9 posts tagged “japan”

I got a delivery in the mail consisting of a few ero comics and doujinshi from Japan. Here's a collage, visible if you're "friends and family" with me on Vox.

They all arrived in a stack of boxes taped together. Hitomi and I use a shipping service which will combine together different shipments of, well, whatever, and put the books into a single shipment. Hitomi got clothes for Ariel's wedding, freeze dried soup mix, CDs, etc.

Flying to Kagoshima from Aomori required a stop in Osaka.

I picked up some wrapped-in-leaves sushi and drinks at the airport. Sushi is another one of those foods which have regional differences, which makes Japanese food all the more interesting when traveling around Japan.

We picked up our checked luggage, then our bicycles at the luggage shipping center. (Hint to travelers to Japan: You can ship your bags directly from airport to hotel, or hotel to airport, for about 2-3,000 yen.)

Makiko, a friend of Hitomi's from her kayak trip in 2008, was there at the airport to greet us, and she had (luckily) a large-ish SUV to transport our bags. She and her husband had a house in the middle of Kagoshima and we were invited to stay for the rest of our trip.

Initially the plan was to bicycle for about five days around the area but Hitomi wanted to see Mr. Nomoto (kayak guide) when he returned from his guided trip in Yakushima. So instead we picked a shorter route, as seen here.

The first day riding was cold (about 40-50 degrees) but at least clear. Japan was going through a cold snap it seemed. We rode directly on the highway out of town, which was busy with cars and trucks all the way to the south. Finally off the highway, we took a rural road to a hot springs complex called "Healthy Land" (in Japanese), which was mostly on holiday post New Year's, but at least the outdoor bath and heated sand area was open.

You pay about 800 yen to get buried in hot sand. The sand is heated by geothermal vents. After washing (no soap) and wearing a yukata, you proceed to a covered area marked with a little umbrella. You wrap a towel around your head, lay on a smoothed out area, and two people take turns shoveling sand on top of you. Then they take your picture. For 15 minutes, it's extremely warm and the pressure and feeling immobolized is a bit scary. But you can still sit up and escape.

Hitomi kept reminding me to talk in English to Japanese who speak English to me, rather than Japanese as to give them an opportunity to speak English. As it so happened, I met a Japanese man who had lived in New York City about 30 years ago who immediately began asking me where I was from. America, I said. And he was importing rugs from Japan to the U.S., working at a Japanese company. He hadn't spoken English since then. And as we were soaking in the outdoor pool, to the west you could see the very round volcanic cone of Kaimon-dake, which he had recently climbed. To the east you could see Take-yama, a verdant pillar of rock.

The ferry was at 4 and we arrived at Nejime at 5, and we rode in the setting sun to the south. The wind was with us, traffic was minimal, and the sun set over the sea to our right. It was an idealic place and time to ride.

Hitomi found a place to stay for us, located in a little fishing village. We were the only ones there that night. They weren't serving dinner but we did find a great restuarant down the road, and again we were the only ones there. The menus were handwritten and hand-edited. It was one of the best meals this trip, and there were a lot of good meals the past few weeks. I enjoyed some local shochu. The owner kindly gave us a few ponkans for the road.

We woke up early for breakfast. Apparently natto isn't a favorite in the south but it seemed to be served fairly often. But there were eggs and fish as well.

The 2nd day ride was the hardest. There was about 30 or so miles of extreme "up and down", followed by a lot of miles "up and down" against the wind. First was the most southern tip of mainland Japan: Sata-zaki. The park was a locally run affair and was less of a park than developed as a tourist destination. But it looked like it was out of money. The restaurant, with windows shattered and covered with grafitti, looked permanently closed, though the sign said temporarily closed. And the observation tower appeared be crumbling and the observation room had lost its windows. A hastily built barricade and signs were put up instead.

Sata-zaki is beautiful, and as Makiko observed the plants seem even more tropical here than just a 20-30km north, perhaps due to the warm sea current. There's even monkeys living in the forests we saw and heard fighting as we returned to our bicycles.

