Email #6 (out of order): Adventures Over Mid-term Break

I forgot to post this one, so it's a bit out of order. eh.


10/15/2005

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday - it made me feel like I was still back home. I'm a week behind on these emails, but right now it can't be helped. This last week back in class was pretty rough on me. So in this email I'll talk about my trip over mid-term break, and in the next one I'll talk about my birthday and this past week. The mid-term trip consisted of one full week traveling to four cities: HIroshima, Nagasaki, Matsuyama and Himeji. Thus, this email is jam-packed with adventure! Yes!

On Saturday morning, I met with Professor Hudson, his son Taro, and the other nine students to depart for Nagasaki. It was a long five-hour train ride, over which I did a good amount of reading (mostly of Japanese comics, of course). We passed some interesting looking places. Crossing over from Honshu, the biggest island of Japan, to Kyushu, the island that Nagasaki is on. One was a stretch of sea that was dry for miles out. There were boats tied to docks that didn't need to be because there was no water. This area of sea also had thousands upon thousands of arrays of tall wooden stakes stuck into the seabed. We had a tough time figuring out what these were - spots to tie boats to? There couldn't possibly be that many boats. Markers for clamming? Possible, though I'm no expert on clamming. Tide markers? A strange-looking method, but also possible. It was quite a sight - there were so, so many stakes. They went on for miles. Around that area, there were a series of tunnels that the train went under, which made our ears pop over and over again to a painful point. We arrived in sunny Nagasaki in the early afternoon.

Our hotel was across the street from the train station, which was convenient. It lay in "downtown Nagasaki", which didn't seem to be much of a downtown area. Our hotel was nice - and had internet service, so all of us could get our fix. Nagasaki is a small, but interesting city - it was situated on either side of a bay, both side of which are mountainous. A few of us wandered the city a bit, seeing jumping fish, which were apparently different from flying fish, but jumped out of the water just as well. I also chased after some cool looking sea hawks at one point and try to wall run, but failed. Alas. At one point, a large school of tiny fish jumped out of the water all at once right at where we were sitting on the dock. That night, most of the students went together to an izakaya, a loud place that serves a wide variety of food and seats a lot of people. This particular izakaya was not very noisy. They seated the eight of us in a nice, private little side room where we sat Japanese style; no shoes, on small cushions on the floor, around a low table. The room also had a little karaoke area. We had little cubbies outside the room in which we locked our shoes, and some of the others had decided to wear the sandals that were in the shoe change area into the dining room. We later learned that these happened to be bathroom sandals, and were not to be worn into the dining room. What's more, no one else had been able to go to the bathroom because all the sandals were gone. Of course, we didn't learn any of this until our waiter realized what had happened and came in to explain the situation. We had a good laugh over it and ordered our food. I can't remember what I had, but the izakaya had a lot of interesting dishes, some of which would have made for quite an adventurous order. After dinner, we all relaxed in the hotel doing this and that. The hotel supplied an interesting set of pajamas: they came in light purple and "puke green" (a variant of lime green). They had a design on the border and were made in the same style as a martial arts uniform. I had meant to get a picture of us wearing them, but completely forgot.

The next day we set out with Professor Hudson to see the sights. First, we went to the Dejima Museum. Dejima was a small man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki, brought into creation by the shogunate to keep the Portuguese out of Nagasaki, but keep trade with them alive. At the time of the Shimabara Rebellion, which occurred in response to the outlawing of Christianity in Japan in 1637, the Portuguese were kicked out of Dejima. The Dutch were also kicked out of their factory in Hirado, and moved to Dejima, where they stayed for the next two hundred years. So Dejima was Japan's only connection to the West for those two hundred years. The museum consisted of old artifacts from the Dutch and recreations of buildings that used to be on Dejima. It had a cool little garden with a fountain and also a recreation of a ship's mast. I'm generally an honest guy, however, so I'll get straight to the point and say that Dejima was pretty boring. It's not that I don't enjoy learning history, as I have occasionally been known to partake in it, but if I wanted to learn about Europe I wouldn't have come to Japan.

Next, we wandered around Chinatown, a tiny two-street area where there were restaurants and shops. All of the restaurants were the same, however, and the shops came in two or three varieties, among which they too were exactly the same. I opted for a delicious meat bun from a street vendor. From there we tried to take a shortcut through the residential area to our next destination: Glover Garden. However, this shortcut didn't work out so we walked back through the city to get there.

