A reprise in Hiroshima

Although my true destination on paper had been Hiroshima from the moment I bordered the 5:30 train departing Sendai, I purposefully took my time to get there and didn't have much of a route planned. Instead of taking the day-and-a-half it should take via the slow train system to arrive, I stretched it out to a week, stopping off at the island of Shikoku seeing where my thumb would lead me (see the entries below for an account of my times on Shikoku). In short, the theme of the trip was to perfect the art of meandering.

Hiroshima lies just west of Shikoku, Japan's inland sea separating the two. I crossed it faster than planned, feeling like I had spent enough time in the back country. I felt ready to head into the city, the urban jungle, the place where friends would be. I was ready to set aside my tent, let my hiking boots dangle from my back pack, and sleep on sofas and futons at the expense of my friends' hospitality. It was time to couch surf.

Hiroshima. The bomb. War. Radiation. Cancer. Politics. History. Suffering. A city with a history that most don't think about yet all have absorbed at least on some sort of level at one point in their life.

Hiroshima.

Since living there, all of the above images and stigmas have been replaced, re-molded and sifted out of me. Where before, a crumbled and crucifix-of-a-building, the A-Bomb Dome, stood, now marked where the public toilets could be found. Peace Park, the location of where the bomb was dropped, was now a meeting spot for my friends and I, a place to drink some wine along the side of the river. The A-Bomb Museum--the testament and reminder of how devastating man's hubris can be--was now simply one of the many stops on the tram line along the way to the famous island of Miyajima. Where before I only had images from TV, inklings from history books, and notions from my imagination, these features of a city which tourists come to see have all been thrown in a different color, changed, absorbed and claimed as my own, as I became apart of the city. It has been over a year since I moved from Hiroshima up north to Sendai, and upon finding myself back, I realize a soft spot exists deep inside when it comes to this city. A lingering feeling of ease, of mystique and of comfortability. In the city itself, its concrete buildings, trees, cafes and bars, I find myself attached and longing to remain.

Hiroshima is a tourist hot spot. When you arrive at the station, you're going to see a lot more Caucasian people than you're used to. Yet, you see a lot more Caucasian travelers--people not teaching English but who have come to Japan to see Japan, on route to somewhere else perhaps, backpacks bulging, clothes worn and creased, maps dangling. Yet, this isn't a bad thing. These tourists are not in your face, and mainly stick to the well-known attractions, so avoiding them--if that's your thing--is easy. On the flip-side, this fact--this tourist-presence--lends an important atmosphere to Hiroshima; the locals are used to travelers, to foreigners, to the "gai jin". Which, in return, makes it easy to blend in, to feel apart of the town itself; you don't feel like you're often awkwardly skidding along the outskirts of town, as you can when up north in the more rural areas of this country. Hiroshima is accessible from the moment you set foot off the train platform. A promise of open-doors and warm smiles lingers in the air for you as you ride the old-fashioned steam-engined (but now electric) trains donated to the city after the bomb; in Hiroshima, there is a place for you, whether you're the ex-pat or the short-term English teacher, or mail order bride, or landed immigrant. One's looks don't matter so much here.

But these are just first impressions. Important? Yes, of course, for even though impressions are not based on fact and come from the gut, they oftentimes carry more truth than not. Yet, they are, still, merely impressions. After living in Hiroshima I discovered a well-ingrained, strongly-knit and intertwined local foreign population. There are art exhibitions, organized parties, locally made websites and maps and guides to help the traveler even with the shortest of stays to find a place off the beaten path. Borders were being brought down, chances to meet one another were being created, and a sense of "home" could be seen on the faces and in the eyes, in the way one walked of so many of my newly-made gai-jin friends. It struck me as rare; I hadn't experienced this feeling I was seeing on so many of these people's faces. They lived in a place they called "home"--not a temporary one and they liked it. Their groups of friends involved people from many facets of the community, gai-jin and Japanese alike. Bartenders, photographers, chefs, glass blowers, djs, musicians, the common salary man, house wives, cafe owners.

Now, at this point I had already lived in Japan for a year and half, but way up north in a placed deemed a small, mountain town, Yamagata. The word "yama" means "mountain" while "gata" means shape and it's a good insight into what the town is like. Gorgeous Mt. Fuji-offspring mountains encircle the caldera of the city, in them mornings a silvery-bearded mist creeps in before burning away from the sun, deep greens and browns are its canvas, and during the winter white, heavy, packing snow blankets every flat surface. Pottery-making stores, old-school cobblers, calligraphy schools and rice fields, sweltering summer heat. For me, the fundamental image, the heartbeat and spirit of Japan will forever be contained in the slow throbbing of life found in Yamagata. But, just as you can stare forever at your favorite painting, adoring its lines and subtleties, you yourself are not apart of it, and that's how it was for me in Yamagata. I was what my title deemed me to be, a "gai-jin". A foreign/outside (gai) person/being (jin). Visitor. Temp. Tourist. Non-Japanese.

