August 24-25, 2009: Kyushu

August 24, 2009: Hakata, Kyushu

I arrived in Hakata Kyushu at 7:30pm or so. I’m staying at a hotel for a night (3000 yen, roughly $30) then heading to Ibusuki tomorrow morning.

August 25, 2009: Ibusuki, to Sakurajima (Kagoshima ken).

I’m in Ibusuki. The tip of Kyushu. Today I paid 900 yen to get buried in black volcanic sand and use the onsen unlimitedly. You put on a Yukata that they give you, walked outside by the beach, and get completely buried, with only your face sticking out, in the black volcanic sand/ash. The heat on my back was nice, but my feet were burning hot. I couldn’t help but wiggle my toes every once in a while. I was sweating for about 15 minutes before I couldn’t stand it anymore and pushed my way out. I can’t believe how many people go to get buried in hot black sand on a hot day. Even though I woke up before the sun rose and was tired, getting buried and taking a 25 minute dip in the onsen really rejuvenated me. I realized I have become so comfortable in Japan being naked (and hairy, since I haven’t shaven for about a month).

Then I hopped on another train and in about 1.5 hours I was in Kagoshima. From there I took a ferry to Sakurajima. Sakurajima has an active volcano in the center of the island and so people are not allowed close to it. It often spews out black ash and covers the entire town. I biked for about 3 hours around the town to see the volcano from different observation points and look at some of the monuments and beautiful scenery of huge volcanic rocks. I didn’t think I had enough time to encircle the entire island (which is said to take about 5 hours) so I went about half way around returned and went to the dinosaur park, which had a huge slide (and what I found out after I slid down was that it was covered in black ash) and the bird village (it was such a narrow road that the trees overwhelmed the sunlight and it was pretty dark and damp, and I could hear birds and bugs, but couldn’t see them: I was miserable through that part).

All I had for dinner that night was some blueberry drinkable yogurt. I had some yakisoba (noodles) during the day so I wasn’t hungry.

I was surprised to see so many palm trees in this part of the country. It’s like the Bahamas of Japan.

August 23, 2009: Hakodate: ほしのまち (Star town), my home town in Japan.

I didn’t really have a chance to use the internet before I went, and when I had the one chance to use the internet, I completely forgot to email them because I had so much to do. I didn’t even call. I decided to surprise them. This got me really excited. I couldn’t wait to go back to a familiar place and see friendly, familiar faces. Taking the earliest train at around 6:48, I got to Hakodate before 1pm. I got on the tram, walked into my host family’s house, walked in while they were eating lunch and loudly said, “tadaima” (I’m home)! My host mother, grandmother, father, and mother’s sister all turned to look at me with surprised faces and responded with “okaeri” (welcome home). I hadn’t eaten anything that morning except for a grapefruit and so I was starving. I wolfed down a few pieces of toast with butter and the jam I brought from the organic farm in Nakafurano and a banana.

My tickets for the next day had an error and so my host dad drove me back to the station to fix it. My host family knows I like onsens, so we went to the nearby onsen. I especially like jumping into the hottest onsen, then the freezing cold one, then back in the hot one, and on and on. As usual, I was the last to get out of the onsen. Then they took me to a kaiten sushi place. I don’t think we have this in NYC at all, and probably not in America. Kaiten sushi is a sushi place where sushi is rotated around on plates of 2 pieces on conveyor belts that encircle the entire restaurant. You can order sushi or just grab whatever you want from the conveyor belt. After the onsen, I was starving. I couldn’t stop staring at the conveyor belt and the limitless possibilities that passed by before my eyes. I ate so much. Everything from salmon, to yellow eel, raw shrimp, tempura shrimp, ikura (big fish eggs), raw scallops, and other fish I had no clue of the name. It was so delicious. I got so full, I felt like I couldn’t walk and it would come out of my eyes. When we got back home, I used the internet to call my grandmother thru skype. I didn’t call her in 2.5 weeks and didn’t tell her any of my plans. As I was about to call, she called my host family’s house phone. I didn’t even tell her I was in Hakodate, how did she know I would be here? Turns out she didn’t know, but wanted to know whether I got my Japan Rail Pass (which you pay $283+fees=$320 to use all Shinkansen’s and JR trains unlimitedly) which she mailed to my host family and in turn they mailed to Nakafurano. Good timing. I already started using it that day to get to Hakodate.