We returned to the town we stayed at, picked up some food for lunch, just snacks but we had little time to stop for a full meal, and headed north. The wind was against us and there were plenty of hills until Taru-mizu. Hitomi was flagging as it grew dark. The ride was often pleseant, but not warm and sunny and traffic was heavy in spots. The (motorcycle) rider's house, a place we were planning to stay at recently had a bed bug infestation, thus no futons. Instead, they directed us to a recently privitized hotel near the ferry. The rider's house was kind of dumpy but you kind of want to stay there since it's more fun to share stories with happy travelers than reticient tourists.

Again, it was cold: It felt like 40 degrees and windy. I managed to get Hitomi to ride back to town with me, as I remembered seeing an okonomiyaki place. I wasn't quite up for grilling my own meal, unlike the place we ate at in Tokyo, but it's nice to sit over a warm plate when you've been out in the cold all day long.

Third day: There wasn't much of a rush to leave as we were quite close to home. But I wanted to ride the hilly north side of Sakura-jima, which was more "up and down". Construction was quite noticeable: Japan spends a lot on road projects, some say for little net benefit to the local economy. There was hardly anybody living where they were building quite a few bridges. Still, having a few bridges would help the tourist buses and few cyclists.

It was on the verge of rain so there wasn't a whole lot to see from the island. On the island were a few spots. One was the famous "buried torii", a shrine gate that was buried about 2 meters in lava from an eruption a mere 80 years ago. There were numerous emergency shelters along the road for those unfortunately in an eruption. I had thought: Why do people live and build where Mother Nature is likely to bury them? Yet, Japan is entirely this way. Disaster is ever present and unavoidable. If you live near the water, tsunamis(*) could kill you. Or if not, earthquakes, land slides, or floods. Fires are rarer, luckily. (*Japanese put millions of tetrapods around the shoreline, but despite any effort, a large enough wave would simply pass over them.)

Arriving at the ferry, I was cold. Yet I made up my mind to climb up 380 meters to some observation building. Hitomi rested in the hot springs area. (I had the place to myself, again.) I then met Hitomi for lunch and enjoyed a family (aka private) bath before returning by ferry to Kagoshima.

Mr. Nomoto picked us up in his Kagoshima Kayaks van. We headed back to Makiko's place and had dinner: Sashimi, and also raw chicken sashimi, raw vinegary scallops, among other things. Out came the beer, umeshu, and Suntory Whisky.

I was the last to wake up the following day. The weather report was mixed clouds and rain but we headed out for a hike anyway. Nomoto brought us over to his simple house in the country, where the post and beam rough-cut framing was done by hired labor and he did the finish work on the flooring, walls, and kitchen. It was reminiscent of my uncle's house in Eastern Washington but had some modern design touches. On the trail we picked up trash. Apparently, there's little interest in hiking with young people and no volunteer organizations like the WTA to work on maitenance. With dense, scrubby vegetation, the trail was mostly unremarkable. It simply led to a lookout area that offered a few of the south. I was cold in the rain, as we had lunch.

I do recall that along the trail there were ruins of earthen kilms set up for making coal. There were also signs of wild boars tearing up the earth looking for roots. Decending, the trail led through a timber bamboo forest. The bamboo was about 6-8" in diameter.

After the hike, we went to a very inexpensive onsen. It used to be only 50 yen (50 cents) for a bath, but they recently increased the price to 150 yen. Was it subsidized by the local government? No showers but instead you sat and dumped buckets of hot water on yourself from a trough. There were quite a lot of skinny old folk, some probably quite surprised to see a foreigner.

Dinner was set-meal (teishoku) place that remarkably was advertised as non-smoking. For about 1000 yen I got a meal that would have cost at least 20-30 dollars at a U.S. place: Thick slices of sashimi, pork soup, fresh tofu, and salad. Given the popularity of the place it was get in and get the heck out. Yet they have comics: A couple in the neighboring table sat down and were both reading manga on their lap. But I kind of like it when couples don't talk to each other when eating.

We get back to the house: Given the weather (high winds and snow predicted nearby!) Hitomi and I plan a shorter route for our last cycling day. We'd arrive near Kasasa, ride the narrow road to the point, then south to a shochu distillery, then take some back roads to town. The morning it snows--highly unusal for Kagoshima--as we ride in the dark to the bus station. The snow is sticking to the ground as we make it over a pass. Given the cold, I soon need to pee and the hour ride is excruciatingly painful.

