<Begin Segment 17>

[Translated from Japanese]

AT: Oh, what a good mother she was. She hardly ever said no. When I said, "Mother, please do this. I want to do things in this way." She said it was all right. She let me do it. She said it was okay and let me go wherever I wanted to go visit as long as it was okay with my friends. Back then, my friends asked me if I wanted to go to Kyushu, as there was something in Hakata. She asked me if I wanted to go. I wanted to go because I had never been to Kyushu. "Mother, for such and such reasons, Miss Oki asked me if I wanted to go to Kyushu." "Just two of you?" my mother said. "No, Miss Oki's older sister is going, too, and they invited me if I wanted to come with them." "It is all right for you to go with them if Miss Oki's sister is going." So, I got permission and I went to Kyushu. How old was I? Back then, I was like sixteen or seventeen years old.

TY: Sixteen to seventeen. So, they let just girls go together.

AT: In this way, she took us to Kyushu. The teacher took us there, my friend invited her, and the teacher showed us around. So we visited, we went toward Kagoshima. And, where was it? It wasn't Kagoshima, Kyushu...Miya, Miyazaki, isn't there Miyazaki Prefecture in Kyushu? Then, when we saw it in the car, in the rice field, something was gushing out. I said, "Teacher, what is that?" Then she told us that there was a hot spring underneath. It was, well, water that was gushing out in the rice field. We said, "That's unusual." My friend and I, two of us, said, "Wow, it is good enough already by just coming here, by just seeing water gushing out in the middle of the rice field. We went home talking like that. This kind of, well, experience I had. When I went to Kyushu, water was gushing out in the rice field. I told friends that there seemed to be a hot spring underneath, then, "Wow, you guys did interesting thing," our friends were jealous.

TY: By gushing water, you mean steam was coming up?

AT: No, say, probably that was steam. In the rice field, like this, it was gushing out like this. Not everywhere. Just this one part. The teacher said that we took a car on the road instead of taking a train because she wanted to show it to us.

TY: Was it a school excursion?

AT: No.

TY: An individual trip.

AT: Because it was an individual trip, the teacher was good. We said, "Teacher, we have never been to Kyushu yet, please show us around in Kyushu someday," then, she went by herself in advance, saying that she wouldn't be able to take us there unless she saw things well. She was a good teacher. Then, she would take about three students. The teacher drove, that way. She had already paid lodging expenses and all in advance.

DG: Did she have a car, the teacher? Did she have one?

AT: Yes, she did. Well, she rented one over there. She rented it because she could drive. At first, we were worried, so we asked, "Teacher, can you drive?" "Yes, of course I can." We asked her many times. "Don't worry," she said. [Laughs] Then, we went there by car, then now we had to walk. The contract was to take the car up there. So, we left the car there, and if there was a chance, they were to drive us back to the place we rented. That kind of place it was. And then, now we walked or took trains. Then, we took an electric train, and we arrived in Kagoshima.

DG: Was it your first trip?

AT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was my first trip. Then, "Wow, Kagoshima is such a wonderful place." Then we climbed some mountains. It was called something, a mountain in Kagoshima, I forgot. I forgot. We climbed there. There were such beautiful places. At that time, I was still fifteen or sixteen, so I didn't feel too much, but I thought, "Wow, great. Kagoshima is a great place." Then, we heard a little about the place in Kagoshima where an honored monk used to live. But I don't recall much about it.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.