Tomorrow I’m going from Hokkaido to Kyushu, all the way from the North to the South. It’s going to take me 12 long hours.

August 23, 2009: A Night to Remember in Asahikawa

I arrived in Asahikawa yesterday around 10:30am. I officially got my Japan Rail Pass ticket, good for one week that I started to use today to make a surprise trip to my host family in Hakodate. My host grandma has a sister who lives in Furano and so one day she actually stopped by with her family to the café where I was WWOOFing. I was in the back cleaning veggies and someone told me that someone from Hakodate was requesting to see me and that for now I’d be a host. I thought to myself, I don’t know anyone, who could it be? And when I saw her, my face lit up and we grabbed each others arm and shook it hello. Awkward greeting, I guess, but maybe not so much for Japanese people. She even brought a present for me, cookies that she fed me back in Hakodate that I liked. Anyway, yesterday I went to Asahikawa zoo for about 2 hours. I paid 1500 yen for a ticket on the bus (as many times I want) and admission to the zoo. The zoo is really famous for the Penguin dance in the Winter. It was crowded, but I was able to see everything. They have this capsule fetish. You walk through the capsule and penguins are swimming around. In another exhibit you see polar bears through a capsule. Another capsule allows you to see monkeys that are sitting on top of the enclosed capsule and rubbing their lips and playing around. I also saw some animals I never seen before. There was a polar fox, a red panda, Tenuki (raccoon sort of animal), and something else that looked like a hairy boar squirrel thing. I haven’t seen flamingoes for a long time, so it was nice. I also went to the Hokkaido Asahikawa museum of art and walked into an interesting gallery of sculptures. And the park around the museum was so beautiful. The colorful flowers were lined up beautifully. Last stop was the pottery village. I had no idea what to expect from this place, but I wanted to go for some reason. I’ve had the experience once before of making Japanese traditional pottery in Hakodate and so developed a small interest. I want to make another piece of art one day. So I got on the bus and got off at the pottery village stop and was a bit confused. There was nothing but houses; it looked like a residential neighborhood. Village? What village? This was what I was scared of: finding nothing. I thought, maybe I’ll just walk around and if I can’t find anything I’ll go back to the bus stop and wait an hour for the next bus. I followed some signs with some ambiguous arrows and finally made it to the village, but most of the shops were cafes and most of them were closed. Since it was about 5:30pm I was worried the pottery shop might be closed as well. All the way at the end I found the pottery shop and was so happy it closes at 6:00pm. I walked in and found nobody so I put my stuff down and took a look around. There were so many beautiful pieces of pottery and they were so expensive and I wished I could buy them. A few minutes later a man came down and I apologized for being late. He seemed very nice. I asked if he made all of the pieces himself. He said with 2 other people, they are all hand made. When I told him I was from NY he disappeared and a few minutes later his wife appeared. He served us tea and his wife and I spoke for about 15 minutes. Unfortunately I didn’t want to miss my last bus, so I left. Hurriedly she grabbed something from their store and handed it to me, saying here’s a present for you, give it to your grandmother. It was a set of 2 chopstick holders: The round things that you set your chopsticks on. I have no idea what they are called. I grabbed a business card, gave them my email and we said goodbye. I sat at the bus stop marveling at the few pictures of the pottery that I took. As I was sitting and waiting for the bus, the old couple drove by. I waved and to my surprise they told me to get in. They said they would drive me to my hostel. I was so happy. Besides having no idea where my hostel was, riding the bus would have taken 45 min to an hour and it was running late the whole day. I asked them what their town, Asahikawa, was known for. They asked if I meant food, and I said food, anything, and they responded by offering to take me out to dinner. How could I refuse? I checked in, dropped my stuff off at the hostel, and we went to a pretty fancy Italian restaurant. We had dinner for about 2.5 hours. They said we should drink some wine and during that time I drank about 3 glasses. I was pretty tipsy, but that definitely helped me with my Japanese. I don’t know how I would have been able to keep up a conversation for 2.5 hours without. They ordered about 5 different plates that we shared. I was surprised that the food tasted very Italian because the cook was Japanese. The cook apparently didn’t even go to cooking school in Italy, or cooking school at all for that matter. He learned to cook in the kitchen of his home with his mother. The solo cook was also our waiter. He had about 5 tables to serve so it took a long time for us to get our food. During our conversation I found out that the woman, Chihiro-san is 70 years old and her husband (she called him Wan-chan, but I think that’s his pet name) is 54 years old. She brags about how she got a man who is 16 years younger than her. She was his teacher, taught him the art of pottery, and one day he asked her to marry him. These people do pottery for a living. These people are definitely out of the norm. I like that. The couple was born and raised in Asahikawa. The wife never went to college, the husband went to Tokyo University. He hated the big city, so he came back to his hometown. They’ve been to America and NY a couple of times. And when they went to NYC they stayed at the most expensive hotels (Marriot) and lived it up. They passed by Columbia University and so they knew of it. After stuffing me full of food, they drove me back to my hostel. The next morning I woke up before the sun rose to catch the earliest train to Hakodate. I plan to surprise my host family in Hakodate and see them for, most likely, the last time.

