First of August, Kiso Fukushima.

           Away from the crowds, from the immense cities, from the 140 million inhabitants, stands Kiso, a small town of Edo period

          The first of 11 outposts created for postmen in the Shogun era who had to carry - but also to die, to fracture mostly legs, to fake to get lost - between the Shogun (the great general) based in Edo (now Tokyo) and the Emperor based in Kyoto.

          Ryokan were the typical taverns/inns where those postmen rested, where I rested.

          The creaking at every steps, the smell of dry wood in the sun, the incense on every walls, a Japanese gentleman and lady welcomed me in. 

         They show me the room, all made of wicker, the futon as bed, the pillow full of cherry kernels. Very excited I go in, and the gentleman complains as if he had be stung by something lethal. My slippers. I walked with the slippers into the room. I take them off apologizing a thousand times and he arranges them perfectly with the tip facing the hallway and the heel towards the sliding door.  He probably told me before, but the communication wasn't the best. 

         About communication; on the Train Ueno - Kiso I had the first conversation with a Japanese. 

        I was concentrate and quiet in my seat reading the lonely planet when a lady big of her sixties, full of pink and fuchsia plastic bags, with a duffel bag typical of a sportsmen asks me: '

        'Europe?'

        'Hai' I answer in Japanese.

        She smiles.

       'Italy,' I continue. 

       She agrees with her head but she didn't understand me at all.

       Silence.

   

       After twenty minutes the lady smuggle me a business card. In front it's all written in Japanese, but behind the stubborn old lady wrote something. She wrote in Western characters her name: IBARAKI CHIEKO. and a question:

     'Do you play tennis?'

     What does that have to do with everything. I think. 

      'Once' I say politely. Emptiness on his side.

      'I like tennis.'  The emptiness continues.

      I correct my self and I say . 'Tennis is good'

      His emptiness takes shape, she understood me, or she understood something. Then taken by courage for putting down the first pylon of a communication bridge points to the duffel bag in front her feet. She opens it to show me. Inside there are a couple of tennis rackets. She tells me something about a tournament in Tokyo, that she has to play, or someone who she know has to participate at a tennis tournament.
       I imagined her playing, and I could just see my grandmother hitting a yellow ball. 

       I keep on saying 'Hai' every time there was a small pause in her monologue. Then she finished the description of what she's going to do in Tokyo, she makes a comment. 

      'Federer and Djokovic, wimbledon, good'

      Ah! Surprised. She had seen the Wimbledon final. My grandmother would never do that.

      'Good, yes good' I say. 'Fantastic,' I add. But it was a difficult word. So I'll end with 'Federer and Djokovic good'.

       Then the conversation focus on an exchanging a series of tennis players, male and female alike, in alternate way. We went on for a dozen. Then I said a couple of the young tennis player and the emptiness looked at me again.

       Silence.

       After 10 minutes the incredible senior tennis player gives me a small case in the cotton and says

      'Gift' And she adds in Japanese something accompanied with the movement of the hand. She seemed to have done the case herself.

       I take it by the law of exchange, I give her Belgian chocolate.

       'Gift. Chocolate Europe'

       She's happy.

       Silence. This time short.

      She stretches me a hard-boiled egg.

      'Gift'

       I take it and while I weigh it I don't know what to exchange. At the end I opted for the hairband.

'Gift'. I smile worried that in those elastic plastics bags would be the infinite universe of objects to which I would have no counterweight in the exchange.

       My concern was in vain, soon the old tennis payer and the duffel bag with tennis rackets went out to follow  her tournament or whatever.

       Next up I will talk about the giant pink panda