A few days spent in the glorious countryside of Kunisaki. Broad valleys brimming with green. Insect life everywhere. Praying mantises perch on the lights of the path at my inn. A variety of trees and subsequently, birdsong, far richer than that in Kansai. Magnificent stone torii hinting at mysteries in the hills above. Tall rock spires draped with forest. Serenely smiling stone Buddhas, amused by the same joke for 1300 years. Farmers ringing their rice fields with fencing. (The boar in the hills above are waiting for when the rice stalks begin to droop, they tell me.) The lovely characters I meet: Aoki-san in his mountaintop tea plantation. The hands of Yamamoto-san working his own land into shaped clay. Chaku-san's warm smile and quiet good nature. The stars above Momokusa when the clouds call it a night.
On the turntable: Nick Warren, "Back to Mine"
On the nighttable; Eiji Yoshikawa, "The Tales of the Heike"
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