August 13-22, 2009: Naka Furano

August 13, 2009: AM
Taking local trains and a bus, it’s going to take me about 7 hours from Rankoshi to get to Naka Furano.

August 13, 2009: PM
I’m finally here. They have 2 cafes, a chicken coop, a lodge house, and more. I have to make breakfast and dinner myself. And I work from 9am-3pm straight. I don’t even get a lunch break. I have to wait till we are finished at 3pm to eat something. They have tons and tons of jam jars, which they make themselves from the berries they grow. They have all sorts of berries. But, they seem to be done with berry picking, which saddens me because it’s the main reason why I came here. They said they are very busy with work at the café because it’s Summer vacation for students and most working people. So my job is to wash dishes.

August 14-22, 2009: Farewell Nakafurano

Right now I’m on a bus for about 1.5 hours or so to a place slightly North of Nakafurano, a place called Asahikawa. It’s the second biggest city in Hokkaido, second to Sapporo. I passed through Sapporo and didn’t really like it; too big of a city for me. I’ll be travelling for 7 days all throughout Japan (including today it will be 8 days). I haven’t really decided where I will go, and besides tonight, I haven’t made any hotel/hostel reservations. Where will I sleep?! I could always walk in the night until I am so exhausted I can’t anymore and since there are no benches I could sleep in the grass, I guess. I’ve mailed my big duffel bag to my distant relatives in Takasaki (Gunma-ken) and will basically be backpacking with my computer, 3-4 days worth of light clothes/underwear, 2 days worth of shampoo/body soap, camera, zune, and one hoodie for those cold nights. My budget: $380. That’s all I have on me. So I have no choice but to eat as little as possible. The hostel that someone (Kameko-san) helped me find costs 2600 yen, about $26. But, I estimate other hostels will cost more. I might spend a few nights in 24 hour internet cafes that charge $20 for the night.

Anyway, now I have to talk about what happened the past week. It was a great experience. I met so many interesting people. Mostly I volunteered at the café from 9am-3:30pm. Long hours without a lunch break actually didn’t seem that long because usually we were so busy. I made beautiful plates of food. All of the food was so precisely placed. On one wooden tray there were 7 different plates of food (I did the 4 cold dishes). The little creativity I was allowed without anyone noticing was what I cherished. Besides the sole hot food cooker, Yagihashi-san, there were two different people that worked at the café on different days: Kameko-san and Piyo-san. They had different opinions about how the plates should be placed and took notice of different things that I did. One day I was told I put too little food, the next, too much. I didn’t complain, kept my mouth shut, smiled, and said thanks.

