Warning: The following presentation could be considered, as some say, a “novel.” Proceed at your own risk. Mission: A “Golden Week” adventure to Kyushu to visit our friend Keiko. Accomplices: Tammy and Adriane. Time allotted: Tuesday, May 2nd, 5:03 PM to Sunday, May 7th, 11:10 PM. Documentation media: Written journal and Photography (still to come) I’m writing this at school because I currently don’t have anything to do, although I’m informed that today will be a little hectic (this I derived from the intensity of the teacher’s office, it was not actually verbalized to me). I just got back from Kyushu 9 hours ago, so brain waves are a little low on the scale as of yet, but I’ll do my best to describe what I would label My Best Vacation Ever. It all started…well, it actually started Tuesday morning when I frantically threw things together in preparation for the hectic departure I knew would ensue following my less-than-rushed ride home (my driver likes to take it easy). It turns out it was good I got everything together, because we were actually later than usual getting home, and Tammy and I nearly had to run to meet Adriane and make the train. Thus, the precedent was set for almost missing our transportation. It was only the beginning… So, we headed to Koriyama, and got a quick dinner before heading back out into the frigid air (yes, in May) to find our bus. Usually this is no problem, but since everyone and their mom travels during Golden Week in Japan, this turned out to be a little bit of a challenge. In fact, we almost got on the wrong bus. “Almost” meaning we actually put our suitcases in the wrong bus and were told it was the wrong one just before the right one was ready to leave. Oops. But yeah, we made the bus, thankfully, and knowing where we were going from our previous stay in Tokyo, got to our less-than-five-star hotel with no further snags. The next morning we woke up WAY too early, about 5:15ish, but I guess the sun comes up before that, because it was shining brightly when we left the hotel at 6:00. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30, so we left in plenty of time to get lost a couple of times. Which, we kind of did. We went to the train station and were informed, by an attendant who dropped the directions he so painstakingly sketched out for us, that we needed to head to the subway station. So much for staying near our early-morning transportation. So, we trucked it on down to the subway station and were pleased to discover there was a subway directly there (by the way, this is transportation type number three – train, bus, subway…). We got to the airport in plenty of time to get thoroughly confused by the high-end technology required for printing our tickets (all in Japanese) and still get on the plane in time (which in Japan doesn’t start boarding until 10 or even 5 minutes before scheduled departure time…weird). To be honest, I don’t remember much about this leg of the trip except that I drank orange juice on the plane. I just thought I’d share that interesting piece of information with you. Orange juice is always interesting, right? But, yes, this was transportation mode number four. The peaceful, hum-dee-dum, orange juice-sipping atmosphere screeched to an abrupt hault, unfortunately, when the aircraft touched ground in Fukuoka. Apparently half of Japan went to Fukuoka (a city in Northern Kyushu) that day, and getting around was nuts. We realized very quickly that people in Kyushu (the island) are a lot more relaxed than people in Honshu (the island where we live), especially when our bags took their good old time coming down the conveyer belt. Time was running short. We had train tickets from Fukuoka to Nagasaki (Western Kyushu) leaving at 11:02 (more on that later), but unfortunately, we didn’t leave the airport until 11:00. So, yep, I missed my first train of my life. No worries, though. When we got to the station, judging by the line at the ticket counter, it seems we weren’t the only ones who missed their trains. So we waited our turn to change our ticket times. And while we were waiting…well, I guess there’s a famous festival in Fukuoka every year. This year they decided to hold it in the station. Well, not really, but while we were waiting for our tickets, a parade did definitely march its way through the middle of the station. Kimono garb, drums and all. Right through the middle of the station. Missing the train was worth it. Alas, though the drummers drumming and ladies dancing were fun to watch, they did make for a bit of an obstacle between us and our train. So…we had to run again. For the train at the new time. Didn’t want to miss two in one day! The journey from Fukuoka to Nagasaki was about 4 hours, and as we squeezed into the isle (there were no more reserved tickets left, and since we had to change ours at the last minute, it was first-come-first-serve as far as seats go), the immediate future looked a bit bleak. But, we tried to look on the bright side. Past the smoke billowing from ½ the passengers’ mouths, past our aching feet, past the sweat dripping down our backs…and we eventually did. Out the window. I can’t describe the peace and joy the wafted over me when I looked outside and saw (drum roll please) GREEN! Adriane and I turned toward each other and exchanged understanding, very