The Road Less Traveled

Asuke, Part 6: Asuke Village & Finale

Friday, March 13th, 2009 by Matthew Lanigan | Uncategorized

Continuation; 3rd post today. If you haven’t read the other two, please go back and read them first… unless you don’t want to!

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February 27th, 2009: Day 7 of Asuke
Today was a fun day. We stared off eating breakfast with the Kuratas, after which we headed to the Tourism Assc. From there we went to Asuke Yashiki, where we spent most of the day. We made sandals out of hay. which turned out rather well, and then I made some more postcards. We left there around 3pm (I think…) and went to the blacksmith, which Adam had requested to visit. He got to help make the head of a kama, which was pretty cool. Me, Thompson-sensei, Mike, James, and Daniel (again, I think…) went to the bookstore/cafe we’d visited before and had a nice, long conversation. Thompson-sensei described the Business Japanese class to us, which made me want to take it quite a bit.
From there, we headed over to Asuke Village where we’d be staying the night. It’s really cool; the buildings are like what a small family home would’ve been like. We ate dinner barbecue-style — it was awesome — and had a lot of fun.
I got to play Suzuki-san in Go finally. It turns out he’s a 3 dan. He pretty much destroyed me — really bad — with a 3 stone handicap. We were able to play again later with a 4 stone handicap, and it ended up at B54-W73. Still a loss, but not a horrible one. All in all, a great night.

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February 28th, 2009: Day 8 of Asuke
Well it’s the end of our next-to-last real day here. Everybody is tired and starting to get irritable, but it was a good day despite that.
We started off the day with a late breakfast — I (and apparently everyone else) forgot to set an alarm. Then we went to the bus at 9am and went to Kaji-san’s place to open the kiln and see the charcoal. After that we made bamboo dishes and ate lunch with them. It was sweet. After that we went up to a shrine in the middle of the mountains. It was really cool. We went back after a while and utilized the ashi-buro [Note: a hot-spring type bath for your feet].
When we finally returned home I played two games of Go with Suzuki-san. I lost both, but they were close, and I was very happy about the outcome. Result #1: B73-W79. Result #2: B81-W88. He complimented me afterward and encouraged me to keep playing, saying that I could reach shodan [Note: 1 dan] by August if I tried. He also invited me to come stay at his house sometime. I wonder, was he serious? [Note: it turns out, he was, as he invited me several more times after this entry, and mentioned it to several other people as well]. To Do: find a place in Kasugai to play Go. [Note: More or less done. Today I went with Mark to the Japanese Go Association in Nagoya... it was a lot of fun, but expensive. There are a couple closer places I've found since then, too.]

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March 1st, 2009: 9th (final) day of Asuke
Well, our last full day in Asuke has come and gone, and it has left me wanting more — but in a good way. The slow pace of life in Asuke compared with the bigger cities is rather refreshing. The skeptic inside me wonders just how much of it was put together specifically for our visit, however.
I learned a lot, I think, and it was a great experience. Hopefully as the days go on, what exactly I learned will become more clear.
Oh yeah, I played Suzuki-san in Go again after the farewell party. We were both exhausted. I resigned about 30 moves into the game. [Note: it was that bad.]

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Well, that’s all for Asuke. Later on I might post the reflective essay I wrote about the trip, but for now, it’s 4am and I need to sleep — my mom gets here in 7 hours! Good night!

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