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February 3, 2014 - January 31, 2021
Japanese are renowned for having a “public face” that is shown to the outside world, and a “private face” that few outsiders get to see. I felt deeply privileged to see the “private face” of this lovely family who were opening up and telling me family stories even though I had just walked into their noodle shop.
I still cannot understand why, with the average height of Japanese increasing every year, that no-one has told the carpenters to raise the height of door frames. I usually survive these unexpected bumps, but this one put a damper on the evening as it is the last thing I can remember!
I was woken up the next morning by the 6 o’clock siren, designed to get everyone up and at it early. There is no way that a local authority could get away with a 6 am siren in a western country. The loudspeakers would be wiped out by hungover sleepers!
During my walk so far, I had struck two or three “car graveyards” as I called them. A spot hidden away where old cars were simply abandoned and left to rot on the side of the road. It is cheaper for the owners than paying to have them junked. Of course the licence plates had been removed so that owners could not be identified, and windows smashed in by vandals.
A car slowed as it passed me. The lady driver was leaning forward over the steering wheel. As she drew level, I could see why. A tiny baby was strapped to her back.
In times past, when Japanese houses didn’t have bathrooms, everyone went to bathe at the sento, the public bath-house. The idea is to wash with soap outside the bath, then soak in the hot water. In this way, only clean bodies enter the bath, and everyone can use the same water.
The kilometres dragged by and I found myself on a countdown to McDonald’s. The first sign was 15 kilometres out. “McDonald’s in 15 km!” Then there was a sign every 2 km until 5 km out, and a sign every kilometre from there on in. I was so sick of it that when I finally got there, I made a rude gesture at Ronald, who had that silly smile on his face, and had lunch in a shokudo across the road.
Hanging off my backpack was a small puffed-up, dried blowfish called a “fugu”. Shimonoseki is famous for its fugu, which is considered a great delicacy and is horrendously expensive.
My fugu wasn’t too dangerous though. He was wearing blue sunglasses, a red hat, and a plastic walkman, and I had been presented with him just before leaving as a souvenir of Shimonoseki. He was dangling next to my “omamori”, a safety charm that my wife’s sister had given me before I left Osaka.
Hagi is proud of its part in Japanese history. Until 1868, it was part of the Choshu domain, ruled over by the Mori family, old enemies of the Tokugawa shogun. When the foreigners arrived in the 1860s, the Choshu, along with the Satsuma from Kagoshima, and the Tosa from Kochi, were instrumental in rebelling against the Tokugawa, restoring the Meiji Emperor to the top job, and pushing Japan into the modern world. Ito Hirobumi, Japan’s first Prime Minister, came from Hagi, as did many of his fellow Meijiera politicians.
She said most of her friends had left for the Tokai, the industrial eastern coast of Japan, where most of the big cities are, and where salaries and living standards are much higher,
Masako Owada made a very presentable member of the Imperial Family, despite the fact that she towered over the bridegroom by close to ten centimetres.
By nine I was into Shimane Prefecture and could see the San’in Coastline stretching away before me. Western Honshu is virtually split down the middle by the Chugoku mountain range which runs east-west. San’in means “in the shade of the mountains,” as opposed to San’yo for the Inland Sea coast which means “on the sunny side of the mountains.”
The San’in has always been relatively inaccessible from the seats of power as compared to the San’yo. Its rocky coastline and rugged mountainous interiors, coupled with inhospitable weather from the Sea of Japan meant that it was virtually left behind as the more accessible San’yo developed. It was for that reason that I had chosen to walk along the Nihonkai, the Sea of Japan coast.
“Hoko onchi” is one of my favorite terms in Japanese and aptly describes someone who is hopeless with directions, and has no idea where they are. It described him perfectly and I doubted if he could find Kyoto, although basically, all he had to do was keep the sea on his left and mountains on his right.
This “gaijin fever” was something I was stuck with throughout the walk, and it was nice, if a bit naughty, to take advantage of it for once. Because in most cases, it was a disadvantage. Few people would talk to me first. Once I spoke to someone in Japanese, they would visibly sigh with relief, and with the fever subsiding, I would be treated like a reasonably normal person. On entering a restaurant, a comment in Japanese about the weather was usually enough to restore normality. After all, no one expects a tall gaijin in shorts carrying a big backpack to enter a tiny country shokudo!
She looked up in surprise as I passed. “Gokurosama,” she murmured. “Thanks for taking the trouble.”
Any Japanese will tell you that Japan is a land of four seasons, but there are actually six definable seasons. Besides the standard four, there is tsuyu, the rainy season before summer, and akisame, the season of the rains after summer.
Udon are thick white noodles, as compared with the thinner grey soba, and Chinese ramen noodles. He showed me the entrance, but looking sheepish said that he wasn’t welcome.
Amanohashidate, the Floating Bridge of Heaven, is famed as one of the three classical sightseeing spots in Japan. It is also the place where legend says that Izanagi and Izanami, the Gods of Creation, formed the islands of Japan with the dribbles from their jewelled spear.
“I’m looking for the real Japan. I don’t believe the Tokai is the real Japan. I’m looking for it.” I knew this would produce a silence, and it did.
Yakiniku is basically strips of meat, either chicken, pork or beef, that the customers cook themselves on a grill in the middle of the table. The meat is then dipped in a tangy sauce and eaten. The teishoku, or set menu, that I ordered included miso soup, pickles and tabehodai (eat as much as you like) rice.