Glover Garden was beautiful. It's situated on the mountainside in a terraced formation. We took funny, little outdoor escalators up to the top of the estate and walked down. There was a great view of the bay, the city and the surrounded area. At the top, there was a goldfish pond. There were so many gold fish, and one giant one - more than twice as big as the others, who I named Fatty. I should have known better than to do something like that, however, as Taro, who I believe is 11, would not shut up about Fatty for the next couple hours. A little further down was Glover's actual house, which was really cool looking from the outside. It's difficult for me to describe, but a simple Google image search of "Glover Garden" should turn up some good pictures. The other option is that you can wait a little while for me to finish uploading my gloriously mediocre photos, which could take between one day and a month, but will probably happen this coming week. The inside of Glover's house had all the old furniture and paintings still left in tact, which was less interesting for me than the architecture. The next building in Glover Garden was the Performing Arts museum, which had displays of the large ships and dragons carried around during the Autumn Festival and the Kunchi Festival dragon dance. You will have to wait for the pictures for adequate descriptions of those, I'm afraid. There were also shops coming down the slope, and my friend Max had a field day in a weapons shop (the guns were actually plastic). I got a couple of gifts there.

Thomas Glover was interesting guy. He was one of the original founders of Kirin Beer and he married a Japanese woman who was said to be the original model for Madame Butterfly. He helped bring modern science and technology into Japan. His son made an atlas of Japanese fish. He also helped the beginnings of Mitsubishi. After wandering his estate and seeing his house, we all generally decided we wouldn't have minded having his life. Professor Hudson and I especially wanted to live in his house.

The next day was to be a time for much more serious sightseeing; that of the atomic bomb variety. First, we headed to the Nagasaki Peace Park, where there is a gigantic statue made in an interesting East-meets-West style. It had a toned Greek-style body, face and hair, but sat in a similar position to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, if I remember correctly, with one leg in lotus pose and the other hanging down. His hand gestures were also Buddha-like, but I don't think they were actual mudras. One hand pointed up to the sky, in regards to the nuclear threat, and the other is held straight out to the side, palm down, in a motion to stop the nuclear arms race, I believe. On either side of this huge statue were hangings of thousands of paper cranes. Some of you may know the story of the girl who was dying (I want to say of leukemia?) and was told that if she made 1000 paper cranes, she would get better. Of course, she didn't get better, but she made 1000s of cranes and her story was heard by many, so today school children still make paper cranes and leave them at the Peace Parks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After the Peace Park, we made a quick stop at a famous church in Nagasaki. The history of the city is filled with a sense of irony. Think about the decision to drop the bomb on Nagasaki. Did we know that it had the largest Christian population of any city in Japan? Or that Christianity and Japan's connection to Western culture had a long history with the Nagasaki? I'm not sure, but when the atomic bomb hit the old church, I doubt any of the victims had time to consider the irony. Our next stop was ground zero, which was marked by a radial design that, ironically enough to me, looked like the Japanese rising sun design. A few remnants of old buildings are around the hypocenter (the place on the ground under which Fat Man exploded). There was a brick wall from the old church on which parts of the bricks have disintegrated in a strange way; it was really surreal. There was also an interesting statue of a mother, with a design like golden leaves on her dress, holding a child.

The hypocenter is right next to the Peace Memorial Museum, where we headed next. The museum turned out to be fascinating - definitely designed by an excellent artist, or a few. Outside of the ticketed area was an unbelievable piece of art in black, red and white ink, if I remember correctly, done on a three-part Japanese style panel. I tried to snap a picture of it, but it didn't come out. Upon entering the ticketed area, the first thing I noticed was the sound of a clock ticking. This was only the first example of the sense of impending doom that the exhibit brought on. "How long until nuclear weapons are used again and tragedy once again occurs?" - that was the question the sound was supposed to beg. There was a small, dark passage with some artifacts in it, the most prominent of which were broken clocks. The hands of all of the clocks were stuck at 11:04, the time the bomb struck. At the end of the passage was a video of the mushroom cloud on several screens, at the end of which was a large, dark room with the twisted remains of foundations and various wrecked objects. There were large TV screens showing the desecration of the city and descriptions of the general horror and affect on the city's buildings. This room reminded me more of a haunted house than anything; an interesting job they had done on it. The next room was a little lighter, but in actuality the content was much, much darker. In the center was a circular, three-dimensional map of the city that showed the area of effect of the bomb after .1 seconds, 1 second, a few seconds later, and so on, up until the radiation effect days later. This room also contained a lot of artifacts; bottles fused together, old partially burnt kimonos, and other oddities that barely survived the bomb. It was the latter half of this room that was the most depressing part of the museum, and of my entire stay in Japan thus far. There were video accounts of survivors, which I watched, but what most caught my attention were accounts written by children, soon after the bomb hit, describing their experiences. One child's brother was stuck under a building and watched her mother, burning alive, try to lift it off him, but have her skin worn away in the process, and then fall down dead. Stories like this one abounded, and left us all mind-blown, such that the remainder of the museum was a bit of a blur to me. There were accounts of Americans in Southwestern states who had radiation from nuclear testing, but the government refused to recognize them. It was not the kind of thing they make you read in your high school textbook.

