Kogetsukan

For our bicycle tour around Noto peninsula, we booked Kogetsukan for our night in Togi. We did not book dinner, as our friends preferred Western food. (Instead we ate ate nearby Teraoka steak house, which was empty that night but excellent.) The mother and daughter (two ladies who do not speak much English) welcomed us warmly and told us to park our bicycles in front. The rooms were basic but pleasant, with no views. The toilets and sinks were separate and shared. There is no onsen, but an ordinary bath, which was gratifyingly super-hot. As usual the stairs were steep and the lintels were low. The Japanese breakfast was excellent. It was only as we checked out, and chatted with the ladies about where we were from, that they mentioned another American guest they had back in 1985, whose named they pronounced as something like Rishado Funumun. My jaw dropped: "Do you mean THE Richard Feynman???" The grandma went to her treasure chest and took out signed documents by the Nobel prize-winner and his wife Gweneth. Richard had even drawn a portrait of the charming proprietress. And he included a Feynman Diagram. It emerged that the ryokan has been owned by four generations, and is famous for the Japanese intellectuals it has hosted. Feynman had asked to experience rural Japan (a new vocabulary word for us) and Kyoto (or was it Kanazawa) University had suggested Kogetsukan as the real thing. Feyman stayed nearly a week, to the initial consternation of the owners, who did not know how they would communicate or what he would eat. But in the end everyone had a wonderful time. You can find a brief mention of the experience in "What Do You Care What Other People Think" if you search it online for "Togi". I gazed at the elegant bar and imagined Feynman chatting there. If I had known all this beforehand I would have made sure to spend more time at the inn, enjoying dinner and the bar.