When I had left Kyushu in May, the paddies were mud, with only freshly-planted seedlings, but by that stage, in late June, on the Japan Sea Coast of Honshu, those seedlings had grown so that a vivid green covered the countryside. And they still had months to grow before harvesting in late September, early October.
“Yappari,” I thought. “Yappari” is another of my favourite words. Roughly translated, it means “just as I thought” or “as can be expected”. If a Japanese saw a gaijin doing a particularly gaijin-like activity such as wandering out of the toilet still wearing the toilet slippers, he might say to his mate, “Yappari, only a gaijin could do that.”
the Government’s not interested in Uranihon, the back of Japan. They just pour all the money into the Tokai and forget us!” He was quite bitter.
But what would my friends say? And my sponsors? And what about all those people who had helped me so far? The noodle shop ladies who had let me sleep in their restaurant? The priest who had made his “donation” to my trip? The mountain man who had lent me his ice-pick? What a decision!
In any Western country I’m sure he would have been spraypainted, had his head broken off, or been totally uprooted, but there in orderly Japan, he was immaculately dressed, if slightly weathered.
Truckies, affectionately known as “un-chan,” know the best routes, the cheapest and fastest shokudo, and up-to-date road conditions better than they know their mothers. CB radios pass on all the good information. On other occasions, when hitchhiking around Japan, I have even been passed from truck to truck by white-gloved un-chan in brightly-decorated trucks who have called ahead on their CBs and organized my next ride. I have a good deal of respect for Japan’s truck drivers.
“I’ve heard that Niigata rice and sake is the tastiest in Japan,” I said. “Yes that’s right. We have such pure water.”
The Niigata Plain seemed huge from where I was at its southeastern boundary, at the foot of the mountains. It extended to my left, from far behind me, to far in front, and all the way out to the sea. It is fertile agricultural land, irrigated by the Shinano River—Japan’s longest,
My friend’s grandfather was a sound believer in the “Hayane hayaoki” principle. Early to bed, early to rise. Family legend had it that the old man got up at four each morning, did his exercises, pottered around, and opened the shop, which sold groceries as well as liquor, at 5:00am.
Niigata, with a population of nearly half a million people, is a big city—the twenty-third largest in Japan according to the Japan Almanac. An industrial city with a major port, it was flattened by bombing during World War II. Niigata was, however, rather lucky that the weather was clear over Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, as it was one of the alternate targets for the first atom bomb.
There was no doubt that Yunohama was a real tourist town. Groups, families and couples were wandering the streets in yukata, light cotton summer kimono, and geta, wooden clogs, checking out the souvenir shops and buying omiyage.
Akita is famous for its bijin. A modern industrial city with 300,000 inhabitants, and the prefectural capital, it is a natural congregating point for the young women who leave their small hometowns, but don’t make it as far as Tokyo. I was impressed. In fact, I was so impressed that I had a sore neck.
His story was known nationwide, and contributions were sent from all over Japan to erect a statue to “Chuken Hachiko”, faithful Hachiko. Today, his statue is a famous meeting place, and there are few Japanese who don’t know of him.
It was lined with apple orchards, the trees looking as if they were covered with icing sugar, the insecticide was so thick. It’s no wonder Japanese always peel apples before eating them!
They went from all over Japan, and if they had spoken their local dialects, communication would have been nearly impossible. Standard Japanese became a requirement, and I have heard it said that people in Hokkaido speak it better than those in Tokyo.
“Aomori gets so crowded,” he said, “that they sail cruise ships up from Tokyo to act as floating hotels. Tourists come from all over. Lots of Americans come from Misawa. It’s truly an international festival!”
In Tokyo, people from Tohoku congregate in bars in Ueno, talking of their homes. Ueno is where the trains from Tohoku arrive. It’s as close as they can get.”
Gare Montparnasse pour les Bretons ?
The sky was jet black when I topped a rise and finally saw Lake Toya below. The lake is shaped like a huge donut, with Nakajima, the island in the middle, being the hole. Bright lights and tall high-rise hotels marked the town, and all around the lake small clusters of lights were visible.
Lake Shikotsu. A caldera lake, it was formed by the subsidence of land between Mt Eniwa to the north and Mt Fuppushi to the south, volcanoes that on that day reached up into the clouds.
“I was born on Karafuto, or Sakhalin as it is called now,” said Toshi san. “When I was a boy we used to climb out a trapdoor in the roof of our house and ski to school. The snow was about six metres high!”
Japan actually tried daylight saving after the war, but it was stopped when it was found that it only made workers slave away for an extra hour each day. They felt that they should still work until the sun went down!
“We’re halfway between Sapporo and Wakkanai, but our weather is always the same as Wakkanai’s,” said the other.
girls at the aid station did their best, standing with arms outstretched, just about getting them ripped off as cyclists grabbed at bananas, sandwiches, drink bottles, and pickled plums. Food was flying all over the place as the riders rode the gauntlet of enthusiastic young women.
“Where did you stay each night?” I thought for a moment before answering. “Well, I had a tent. In good weather I used my tent. I camped on beaches, at shrines, at temples, beside the road, once in a car park! In bad weather, I tried to find places to stay such as ryokan, minshuku, or youth hostels. Some kind people invited me to stay, and I had friends and friends of friends along the way. I stayed in mountain huts, cabins, business hotels, Government lodging houses. I even spent a night in a welfare centre.” I had to think a bit more. “And a night in a station.” He was shaking his head.
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it wasn’t a feeling of triumph that swept over me. It was a feeling of relief. I had done it. I’d never have to do it again. I had three cans of beer, called my wife, and walked back out to the road. I hung out my thumb and the third car that passed picked me up. A new adventure was starting.
