That was Friday night. Saturday morning i cycled to a station four stations away from mine to meet some friends to go on the long-anticipated hiking trip. When i arrived, an older British woman studying organic chemistry, whom i met at an international party late last year, and a British college student who works with her were sitting on the steps. The woman, who is bizarrely frantic and anxious but usually quiet and antisocial, offered me a burnt sausage that she cooked. Naturally, i politely declined, but a crafty orange cat that had been hiding in the bushes nearly swiped one from her plastic container. She shooed it away, but it still lingered in the bushes, and was soon joined by another black cat looking for breakfast. Danni finally arrived and we got on the train. She had organized the whole trip. Emi, Danni's Japanese friend, was already sitting on the train when we climbed on, and Derek, a Republican Christian vegan from Seattle who studies bible, got on at a later stop. All these Republicans, living with what i used to think were liberal lifestyles, have changed my image from a fat sniveling old man to a backwards-thinking youngster. Although i cannot criticize other people's opinions, i think that there are just a few things that these kids choose to ignore, but that's another story. When we arrived at Kamojima, the same place where Canadian Alex lives, we met up with three other Japanese: an English teacher named Keiko and two of her students, one 15-year-old boy named Atsushi and one 14-year-old girl named Chiatsu, brother and sister, both with an extremely minimal comprehension level of English. This was our team.
The hiking trail we took was the same one that Alex and i took with some others late last year. It was interesting to see it in a different season. There were cherry blossoms in bloom and beautiful birds songs, one of which reminded me of a Costa Rican bird. When we climbed to the mid-point of the first mountain i tried to find the bird that was singing that song, and i happened upon a traveling older man who asked me a two word question: "Baado Wachingu?" I said yes and then asked him if he knew the name of the bird, and after he told me he remarked that it was impossible to see because it is extremely sensitive to human noise, but that it had a beautiful green plumage. Throughout the hike i could not manage to see this bird, but its song accompanied us throughout our journey. The trail was a bit less strenuous this time, perhaps because i had done it before and knew what i was in for. During the hike, i talked to everyone a bit, alternating between people and having nice little chats, sometimes half in Japanese, sometimes only in Japanese, usually only in English. After all, everyone could speak English besides the two kids, and they were very quiet and obedient. Derek speaks very natural and nearly fluent Japanese, and he would converse with all the Japanese often in their native tongue, which must have been comforting amidst all the English. Danni speaks just about as well as i can, but she speaks very slowly and stubbornly refuses to use English while she is trying to think of the right words, and all her listeners must always be very patient. In this respect, i usually speak much faster than her but in shorter sentences. It is just humourous to watch the agonizing looks on her listener's faces sometimes, looking like they want to scream out the correct word or conjugation.
We stayed in the temple complex of the temple that sits atop the third mountain of the hike. By this point were were all sweaty and tired, though not soaked thanks to the cool breezes of the early evening. I took a Japanese-style bath, which consists of soaping up on a small seat and rinsing off the soap, then emerging oneself in a deep hot bath and steeping one's body for however long one can stand. When i emerged, i felt like a new person, and shortly afterwards we were served a delicious vegetarian dinner. We slept on futons upon tatami floors, and lights were out at around 9:30. We were all amazed to find ourselves so sleepy at such an early hour. Up on the mountain, my conception of time that is usually correlated to the frequency of car noises and city sounds was useless; the only sounds were the creaking of the wooden floors and the soft night sounds of the forest. The view outside our window looked out upon a breathtaking expanse of misty mountains and forest.
In the morning, after our Japanese breakfast of rice and miso soup and pickles, i joked with the British student, Will, about how this trip was so Japanese. Essentially, everything we did was entirely parallel with our conceptions of what was Japanese:
1. Eating rice with every meal of the day.
2. Hiking up mountains to a temple.
3. Admiring cherry blossoms.
4. Sleeping in a temple on futons upon tatami mats.
5. Greeting numerous white-cloaked Buddhist pilgrims.
6. Taking a real ofuro (Japanese bath) at night.
7. Ending the second day with a trip to an onsen (bathhouse).
The only thing missing were the ninjas, but we assumed we would encounter them soon enough. Before we left the temple we were given little crackers with delicate etchings of a religious figure and the kanji that stated the number of this temple in the 88 temple pilgrimage of Shikoku: twelve. I ate them.
The second day we hiked down and then up again to a tall waterfall. Will decided to scale the rock wall beside it using a chain fastened there for that purpose, and i decided to follow, along with Danni and Emi. It was frightening to climb such a slippery wall with my only support as my own two hands, but i got to the top, sat around and marveled at the waterfall from a closer vantage point, then slowly and carefully made my way back down. I had taken off my shoes as a suggestion from Will and paid the painful price of sore feet. After this, we went hiking up a nearly 45 degree slope to an isolated small temple on the top of this mountain. No one lives there, nor does anyone work there often, as it is so difficult to get to because no paved roads lead to it. On our way back down, it started to rain, but the tree cover protected us for a while. Eventually though, i was soaked from head to toe but still persevering, trying not to slip off the trail on the slippery stones and plunge into the pit of brown pine nettles and rocks. We managed to leave the mountain without injury, and proceeded back into the rural town of Kamojima, having made some kind of oblong circle. We entered the onsen filthy and tired, and happily stripped off our clothes, separated by sexes of course, and did the wash and rinse routine before entering the hot baths. By this point Derek had left already, and it was just Will, Atsushi and i. It was Will's first visit to an onsen, so i went around with him and showed him the ropes. Towards the end, Atsushi reccomended we join him in a special bath that was steeped in an herb mixture. What looked like an enormous tea bag floated in the water. I told Will that things were getting a little too Japanese for my comfort, because we were basically sitting in a huge bath of tea. The ninjas could have burst through the walls at any moment, sensing the Japan-o-meter reaching its peak, but we left the bath too soon for any hazard to strike.
After the onsen, we hopped on a bus headed home. On the bus, i had Keiko write me the kanji for good and evil, and i wrote upon it, "Good and Evil. Choose!" I gave it to the two kids, who both chose good. I then remarked how the kanji for good looked like the one for sheep, and Keiko wrote the sheep kanji just above it to show me the difference. I then asked Chiatsu to choose between a sheep and evil, and amidst confusion and indecision, finally chose a sheep. I then asked her to choose between a good sheep and a bad sheep, and when she finally chose a good one, i told her that the good sheep was unclean and the bad sheep was beautiful, and this just threw her into a state of deeper confusion. She could not answer.
This marks the end of the trip and all the important episodes contained within it.