That night was spent exploring the wonders of $5 convenience store bought sake in a carton and watching old Simpsons episodes in our crazy pajamas. The next day we headed back up into Honshu to Hiroshima for some more atomic fun. Hiroshima is a much bigger, more business oriented city than Nagasaki, and it is situated in a valley. Like Nagasaki, it has old style street cars for public transportation, which seemed a bit more out of place in such a bustling, business-like city. The hotel also seemed more business-like. In fact, I would say that Hiroshima seemed to be more eighties-style business glam than other parts of Japan to which I've traveled. We could see the a large part of the cityscape from our hotel room, where we once again had working internet. That night I went with my friends Dave and Alex to a kaiten-zushi place around the corner. Kaiten-zushi is a style of sushi restaurant in which small dishes of a couple pieces of sashimi or rolls pass in front of everyone on a conveyor belt and you take whatever you'd like. It was a little expensive, but not quite as much as some American sushi restaurants; and it definitely tasted better. Other than that, much of my meal time in Hiroshima, as well as Nagasaki, was spent conserving funds by buying pre-made meals at convenience stores, which was not great, but much better than the state-side equivalent.

The next day was overcast, and rightfully so as we returned to our tour of the bomb. First, we headed to Little Boy's hypocenter. The building under which the bomb hit is called the Genbaku (Atomic Bomb) Dome. The foundations of the building are miraculously still standing due to an interesting phenomenon. When the bomb hit, it blew out the horizontal floors of the building, but left the vertical walls in tact due to the angle at which it hit. The mere pressure would have made these walls eventually crumble, however, so they were fixed up a bit in order to stand as a memorial to the atomic bomb. Little Boy's accuracy was impressive - it hit only 500 feet from the bridge at which it was aimed. Fat Man, on the other hand, had to be dropped over a secondary target (Nagasaki) due to fog and even then hit much farther up the bay than it was meant to due to low visibility there as well. There was a group of stray cats living inside the Genbaku Dome, but people were not allowed on the premises.

We then wandered across the bridge at which Little Boy was aimed to the Peace Park in front of the Memorial Museum. It was in this area that we passed hundreds of high school students on field trips. The Hiroshima museum is a strangely designed, gray horizontal building that looks like something out of Star Wars. It was less interesting and effective to me than that of Nagasaki. The lay out did not hit me in the same way; it didn't seem as personal. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that it was bigger and there were many more people around, thus making it louder, but the actual museum did not appeal to me much either for some reason. The first room had a smattering of videos, written histories, artifacts and timelines. The next couple areas had more artifacts and histories. The final large area had stone strewn around to make it look as though it were hit by the bomb, but it looked half-assed to me. This area had burnt objects and some more personal histories, but it was not quite the same. The final area had personal video accounts. It may just be due to the fact that I saw the Nagasaki museum first, but I breezed through the Hiroshima museum without being drawn in by much of anything. After the museum, Professor Hudson offered to take us to Miyajima, but I wasn't feeling up to the task. Apparently, however, Miyajima is the name of the giant torii arch in the middle of the sea, one of Japan's three landmarks I have been wanting to see. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, so I missed out. Apparently the deer there were very friendly. For lunch, a bunch of us discovered the glory that is Mos Burger - "fine gourmet Japanese burger and coffee". Sounds laughable, right? Well let me tell you - the teriyaki chicken burger was no joke.

The next day we left for Matsuyama, which lies on the island of Shikoku. Matsuyama is a much more average Japanese city. People were generally surprised to see foreigners, and the city had no real distinguishing characteristics. Matsuyama also had a streetcar system. In fact, the cars were given to the city by Kyoto when it stopped using street cars. Shikoku is directly South of Kyoto, Takatsuki and Osaka, whereas Kyushuu, the island which Nagasaki is on, is at the South-westernmost point of Japan. It was hot there, a bit like Nagasaki, and we had no internet connection.

