Letters from Japan — Blog on Project Basho Photo Tour to Japan

A lady in Kami-Ozawa, Wajima, Photo by Jeri

During our stay in Wajima, we also traveled outside of the city to explore the scenery of the Japanese countryside.

One feature of the Japanese countryside in this season are the golden rice fields. The rice fields are simply spectacular now a mixture of gold and green in color and ready for harvesting. The color and texture is simply beautiful during this season.

We also explored the smaller fishing villages along the Japan Sea. The fishing villages have only about 20 to 30 houses. One village where we stopped is Kami-Ozawa, and it is a village (technically it is called a town but I think village is more appropriate) with only 20 houses. It is a very tiny place and it has a wooden fence called, Magaki, all around it to protect it from the winter winds from Siberia. These bamboo fences are 15-18 ft tall and are taller than the houses in the village. Because of this, it looks almost like a small medieval town.

We walked under a gate and came across an old lady who has been living in this place since she was born. She was born in another house in the village, which is only several houses down the alley way and when she got married she moved to this current household. She lives with her son’s family who now works in Wajima. It is amazing to think what my life would be like if I were born in a place like this.

While the Noto Peninsula offers these beautiful features from the scenery to the people, it suffered from a major earthquake last spring. When you walk around Wajima you will still see the damage from a year and a half ago. One such example is Shoji-ji. When I visited last December, the meditation hall was about to fall down, and was only standing by wooden supports.

When we visited Shoji-ji this time, they were still working on the reconstruction of the temple. The meditation hall was covered with scaffolding and cloth now, and they were actually working on the building. I talked to one lady at a souvenir store, she told me the whole process including the small details will take over 10 years.

At Jeri’s suggestion, we decided to donate one roof tile, and wrote all of our names on it. We hope the next time we come back that most of the major reconstruction will be done.