In Nagano, they pray as well as ski

Author: By Stuart Wasserman, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, January 18, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

While gleaming and sleek Olympic structures have cropped up on the former farm fields in Nagano, one place in town has changed little, and that is Zenko-ji Temple. This place first opened for business in the sixth century.

A priest dressed in flowing black robes with shiny golden embroidery met me at the temple entrance. The smell of incense was everywhere. He was a Jodo sect priest, bald, and wearing his robes with a certain grace and his glasses in a 1970s' style. Luckily, the priest spoke perfect English; the only Japanese words I knew were ``konnichiwa'' (good afternoon) and ``arigato'' (thank you).

The priest, Kiwa Fukushima, smiled hugely and spoke with patience, a change from five years ago when he stood on a lectern and taught chemical engineering at Yokohama University campus outside Tokyo. About his personal conversion he said, ``I'm from Nagano and I wanted to be part of the big change here.'' The Jodo Buddhist priest does a great job making foreigners feel comfortable in one of the most famous temples in all of Japan.

Zenko-ji still commands the maximum amount of attention in this town of 347,000 people. Five million people visit the temple each year, particularly because Zenko-ji is open to women and Buddhists from all sects.

The building itself is in its 11th incarnation -- 10 times the building has burned and each time rebuilt pretty much in the likeness of the original. The present structure was built in 1707. It is regal and stately and set up on a hill among a grouping of sub-temples.

Followers from all around Japan and the world come to this place in hopes of being blessed by the high priest before the morning chant or finding the key to paradise after a dark cavernous search. Visitors walk through a deep, dark, winding tunnel built under Zenko-ji. After a few hundred yards turning two times to the right, most of them find a metal rod embedded in the rock at hip height. The priests tell you where to look. The rod marks the spot where the holy image is enshrined above. I was told it is a sacred place, but equally sacred for me was the scene that takes place every dawn at Zenko-ji. I challenged myself to rise early the next morning to witness it.

I rose at 6 a.m. to a crisp fall morning. At 6:20 the sun had risen into this mountain valley. I could see a little bustle of activity -- the priests gathering in front of me. The head priest was being shielded by an aide carrying a red umbrella. I dropped my pen and paper and ran with my camera banging against my chest. I just wanted to get close enough for the right shot. I scurried up the stairs and through the gates guarded by what appeared to me to be two big, fierce, man-faced lions. In front of me, elderly Japanese had begun to kneel in a line awaiting the touch of the ``ojuzu,'' or prayer beads, from the high priest's hand. It is said that if you are blessed in this fashion, you will receive the Buddha's favor forever.

The morning chant I heard inside the temple was extraordinary. Eleven priests merged their voices together and sent their harmonic tones emanating through this ageless hall built of massive beams and timbers. The sounds were enriched by beats from huge barrel drums and the clang of an ancient gong.

``Symphonic music,'' I said to myself, ``is no prettier.'' One American woman standing near me was ecstatic, having been blessed twice in one day. She arrived just as the priests entered the building about 6:30, and she was alert as the morning chants stopped about 7:20 and a line of Buddhist priests exited through the side door, walked the length of the long wooden-beamed building, and emerged at the bottom of the front steps. She was there waiting again. ``I'm always up for new religious experiences,'' she said with a smile.

Ryokan Fukinomori, near Tsumago, is three years old, elegant, and set on the side of a mountain. The ryokan offers a genuine Japanese experience sleeping on a futon on the floor on the 1 1/2-inch-thick rice straw tatami mats. Hot tea, as well as a yukata bathrobe and slippers, awaits your arrival. The ryokan features indoor and outdoor baths overlooking the Japanese Alps.

Nagano prefecture is set high in the mountains and takes in much of the northern, central, and southern ranges of the Japan Alps. It is often described as the ``rooftop of Japan.'' The climate is bad for rice but great for apples and buckwheat, the grain source for another regional specialty -- soba noodles, which are found in all restaurants. In fact, just in time for the Olympics, one restaurant, Kura Soba, has opened and lets tourists make soba noodles from scratch under the guidance of a soba master. At the end, the visitors sample their dishes.

Matsumoto features a lovely castle that gave me a taste of what life was like living in a fortified building with secret passageways and hidden floors and no heat -- and seven steep staircases. The three-turreted donjon is the oldest in the country. The castle was built in 1594 by the feudal lord of the time who took refuge in it whenever the area was under attack. As it turned out, that was quite often.

The people of Matsumoto had established a salt trail through the mountains to the Japan Sea, and that drew attacks from other feudal lords who wanted part of the salt stash. The Shiyohnomichi Trail (Salt Trail) over the alps is a five-hour journey by car, but each year many Japanese undertake a symbolic pilgrimage. Along the way, people offer the walkers sake, an alcoholic beverage made of fermented rice.

One museum in Matsumoto is a standout. The Ukiyo-e Museum provides a great glimpse into the Japanese lifestyle of the past. Wood block prints show life around the ritual baths, which before the arrival of the Dutch and Portuguese missionaries were communal; rural scenes of the annual rice harvest; and Kitagawa Utamaro's world-famous close-ups of beautiful women brushing their hair over their shoulders.

The wood blocks' colorful imagery and style is said to have influenced Impressionists like van Gogh and Toulouse-Latrec. The collection consists of 100,000 prints, paintings, screens, and old books -- the largest private collection of its kind in the world.

Just 20 minutes out of Matsumoto, my train lifted into the mountains surrounding the Kiso Valley and rode past tall evergreens and a sprinkling of maples about to turn red. In less than a half-hour, I arrived on the outskirts of Tsumago, one of 11 post towns along the Nakasendo Highway that linked Edo-era Tokyo and old Kyoto. Tsumago is a town of 300-year-old buildings.

This stretch of road made up a large segment of the even more famous Tokaido Highway, of which novels have been written. During the Edo Period, the road was also used by direct retainers of the shogun who were sent to guard Osaka Castle. Post towns popped up; they were usually a day's walking distance from one another.

It was here, my guide told me, that in 1968 the Japanese preservation movement was born. Tsumago was the first ancient city to be fully protected by law. No modern developments like telephone lines or TV aerials are allowed to mar the scene.

A house in the center of town once served as a post town inn. Today it is the Okuya Kyodokan Folk Museum. The displays tell the history of the period. The Okuya house, owned by the Hayashi family, was rebuilt in 1877 from the prized hinoki or cypress wood, which had been banned for use by the public during the Edo period. There is an old saying from that time: ``One tree -- one neck.'' Japanese home interiors are often made of exposed woods and throughout the ages cypress was prized for its tight grain and insect resistance. Violators could be put to death for stealing trees from the forest.

The ban on using the cypress tree was lifted in 1868, when a great liberalization swept through Japan. The wooden buildings in this town are exquisite to behold.

I contemplated a three-hour walk between Tsumago and Magome, the nearest post town, which is also filled with rows of traditional houses and post inns and an array of souvenir shops. As a special service for walkers on the trail between Magome and Tsumago, the tourist offices in both villages offer an inexpensive baggage-forwarding service during peak visiting seasons. Although the walk sounded invigorating, I opted to return to the Onsen Fukinomori, a traditional hot-springs resort. It was about time for another round of muscle-melting baths under the stars of the Japanese Alps.