On the Road to Kyoto (90)

     Gene is always ready to take advantage of spur-of-the-moment rides, as we see in this post.

October 28, 1945  [Herb] Nigg [an administrative officer ? who had joined the 92nd Evac in Owi] and I (and Lt. Griffith of the 32nd Field Hosp.) went to Kyoto by way of Gifu [about 125 miles].  Left 11 A.M. arrived 4:30 P.M.  What a road!  Stayed with 135 Med. Grp.

Modified map from hhh.gavilan.edu

28 Oct. '45
Beloved,
     I was in the billiard room but it was a bit chilly there so I'm now in the lounge and it is nice and cozy.  The radio is playing.  I'm in a nice easy chair with my feet on a carpet.  No, this isn't Nagoya, it's Kyoto!  This is a former University Club and is it a dilly!  The 135th Med. Group is stationed here and we are staying the night with them.  There are large ornamental light globes and wood paneled walls - a really snazzy place, steam heat and all!  It is a long story - also a long trip!  Nigg wanted to come over to see 6th Army to see what the score is and also to find out about himself and the other officers going home.  So, since I'm apt to be the next CO [he was the highest-ranking doctor of the three in the 92nd Evac. that would be left in Japan], I wanted to come too.  We heard it was a 3 1/2 hour trip over good roads.
     We left about 11 in a jeep with a driver.  Well, we arrived about 4:30 and what a road!  Sugar, you know our difficulties in touring the USA, getting on all the wrong roads [Gene and Beth enjoyed driving around the country seeing the sights].  Well, with signs in Japanese, a map with all the towns in Jap spelling, and their highway system here.  Oy, gevalt!  We took the wrong road out of town several miles and then got to the main road.  I guess it really wasn't so difficult.  We had the large scale Army maps and would point to it and show someone and by saying the name of the town we wanted and by sign language we'd get the general direction.  The highway was cement for a ways and in fair shape.  I can see what the air force meant when they said they were running out of targets.  Golly sakes but a lot of the industrial towns and villages are burned out!
     But to continue.  We headed for Gifu, NW of Nagoya.  We took a turn off the highway because the sign said to.  About 4 miles along on a narrow, twisting road thru an almost continuous village, I knew we were going the wrong direction and finally saw a sign for Gifu pointing the way we had come.  So we went back.  But we saw the sights - bamboo groves, rice fields and raw silk places with spindles of silk that had been dyed out in the sun. 
     At Gifu we drove into town before we knew that was it.  Then we asked for Ogosi and turned back SW.  We had good roads, more or less.  Then we continued on W toward the lake.  We saw quite a range of small mountains with what appeared to be a gap.  In that town we made a false turn and looped back.  There were signs in English spelling of the towns at important turns but their directions were not always clear.  In one town we went all around Robin Hood's barn, on the proper road, however.  It was a main road, but became dirt or gravel, about wide enough for 2 jeeps to pass.  We met a fair number of Jap trucks but no army vehicles of any kind!  But the road wasn't empty!  Oh no, it was simply a stream of people for quite some distance, even in the hills!  People walking, carrying huge loads on their backs, on bicycles with huge loads or pulling great long 2-wheeled carts piled high with boxes, or bundles of brush and branches of wood or lumber - just all sorts of things!

One cart of the many from the stream of people moving down the road

     But the road - words fail me for describing a main highway!  It was just one track.  Jeeps could pass in a pinch.  It ran thru villages where houses were built close to it, between walls, up hill and down, between rice paddies with densely forested (pine and cedar) steep hills beyond.  The railroad (double track) was always near so you can take pictures, but we were in a hurry.  Quite a few houses had steep thatched roofs - thatch about afoot thick, with green moss on the north side.
     There were dozens and dozens of shrines all along the road everywhere, usually in a nice grove of pine trees, one or more toriis ... 2 or even long rows of stone lanterns, sometimes stone lions or foxes, and then the shrine proper - small wooden ones or large tile-roofed ones.  I just wanted to take pictures of each one!  They are all so interesting and picturesque.
     In the higher valleys there was timbering going on, but not even the small branches are wasted.  What loads the people were pulling - men, women and children.  In several places there were bunches of small red chili peppers drying on straw mats.  There were miles and miles of houses with straw mats right on the road, with rice or beans drying.
     They don't pound the rice in mortars here.  They do thresh it out with flails or a sort of foot peddle machine with a rotating cylinder studded with wire loops.  Then it is winnowed in the wind or in front of a hand-turned fan.  Rice is cut close to the ground and tied in small bundles.  Some is put in very open shocks.  Some is hung over racks.  Vegetables are grown on all available ground.  There were plenty of the usual fecal odors!

Preparing the rice for threshing and winnowing

     The hills aren't terraced very high along there.  There were a number of nice clean mountain streams.  The people were dressed the same as elsewhere.  Many of the women wore small white cloth head shawls [see photo above].  Some of the men had bands of cloth around their heads fastened with an odd twist.  At most places the kids waved and hollered.  At intervals there were air-warning watch towers - usually 2 long poles set in the ground like a ladder with a tubular-looking bell.  We saw no cattle, no pigs, very few dogs and cats and not many chickens.  The road was rough and was full of chuck holes in places.  It continued a rather narrow road even after we came out by the lake.  From there on, though in doubt at times, we had no trouble following it.


     To be continued.