Before I got there, there was one WWOOFer from Hong Kong named Wicky, or Chou-san. He’s 38 years old and has been working/studying in Tokyo. He thought I was very American, which, he said, I should take as a compliment. Maybe it’s because I eat more than all the petite Japanese girls, or maybe it’s because I’m rude (or blunt, there’s a difference, you know). I thought he was very nice. We were a strange team.

There are tons of mountains surrounding the entire town and so after work one day I biked up the mountain right outside the farm, close to where I lived. It took me about an hour and a half to get up the 12% incline with my bike. I got to the top and was rewarded with beautiful views of the sun shining through the clouds and onto the town. It took me 7 minutes from the top of the small mountain back to my house. That’s crazy.

Tuesday was Wicky’s last day and so we had a barbeque with another farm at which Wicky’s friends were WWOOFing. That night Kameko-san, an employee of the farm café, interviewed all of us for the local radio station. On my last night she came by my place (kuroneko-kan) and gave me an official CD of the broadcast (with our names on it!) as well as some pictures of the farm in the winter.

Kameko-san and Furano’s Museums:
On my day off, Wednesday, I planned to travel around the city of Furano by bike. But the night before Kameko-san told me she was planning to go to the Furano historical museum and told me she could give me a lift. Lucky for me, because it rained that day. We spent the whole day together. First thing in the morning we went to a farm where she gets 2kg of tomatoes for the week. I learned there are 2 main types of tomatoes in Japan. One is called momo tomato (after the well known tale of Momotaro) and the other one is the regular tomato. One tomato in the left hand, the other in the right I took consecutive bite of each. The momo tomato has a softer skin and is slightly sweeter, and so it’s preferred. But the regular one has slightly tougher skin and so it holds together after sliced and therefore used in restaurants. At the Furano museum I saw tons of old agricultural tools and machines. They were huge and I have never seen anything like it before. Kameko-san told me that nowadays these machines are very compact with multiple functions in one machine. I also saw the foreign plants that are taking over Japan’s agricultural land and realized those are the only plants I see around Furano. The foreign plants have multiplied and overtaken the native plants. Same thing with raccoons: Japanese people thought they were cute, brought them from abroad, and were buying them from pet stores but when they got bigger people released them into the wild where they drastically multiplied. Therefore the native Japanese wildlife is in danger of extinction. And pretty soon the same might go for its people. The Japanese human population is declining. There are more old people than young people. They need to make some children! Anyway, now to continue on the topic of my day off: Then we went to the Cheese factory, where they have some free samples of wine cheese, creamy cheese, and black squid ink cheese. Her favorite was the blank squid ink, mine was the creamy one. The black squid ink cheese was interesting, really black in color on the inside but white on the outside. I thought it lacked flavor. Then we went for ice cream. I got grape and Japanese pumpkin. The pumpkin was orange in color and it tasted very vegetably but sweet. The grape overwhelmed the taste though. Then we went to drink some yaki-milk. There is a crispy top layer on top that tastes like marshmallow, a layer of cream underneath that, and underneath it all is some cold milk. I don’t like milk but it was delicious. Then I had a rice omlette with curry on top. Furano is known for its curry. Then I went to her house and she helped me find the really cheap hotel in Asahikawa. Then Kameko-san brought her daughter who is a year younger than me and we went to the nearby city, Biei, to go to the Takushinkan, the museum with Maeda-san’s pictures of the different contours of Biei throughout the different seasons. I thought it was interesting, but Kameko-san can see these views everyday and so maybe it wasn’t quite as interesting for her as it was for me. She was so nice to show me around.

There is only one thing I regret. Furano is known for lavender soft cream (ice cream) but I didn’t get a chance to eat it here. I’ve had it only once before and just wanted one last taste.

