Photos

The final destination!


The ferry ride from Aomori to Hakodate. It rained for 3 days straight.Our last ride in Honshu, Japan.
Stumbled upon 4 college students who had the same idea as me. We decided to hitch hike to Aomori together and stay in the park.
My first ride the day after helping out with reconstruction. Konno-san was a two time college wrestling champion, worked for Nike and Nautica for over 20 years, has two twin daughters, and is an avid fly fisherman.

Sango-san is leaning out the window of his aparment, which is leaning far to the right, to toss something down.
Okada-san and his two grand children.
This is a minor example of some of the damage by the earthquake. The statue on the left has sunk into the ground while an archway has toppled. Most of the old houses in this area were built on sandy ground and flattened like a house of cards.
My second ride after leaving Osaka. This is where I met Okada-san and his two grand children. We arranged to leave a 3 in the morning for the epicenter of the earthquake.
My first ride near lake Biwako
Jeremy and Xi in Kyoto
Kinkakuji Kyoto
Himeji Castle
Osaka train station

Sapporo!

I have been in Sapporo, the final city of my sojourn, for two days now. Because of bad weather, I was forced to take a less than epic bus ride from Hakodate to Sapporo. Once I'm back at a permanent location, I'll divulge the details of my trip.

Quick Post!

It has been an amazing trip thus far. I am currently at a free Internet access station in Aomori city, the northern most port of Honshu island, Japan, so I can only give a brief overview of what has happened until now.

1. I spent a few days in Osaka with my friend Jeremy. While staying with Jeremy, I used Osaka as a hub to travel to Himeji Castle, Kyoto, and downtown Osaka.

2. I took a train to Biwako lake and then walked to the freeway, which took much longer than expected in the hot, humid weather. I was able to hitch a ride with 4 girls who were on summer vacation. They took me 2 north where I hitched a ride to Toyama with 2 construction workers who were heading home from a job in Hiroshima.

3. The next stop was the best experience so far. I met a man in his 50's from Okayama who was on his way with his two grand kids to volunteer in Kashiwazaki-shi where an earthquake struck two weeks ago. He offered a ride and asked if I'd like to help volunteer. Of course, I said I'd love to give a hand. The old buildings in the city were either completely destroyed or severely damaged. In all, 15 people were unable to escape the travesty of the quake. Even though two weeks have passed, a lot needs to be done. The military and hundreds of volunteers were helping daily, but the aged population are still in need. We ended up helping a man in his 70's, Sango-san, empty his apartment of his belongings before the city demolished the building. Sango-san has been living in a community shelter and isn't sure where he'll live out the rest of his life. He doesn't have any family or friends and is very frail. Despite being a small city, the destruction was incredible. Even though I'd seen the images on TV, it is one of those events that can not be fully understood until experienced.

3. From Kashiwazaki-shi, I caught 2 rides to the east side of Japan where I slept in a rest area for an evening.

4. Yesterday morning, I was able to catch two rides north where I had a chance meeting with 4 Japanese college students hitch hiking in the same direction. They were the first hitch hikers I've seen and we instantly hit it off. We decided it would be fun to travel together the rest of the way to Aomori, so we broke into two groups and had rides in no time. All 4 guys were well traveled, easy to talk to, and fun to be with. We spent the evening in the park celebrating our journey and sharing our experiences around the world. At 9 o'clock this morning we exchanged information, said our goodbyes, and sadly went our separate ways.

5. Now I'm at Aomori port waiting for a 2 o'clock ferry to Hakodate, Hokkaido. I've yet to decide how I'll get to Sapporo. I would love to hitch hike, but my pack is feeling very heavy, my body is dirty and tired, and I need to get back to Nagoya for my flight to Kagoshima. What to do? I have three hours to weigh my options while on the ferry.

Once in Sapporo, I'll detail my trip and post a lot of photos.

Good News

The typhoon passed through Hiroshima and didn't have much effect in Osaka. It looks like the weather will be nice here. I'll be exploring Osaka the next couple days and heading to Kyoto on Sunday.

Note: Sorry about the typos and clumsy writing. I am at a net cafe, so I have to pay by the minute. Typing fast is a necessity, so I'll have to clean everything up when I get to a permanent connection.

The photo is of a typical net cafe in Japan. They are common places for people to come and get some privacy from their cramped family or city life. There are different size boxes with a selection of PCs or TVs and chairs or sofa beds. All the walls are lined with Manga (Graphic Novels), magazines, and DVDs. The customers help themselves to full service drink bar and curry and rice. The net cafe is a the last place for people to crash when they miss the last trains to the suburbs.

Osaka

Upon purchasing the bus ticket from Hiroshima to Osaka regret and defeat instantly shot to my core. Should I have tried t risk the storm and hitch hiked? My regrets were intensified after the first 30 minutes of the bus ride. I hadn't talked to that many people while trekking around Hiroshima. I was on a mission to see some sights and veered from the bars where people tend to open up, usually too much. It became clear that I wasn't going to meet anyone on the bus either. I was in a single seat in an inconvenient location as most people were taking their chance to rest their eyes on the 4 hour trip.

