on my case for sure.

As a friend said, That's life. There but fortune, pal...I reply.

ISHIKAWA BREWERY

UNUSUAL DOUBLE CHERRY AT THE BREWERY STILL IN LATE BLOSSOM

WHILE IN THE FUSSA AREA OF TOKYO, we paid a worthwhile visit to the Ishikawa Brewery.  Here, their major product is saki although there are also some unusual beers and ales prepared in season, reminiscent of the peculiarly flavoured beers you get in Belgium, but much more palatable.   What is striking as soon as you enter the brewery is the orderliness of the grounds. Everything seems to be exactly where it should be and there is nothing you can imagine that would improve the serenity and dream-like quality of the surroundings.

The guide shows us around the blewely and reads from a script about the various processes that take place to produce the saki.  I'm surprised about the process:  instead of wheat mash which is used to make beer, rice mash is used and aspergillus mould is employed to sweeten the rice during fermentation.  Rather than aging the saki, as you would with wine, it should be drunk within one-year of bottling.  Suits me as alcohol doesn't last long in my house anyway.

THE PROCESS OF MAKING SAKKI

At the side of the brewery there is a stream in which pure, soft water runs and we use a ladle to pour the water on to our cupped hand. In the Edo period (1603-1868), the Ishikawa family paid the Shogun sweetfish caught in the Tama River running nearby.  The water was also used to make sake.  Now, with the lowering of the water table, the water has to be pumped from 150 metres below the ground.

At the entrance to the brewery hangs a ceder ball which signifies that a new batch of saki has been produced.

THE CEDER BALL HANGING AT THE ENTRANCE

Also on display is a large, iron crucible that was hidden under the earth during the second world war so that it could be preserved as the Japanese Government was collecting all metal in the country to make armaments. Rather weathered, it is now on display in the main garden.

THE CRUCIBLE

Do I like saki?  It's a bit like Nepalese chang or millet spirit bur mild enough to be drunk on a regular evening as the sun goes down...in moderation.

Like some things in Japan, there is an air of well-established tradition; and although there seems to be a preoccupation with all things American, certain areas of life have thankfully kept their integrity.