South Shore Shikoku

We covered Shikoku's south shore today. This is no small feat. I know Shikoku's an island, but it's not like a Hawaiian island or one of the Bahamas. It's one of Japan's four main islands. And starting this morning, we drove (or really, my Aunt Izumi drove) a tiny Toyota from Kannoura in the east to Nakamura in the southwest.

The day started in an un-ambitious manner. After breakfast at the hotel, we went to visit my Great Aunt Mina at a nearby retirement home in Kannoura. Normally I'd cringe at the idea of going to a nursing home. The thought of ever putting a loved one into something like that scares me. I didn't want to go in. But when I did, I found a very warm, friendly environment, an awesome staff, and really nice facilities overall. And then, of course, there's Mina-chan, who despite never having met me, was as sweet and nice and adorable as can be. None of that bitter-old-person-in-a-group-home stuff. It was a very moving experience. More about that at some point later...

Next, Makoto and Aunt Izumi picked up some food at a local market while I went to hunt down some bug bite cream. Japan's a humid country - especially during this unseasonably warm autumn - and I'm a known mosquito magnet. Guess who's been scratching himself like a mangy mutt for the last few days?

Riding down the coast was fine - if you like being a passenger - but only because there were plenty of brief stops to take in the sights. In fact, our first stop was no more than two minutes down the road at a startlingly turquoise-colored lagoon.

It was there when I came face to face with the deadly blowfish: Fugu. No, I didn't go for a swim or find some impromptu sushi stand. My mom gathered up some dead fugu that had washed ashore and waved 'em around at me, as though I'd be scared. Sure, they're poisonous, but if she's holding them, how can they be a threat to me? My mom must think I'm really dumb...

Anyway, I acted like I was scared halfway to death. Then I guilted her about it, and played off that guilt so that we wouldn't have to stay in the suburbs of Tokyo next week. That's right. Thanks to some dead blowfish, some superior acting skills, and the fact that earlier in my life something like that actually would have made me soil myself, I'm all good with Mom now.




Ok, all that is a lie. As we were both playing with dead fugu after she initially swung it at me like some maritime nunchaku, we had a little heart to heart, and even she agreed that staying outside of Tokyo would suck. Yay Mom! I'm not that much of a prick to emotionally manipulate my mom, either, if that's what you were thinking.

A few more minutes down the coastal road and we were at Shikaoka, locally famous for its meoto-iwa, or "wedded rocks," a Shinto tradition that it seems nobody has answers about. Either way, it's one of those cool sights you just have to see at some point, if not for its supreme natural beauty then for the strange human behavior behind how it's adorned. My mom and aunt used to picnic here back in the day when visiting Mina-chan, so we did the same, digging into some inari, futomaki, and... oh, dammit, is that more raw fish again!? Ok, it was good. Really good. And dining al fresco with a view like this, I would've been fine if I'd been served a can of cat food.

It was another couple of very scenic hours to Kochi, where we detoured over to a toll road. My, my, my what a difference that makes. From slow, narrow, cramped roads to an actual multi-lane highway... It was like we changed countries entirely in the span of a few seconds. Now we were cruisin'... And the scenery was just as beautiful... And I thought to myself, "Maybe we will get home at a decent time!" And two minutes in, we stopped.

What the...? A rest area? But we just got on the highway! I don't care if Makoto wants ice cream, I -- wait, is that yuzu flavored ice cream? And sweet potato flavor? And grilled eggplant flavor? And tomato flavor? Oh, hell yeah. Hook me up with that yuzu! Mmmm... umm.. bleh.

I was suddenly reminded of for-fucks-sake-will-someone-please-explain-why-it's-so-popular Mitchell's Ice Cream in San Francisco. They've got a stunning variety of flavors, with ice cream quality that may as well be from Hormel. Or Purina. Shitty, air-injected, powdery gunk with nasty mouth feel. That's how this stuff was. But damn, the flavors make Mitchell's look amateur by comparison.

Oh well. At least we had the pleasure of being at a freakin' whale-themed rest area. There were whale benches, signs in the shape of whales, and these cute cartoon style whales you can clamber upon if you're a toddler. Or stoned. Kochi is very proud of its whales. There are whale symbols everywhere, and if you've got $50 burning a hole in your pocket, any number of sea captains will take you whale watching. Which is something I'll be bearing in mind as I spend the next five or so days here.