pleased smiles. “There’s something different about this place,” I commented after a few minutes. We kept guessing at it. “Maybe it’s just because it’s spring here.” “No, it’s more than that.” Then it clicked for both of us at the same time. “There’s grass here!” Never in my life have I been more excited to see those tiny green blades poking their heads from the ground. Grass actually does live in Japan. It’s a miracle. Fortunately, since we were staying on the train till the last stop, as we went along, eventually enough people got off so that we could enjoy the grass from a sitting position. Thus, we passed a pleasant, albeit slightly stinky (recall the smoke…) train ride through the mountains. We arrived in Nagasaki at around 1:30ish, and after freshening up a bit and stowing our bags in lockers, headed for a quick lunch and then off for our full day of sight-seeing. We started near the station, at a sight dedicated to the memory of 26 Christians who were crucified in (I think) 1592, shortly after Christianity was banned in the country. There was a beautiful church erected in the 1800s as a memorial, and the spot was canonized shortly after by the Pope. Second , we headed by street car (number 5), to the museums set up in remembrance of the atomic bomb dropping. That’s not something I can really describe with words. In fact, we were silent most of the way through. A couple things that stood out to me were a pile of coins that had melted together from the heat of the blast, shadows of leaves left on buildings (the walls were charred, but the leaves left a space not as black), stories of mothers with their children, pictures of charred, blistering bodies, clocks– broken from the blast and stopped at the exact same time: 11:02. The time of the explosion. My personal feelings about the museums, I don’t really know. I’ve been tainted by my years of training in presentation and rhetoric. Without a doubt, it was sobering. And the message that rang out was “Never let a tragedy such as this – the use of nuclear weapons – occur in the world again.” After the museum, we walked over to the peace park dedicated to victims of the bomb. Monument after monument was shrouded with brightly-colored paper cranes. Thousands of them. Paper cranes are a wish or prayer for health (I’ve been told they have more meaning, but this is what I have had specifically explained to me). Sometimes, if a person is very sick, a loved one will fold 999 paper cranes as a hope for healing. The sick person then completes the full 1,000 by adding his own crane after he gets better. I remember reading a story in elementary school about a Japanese girl who had leukemia. She lived 20 years after the bombs were dropped, but the leftover radiation got into her body and formed the deadly disease. Her classmates worked together to make the required number of paper cranes for her healing, but in the end she was not cured. Her story, I’m sure, is not the only one of its kind. The colorful paper birds were testimony to this. When we finished walking through the peace park, we decided we would like to see the some of the international influence of the city, so we traveled by street car to the other side of the city, and on a whim jumped off at China town (which, unbeknownst to us, was right next to our hotel). We strolled down the main isle, Adriane bought a shirt, (which, by the way, is wicked cute), and headed in what we thought was the direction of the Dutch area of town and the oldest Christian church in Japan. Well, we kinda wandered for a while, and then, finally looking at a map (and our watches) realized we had walked about a mile too far in the wrong direction. Woops. So, by this time starving, we turned around and headed for some caloric nourishment. But, seeing a sign for the very place we wished to go, we again got off track and wandered around for a little longer until…BINGO, we finally found the object of our search. A lot of walking, I say, for 2 minutes of picture-taking. By this time we were nearly famished, so we headed back to the station to retrieve our bags (we still didn’t know where our hotel was), and get some food. And, glory of glories, at the station we found a restaurant called The Royal Host. I never realize how much I miss American food until I get to eat it. Ok, so it was more like Italian, but hey, it was yummy. After retrieving our bags and realizing that our hotel was, in fact, right next to the place we had just been wandering for 2 hours, we headed back there by street car, joyful for a clean beds and rooms that didn’t smell like smoke (this hotel was part of our package…for that reason, it was probably the nicest one I’ll ever stay in while I’m in Japan = ). We slept like babies, and all was well. Until the next morning at 8:20. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 8:40, and we were told to be at the bus noriba (terminal) at 8:20. At 8:20, we stepped through the exit doors of our hotel. Woops. The word “stress” comes to mind when I recall the next 20 minutes. No, maybe more like “panic.” This wasn’t like the train from Fukuoka. This was a bus that only ran about every hour, was probably full during every time slot, and was taking us to a friend on the other end, whose phone number we had absentmindedly forgotten to ask for. So, we had no way of getting ahold of her (being deprived of email access), and I felt very responsible. Praise God (truly), we made the streetcar just in time to get to the station at 8:35, but we didn’t know where to go. So, I being stressed out, snipped that we’d better hurry, which sent us flying to the nearest bus…which turned out to be the wrong direction. With 1 minute to go, we were told that our bus stop was across the street, over 2 flights of stairs, and on the other end of the station. I think at this point I was on the brink of cardiac arrest. We sprinted over those stairs, carrying with us all of our millions of bags, and after asking about the bus, made it there just (I mean, we’re talking seconds here) before it pulled away. It took me about an hour to cool down and be able to think clearly again, but thankfully, with the aid of my gracious companions, I did regain my sense of calm before we reached our destination. Unfortunately, because I was worrying so intensely (I really gotta learn not to do that), the stress caused my neck terrible suffering, and I was in pain for the majority of the remainder of our trip. = ( Our bus trip was, again, about 4 hours (I’m beginning to see a trend here), but it was only supposed to be three. Traffic was a little nuts, and we were over an hour late to meet our friend Keiko. We felt terrible, because she had been waiting for us for an hour and a half. None of that showed on her face, though, when she greeted us all at the stop with a warm smile and a hug. Wow. To be hugged is a wonderful thing. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. We ate lunch at a tasty Italian restaurant called Capricciosa, walked around Oita for a while, and then headed for Beppu and the beach. Believe it or not, it’s the first time I’ve actually seen the ocean in Japan (except from the bus). I’ve lived on an island for 8 months and have never been to the beach. Sad, sad, sad. For the rest of the afternoon we yukuri shimashita (literally “did slowly”, but it’s something like “took it easy.” That is, if I wrote it correctly…) In the evening, as the sun was setting, we headed back to the beach to a beautiful sea-side restaurant with walls of windows facing the ocean and mountains as the sun went down. There we met Keiko’s boss’ niece, Hitomi, and her friend from college. Hitomi lived in the United States from when she was 3 to when she was 12, so her English was very natural, and it was a lot of fun to talk with her. After dinner we headed up into the mountains, to a nearby town called Yufuin, to stay the night at Keiko’s boss’ summer guest house. Subarashikata desu yo. It was truly amazing. A beautiful house nestled in the mountains, surrounded by lovely flowers, and subtle Japanese culture. The inside dawned two tatami (grass mat) rooms, a living room, a large kitchen, a bedroom, a computer room, a toilet room, a bathroom, a shower room (all separate), and I think a couple others in there I didn’t venture into. Adriane, Tammy, Keiko and I stayed in the tatami rooms on futons that we set up before we went to bed. A futon “set” consists of a spongy-type mat about four inches thick, a padded cover over top, a towel-like sheet, and then the covers on top. These are all usually kept in large closets during the day, and taken out at night. And, they’re really, really comfortable, especially compared to my rock-hard bed in Funehiki! The next morning we slept in, which was really nice, because we had stayed up late talking the night before. We got ready and said goodbye to Hitomi and her friend, and then headed off to the middle of the island to see its most famous “peak,” Mount Aso. (It’s not actually a peak, since it’s a volcano). Yes, folks, I saw my first ever active volcano. It was really truly amazing. But, only slightly more amazing than driving through the mountains on the way there and back. Kyushu, my friends, is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Like some exotic (but not quite tropical) little nook of the world that God just decided to fill with beautiful landscapes. We first drove up to a spot where we could see the “five points of Aso,” but I was a bit confused by that, because I thought it was only one. Nonetheless, it was beautiful, and we got to enjoy watching remote control planes and a man hand gliding while we were there…on top of taking pictures that looked like we were falling off the side, and in the process, getting my feet utterly filthy. Keiko actually ended up washing my feet for me. = ) Then, after grabbing some ice cream on the way back to the car, we headed to Aso itself, and there we went up by ropeway to the top to see the volcano itself. It was almost other-worldly-looking, and, well, really cool. No elaborate adjectives here. Just plain cool. We were pretty tired on the way home, and I think Tammy and Adriane slept a good part of it, but did wake up to overhear what we would be eating for dinner: cow tongue. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Sounds…interesting. At least I’ve eaten weird things before.” We ate at a really traditional (to me at least) Japanese restaurant known for yaki niku (fried meat). And, wonder of wonders, cow tongue is extremely yummy! I couldn’t get enough of the stuff, especially when dipped in lemon juice with all the seasonings. I was very, very impressed. Good pick, Keiko. We have a lot of the same tastes! (in food and other things) = ) After dinner we headed back to the house and stayed up late chatting. Poor Keiko (a doctor who works with elderly patients) had to get up early to go to work the next day, but the rest of us slept in and had a lazy morning before heading off to the actual town of Yufuin for some shopping. The atmosphere reminded me a little of Ohio, almost like Amish country. There were little shops everywhere, especially the little trinkety-craft kind. There were even horse-drawn carriage rides through the town. The only difference was, there were rickshaws there next to the buggies = ). The contents of this day are slightly confidential, as it was, of course, a shopping day (hehem, gifts were bought) so I’ll move on to dinner. We caught a train from Yufuin to Oita, about an hour away, and met Keiko for dinner. She found us a quaint, authentic Mexican restaurant, and we were all smiles when we stepped into the chili-pepper-lit room. She tried her first non-taco (as apposed to tako, which means octopus in Japanese) Mexican food, and we were able to “get a BINGO” with her tastes. It was totemo oishikata! Bellies full, we headed back to the house and chatted some more before our last night in Kyushu. Again we slept in (a luxury I greatly appreciate), and after packing our things, drove to Beppu to go to an onsen and then to other hot springs (called “hells”) that are too hot and toxic to actually enter. The onsen was great. We started with a hot sand bath, which tended to stick to sweaty necks, but felt amazing, and then headed to the open air bath and waterfall bath. Aaaah. Relaxing is great. Before leaving, we snacked on some onsen-cooked pudding It was actually steamed naturally by the onsen itself! After we were thoroughly limber, we, as Tammy said, “went to [a] hell.” (This play on words caused us more than one giggle throughout the afternoon.) The first one we went to was aquamarine blue, naturally so by the chemicals in the water. Steam billowed from it on all sides. I’m not sure how deep and hot it was, but it had to be pretty darn hot for all the steam (it was a pretty warm day). The second one we went to was sort-of mudish. It looked like really runny concrete, and it gurgled and bubbled like a cauldron. The third and fourth ones we saw were blood-red, and quite eerie if you ask me. The fourth one was 90 feet deep, and looked like a pool of blood. Very surreal. After our other-worldly experience we headed back to reality – otherwise known as KFC, and filled ourselves with our last American food before going “home.” Keiko tried a twister for the first time, and we all enjoyed the non-chicken chicken a great deal. Then, we were off. Back to the airport where we got to see Keiko’s photo on display from her photography club (she’s quite the artist!), and squeeze in one last ice cream cone before hopping on the plane. We could actually have squeezed in about 4, because our plane was running quite late. Like 20 minutes late. Normally not a big deal, but we were pressed for time to get the last shinkansen that would get us to Koriyama in time for the last train to Funehiki. We ended up landing in Haneda at 8:40, 20 minutes behind schedule. (Once again, all I remember about the flight was the juice, but this time it was some different sort of tropical thing that Kyushu’s famous for). Anyway, that left us about an hour to get our bags from baggage claim, go through the checkpoint, buy tickets, take the monorail (transportation number 7) to the main Tokyo railway line, change trains, take the railway to Tokyo station, buy shinkansen tickets, and get on the shinkansen (transportation mode number 8). Our shinkansen was scheduled to leave at 8:56. We got to the terminal at 8:55. Yeah, there was some hustling there. But we did it, thanks to team work, a fast baggage person, and the fact that the shinkansen was running about 2 minutes late. Whew! We made it to Funehiki (somewhat unfortunately, I guess. I didn’t want to come back…). Looking back on the trip, I can’t believe all I did and saw. It really was the kind of thing I’ve wanted to do all my life. And we planned it all without somebody walking us through it (well, a travel agent, but nobody like Kawaai sensei doing everything for us). It was a good feeling. Though I enjoyed it all immensely, I think the best part of the trip was getting to spend time with Keiko. She is one of the most kind and genuine people I know, and it really was truly wonderful to spend a few days with her. I hope we can see her again soon. We have ideas about meeting in Tokyo….. Best quotes from the trip: “I think it costs about twice.” Yes, this was me. In Japanese. I meant to say 20,000 yen. Tammy (talking about how her cousin feels about his new girlfriend): “He thinks she’s the one, but I’ve heard that before.” Adriane: “That sounds like a country song.” “My English is suck.” Keiko. Actually her English is amazing. She has a better grasp of slang than almost any Japanese person I know. And my all-time favorite – Adriane, in Nagasaki, while praying together before bed (she was really tired.): “And God, please help our bodies stop falling apart. Because…we’re young…” (Tammy and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about = )