We arrived early in the day and went out in the afternoon to see Matsuyama castle. It was a pretty interesting place, decked out with a fine example of sixteenth century scaffolding and...construction workers? Yeah, they were doing construction on the castle, which made it less attractive than it would have otherwise been and also blocked the view from the top of the castle (the bit about the scaffolding was a joke, in case I didn't quite get that across). I still enjoyed it, but I'll save my bit on castles for now, as we explored a much more grandiose one later in the trip with much of the same material on the inside. After roaming the castle, we sat down outside and had some green tea ice cream with some kind of bean (red bean?) on the side of the cone, which turned out to be absolutely delicious. I've developed a taste for mochi and certain kinds of beans here. Sitting outside, we listened to a bunch of stories from Professor Hudson's past. The man is a fountain of experience and information, and he could probably tell stories for years on end if you keep asking questions. He told us an interesting story about his friend in Matsuyama who let him fly his plane around Southern Japan, and another about someone who gave him a painting in Matsuyama for identifying its meaning. He told us about Dogo, a hot spring resort in Matsuyama that had been in use for 3000 years! Hearing this, a few of us had to try it out.

We made our way to Dogo via streetcar that evening with our hotel towels over our shoulders. The building was very cool looking; one could almost picture it hundreds of years ago with none of the other city buildings around it. It had the stock black Japanese roof tiles that curve up at the ends and Japanese paneling. It still had a weeping willow next to it from olden times. We went inside, took our shoes off and put them in cubbies. Then we made our way to the men's changing room, where we were welcomed by the cleaning lady and a bunch of naked Japanese men. It was odd to me that a woman could be in the men's changing room, but no one seemed to care so I paid it no mind either. We put our clothes in lockers and headed into the bath. There were two identical indoor men's baths, in which there wasn't much special other than the cool looking lion spout from which the water came. Being stupid Americans, we all forgot to take a bar of soap on the way in. A friendly Japanese man offered us his and we shrugged off any germaphobia and passed it from one to another before washing ourselves off and entering the bath. It was big enough to fit about fifteen people. I was not entirely impressed by that bath, but the water apparently comes from a spring in the nearby mountains. Also, it being 3000 years old, going there is definitely a story to tell. The building was also very cool. We wandered the neighboring area a bit afterwards, and I almost bought a few presents at a 1000 yen (roughly $10) store.

That night, a bunch of us went to an udon (thick, soft white noodle) shop, in the hopes of sampling the local sannuki (Japanese version of al dente) flavor. Kyoto udon is very soft and slimy, so I was looking forward to this. Of course, we happened to choose an udon shop that didn't serve sannuki udon. Nonetheless, the meat udon there was delicious - especially the broth. The udon wasn't too soft either. Later, we roamed the town in search of nightlife, but didn't find much. I think it was a Thursday night, which in Japan means most people are at work or asleep (unlike Colgate). We did happen to be in Matsuyama for a special occasion, however. The end of September (the night is different for different places) is a time when the town's men stay out all night drinking, yelling and carrying a large....well, I don't know how to describe it. I believe it's called a hakobo, but I could be totally off-base. I took pictures of something similar in the Glover Garden Performing Arts Museum. Anyway, they carry it around the city all night in ceremonial outfits.

The next morning, some people decided to hang around the hotel, but I opted to join Professor Hudson and a few others in going to Iyo Kasuri, home of a 200-year old indigo dyeing and weaving factory, which is still in use now, though antiquated, but is more of a museum than anything else. Seeing the place where the dyeing and weaving occurred was interesting, but the best part of Iyo Kasuri was the shop. The materials were very high quality, and the colors were deep and fresh looking. I bought a bunch of presents here. There were a lot of things I wanted to buy, but due to their quality they were pretty expensive. Thus, I took a few pictures of things in the shop I wanted to buy. Taro dyed his own piece of cloth, as they allow you to do for a small fee.

After Iyo Kasuri, we met at the train station early for our ride to our final destination, Himeji. I went to a ramen shop by the station and got some kinoko (mushroom) ramen, which was absolutely delicious, and then boarded the train. Himeji is back on Honshuu, so we were not far from home, though Matsuyama was not far either. Himeji is also a city, though not as big as Nagasaki. I didn't actually see much of the city, however, as the place we stayed at was out in the countryside - roughly a 45-minute bus ride (more?) from the train station. Yumenori (the love of dreams), it was called, and upon arriving there, it was not difficult to see why. Yumenori was a large, expensive onsen (hot spring) resort with lots of beautiful views - in and out of the hotel. In fact, I probably took as many photos inside the actual hotel as I did anywhere else. It was that fancy. Japanese businessmen usually go to resorts like Yumenori for a one night outing, because it's so expensive. We had a beautiful view of the countryside from our hotel room; mountains, fog, small villages and farms - this was much closer to the old Japan than we had previously been. Except for being in an exclusive hotel, of course. Unlike the other hotels, this one was four people to a room (for the guys), with old style futon beds on the floor like in the ryokan back in Tokyo. We didn't mind, however, as the place was incredible. We had our own little patio with a great view, where five of us sipped drinks from the hotel store and discussed cinema that night.