I missed the thrill of people reaching beyond their comfort zone to interact with a stranger. While hitch hiking it seemed natural and welcome to get to know the person you were traveling with; people on the bus were much more drawn into themselves, distant, far from the present moment.

I did take the time to read a book given to me by my friend Jonathan just before he left Japan for Missouri. After Dark by Haruki Murakami tackles Murakamis usual themes: love, alienation, consciousness/subconsciousness, dualities, history, and chance. Murakami gets back to the basics with this novel, keeping the characters to a minimum and writing a simple plot spiked with surrealist elements. Murakami has a talent at crafting beautiful symbolism and analogy and leaving it up to the reader to make piece together a personal meaning about the novel's mystery.

In the first chapter, Murakami gives his readers a great image, summing up large cities in Japan:

The city looks like a single gigantic creature -- or more like a single collective entity created by many intertwining organisms. Countless arteries stretch to the ends of its elusive body, circulating a continuous supply of fresh blood cells, sending out new data and collecting the old, sending out new contradictions and collecting the old...the basal metabolism that maintains life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of the city's moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor falls but is pregnant with foreboding...wild electronic sounds; a group of college students spilling out from a bar; teenage girls with brilliant bleached hair, healthy legs thrusting out from microminiskirts; dark-suited men racing across diagonal crossings for the last trains to the suburbs...Two young police men patrol the street with tense expressions, but nobody seems to notice them. The district plays by its own rules...

This is how I remember Tokyo. Will it an accurate account or foreshadow of Osaka?

Hiroshima

Hiroshima is a very flat city built on a bay; and like most cities in Japan, the public transportation is fantastic. There is a cable car system that will take passengers to all corners of the city, making the city easy to navigate.

Being drained from the humidity and traveling, I splet like a log at the Aster Plaza. It is a listed as a hostel, but the rooms are better than many business hotels I've been to at twice the price. After dragging myself out of bed and going down stairs to talk with the friendly staff about getting around town, I walked down to a cafe to drink some joe and plan the rest of my day. My 3 points of interest were the museum, castle, and Miyajima shrine out on an island.

1. The Museum: I wasn't impressed with the museum. It was nothing compared to Nagasaki's museum, although it used similar displays. To me, the layout was poorly designed, lighted, and ineffective. The most impressive element of the museum were two round models of Hiroshima before and after the bomb had exploded. It is beyond belief how much force the bomb had. To think now that we have bombs with exponential force and destructive power is frightening.

The most disturbing thing about the location of the explosion was where it happened. The explosion took place next to a university and elementary school at 8:15 in the morning right as students were starting class. By nothing more than chance and miracle, some people survived the blast and lived to retell their stories.

One man's account is still vivid in my mind who was at the neighboring elmentary school in a class of 40. Just as class started, all the students ran to the window to look at the plane they heard flying over head. He was working on something and remained in his seat. Within moments there was a large flash and the sound of thunder, after which he went blind for a short while. When he came to his senses all he could see were a handful his school mates left in the room among some scattered desks. He and a couple of children, who couldn't move, began to sing the school song in hope that somebody would hear them and come to help, but he doesn't recall anyone ever coming into the building. He had to build up enough energy to leave the building and his friends behind.

2. Hiroshima-jo: This was an impressive castle for me. I've seen about 3 others in Japan, but this is the first I've seen with a full moat. The most enjoyable aspect was the park inside the castle walls. It was an obscenely humid day, so I didn't spend much time walking around. I snapped a couple photo and tried to imagine how soldiers would go about attacking such a monument. I skipped going inside since I'll be seeing a few castles toward the Osaka and Kyoto.

3. Miyajima: I had to take a train 30 minutes north of the city and hop on a ferry to get over to the Miyajima. I decided to go in the evening so I could escape the heat. This is an island just off the coast of Hiroshima. The main attraction is a free standing shrine built in the shallow bay, looking as though it is floating on top of the water when the tide is in. Also on the island are a slew of Japanese Inns and gift shops, all in walking distance.

Exiting the ferry building, to my surprise, I was greeted by some very furry friends. The island is cohabited with extremely tame deer who follow tourists and whine, begging like dogs for handouts. In fact, most deer wait for unsuspecting tourists to put down their snacks so they can run off with them. I watched one male deer eat an island map out of a Japanese guy's hand as he was reading it. Since I didn't feel Styrofoam or plastic straws were good for deer, I decided I'd better pick up as much trash as possible while I walked to Miyajima.

Because of bad timing, the tide was at a very, making the shrine loose much of its awe. The most enjoyable moment was watching a group of American military soldiers. They were playing a game to see who was brave enough to get close to the deer. As the large men threw their peanuts toward the animals, Japanese kids would run over, pick up the nuts that fell short, and hand feed it the lip smacking deer. At one point, a large male walked up to the group and gave a big whine and a stamped it's foot. They looked like a group of elementary school kids running from boogie monster.

Typhoon

I don't have much time to write about my relaxing days in Hiroshima since a typhoon is on my heels. I'll most likely get a bus ticket to Osaka where I'll stay with a friend for a couple days and wait out the stormy weather. I'm a little disappointed that a storm is approaching when I'm in Osaka/Kyoto. They are supposed to be two of the top cities in Japan.