Riding: It's moderately wet at sea level, then the winds are extremely strong (20-30 knots) to the side as we make our way west. It's beautiful scenery but we concentrate mostly on staying upright and negotiating the hills. Finally in Kasasa, we take a number of pictures--there's another photographer capturing the dramatic light and weather!--and head inside for lunch. While eating it was sun for 5 minutes, then rain, then sun again. With the wind from behind it seemed possible to continue but then again we'd eventually face the wind on the return. I can't convince myself to continue. Luckily there's a bus and we take it back.

The final (full) day we were with Makiko and Makoto on their day off. They took us to a shopping area near the ferry for some last day shopping and food. Then we'd head to Miyazaki Prefecture. Nomoto was to join us that evening at a mountain cabin we rented that slept five. There was snow on the ground and I was under-dressed for hiking but there was a hot springs nearby and there I met Nomoto as I was heading back to the cabin. The cabin lacked insulation as far as I could tell, so despite the heater, it was quite cold. But we had a kotatsu to sit under and we could eat and drink in relative comfort. (The restaurant shut down around 6PM so Makoto bought premade food from the nearby town.) We played "Unbalance" (aka Jenga) a few times then chatted way into the night.

At 6:30AM, we started the journey back to Narita. I had expected just Makoto or somebody to drop us off, but in fact everybody left early in the morning and we were waved to until we were through security. I really do hope they come to the U.S. to visit as they have been excellent and generous hosts and I would like to return the favor. Nomoto's planning a tour of Johnstone Straight and maybe I'd go on the tour, maybe not.

Narita is ... Narita. They do have a pretty decent restuarant selection. The McDonald's was incredibly busy, a lot of school trip kids seem to go for burgers. (I hadn't had a burger since Mos Burger, and probably the only time I ate beef.) We settled on a ochazuke place: Low calories but great comfort food. I had a wonderful time. I remember teary-eyed as I ate my food: I will miss Japan. The politeness, the hot baths, the comics, the cleanliness, the food.

IMGP4203


Originally uploaded by ochawan

A few hours later I was in the frozen north of Japan, in Hirosaki city.

We dropped off our bags at Dormy Inn, a fairly new business hotel located not too far from the red light district I was familiar with from last time. Walking through town, I remembered details the neighborhood: The downtown shopping area, the central train station, even the gallery that sells tsugaru nuri products which I've grown fond of.

My mother-in-law moved again to a place on the outskirts of town, requiring either a bus or taxi for us. It was good to see her again, and her dog Barney (female). I don't get hugs from her (neither does Hitomi) but she prepares food for us and tea and whatnot for me, which is a sign of motherly love.

She smokes, and especially in winter, it's suffocating to be indoors. I cough just thinking about it. I'm delicate.

It was New Year's Eve when we arrived. NHK had their annual Red-White singing competition on television. I would have liked Red to win since I listen to mostly female singers. I was happy to see Perfume there and they did their (robotic) dance to their popular song, "Polyrhythm."

Back at the hotel, stayed up even later than midnight watching live concerts on our high-def, big screen LCD. And unlike the Akihabara hotel the rooftop bath had a nighttime view of the city and Mount Iwate, during the day.

January first is celebrated traditionally with a shrine visit. We got our fortunes--mine better than Hitomi's--and traffic safety stickers, reflective and designed for our bicycles. I struck the bell for 100 yen and it felt satisfying.

I had a good 2008. I simply wished for my health and Hitomi's.

We didn't have much planned for the remainder of the time. Hitomi wanted to go shopping (Montbell, pants, used books), we went to a movie. Hitomi and her mother went shopping; I had lunch with them. We saw Junko (her sister) briefly. What I came to realize (and should have accepted) was that at least her mother is not really interested in visiting the U.S. and probably wouldn't like it much anyway. And her sister's probably not too keen to visit either.

For dinner in town, we went out to a few Tsugaru-jamisen live houses, one run by a solo player, one run by a group of players (Yama no Uta) which we had been to before. They all serve food, though it's a bit more expensive, but there's no cover charge. And no (added) tax and tip.

