Roving Japan

Day 84 Photoset

Great day today. We woke up bright and early from our camp behind the rest station and started heading up the 19 towards the post town of Narai. I knew from reading the blog of another guy who walked this route that Narai is on the other side of the Torii Toge Pass. I guess that back in the day, this pass was one of the more difficult passes, but that it’s not too bad now. Just a couple of hours or so to walk over. So with that intelligence in hand, we started out our day knowing that around noon we would be going over a mountain, but then we could relax and camp in Narai.

On the way to the pass, we walked through more beautiful scenery. Kiso valley really is amazing. I really like it here.

We passed a place that is famous for a samurai who was raised there. We walked to the museum and took some photos, but we didn’t have time to go in if we wanted to get over the pass in a timely manner.

The entrance to the Torii Toge Pass begins in the town of Yabuhara. We were super hungry when we got there, so we wanted to grab some lunch before heading into the woods. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of options. We ended up being sent to a little soba noodle restaurant at the edge of town. This place was FANCY. It was really nice inside, but it was also really expensive. The Soba was like $10, and while it might have been high quality, it wasn’t nearly enough to get us full. We also ordered some “fried miso” because we had never heard of such a thing. It was a little too artsy for us. We were HUNGRY and the “fried miso” was $3 for about 1 bites worth. I recommend this place if you’re sightseeing, but not if you’re trying to get energy for a mountain pass. The chef and staff were really nice to us though. They gave us some candies and maps as we left.

The Torii Toge Pass itself is really cool. This stretch of the nakasendo is preserved, so we got to hike on the old stones almost the entire way over.

I just wish the weather had cooperated with us. As we started up the road, the clouds started to move in and it began to rain. The higher we got, the harder it rained. We were lucky that this path was well maintained and wasn’t too steep or hazardous. Hiking while carrying an umbrella is kind of a pain, but its way too hot to put on rain gear.

At the top of the pass, I let out a little fan fare, “Da da-da da, da, DA!!!!!”, then *BOOM* the thunder hit.

We had made it to the top of the mountain right as the thunderstorm hit the mountain. Great!

With thunder and lighting happening in the clouds around us, we took shelter under the awning of the shrine that is at the summit of the pass. We tried to get inside the building, but all the doors were locked.

Cell service wasn’t good, but I managed to get a weak 3g signal that let me google some basic thunderstorm safety as a refresher. I guess you are ok if you’re in an area with lots of trees of uniform height, but it’s not good to be at the top of mountains. We decided that when we hadn’t heard the thunder for a few minutes, we should just head down quickly, so we did.

Once on our way down, the rain turned into a drizzle and the thunder stopped. We could finally enjoy the scenery a little more.

The nakasendo descends directly into the main street of Narai, and it was really cool. Narai is very well preserved, but unlike Tsumago or Magome, Narai is still a working city with quite a few residents and a train station.

While at the summit we ate almost all our snacks, so our first order of business was getting some food. We found a little place and ordered whatever had the most volume. We got an awesome clay pot filled with veggies, meat and rice. It was delicious and we were finally full! The nice owner also hooked us up with some coffee. We talked with him a bit about our trip and that we just went over the pass. He gave us some coupons for Narai that included free admission to one of the houses/museums and a free pass to the local Onsen! Woohoo! A bath!

He also told us that we could camp in the park next to the river. With our camping location nailed down, we took off to explore the town and to grab our free bath.

The Narai onsen is also a hotel, and today it was host to a girls junior highschool table tennis camp. So while I got to enjoy the mens bath in peace. Risa was thrown into the middle of a teenage soap opera.

In Japan, the “Sempai” system is incredibly important. If someone is older than you they are your sempai, you have to show them the proper respect. If you are someones sempai, you can generally assume a superior attitude. So imagine this system in the hands of girls between the ages of 13-15. Girls set up complicated social systems on their own, the sempai system just adds fuel to the fire.

When she first entered the bath, Risa was alone. But as she got dressed and prepared to leave, she got to witness a bizaar social drama that began when two 2nd year girls came in to quickly grab a hair drier and leave. Shortly after the 2nd years had left, three 1st years came in and started undressing for the bath. This, of course, set them off on how embarrassed they were to be getting undressed in front of eachother. They didn’t seem to care about Risa.