Aki and Adventure:
As Wicky left I was not excited to be alone and do two jobs at the café at once. But, the very next day Akihito (Aki) came and I was happy to split the work. Aki was an interesting fellow. No, more than that: he was downright strange, especially for a Japanese guy. He biked 9 hours to get to Furano. He is the same age as me, 21 years old, but he was born in December, so actually older than me. I thought he was 19 years old, though. Sure acts like one. He had tons of energy everyday and it rubbed off on me. He talked more than he worked, and due to that he sometimes forgot to do some of the work, so sometimes I ordered him around. He was surprised that I didn’t do some of the more interesting things in Furano and offered to show me around. There was a kaleidoscope museum in Furano and he became friends with the owner (apparently later he said he met the guy once a few days ago and they became good friends), so he said he could enter anytime. After work and lunch, it was about 4pm. That day we biked to a yummy bakery and then to the museum. It took 2.5 hours to get there. WTF! I biked for 2.5 hours in the rain, wind, and darkness. When I was too busy looking at the views I skidded off the street and my bike fell flat. I hopped off so I was okay.

But, it was worth it. I’ve never been to a museum at night and the owner was very personable. He said he went to NY and spent some time in SOHO and went to the top of the Empire State Building. When I told him I never been to the top of the Empire State Building and he laughed so hard I swear the building shook. I never heard a Japanese person laugh so loud without reserve. It was quite refreshing. The owner gave us a personal tour of the museum: The kaleidoscopes he has been collecting for many years from all parts of the world and the presentation of the motorized kaleidoscopes with different uses of shadow and paper cutouts, along with music were amazing. They really should have a museum like this in NYC. I even took a bath at his house. He even dried my shoes for me. After a tour of the museum he drove us to an onsen because he was concerned I’d catch a cold. I wasn’t the least bit cold though. Then he drove me home, then Aki home. The next day he drove by the café with the bikes that we left at his place. The museum entrance fee was 800 yen, I don’t know how much the onsen was but Aki and I didn’t pay anything at all. His policy was that when he went to America, the hospitality he received was amazing, and so to return the favor and show me how nice Japanese people can be, he humbled me with his hospitality. I was truly speechless.

The Stars of the Country Side:
In all the 21 years of my existence, never have I ever thought the sky was so beautiful. Takeda-san, my host, has 2 different cafes. I live near the Tamago Farm (Egg Farm) and a 30 minute bike ride brings me to the other café. Masaru-san works at that café. She is 39 years old, but I swear she looks much younger. She also has a young and lively spirit. She’s looking for a boyfriend and said if she had one she would marry and stop working at the café. I stayed late at that café and made coconut cookies for everyone (but they were not as good as the ones I make in NYC because I had to make do with different materials). Aki made dinner (yakisoba and added Masaru-san’s soup) and I had a small portion. Then we took pictures and jumping pictures. Afterwards I had to bike home in the dark (its pitch black), but Aki and Masaru-san both came with me to see the stars and to make sure I got home safe. We drove by a festival but by the time we got there it had just ended. Aki told everyone I came from America and thanks to him I was able to take some cool pictures with people in some ridiculous costumes. The sky was so beautiful. There were billions of stars and so many small stars in between the big stars that it looked like the big stars were connected together. We parked our bikes on the side of the road and laid flat on the street and just watched the stars for a while. We talked about the big dipper (they taught me the Japanese word and I taught them the English word, but I forgot the word, I’m sure they did too).

I’ve known this for a long time, but now I have really come to understand it: people that differ from the norm are the best. And you can find them anywhere in the world. I’ve met quite some interesting people here.

August 9-13, 2009: Farming for the First Time in Rankoshi. What can be so hard about putting on a Straw Hat and pulling a few weeds?

