No Grasp of Your Reality

It’s been an awesome trip so far. Since I was able to meet with the landlord in Goshogawara on Monday instead of Tuesday, we were able to wrap up the necessities a day earlier than I expected and had an extra day to travel around before we needed to be in Tokyo for our upgrade. We left Goshogawara on Tuesday morning and headed by train to Aomori, one of the most northern cities on Honshu. My guide book doesn’t have much to say about the city, calling it a “nondescript” location, and the city lived up to its reputation. It was a nice town, with restaurants and stores, but there wasn’t anything to set it apart from any other city in Japan.

People in Japan do head up north, but generally it’s a winter vacation destination with fantastic skiing and amazing hot spring baths (Onsen). They had a map in the tourist center showing at least fifty different onsen within a thirty mile radius of Aomori.

The one local delicacy we were able to enjoy was the local apples. Aomori apples are known throughout Japan and the rest of Asia as some of the best apples, and they truly were amazing. The countryside was covered with orchards, and each tree was meticulously maintained and pruned, with the fruit individually protected on the trees with coverings.

After spending the morning in Aomori, we decided to head across the water to Hokkaido via a ferry that travels between the two towns. There were a couple different types of ferries, but since we were paying out of our pockets, we decided to go with the cheapest, no-frills option. The cheapest ferries are used to let people going to Hokkaido bring their cars along with them, and the ticket salesman was a bit surprised when we told him we didn’t have a car. He sold us the tickets anyway for about $13 and a few minutes later we were walking through the belly of a well-worn ferry past people in their cars. We carried our bags up on deck, and relaxed in a small room while the rest of the cars were being loaded onto the boat. When the ship was ready, it backed out of the port and we spent the next four hours on the deck of the ferry leaving the Aomori harbor and heading to Hakodate (pronounced “Hah-ko-dah-tay”.

We arrived in Hakodate and took a taxi into town. Anwar and I both have guidebooks, and by their powers combined, we’ve managed to make out pretty well. They recommended a rather inexpensive hotel in Hakodate called the Hotel Route Inn, which, according to the book, had small rooms but an included onsen. After spending the last few days on our feet, and covered in salt spray from the ocean, a free onsen sounded really good.

We checked into the hotel, dropped our bags off in our room, and headed into town. Hakodate is no Tokyo, and the major means of transportation is an old trolly that runs through the town. The town is famous for Mount Hakodate, jutting and rising high out of the water. It’s a bit of tourist mecca, and when you look at the top of the mountain at night, you can see the flashes from the cameras shining like fireflies. We took the trolley to the base of the mountain and rode a cable car up the side of the mountain to the peak. The view was amazing, and it was one of the few sites that pictures really can’t capture. The area is one of the more populated areas of the northern island, and it was amazing to see the lights of civilization leading away from the shore to the base of the mountains, and then just stop, leaving nothing but the dark mountains beyond.

On the way back to the hotel, we attempted to hunt down some food. As I said, Hakodate is no Tokyo, and English speakers are hard to find. We found a seafood restaurant on the way back, and we were invited by one of the waitresses to come in for a set meal (set-toe). Besides the mountain, Hakodate is also famous for their large crabs, and we were served a small, but tasty meal of crab tempura and conch sashimi. Delicious, but we were still hungry. 7-11 heroically came through, and a few minutes later, we were in our room munching down convenience store sushi and cold soba.

By this time, my back and feet were hurting, and the onsen was calling to me. We grabbed our towels and washcloths and headed up to the 13th floor. We were greeted by a small but very pleasant hot spring bath that soothed all the aches in my body. The hot bath is, without any doubt, a part of Japanese culture that is superior to America. Our fear of public nudity limits us to quick, purely utilitarian showers at the YMCA, and precludes us from taking the time to relax and enjoy becoming clean. I’ll probably expand on this in a future post, but for now, I can’t encourage you enough to enjoy an onsen if you visit Japan. (BTW, my friend Billy says the baths in Korea are great as well.)

The next morning, we walked around the local fish market, saw some of the biggest crabs I’ve ever seen, still alive and moving their half-meter bodies around their tanks. Some of the vendors had little grills with crab legs toasting on them. For breakfast, I enjoyed a “Hakodate donbori”. Donbori is simply rice with different kinds of sushi on top. A Hakodate donbori had local crab leg meat (about five inches long), ikura (salmon roe), and uni (sea urchin) on top of rice and seaweed. Delicious!

After that, we hopped on a train and we’re currently heading south towards Nikko, with a quick stop off at Matsushima and Sendai. We need to check into our hotel tomorrow evening, but we have just enough time to enjoy these few sites.

So, this train isn’t the idyllic means of transportation I was envisioning. Somehow, I must have missed the phrase “smoking car” on my ticket, and the Japanese don’t go half-way with their smoking.

In addition, I have a suspicion that their air condition is broken or non-existant, which is highly unusual. You can be riding a packed Tokyo subway in 90 degree weather and feel pretty comfortable with the air conditioner blowing on you. But I can’t feel any draft, and the humidity is making my skin pretty disgusting.

I don’t know if it’s really cloudy, or if there is a new moon out tonight, but it’s really dark outside the train windows. It’s about 3am and I see occasional lights on the horizon, and of course, the bright lights from each of the train stations we pass through, but other than that, it’s all darkness. If the humidity is any indication, though, I think it’s really cloudy out. But, yeah… it’s dark.

Anwar has the top bunk in the sleeping car, thank God. I had the ticket for the top bunk, but it would have been an original mix of comedy and tragedy if I tried to get up there. My claustrophobia would have kicked it, and bad things would have happened. As it is, I’m on the bottom bunk, and I actually got about 5 hours of sleep on the train, in addition to the 5 or 6 hours I got on the plane. I should be pretty rested when we finally do arrive in Hirosaki around 9am.

The only food we had since getting off the plane was a decent salmon and cream cheese bagel at the train station. Starting to get a little hungry again, and I know I won’t be getting any food for at least six more hours.

No place to plug in the laptop, and still no wireless connection, so I’m stucking playing with the DS. I’m kicking myself for not picking up Zelda before I left.

We’ve arrived in Tokyo with no problems. Anwar was scheduled to fly in two and half hours before me, but his flight was delayed, so he was only an hour before. We got our big bags shipped to our respective hotels and I got my cell phone so everything seemed to be going smoothly.

We almost has a major disaster. When we came through customs, we flashed our brand new CAC cards which identifies us as being “military” folks, and falling under the SOFA rules. So, when we got to the train station at Narita, we went to get our train passes and the woman took our passports to verify that we were “tourists”. Well, I didn’t know, but people who are in the country under SOFA are not considered tourists, so we weren’t eligible for the train passes.

Anwar and I groaned to each other, but the woman, with even being asked, said “I’ll validate your tickets this time, but technically, I’m not supposed to.” Disaster averted because of one extremely cool person.

We took a subway over to Ueno, and now we’re getting ready to take an overnight train to Hirosaki. I don’t have any internet connectivity yet as I’m writing this post/email, so I don’t know if the Ghents have written back to me. I might try giving them a call tonight, or tomorrow morning when we arrive in Hirosaki. Once we arrive, it’s a quick train hop to Goshogawara.

Real quick comment on movies on the plane:

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull –> Disappointing.
Prince Caspian –> Also disappointing, but I can’t put my finger on why.
The Baker –> Only saw the first half, but it seemed interesting. I like black comedies, though.