For the last full day, Hitomi had thought of skiing or snowshoeing, but for the latter the conditions weren't ready yet, and I wasn't up for all the expense and trouble of ski rental. Instead we went to the countryside and visited Goshogawara (五所川原), home of the impressive "Standing Neputa". They're 22 meters high (7 stories) and are rolled down the streets of town during their summer festival. It would certainly be a sight to behold. But you can still see two of them kept indoors at a museum. We learned about the history and also watched (again) more shamisen music.

Next stop was the Kanko Shamisen Center on the local (and really old) Tsugaru Railway. The train station looks about 50-60 years old, with relatively no improvements and the waiting area was heated with a kerosene stove. Since we had missed the train, though, we instead took a taxi there to see the last performance of the day. The performance was nice but really just a standard set of songs. Still, they had confetti rain down at the end and the performers were charming and informative. (As an aside: Performers always ask the audience "Which prefecture are you from?" And when people mention, say, Kagoshima or Niigata, I want to point how, that, hey, I'm from the U.S. And so is my wife, but then Hitomi always says she's from Aomori, like she's still been living there up until now.)

On the way back to Goshogawara we took the "stove train", heated by coals and on the verge of being discontinued. One train car was reserved for a tour, in which some of the passengers heated pieces of squid on little grills provided. For some reason, Hitomi and I received a piece of squid and when I proceeded to heat it up on the grill, Hitomi asked me to knock it off since it smells bad.

A bus took us back to Aomori airport the next day. We had shipped a lot of our warm clothes off to Narita: In addition to being cold, I struggled to fix my headphones which were shorting out.

What a trip!

Thank you, Hitomi, for putting together a great trip and planning and making the reservations.

And thanks to Makiko and Makoto in Kagoshima for housing Hitomi and I for many days. And to Mr. Nomoto for helping with trip planning and advice.

(I'll put together a trip report soon.)

I'm spending 18 days in Japan. There are three themes of this trip: Popular culture (anime and manga), family (Hitomi's mother) and friends, and cycling.

Look forward to the blog later on.

Not sure how I missed this site.

Full list.

On my list:

Outdoor performance clothing
San Francisco
Study Abroad
Japan
Being the only white person around
Sushi
Apple Products (mostly because I hate Microsoft)
Being an expert on YOUR culture
Tea
Asian Girls (7,000+ angry comments)
Barack Obama
Film Festivals

Some of these apply to Hitomi:

Multilingual Children
Netflix
Traveling
Japan
Film Festivals

I think she likes Asian girls too.

Aki Con summary: Yes, a new fledgling anime convention, conveniently six months or so away from Sakura-con. I can visualize it now: Hitomi and I in some conference room, on metal hotel chairs laced together, catching up on fansub anime. Since the convention is in November, I won't feel so bad about staying indoors all day.

I anticipate the the usual convention screw-ups: Late seating, underestimation of panel and event space, registration problems, video and audio trouble, and last-minute cancelations and schedule changes. I would consider all of these issues canonical for any anime convention, but doubly so for a first year convention. Likely, the convention is being run from veteran staffers from Sakura-con, so I would expect fewer problems.

Thinking about a convention in Everett, brings back memories of driving to Sakura-con when it too was in Everett. This was back when we weren't staff. We have those pictures someplace in our photo album: Was it 2001? Naturally, we met a lot of staff, since staff not attendees were are age, and these relationships helped get us staff positions later on.

For this convention, I'm considering running some panels or a panel, maybe one on ero-manga with possibly a literary criticism approach to the medium. Or a panel on living in Japan, though for me it was a relatively long time ago, still I have a couple of interesting anecdotes to share, and being married to a fellow otaku is interesting. There's also tons of old shows that me and an audience could make fun of. Still, I keep fairly up-to-date on my ero, much more than anime or manga in general these days. Hideki (fellow Sakura-con staffer) could also run an adjunct panel on bishojo games (adult dating simulations.)

I'm guessing Hitomi and I are sure to go, if only because what else is there to do in November?

New thought: I hope Hitomi keeps available whatever goth-loli outfit she wears for Halloween ready for the following weekend for this convention.

