diamond Fuji

Looking straight out from the dining room window.

That is the kind of day it was at the site on Friday, August 28, 2009, 10:00am. The humidity levels the last week or so have been so inordinately low for a Japanese summer that people are in shock. But it meant crystal clear skies and an offshore breeze that had even wiped the haze from Mt. Fuji on the horizon.I had to take the day off so that we could meet with Yamada-san, the sales rep for the contractor, and go over a few details.
Suzuki-san, the master carpenter, and his assistant were the only other people there. We went over the final design of the front door, and then looked around to find that the stairs have been done.Of course, I had to peel off the protection on every other step to check, but they are beautifully done, level as liquid, and solid as stone. No more watching m and M climb carefully up a vertical steel ladder to get upstairs.
But the main point of the meeting was to discuss staining the visible wood posts and beams and ceilings. M and I had been going back and forth about it, but seeing our friend Ben's photos of the old place, which he kindly took a few days before it was torn down, convinced us again that we need to darken the wood so that it will match the transoms, shoji doors and other parts of the old house that we're using. Looking at some of the magazine shots of similar houses that Yamada-san had brought convinced us even more that the darker wood will set off the white of the keisodo plaster for the walls. (The shoji laying on the table below is one of the old transoms; the boards of cryptomeria have been brushed with the various types of natural stains available.)So with a natural stain called koshoku, or "the color of old," we'll stain the posts, ceilings, beams, and the sills of the windows--all of the visible wood but the floors. We began making a list of friends whose arms we could twist to help us, because most of it is up high, and--as I told M--there's nothing more tiring than weilding a brush over your head.

After the meeting, we ended up on the terrace of the restaurant a few doors down for a crab-rich pasta lunch. We were reminded by a poster on the wall of the restaurant that today is one of only two "Diamond Fuji" days, when the sun sets right on the edge of the crater, and is supposed to sparkle like a gem, or an eclipse. An old man at the next table had his Canon EOS with 300mm lens all set up and ready. A scant seven hours til sunset.