Through the mist, faster than a speeding bullet.

On Friday evening I went to the Fuse sports park to sprint up a hill. The illustration for this page of our travellers chronicle is the view from the top of the hill I sprinted up. This hill is probably about 200 metres above the ground, maybe less, perhaps not so much of a sprint for some of the hardier members of my readership. Nonetheless, these old bones found four attempts at this hill quite sufficient to wear them down after 2 weeks without exercise. After this I paid a visit to the dome in the centre of the picture, where I did some weights. These weights are a different story, which I shall chronicle separately. The topic of todays lesson, gentle student, is the beauty of classical Japan.

Tottori is like a postcard from classical Japan. The walk to Fuse passes through a semi-rural area, which is guarded from the majority of the town of Tottori on one side by a line of low, forested hills. On the other side of the road the Koyama Pond stretches away to the West, its far banks meeting the foothills of the mountains in a welter of pine trees and cherry blossom. At the end of my walk is a T-junction where the road ends at a line of rice paddies, beyond which low hills rise to a cemetery overhung by cherry blossoms. This t-junction heads to Fuse and town on the left, and to the right the road climbs into thickly forested hills. Heading to the gym in the chilly evening this whole scene unfolds before me against a backdrop of low grey clouds shining silver in the light of the setting sun, and tinged occasionally with the nostalgic scent of wood-smoke from nearby houses. The cars on the roads travel at a sedate 40km an hour and are too small, by and large, to disturb the peace very much. Beyond the rice paddies is the futuristic dome of the sports park with its plaza and play areas, and just behind it the hill against which I will test my lazy frame.

Leaving the gym two hours later with the last of the setting sun fading beneath the horizon, I have gentle electronica playing in my ears to provide a suitably modern Japanese soundtrack to the scene. Although I am exhausted and it is fast becoming very cold, I cannot help but catch a hint of a feeling that I have somehow fallen into a different world.

This different world unfolded before me again the following day when I travelled by express train to nearby Matsue to see my supervisor, Kanta. Matsue straddles a river and lies along the edge of a large lake (shinji-ko), and can be reached from Tottori by train on the picturesque coastal Sannin rail line. The day I caught the train it was rainy and misty. The train hurtled past rice paddies and hills and through tunnels, with always to its left the hills and beyond them the distant mountains. Each time the train burst from a tunnel into daylight I would see the Sea of Japan lying cold and grey beyond rice paddies; or a line of low hills shielding me from the steely sea, and nestled in their shadow a few farming houses. Once I saw a pair of farmers walking down a road from these hills, one of them wearing the gaiters and head-wrapping of a previous era.

In Matsue it rained, but Kanta had a cunning idea to complement my weekend of mist and scenery. We visited the Adachi Art Gallery at nearby Yasugi. This gallery has attached to it a Japanese Garden which has been voted best Japanese Garden in the world for 3 years running by the Journal of Japanese Gardens. Pity the poor editors of this journal, who have to visit 650 Japanese Gardens every year to select the best! The garden lived up to its grand reputation, holding in its bounds a serene beauty which even 20 busloads of tourists could not disturb. By now the mist had gathered about the distant mountains in watery folds, and every view of the garden had a swirling backdrop of grey cloud, through which occasionally one could glimpse hints of the distant peaks. The art gallery itself had a wide selection of beautiful Japanese paintings, and between the two things we were kept occupied for a good 2 hours.

After this we rushed to Yasugi station, where I caught the express train back to Tottori. The mist over the mountains had crept lower in the gathering gloom, and now the train flew through wet fields gathered in the lap of the fog-shrouded mountains. I returned to Tottori trailing tattered rags of mist, and snuggled into the (thankfully) warm confines of my little room, to ponder the joys of a weekend in rural Japan.