The following couple hours or so of the drive were blissfully unmarred by stops and starts - just smooth highway sailing with more of those ridiculous views. So far I've been to Osaka, which is the kick-back metropolitan part of Japan. Kyoto's the historical part. I'll be headed to Tokyo for the trendy, fast-paced cosmopolitan thing. Kochi prefecture and Shikoku in general? This is the rough-and-tumble part of Japan. Rugged coastlines. Dramatic mountains. Little by way of luxuries. Trains are slow. Buses are slower. At least there's this toll highway to get us home, near Nakamura.

It was just before the home stretch that we stopped again, this time in the small town of Taisho. While it's not anywhere as big as Tokyo's Tsukiji, the Taisho fish market is supposedly as famous in Japan, especially for its selection of the Kochi specialty - katsuo, known better to you and I as bonito. In the States, we usually see bonito dried or shredded or vacuum packed, and it's pretty tasty then. Here, you get it fresher than Michael Jackson at a Gymboree store. So fresh that the local way to eat it is as a tataki (seared outside, raw inside), so that's what we bought. We also picked up some tobi (flying fish), some squid, and a few other goodies.

And here's where I lose all my pro-environment, pro-ecology, sustainable-everything cred. Amongst all the fresh fish, I noticed one of the stands had what looked like sukiyaki beef. It seemed a bit odd, but then I remembered that this being the small town's one central market, one comes here for everything. Including red meat. I came back by the stall again and realized the sign said "Kujira." At ¥700 per 2-serving tray, this seemed like a steal. I forked over ¥1,400 (about $11) for two trays, had it packed in ice, and went on my merry way, knowing in the next couple of days, we'll be having a very rare treat.

Oh yeah - kujira means "whale."

I know, I know. Fuck you too, hippie.

Yatta!!!

I'm in a small fishing village named Shimoda, in the Kochi prefecture, on the island of Shikoku.

Driving in, I realize this may be one of the most remote places I've ever been to - even more so than in Central America.

Yet... I'm online again!!!

I have broadband. I have HDTV. I'll get back to you after dinner and catching up on work.

Land of the Rising Sun, Indeed

Sometimes, when you're traveling, you wind up at a hostel, a motel, or a hotel pretty much by chance. It happened to be on your way. Some place you needed to crash for some reason or another. You take advantage of its amenities, but having arrived in the dark, you don't expect much from it the next morning.

In fact, you're a bit annoyed by being awakened by intense sunlight shining almost directly through your curtains. You grumble. You groan. You swore that you were on vacation and that you should be able to sleep in. You get up to investigate the offending window, pull aside the curtain and see...

Control Freak

I give up. Here I am, writing my umpteenth offline update, unable to get on the internet. Today's reason being - other than being in transit all day - that I'm in some bumfuck town in eastern Shikoku that doesn't even have a McDonald's. I'm worried, because I'm supposed to be checking in with work on occasion to make sure I get done whatever needs to be done - but I can't.

I thought I was going to Kochi today. I was ready to get off the train, be whisked to my hotel, and spend an evening luxuriating in my own bed and indulging in internet connectivity. Well, my train got to Kochi after a span of four hours. But when my mom and Aunt Izumi came to pick us up at the station, we got in the car for another three motherfucking hours.

I hate going on road trips and not driving. I hate it even more when I don't even know where we're going. At this point, I may as well be on some fuck-ass package tour. And what really pisses me off is when the people driving don't even know where they're going. Never mind having a map, GPS, and previous knowledge of the region at their disposal. It was still like some fucktarded episode of the Keystone Kops trying to get to Kannoura or whatever the fuck desolate outpost we're in.

I had a little talk with my mom about my having to know where I'm going at all times. Before we even came on this trip, I wasn't told that Aunt Fusako's is nowhere near central Osaka, so my nightlife would be cut-off by midnight. I wasn't told that Aunt Hiroko's, being between Osaka and Kyoto, was out of reach of anything remotely resembling civilization, nor that I'd be a 20-minute bus ride away from even a train artery.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I haven't enjoyed my time here. I just hate a) not knowing in advance where I'm going to be, and b) not knowing what resources I will have at my disposal.

