Sleep walking....
Trip Start
Jul 17, 2010
1
4
13
Trip End
Jul 31, 2010
Okazaki, Chubu, Japan
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
From Himeji It would, in theory, be a simple trip. Take the rapid express to Maibara, change there to another train heading towards Nagoya, then changing again to another Rapid express at Ogaki. Easy stuff. Except there was a small earthquake that morning. Not that I felt it; the earthquake was small and I was dead asleep. But when there are earthquakes the trains have to run slower in order to make sure the tracks are okay, and by the time I got to the town of Omi Hachiman I had been on the train way too long. I was tired, hungry, and I thought it looked like a good place to walk around. So I got off the train.
Here's the problem. It was hot and I had a large-ish backpack and honestly I didn't feel like walking around all that much. Truth be told what I wanted to do was sleep on the train. So I went to a department store, got some croquettes and tea, and went back to the station where I ate my meager brunch and waited for the next train.
The north of Kyoto is one I wish more tourists saw. Most people are on the shinkansen that rapidly speeds through the scenery, or bypasses it entirely by diving through mountain tunnels. I was tempted to get off in Hikone or ride up to Nagahama, both wonderful towns. Years ago I went to Nagahama by bicycle. That was when my sister-in-law lived in Hikone, and I borrowed the brother-in-law's bike to cruise around. Nothing was open in Nagahama when I arrived; it was early morning and only the farmers were awake. That was fine with me. There is a feeling one gets in rural Japan that is unlike anything I've felt anywhere else. Perhaps in other parts of Asia you get the same thing, a sense of how much work truly goes into farming. Most of the farms in America are mechanized. Certainly the work is still difficult and there are very manual components to farming no matter how many machines you have. But the image of US farming is large tractors plowing or harvesting fields bigger than some cities. In rural Japan, though, the fields are small, and while machines are used they are smaller and not as obtrusive. I know this all sounds like the typical foreigner in a foreign land rose colored glasses; maybe that's true. I love Japan so I am naturally inclined to see things in a somewhat positive - if melancholy - light. But I challenge someone to watch the old men and women picking weeds by hand out of the paddies, or using small tillers and tractors (some US lawnmowers are bigger) to work fields that might produce some money for them, but most likely produce food for their families and nothing more.
From Maibara the ride took me through tight mountains, with massive Mt. Ibuki dominating the landscape. It is an impressive sight, a huge lump of a mountain rising out of rice fields. And the fields - the rice in July is nearing harvest. The fields are all bright green, like the color of a lime, all evenly terraced and contained by tightly arranged houses. In the US when you go into the country farm houses live in the center of their farms, with no neighbors around. Not so in Japan. All of the farmers are clustered together into villages, the houses separated by a few inches. There are older homes with thatched roofs or, more commonly, tin roofs that are built over the thatch.
It takes six hours to reach Maibara, so I check into my hotel and try to take a nap. Then I walk around the town and go back and again try to take a nap. In the end I cannot so I call my friend at the appointed time he walks to the hotel to meet me.
The Yamasa Institute is an impressive business and should, in many ways, be a model for how a business can succeed. They have many buildings for the students and staff, including apartments, classrooms, a professional kitchen built for teaching purposes, a tennis court built inside an old factory, and a daycare that is actually open the hours that people work (many day cares in Japan are not very helpful for mothers who want to work; it's no wonder families don't have kids nowadays in Japan: you need two salaries to live, but when you have a kid you have to somehow survive on one). My friend takes me on the grand tour that ends at his bar.
I will just say this. We drank quite a bit. And talked a lot. One of his friends was with us and the three of us talked until I-don't-know-when. Let's say two in the morning. He walked me back to the hotel and I staggered to my room.
Then the adventure began.
I have tried to figure out exactly what happened but cannot. All I know is that I took a shower and went to bed. Then I woke up in the lobby bathroom peeing. I was wearing underwear and no shirt, and since I was wearing nothing with a pocket I had no room key. It was four in the morning. I looked all over for my pants but they were not to be found. Twice I frightened a Japanese businessman who was also obviously unable to sleep, though he had his clothes on. Finally I called the hotel's night service to see if they could help. Turns out they have a nifty device on the front counter that prints out hotel key cards, so they printed me one and I went upstairs. I blocked my door to prevent me from sleep walking again (and that is what I'm calling it: sleep walking). I couldn't sleep. I sent some emails and finally decided to get the hell out of the hotel because I thought it might be embarrassing to face the hotel staff in the morning, and it occurred to me that the guy I bumped into twice might also be at the hotel's breakfast. So I packed up and left. Only I forgot my computer power cord. Lord knows why I realized that two seconds after I had completed the automatic checkout process, but I had to again call the same answering service who again printed a room key. I did a thorough sweep (again) and, satisfied, checked out and left. I had twenty minutes until the first train, so I got some food and beverages from a convenience store and then headed home. As the train pulled away I watched my hotel pass by, and I realized that I had spent around sixty bucks to spend all of five hours (if you count the previous afternoon) in the hotel; I used their public bath (which was a nice touch; the room had a bath, but I like the public baths; I gave some Japanese guy a good story; and their answering service earned their keep; but that was it. I didn't eat their dinner the previous evening or the breakfast.
On the way home I stopped in Sekigahara, site of the single most decisive battle in Japanese history, the pivotal moment when the east and west armies clashed and it was decided who would rule the country. It was a bit of a let down. The museums weren't open because it was just at seven in the morning when I arrived. I walked around town and read the historic markers. Then I got back on the train. I was tempted to go to Nagahama but honestly I felt horrible. So I headed to Himeji, rested, ate, drank liquid, and then went to Kobe to meet another friend.
