Hiroshima, Sake, and a Surprise Roommate

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29109046@N03/
A link to my Flickr site. on which i have posted some pictures from my Hiroshima trip.

It has been a while and I will attempt to catch you all up today. Two weekends ago, I went to Hiroshima and Miyajima Island. I had a fantastic time and it was one of the best trips of my life. Me and several JETs went to the Sake Festival outside Hiroshima. It is a huge event and there were over 200,000 people there throughout the weekend. We only stayed a few hours because we decided to take a 7hour bus ride instead of the Shinkansen (bullet train) because of the price difference. The bus ride was fun but really long.

When we arrived at the Sake Festival we ran into about 60-100 JETs from around the country. It was like a mini-Tokyo Orientation reunion. As i said earlier, we only stayed for a few hours, but that was plenty of time to get sufficiently brain-dead. There were over 900 different types of sake from 5 different regions in Japan. We ended up spending a lot of time in the Hokkaido section. And that is where the next phase of this story begins.

Camped out in front of the Hokkaido booth were two couples sharing a blanket and several glasses of sake. The noticed that the area was getting overrun with gaijin (foreigners) and pulled some of them down to talk. So we sat down with this man and his wife and began speaking drunk Japanese and drunk English. It is surprising how much better at Japanese I am after 20-30 shots of Sake.

The man tells us that he wants to practice his English on us because he wants to open a chain of sake stores in the United States. It did not sound like that, of course, but we were able to piece together his drunk Japanese and his wife's attempted translation into sober Japanese. It was quite the event. Eventually, we found out that he wanted us to go 50/50 with him in an American Sake chain of stores. We promptly turn him down. Sake is not terrible popular in the US. He then asked why we were all together in Japan. I tell him that we are all English teachers and High Schools. He was shocked. Somehow we got on the topic of history, which is not surprising because that is where most of my conversations tend to lead if I do not carefully monitor what I say. So I tell him that I enjoy learning about Buddhism and war in the Kamakura era and samurai in the Edo period. The man promptly asks if I know what a "fundoshi" is. I say, "yes, it's a traditional Japanese loincloth worn by samurai." He smiles and sticks his hand down the front of his paints. He asks, "do you want to see my fundoshi, I make them myself." I immediately tell him that it is okay and that I believe he is wearing one. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small utility knife and says, "I am samurai. this is my soul and this is my traditional fundoshi." He then closed the knife and pulled out the front flap of his loin cloth to show the "beautiful" flower embroidery. At this point is wife is stop sign red and starts to lean over to her friend to escape this embarassment. As she is leaning her husband winds up, cocks his arm back, swings and slaps his wife's ass. By now we are all kind of tired of sitting around this guy so we stand up and say our good byes.

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Miyajima Island:
Miyajima is a small island off the coast of Hiroshima city. It is famous for the giant orange tori gate out in the water. When we arrived by ferry, the tide was out and the gate was exposed. We walked right up to the 20 meter tall orange gate. By the time we left the sun was setting and the tide was in so the gate was out in the water again.

There is a tall mountain on this island called Mt. Mizen, I believe. At the top of the mountain, about 2 kilometers of stairs and pathways, there is an observatory and a small temple where the Tendai Buddhist monks lit the eternal flame 1100 years ago which still burns today. Seeing as there was no way in holy hell I was going to be able to make it to the top of this mountain by myself, we decided to take the ski-lift/Air-walk to one of the peaks and walk to the top from there. This saved us about 2 hours of walking. At the peak we encountered monkeys, deer, and more monkeys. From there it was only .5 kilometers to the summit. It was a painful trip up old stone stairways, made only more painful by the random encounter with other Americans who's asinine conversation about how President Bush is merely a scapegoat for the economic problems and was in no way to blame for any of America's problems made me want to grab the woman and jump off the mountain into the Sea of Japan. But I digress.

The trip to the top was painful and long, especially with my bad knee, but the reward of being at the top of the mountain looking down over Hiroshima and the Tori gate was quite fantastic.

We soon realized that the sun was setting and that if we wanted to catch a picture of the tori gate on the water at sunset we would have to hurry down the mountain. Thus, the running began. Admittedly running 2 kilometers down a mountain was a bad idea, but the pictures i was able to take were worth the rush and the danger.

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The Hiroshima Peace Park and Museum were quite powerful sites to see. Although, the images and the memory can be relatively depressing and painful, the memorial to the a-bombed city is a rich and important part of Japanese history. My experiences and emotions as an American were constantly in conflict with my inner historian. No matter how hard i tried to remain objective and historical, i could not shake the immence guilt and shame I feel as an American in that city. Granted the museum does a very good job remaining historical and neutral and does not point a lot of fingers at the USA or at Japan. One of the most depressing things in Japanese history is the Japanese post-war outlook which justified the bombing because they believed they deserved it. Luckily, that outlook has died off for the most part.

The museum is not for the faint of heart. It is difficult to look at the tattered clothing of middle school children and rusted, deformed tricycles. But all in all, I suggest it for everyone. It is an effective reminder of the pains of war and the frightful possibilities of the future of warfare.

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The Tragic Death of a Unwanted Roommate

Tuesday October 21, 3:31am -- (Insert Law & Order sound) Police were called to the scene of an apartment murder case. Renter, Jiorodaano Maikuru, made the call to police after the death of his apparent roommate at 3:30am. The death has been ruled self-defense and no charges have been filed against Jiorodaano. Apparently, Jiorodaano was surprised as his roommate appeared in the apartment at approximately 3am and shook Jiorodaano's hand while he was sleeping.

The following is an excerpt from Jiorodaano's official statement to the police:

"Well, it was about 3am and I was sound asleep. It wasn't a light sleep or anything like that, i was out like a light, deep REM cycle, dreaming about stuff... When i felt a slight squeeze on my right hand. I figured at the time that it was just a hair on my arm moving or something like that so just moved my arm a little without opening my eyes, i was not about to wake up for something as trivial as that. But then again, i felt a squeeze on my hand. It was then that i realized that I was not alone in the room. On my hand, in between my thumb and forefinger was the biggest, ugliest and bravest mother (expletive deleted)ing cockroach I had ever seen. In the split second that I had to analyze the situation before absolutely freaking out, it almost felt as if the beast was attempting to make first contact and introducing himself. Like, "hi, my name is gakiburi. Nice to finally meet you. We've been sharing this room for a while now but i thought it would be nice to finally introduce myself to you. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." I immediately shook him off and bounced out of my bed. Lights on and book in my hand my heart raced as i attemted protect myself. I knocked the invader off of my bed and onto the hard wood floor where his 2 inch body could be heard as loud as fireworks as he scurried. I pulled the bed away from the wall but his location was still masked. I came up with an ingenious idea. I turned the lights off and waited, hunting my prey...I mean praying that he wouldnt attack again. Standing on my bed in the dark i waited. Each minute felt an eternity. Waiting, waiting, hunting, waiting...click click click. He had made his move. With my extend-able umbrella and Japanese textbook in hand, I flipped on the lights and flushed him out. He was upside-down on the bottom of my bed frame laying his own trap for me, waiting for my head to peak under. Being of a superior species i coaxed him into the open and dispatched him. And that's when i called the police."

3:32am-- (Insert Law & Order sound)
The remains of John Doe Gakiburi have been removed from the scene and flushed. This case is closed.

"Any similarities to any people living or dead have been a complete coincidence, unless otherwise noted in the credits."