Now I am on a farm in Rankoshi, as a WWOOFER (check out http://www.wwoofjapan.com/). I took the JR local trains for 4 hours, not including the 48 minute pit stop in between trains. When I arrived, Wataru Shimojima was waiting for me at the station. He was the only person standing and waiting, so I knew it had to be him. He introduced himself in English, and I responded by introducing myself in Japanese. He was amazed I could speak the language. At first it was a little awkward: getting into a stranger’s truck and driving through an unfamiliar town for 20 or so minutes. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My New York City, trust-issue instincts kicked in and I imagined the worst. But this was only temporary. These thoughts dissolved with the tranquility of the open road.

The town is surrounded by mountains everywhere and is beautiful during the day and even when the sun sets. The jobs I have been doing on this farm seem more like play than work. I have had way too much fun to call it any kind of work. The past few mornings we have been making anything we want out of wood. There are 2 other WWOOFers on this farm that were here a few days before I got here. Sam is from England, Miriam is from Canada. They both teach English in Tokyo. Sam and I made a sunflower out of wood. Miriam made a wooden person. I made a bunny rabbit and a really bad owl. Sam made a bench. Sam and I made a yellow and blue octopus with red glary eyes. I’m glad to have met such interesting people. But, any more days and I would have picked up a British accent (just kidding).

On my first day here we rafted down the river together. I jumped in the water from the raft the first thing, but then couldn’t get back in the raft and was dragged for a while until they helped me back in. I think they were scared that I might be able to overturn the raft and then we’d all be in the water. That would have been fun, though.

We have been harvesting potatoes (purple ones!) and onions, chopping wood (my favorite job), picking chamomile, and some white and red raspberries. We also have been weeding. I found some wild raspberries near the river today and brought them back because I wasn’t sure if they were edible. Wataru said we could eat them, and so we did. It was yummy. Small and tart, but fresh. All the veggies here are so delicious. They don’t use any pesticides and grow it all themselves. I saw pictures of what the place looked like 5 years ago, and it was as barren as a desert, thus they called it Sulfuric Acid Mountain. Now, they are surrounded by lush greenery, colorful flowers, and all sorts of mushrooms, fruit and veggies. Shimojima-san and his family worked so hard to transform this place into such a welcoming forest. I am so impressed. It must be amazing to see all your efforts materialize into such a paradise. No wonder his family is so lively and happy. One day I want to do the same: create everything out of nothing.
Usually we would work from about 9:00am to a little before 12:00pm. Then we would have lunch, and work from 1:30pm till about 3:30pm or 4:00. The best thing is, I forget about the time. However, some days are cut short, I guess because there is not that much work to be done. One day they drove us to the beach for the afternoon, another day we were driven up a mountain to see the sunset. They also took us to an onsen. I felt so refreshed and pampered afterwards. The last day we finished fairly early in the morning and had lunch on top of a mountain with a breath-taking sight of each town on either side. Pictures don’t even come close to capturing its beauty. But the wind was so strong, I almost blew away. I lost my balance many times and almost slipped down the side of the mountain. Just imagine: the Melissa you knew would have been no more!

I haven’t seen any crows here in Rankoshi, but there are a lot of bugs here and they might just be as noisy as the crows. In the night, instead of hearing NYC traffic, I hear the bugs hissing. I hate the buzzing sound they make near my ear, and they love to follow me around. There are some aggressive horseflies. I got stung by a horsefly (in Japanese: abu) on the forehead the first day, and it swelled up but I’m fine. I think I got stung again in the same area a few days later. I also have a lot of mosquito bites all over. At least I think they are mosquitoes bites. What can I say, I have some sweet skin; I’m delicious. I have seen things I have never seen before: bugs of all sizes and shapes, a fox, a Japanese crane, and interesting fruit/vegetables. I sleep in a cabin in the middle of the forest, although the last night I slept in a tent outside near the pumpkin patch, nearby their house. As I heard the rain pour down on my tent, and the occasional howls of some mysterious creatures, I felt at peace and fell asleep.

Indeed, it has been an adventure so far. I wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, I live for novelty.