Dinner was quite an experience. Kaiseki, as it is called, is also a very expensive, exclusive affair. We had a small plate of sashimi, some rice, a small pot of sukiyaki, some vegetables, seafood broth with shrimp in a kettle, and a couple other things which I have no doubt forgotten since there were so many facets to the meal. Enjoyable though dinner was, the piece de resistance of the hotel was, of course, the onsen. I had thought there was only one large men's bath, but I made a pleasant discovery: there were two. So, when I went down to meet everyone else, I found an entire spa to myself. It was incredible. The bath that I went to was completely done in black marble. It had a bunch of fancy looking stalls and a large indoor bath. I got in the indoor bath, which was nice, but I was really just biding my time until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to move to another spot my eye had alighted upon: the Goemon onsen. The Goemon onsen, at least I believe that's what it was called, was a one-person, circular outdoor bath. It was entirely made of bamboo, including the spout. Sitting in the Goemon onsen may have been the most wonderful part of the trip. I started smiling after sitting in it for a little while, and eventually broke into spontaneous laughter at the situation. I'm still not entirely sure why, but it felt good. There was also another outdoor bath that was of the rectangular bamboo variety, and may have fit two people. After dinner, I decided to go back with the others to the bath they had gone to. It was also very nice - a larger bath for about 10 people with a rock garden motif and a nice view of the countryside.

Yumenori also provided us with excellent blue-green yukata robes with a red and blue obi (sash) to wear to the bath and a purple overcoat to wear over it to dinner. I really liked the outfit. The next morning, the guys were given the chance to experience yet another spot called the panoramic bath. It was pretty foggy, however, so though the view was still nice it was not entirely panoramic. This bath was bigger than the other and also had a rock garden motif. It also had an outdoor bath next to it which was nice as well. Breakfast was a buffet affair, with tasty little shrimp dumplings. After breakfast we said goodbye to the love of dreams and headed back into the city to see Himeji castle, possibly the most famous of its kind in all of Japan. It was larger and more beautiful, in my opinion, than Matsuyama castle, and also didn't have any scaffolding blocking the view. Japanese castles have a series of terraced roofs that usually arch up at the edges. The castle was white with black roof tiles, and interesting designs on the end tiles, which I believe corresponded to different clans. The bottom of the castle was made out of rock wall. There were several different buildings surrounded the castle, including a basement specifically used for committing seppuku (suicide by stabbing oneself with a sword first in the stomach and then sliding it up into the heart). Inside the castle, we of course took off our shoes. The stairways were very steep and narrow, and a few people hurt themselves on the way down. The castle collection consisted of similar things to that of Matsuyama: samurai armor, swords, spears, scrolls, histories, and other artifacts. Himeji also had a collection of artwork done by its inhabitants that was quite interesting. From the top of the castle, you could see much of the surrounding area, though it was foggy. It was also possible, when looking out from there, to get an idea of how big the castle property used to be, since the former moat was a good ways off.

After the castle, we returned to the train station to get our bags out of lockers we had left them in, and returned home. Seeing as we were now coming from Southeast of Kyoto, Takatsuki would be on the way there. Thus, I was able to get off earlier than everyone else. I enjoyed the trip on the whole - I now have a fuller idea of Japan as a country, having been to several different places. It was nice to travel and then relax, but speaking so much English amongst the group made our Japanese deteriorate a bit. Now we're back in class, taking off where we left off. Hope everyone is well!


Love and peace,
Jess


PS - I apologize to anyone who was confused in another email when I said that Hurricane Katrina hit Japan. That would be quite an astonishment - a hurricane so powerful it plowed right through the Southern states and tore up the entire Pacific Ocean before randomly hitting the South and North tips of Japan. In actuality, it was a typhoon (#14? I don't know, there have been a damn lot) that hit Japan, and it was around the same time as Katrina. Apparently the language I used was a bit unclear originally. That probably happens a lot, but I don't have a proofreader, so I can't tell if some things that make sense to me won't make sense to anyone else...though I should probably assume that in most cases. Anyhow, I'm sure you all caught my meaning / glazed over that part because they didn't think it was important.

Also, I realize that these emails, especially this one, are almost as much a memory exercise for me as they are a reading one for you, so if it bothers anyone that I write in a lot of detail and have a tendency to be a bit long-winded.........then that sucks for you. I'm having a blast.

What? Did you think I was going to apologize again?