One of the 1st years remembered that she left something in her room, so she got dressed and left to grab it. As soon as she left, the two 2nd years, who are “sempai” to the 1st years, returned with the hair drier. The two 1st years were still getting undressed and were horrified that these two sempai had walked in to see them naked! When their friend returned, they told her all about the shocking experience of the sempai walking in on them. Meanwhile, Risa is still right there, getting dressed. I guess it’s only embarrassing if they know you.

The 3 1st years finally got in the bath, and were soon joined by another group of 3 1st years. This left Risa alone to dry her hair in peace. It wasn’t long, however, before group of 5 sempai showed up looking for a friends face wash. They searched in the dressing room at first, but then they made the decision to search the bathing area while fully clothed. The 1st years were HORRIFIED to have five sempai, fully clothed, walk in on them. These poor girls had to suffer the humiliation of having a pack of sempai roam around looking for the face wash while they sat naked in the bath, trying to keep their dignity. The five sempai eventually found the face wash and left, but as they left a new group of 1st years showed up and announced that it was time for the girls in the bath to get out. The shell shocked 1st years in the bath had barely enough time to clean themselves between the groups of sempai walking in on them. Risa felt bad, but also relieved that her hair was finally dry and she could escape.

After the onsen, we walked through Narai and enjoyed the sight of the city at night with the lights turned on. We had a lot of fun walking the empty streets before finally heading to the park to set up camp.

We’re now in the corner of the park, camping under a tree. Risa took a nice photo of the bridge that crosses the river next to the park.

Photoset Day 67

Well now I’ve seen everything.

Did you know that there are people out there who actually don’t like bacon? I always thought that the love of bacon was something rooted in our DNA. Adenine(A), Cytosine(C), Guanine(G), Thymine(T), and Bacon(B). Apparently there are folks in Japan who are missing the B.

This morning my revenge breakfast scored a hit. I had figured that if there was something on the plate that would be disliked, it would have been the hashbrowns since they weren’t exactly restaurant quality. Yet it was the bacon that caused Yousuke to scrunch up his face is disgust. For the record, the bacon wasn’t burnt or poorly cooked, Risa and I gave it a passing grade. But Yousuke didn’t enjoy it. He wanted to wrap it in lettuce! He did enjoy the hashbrowns though. Go figure.

After breakfast we went to the town of Iwamura to see the ruins of Iwamura castle. All that’s left of this once great mountain castle is a lot of steps and some tall grass covered walls. An impressive sight, but it’s a little hard to picture what the castle used to look like.

This was our last day with Yousuke. We are going to miss hanging out with him. He was a lot of fun to joke around with. I don’t know if I’ll get to have another food battle any time soon.

We are now staying with Risa’s cousin Rentaro. He and his family live back in Nagoya so Yousuke was kind enough to give us a ride. When we arrived, we all talked for a bit, and the subject of bacon was brought up. Apparently Rentaro doesn’t like bacon either. He thinks its too oily and salty. Especially for breakfast.

Rentaro and his family are really nice. We had an excellent dinner and we had fun playing with their Husky puppy Rin Rin.

Before heading out to the house in the country, we stopped by Yousuke’s family grave to pay our respects to his late wife who past away several years ago. We cleaned up the dead flowers, and poured water over the grave stone. It was a hot day, so you should offer some cold water to the spirits to cool them down.

On our way to the country house, we stopped by a grocery store where we bought ingredients for tomorrows revenge American breakfast. I wanted to make pancakes, but the store didn’t have syrup, so we settled on eggs, bacon and hashbrowns.

Yousuke, not content to be on the defensive, picked out something for dinner that he thought I wouldn’t be able to eat. It’s called “Tako no Shiokara”, and it’s basically octopus kimchee. Much to Yousuke’s dismay, I actually liked the stuff. Spicy octopus goes well with beer! Ha!

The house is really awesome. Before retiring and entering politics, Yousuke was an architect. He designed this house for his sister to use as a country retreat and to get away from city life while she paints. There is a large garden with lots of flowers, blueberries, wasabi and even an area where they grow their own shiitake mushrooms.

It’s really relaxing and quiet out here. Risa and I are in the tatami room with two walls open to the outside. It’s the perfect temperature and there is a clear sky out. Pretty cool to be able to sleep inside and under the stars at the same time.

Day 63 Photoset

Yousuke and his friend Hibino took Risa and I to the town of Takayama today.