First off, I don't travel that way. Like I said, I may as well be on some fucking package tour with a bunch of slobbering, drooling drones if I didn't care where I was going and was only concerned with being shown the sites and being fed three square meals a day. Again, I'm not taking these things for granted, but this is my valuable leisure time, which I expect to be in charge of, or at least god damn aware of what's going on and where I'll be going.

Secondly, aforementioned leisure time aside, this is also my work time. I couldn't come here for three weeks without making the concession that I'd be available to do work. This is impossible when I'm being dragged places that may or may not have heard of the internet in the last ten years.

Anyway, I made the decision on the miserable drive over here that I'm going to get myself a hotel when we get to Tokyo. I'm not spending any more time at one of my mom's well-meaning friend's houses (this one a good half hour outside of Tokyo proper) and not be able to see the city on my own terms. I don't want to be dependent on a train schedule, someone giving rides, or a volunteer tour guide. Again, as much as I appreciate everyone's efforts, I find it ridiculous that I'm in places where I can't even go out and find a bottle of water late at night, should I want it.

Fuck, I can't even leave this hotel after 11 PM, as it goes into security lock-down. Yes, they close the front doors at 11. Mind you, this isn't some traditional ryokan or family-run mom & pop joint. It's a modern, western-style resort called the White Beach Hotel, complete with its own line of spa products.

To that effect, it's nice to be on vacation from my vacation, if only for the night. I actually have my own western-style bathroom (i.e. shower and tub combined), in my very own western-style hotel room, with a queen-sized bed, and plenty of room to stretch out.

Oh, and I'm sitting in my underwear and Monday Night Football is on TV. 49ers versus Seahawks. And it's still as horrible watching my team find new ways to lose with the commentary in a whole different language.

And yes, I know it's Tuesday night here, but if they carried it live, it would be Tuesday mid-morning football, making the already tiny Japanese audience for this even tinier. The benefit of a tape delay? It's presented commercial free. So I can watch the Niners lose in fast forward. *sigh*

Doin' a Couple of Rails with My Cousin

I just had my first Shinkansen (bullet train) ride from Kyoto on the ultra-fast Nozomi train. I have to admit, after waiting most of my life to do this again (the last time I did it, I was about two years old), it was a bit anticlimactic. Since my childhood, high-speed rail has been implemented everywhere (except the good ol' U.S. of A, forfuckssake) there isn't that much novelty in whizzing through cities and countryside at speeds nearing 200 miles an hour.

In fact, I had just started settling in, grooving to my iPod and kicking off my shoes when Makoto tapped me on my shoulder to tell me that we were arriving in Okayama. Dammit.

We just switched to another line - this one a regular train - which is headed to Kochi, our destination for today. It's noticeably slower, but just as comfortable. The only peculiarity is that I'm sitting in a cloud of cigarette smoke. I'm suspecting this is a result of my family being up to its dirty tricks again...

You see, before my mom left Osaka, she gave me ¥20,000 so I can buy my tickets for this leg of the trip. But this morning, Makoto handed me my tickets as we were on the local train to Kyoto. I have a feeling he's behind all this, having booked us on a smoking train.

Oh well - at least it's full of novelty, and I'm not all that averse to smoke. All my rock star, writer and artist heroes smoke like chimneys (or did so until their demise), so I may as well get used to it if I want to live, travel, and write like a rock star, right? Besides, who cares when you've just eaten a decent meal on a train?

At each train station - and on board the bullet trains - they sell eki-ben, or to-go boxed lunch sets. Keeping my sudden aversion to fish in mind, I opted for the one non-fish, non-vegetarian item: Teriyaki. Oddly enough, this is the first time I've seen anything served up teriyaki style in Japan. It's just not that big a deal here like it is back at home. At any rate, it was pretty decent, and far better than the crap I have to put up with on my daily train commute.

In fact, it just occurred to me that I could make a killing if I started a business selling boxed lunch sets at train stations and airports. No more overpriced pizza or signing away your first born for a McDonald's Extra Value Meal. Just step right up to Omi-san's House of Bento and you'll get a full meal made fresh this morning - side dishes and all - in a portable box to take on your train or plane. Sounds good, right? I mean, how is it that no one else has done this?

Oh yeah - Americans are probably averse to eating rice and meat at just below room temperature. Oh well, it's your loss, my star-spangled friends.

Anyway, back to enjoying the fantastic views...