Weekend getaway: Getting a glimpse of Japanese-American culture

Sometimes Bainbridge Island seems like just another rich suburb of Seattle, although with a nicer commute on ferries instead of freeways. It has the same oversized houses, and its 20,000 residents have the same fierce debates about development.

It's not an obvious destination for a weekend getaway — Whidbey and the San Juans reel in more weekenders with their luxurious inns and quaint towns. But it's worth spending a night on Bainbridge to get a taste of its not-yet-gone rural lifestyle and history. There are unique B&Bs, good restaurants and art galleries in the little town of Winslow, and lovely woodland and beach walks. Plus it's just a half-hour ferry ride from Seattle.

My two-day visit to Bainbridge last month took on a Japanese theme, fitting for an island that had a thriving Japanese-American community before World War II and then suffered through three years of wartime internment.

The U.S. government, fearful after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, ordered 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent into remote inland detention camps.

About 220 Bainbridge islanders were the first to be interned in 1942, forced to abandon their homes and strawberry farms, their fishing boats and businesses. (A plaque at the old Eagledale ferry landing near Eagle Harbor marks the site of their departure, and an island committee and federal officials are trying to get it declared a national memorial site. Last week, Congress passed a bill authorizing study of the site.)

Some Japanese-American families returned to Bainbridge after the war, picking up the threads of their lives. Others never returned. About 150 Japanese Americans now live on Bainbridge, said islander Clarence Moriwaki, who chairs the Bainbridge internment memorial committee.

In recent years, the internees' experiences have been portrayed in displays at the small Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, in academic papers and in memoirs and fiction, including "Snow Falling on Cedars" by Bainbridge Island writer David Guterson about the racism and murder trial endured by a Japanese American.

I watched the video of "Snow Falling on Cedars" at Fuurin-Oka, a Japanese-style B&B on Bainbridge.

Ron Konzak and Mickey Molnaire opened this "futon and breakfast" in 1998. Both are widely traveled and have long admired Japanese culture and design. "Ron's an architect, and he always wanted to build a traditional Japanese house," said Molnaire. "This was his chance."

The white stucco cottage sits behind their Victorian-style house, a 15-minute drive from Winslow, surrounded by a bamboo grove and a small Japanese-style garden of meticulously planted shrubs.

Inside, it's like stepping into another world. The floor of the mostly unfurnished, serene main room is covered with reed tatami mats. Shoji screens, made of paper and wood, slide to cover the windows. Japanese-themed videos, CDs and books, from soap operas to bamboo flute music and haiku poetry, put guests even in a more faraway mood. At night a futon is rolled out onto the floor for sleeping.

I padded around in my bare feet (no shoes allowed in the house), making green tea in the kitchenette and chuckling at the label of Pocari Sweat, a Japanese bottled water whose label boasts it "is a healthy water that smoothly supplies the lost water and electrolytes from perspiration with appropriate density and appropriate fluid that is close to that of human body fluid."

A good soaking

I left the Pocari Sweat for the next guest to enjoy, and headed for the real Japanese water experience — a long soak in the cottage's ofuro, a traditional soaking tub.

The indoor tub, shorter and deeper than a Western tub and big enough for two, was edged by a low window that looked out onto the (very private) garden.

In the morning, the hosts delivered a Japanese breakfast. I sat on the floor at the low table, eating my rice, miso soup, a thin-layered omelet and pickled vegetables. I listened to the birds sing — the loudest sound I heard in the tranquil residential neighborhood — and watched the fog wrap around the tree tops.

What I really wanted to do was climb back into the tub, then take a nap. But it was time to check out and see more of the Japanese side of the 28-square-mile island.

It's not a history or culture that's immediately obvious to a casual visitor, unlike the museums and ancient buildings of the European countryside where the past is immediately apparent. You have to search it out.

At the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, housed in a lovingly restored, one-room 1908 schoolhouse, a little display of 1940s Bainbridge high-school photos poignantly told the story. One year, Japanese-American students smiled broadly with their Caucasian classmates. In the next year's photos they were gone, sent to internment camps with their families.

The museum shows the island's other histories, too, with displays on the native Suquamish, on early settlers' fishing and logging, including the 19th-century Port Blakely sawmill that put Bainbridge on the map.

Sushi worth the trip

I headed into Winslow, the island's only real town, to carry on the Japanese theme at the Bainbridge Island Sushi House, a 21-seat restaurant tucked among upscale shops. Chef/owner Koji Matsumoto opened it seven years ago after training in his native Japan and working in Portland. His sushi was so fresh and inventive that I'd go back to Bainbridge just to eat there.

Japanese Americans, who first came to Bainbridge in the late 1800s to labor in the Port Blakely sawmill, soon branched into farming, nurseries and other work. Although internment impacted everything, Bainbridge Gardens is going strong. Started by Zenhichi Harui in the early 1900s, it has grown into seven acres of plants and pots, greenhouses and demonstration gardens. A small memorial garden honors Harui, whose family runs it with Ann Lovejoy, a gardening expert.

Still on the Japanese culture trail, I headed to the Bloedel Reserve, a 150-acre swath of forest and gardens on the island's north end.

Once the estate of the prominent Bloedel lumber family, a 1.5-mile path leads visitors through dense forest and grassy meadows, past ponds and the family's French country mansion (now a visitor center) to a Japanese-style garden.

On a dark, foggy day, the garden was the picture of serenity, with carefully pruned trees and the orange-red foliage of a Japanese maple standing out against a still pond. Behind a shoji-screened guest house was a Zen garden, a stark stretch of meticulously raked sand and carefully placed rocks.

Too soon it was time to head to the Seattle ferry. As I drove across the island, I mused on my quick yet restful trip into Japanese-style landscape and history, food and lodging, and remembered a comment I'd read in the guest book at the Fuurin-Oka "futon and breakfast."

"We got the Japanese vacation we couldn't afford," a guest wrote.

Exactly.

Kristin Jackson: 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com.