Takayama is famous for its old style shopping district, so Yousuke thought we might enjoy walking the streets and looking at the shops.

It was a neat town, and the shopping area was entertaining although crowded. We bought the biggest sembei I’ve ever seen, and we had a great lunch at a local restaurant.

Besides the historic shopping area, Takayama is also famous for it’s huge floats that get paraded around town during the autumn festivals. The real floats are kept in storage all year, but a local millionaire created a huge museum with replicas of all the floats for tourists to enjoy all year long.

The museum is actually a hollowed out mountain, which was pretty neat. The floats themselves are awesome. They are HUGE and each one has a marionette scene at the top. Every few minutes a different float puts on a show complete with music. The replica floats use anamatronics, the authentic floats have people inside who control the puppets.

I would love to see the actual festival.

Day 50 Photoset

Osaka is an ugly, polluted city, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have some charm.

We walked a lot today. Spending time in Dotomburi (where we took yesterdays river cruise), “America Town” and “Electric Town”.

We first wandered into “America Town”, home of many clothing stores selling clothes that Japanese people think Americans wear. It’s pretty much all brightly colored graphic t-shirts and worn jeans.

I was really hoping that in AMERICA town, I’d get to eat some AMERICAN food. It seemed logical, but I didn’t get my hopes up too high. Not counting McDonalds, there was only one restaurant claiming to serve American food. I took some pictures to show what Japanese people consider to be “American”.

For some reason, the Japanese seem incapable of making hamburgers. Instead, they sell hamburger patties with toppings, but no buns. The left half of the menu is all hamburger patties with toppings.
Classics like: “Iowa Side Up Story, Shalyapin Burg” and don’t forget “Juicy Crossroads By Westside, Curry Burg”

I’m not going to complain about the quality of the patties, but I just don’t understand why these places don’t sell actual hamburgers. If you want a burger in sandwich form, you are forced to go to a crappy fast food place like Mos Burger, Freshness Burger, or a couple other McDonalds clones. People seem to like burgers since those places exist, but the quality blows.

Anyway, after my face palm in front of the “American” cafe, we walked to the central park of America town. Here we stumbled upon some guys setting up what looked like a boxing ring. I asked the guy what was happening, and he told me “Puro Resu” (Pro Wrestling). At first I said, “Like, Sumo?” He thought for a second and said… “Ya… like sumo.” I could tell I was wrong but he didn’t know how to answer me, so I said, “Or is it more like WWF?” He smiled and said, “Yes! Yes! Like that!”

The show was due to begin in less than an hour, so we looked at some shops, and then returned in time to get front row seats to the most awesome wrestling I’ve ever seen. These guys were great.

Originally scheduled to compete in the opening match was Michael Jackson… but he was unavailable… So, they had to scratch that match.

The first match was a classic match up of the evil guys vs the good guys. While slow starting, it got pretty good with some excellent throws, flips, and a ton of chest slaps. Eventually the evil team won, creating a feud between the good guys. The feud ended with the younger guy challenging the champ to a 1-on-1 match to be held after the main event….

“The Dickbombers” vs “Lion Heart” and some guy in a swimming outfit.

The Dickbombers were gay cowboys who get their power by butt humping each other. They took immediate interest in the swimming boy, taking every opportunity to feel him up.

The funniest point in the match was when one of the Dickbombers kidnapped the swimming boy and took him back to the van. Then the van started rocking while the announcer yelled about how this shouldn’t be happening. After a long absence, the swimming boy escaped the van and ran back to the ring wearing all sorts of S&M gear. It was hilarious.

From America town we went through Dotomburi on our way to Den-Den town or “Electric Town”. This is where you go in Osaka for all the cool nerdy stuff like video games, tvs, gadgets, anime, toys etc…

We went to a couple cool stores, but the main store I wanted to see was called “Super Potato”. My cousin had mentioned that this store was a mecca of classic gaming, so I wanted to go there and see what the hype was about.

Super Potato sells basically everything. They have games from all eras and mostly excellent prices. They have rack after rack of old Famicoms, Super Famicoms, Dreamcasts etc… I was even able to find Chrono Trigger for $6!

We were in this part of town until the sun went down, then wandered back to Dotomburi to look at the lights before heading back to the hotel.

All in all, Osaka was a much more fun experience on foot. The different neighborhoods are still pretty ugly during the day, but taking more time to explore paid off. Be sure to check out the photoset for today.