It's been ten years since living in Japan. My diary, written before the days before "blogging", contains a day-by-day account of that trip. Thinking back to then, I still feel a lot of that giddy excitement, that wonder of landing on some uncharted island that felt like your own. I felt like fate sent me there to start an entirely new existence. Still, I wanted to connect to people back home. And exciting or not, I still had not so happy, and actually quite lonely moments as well.

I don't know if I would go back and read my diary ever: Was I as negative as Hitomi says about the time?

Wrapped up in that year are some of my life's happiest moments. What were they? Thinking back ten years, it's like remembering a warm dream after waking up.

I'd certainly live in Japan again, perhaps for my retirement, or maybe for a few years if I could find a decent job. Or maybe I could anchor in some man-made harbor on a catamaran, surrounded by tetrapod breakwaters. I'd do programming over satellite or Wi-Fi Internet feed, while Hitomi works on shore.

(This is mostly taken from my forum post on Japanese bicycle culture, though edited and expanded.)

Back in 1997-1998 during my year at Tohoku University, this is what I observed in and around Sendai in regards to bicycling and transportation:

In and around the downtown area, sidewalks were built wide enough to have separate lanes of travel for bicyclists and pedestrians. Bicyclists traveled about 5-8 miles per hour on heavy, but comfortable bicycles. Stations had parking for bicycles, for a fee, though as a cheap college student I simply locked mine someplace far away not to get ticketed.

In residential areas, the roads were typically very narrow. Typically, no sidewalks were present and houses had concrete walls built up to the edge of their property. Utility poles etc. were built up the edge of the street and there was no on-street parking in most places. Pedestrians and bicyclists traveled along the edge of the road and cars and buses had to pass them. Many roads had blind corners, and round mirrors were set up on poles. These are all conditions which required cars to slow down, naturally. A bicycle actually can travel about the same pace in such situations.

On busier thoroughfares, sidewalks were built, but often more narrow than in downtown. Bicyclists and pedestrians had to often politely pass each other there. I couldn't stay on the sidewalk, as it was just too slow for me.

In general, the roads were more narrow, buses, delivery vans and taxis sometimes obstructed the lanes, and due to the frequency and volume of traffic, people were generally more patient getting around. Not too many bicycles were on the road, but people were used to sudden stops, and the drivers seemed safer.

Getting a license was harder and required an actual course. You just don't pass a test. I'm not sure this made for better drivers necessarily.

A lot of people got around on scooters and smaller cars, because owning an large car is expensive.

Parking was rarely free, except at stores out in the suburbs. The car often loses its measure of convenience when shopping. Shops accommodated people carrying appliances home via the bus or train, by adding straps and handles to boxes for you.

Gas was expensive. Also, most highways (if not all) were expensive toll highways. Older cars required annual inspections, which I'm not sure has changed.

No school buses. Kids bike to their neighborhood schools, take the city bus, or train. Kids grow up with bicycling and public transportation.

Taxi use is common. They're expensive, but you can get around quickly town if you are short on time. If the weather is bad, you have a commute alternative.

The minimum driving age was 18, and not too many older people needed to drive. At the university, people drove, but I don't think many of them did. I saw more scooters and bicycles in the morning coming to school than cars. Anyway, the worst drivers (young and impulsive, old and confused) were off the road.

Talking on the cell phone and driving one-handed was made illegal back then. It still is. A headset is required to talk and drive.

Bicycling along highways probably was illegal, never checked. Out in the country, cycling seemed more dangerous, especially on major roads not expecting bicyclists. Of course, most people don't bike city-to-city, they take the train.

On my fast road bicycle, I road on the busier roads instead of the sidewalk. I got yelled at once from a tough-sounding guy one time waiting for the light on a busier street. But I rarely had trouble or got honked at, even in spandex. I rode without a helmet. I got in two accidents, both my fault. One was with sticking an umbrella in my front wheel spokes, the other was hitting a pedestrian crossing in front of me in a crosswalk.

The main difference in Japan and the U.S. is how the roads in the cities are built. Don't be surprised more people drive when you build wide roads, provide free parking along streets, instead of providing wide sidewalks with paths for bicyclists. And if roads are designed for 30+ mph traffic flow, don't expect people to want to bicycle on it. If there is no close place for people to bicycle to, then obviously people will take their car. Neighborhoods need to be zoned to include more restaurants and convenience stores.