Small plastic plates file by on the the rows of conveyor belts as Mayumi, a 33-year old teacher from Kuwana in Aichi Prefecture, offers her little 1-year old son Makoto some noodles in the hope of distracting hime from grabbing at the sushi dishes. Her friend Yamamoto, who works for a local design company and spent five years studying in Australia in the 1990s, shows me how to order anything not on the conveyor belt from a complicated-looking touchscreen above our booth. The restaurant, which has 30 or so booths with space for around six people in each, is almost full. It's Friday night and time to relax for the many who conform to Japan's 50 hour upwards-long working week.
After eating a vast quantity of tuna, salmon, eggs, rice and crab meat, we deposit our plates in a small receptacle at the end of the table. The touchscreen counts the plates and plays a cartoon sequence after every fifth plate which determines whether or not you win a free gift. Like in an arcade game, we win and a little plastic ball rolls down out of a container above us. Inside is a small toy of Christmas cracker-like quality.
Mayumi has travelled extensively, working as a volunteer in or just visiting such diverse countries as Kazakhstan, Israel and Bangladesh. Now on maternity leave, she offers visitors to Japan a place to stay. She wants to know everything I can tell about the Middle East and other trips I have been on in the past. Yamamoto, tall and affable with a passion for the outdoors, invites me to go hiking with him and his friends on Sunday. Makoto jumps up out of his baby seat again. The dishes keep whirring by.
After dinner we have a few drinks together at Mayumi's house, but I don't meet her husband Yoshiaki until the next day - his company, Fujitsu, has recently made some employees redundant and the remaining workers are taking up the slack. He doesn't get home from work until 2 a.m.
I wake at the crack of dawn on the 21st, the day of the hike, so that I can join the mountain trek led by Yamamoto-san. Mayumi and Makoto are already up - I don't leave without breakfast or the supplies I need. Yamamoto arrives in his 650cc car and we pick up two of his friends, Ragun and Kaori, and meet a second car on the way, bringing our group to eight people.
We drive into the countryside and stop at the top of a bumpy road where progress is blocked by a barrier. We scramble down a hill and begin trekking up a shallow stream, the cool water refreshing our feet. Pine-covered slopes dominate the scenery in front, behind and to our left and right; the earthy, tangy smell filling the air.
We pass a couple of collapsed bridges and arrive presently at a bend in the river, where there are two dilapidated buildings, the remains of a long-abandoned village. We start some campfires and barbecue the fish, chicken and pork that the well-prepared Yamamoto has brought in his pack. The fires sizzle, the cicadas rattle, smoke wafts through the morning air.
After we have eaten, I walk a little further along the stream. There are a handful more abandoned buildings and what looks like the remains of a dam to a tributary stream coming down the hillside. There is also a shrine which, unlike the houses, is in well-kept condition on the opposite left bank of the stream. Behind the tori, shrine gate, about 20 mossy steps lead up to the shrine itself, built from stone with a closed wooden door. Two statues of winged dogs stand on each side of the uppermost steps. I realise that I forgot to pick up my camera when I walked out from the campfires. It seems to match that this place should remain an image in my memory, rather than one in a photograph.
The 21st of July happens to be my birthday. Mayumi has invited several of her friends, including Yamamoto, Ragun and Kaori, to a party in my honour in the evening. We sit around the low table and eat spring rolls, vegetables, crisps and takoyaki. These are small dumplings, made by frying batter filled with, in this case, octopus and various vegetables and seasoning on a specially designed hotplate with holes rounded out for the dumplings.
Yamamoto teases Kaori about a picture he had taken of her sleeping in the car, and subsequently posted to facebook. We talk a lot about any number of subjects. I open a bottle of Asti and we all enjoy the celebration and good company.
When it is time to leave the following day, having thanked Mayumi as well as I could for the huge effort she had made for a visitor she hadn't previously known, I go through the gate at Kuwana station and down on to the platform. I can see her and Makoto standing on the elevated walkway that leads back towards the car park. Makoto, who points and says the Japanese word for "train" every time he sees a tractor, a boat or an actual train, waves at the locomotives. The sun casts an orange glow on the aluminium platings on the side of the bridge and the buildings of the town behind it. They stay until I have boarded the local service to Nagoya, waving back until it pulls out of the station.
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| Birthday cards. Photo courtesy of Yoshiaki-san |
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| Birthday tea. Photo courtesy of Yoshiaki-san |
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| Mayumi and Makoto at the station |
