日本での発見 / Discoveries in Japan #31: 鰍沢 / Kajikazawa

On Thursday I went out to Yamanashi Prefecture to check out some stuff about writer Mochizuki Yuriko (望月百合子、1900–2001). To be specific, I went to a place called Kajikazawa, where it looks like this outside the station.

And it looks this like along the river that I followed to get to the (tiny) resource center.


Hey, there are few things I like more than green mountains. But I admit, it was kind of a lonely trip going out to Kajikazawa, on a train line where IC cards (like Suica and Pasmo) aren't even accepted. And from the window of the train I could see relatively empty neighborhoods passing by, marked by hospitals and care centers for the elderly. The notion of an "aging society" (高齢化社会) is hard to comprehend when I'm in Tokyo, where babies run rampant—but take just a few steps outside the metropolis, and the issue becomes more salient.