septemberick

highways and byways of Japan feature often spectacular, usually interesting, and always unique roadside service areas

sometimes gift shops, usually konbini, always clean and well-maintained toilets (take that .._.)

my favorite bit is that they all have commemorative stamps, like ink stamps with a pad to put in your notebook as though visiting a expressway service area is a sign of accomplishment, but sure, i’ll stamp

salient to this dispatch however is: at this service area – with an absolutely stunning view of the sea of Japan looking from high up down against a cove and waters that bump into East Asian mainland – is a stone, engraved with a haiku by the wandering haiku master Bashō (his literary name taken from a sort of water filled plantain tree)

the stone shows a well know haiku by Matsuo Bashō who traveled basically everywhere in Japan based on all the places that say “Bashō slept here, Bashō drink tea here etc.”

poem in its original form (if I got it correctly) is:

うらうらと
日はのどか也
春の山

— 芭蕉

Romanized:

Uraura to
hi wa nodoka nari
haru no yama

Translation (approximate, improvements requested as I’ve taken liberties):

So gently, so calmly —
the sun warms the springtime hills
in perfect stillness

this is one of Bashō’s more peaceful, pastoral verses (some of his poems are much more silly and striking) — a moment of total harmony between inner and outer landscapes, the kind of thing you feel in your bones when the rain clears and the hills glow under soft skies

anyhow, when you stop at the service areas with diligent truckers knocking back a canned coffee and three smokes, or a tired traveling salesman somehow napping in the front seat of his car despite the sun blasting down, take a moment to look around as you never know what treasure you’ll find