I stood outside of the station, under an awning to protect me from the rain. A slight drizzle had started. Houses, power lines, bulletin boards slowly were slowly passing by when I first noticed the spring shower. All the colors around me were faded out, toned-down one notch, blotted out with the dull sheen of the tumbling beads of water, as clouds had moved in to suck out most vibrancy the colors had before. And now I waited, with my backpack on, for Naoko to pick me up. I hadn't seen her for over a year.

When you travel for life, when you live abroad, you cross paths with more people than you can count, indeed more people than you can even begin to create and maintain a connection with. Yet each time someone passes you by, each time you talk to someone, a potential fork in the road you're on is developed; your headlights reveal a possible fork in the path or at least a twist, oftentimes even a hairpin corner. Traveling and living abroad is like trooping around with a magnet on your back, drawing all possible encounters to you. The more you move and themore you put yourself out on the line and in new places, the more momentum you gain and with this momentum, the more paths you criss-cross. This, for some, is a wonderful thing, and is something that sets off events in one's life like a chain reaction, like lighting a fuse. Some, on the other hand, meet so many people it becomes hard to find meaning in it all; some end up taking so many of the turns, trying so many new roads and embracing each twist and blind corner that all their left with is a pervading sense of quantity over quality. And soon enough, all that remains is yet another handshake, yet another introduction, and yet another conversation about origins, reasons, and work. Naoko, on the other hand, reminded me what it was like to meet someone back at home, a meeting that does not stem from being a foreigner or the random apple in the box; she reminded me what it was like to make a connection with someone not based on geographic location but on common interests--like a meeting of old, when you're too young to scrutinize anything and therefore connect on a deeper level. Even though I had known her for only less than a year, I found myself, standing outside in the post-nasal-drip rain, feeling like I was waiting for an old friend. Funny, how living abroad and traveling redefines what's old and new, long and short. Traveling takes time and hacks it off at the knees, giving it a new measure.

I saw the car approach, a smile on the driver behind the wheel. I threw my pack in the trunk, and more-flopped-than-sat myself in the front seat. With the close of the door, I was welcomed into the city, the last five days of mountain treks and solo-missions in the woods, on mountain-tops and through villages were gone. I was welcomed back into the urban flow, traffic-jams, and city gridlocks. Yet, with the friendly hug I received from Naoko, it felt good to be back in the city--a city I felt like could've perhaps become a home-away-from-home if I had stayed long enough, if I had given it the chance. Yet, the momentum I had gained from traveling and moving around over the previous three years had proved too strong, and therefore as I sat shotgun, I found myself merely visiting yet another place I had left some roots, created some memories, and found some people to call friends.

Shikoku, Part V: The Chiiori House

I had already snagged two rides, slept over night at a rather swanky campsite, massaged my body with a long soak in an onsen, and traversed between mountain folds on roads which seemed to find the smallest crease between peaks by the time I found myself hanging out on the side of yet another road, in what was deemed a town. Upon my arrival I had tried to buy a packaged pastry, one of the nondescript kinds they sell at any old convenience store in the country. But when I went to the counter and dug around for money, the lady picked up the snack, examined it, and told me the expiry date had past already. I didn't realize the preservative-filled thing even had an expiry date. That's when I noticed the layer of dust on the clear plastic package. I smiled: I was truly in the countryside of Japan. I had then decided to buy some fruit instead, ate it and chatted with the old lady for a bit who didn't seem interested in much of what I had to say, which I also found curious. Now, I found myself jammed between the grocery house-shop and the road itself. The shoulder of this street was non-existent, and when a car came I had to hold out my thumb to show I was hoping for a ride while simultaneously be sure I didn't get it lopped off by the review mirror.

It was much hotter down here, away from the mountains. In fact, ever since I decided to take the ride and not continue into the back country, the sun had been beating down as if it was trying to make a point spring was here. Judging from this weather, I probably could've continued into the mountains alone, as planned, and been alright. But I had already made the decision not to and was in the middle of seeing out where it was leading me. I looked around, squinting at the light. I had made it deep into Iya Valley, but not yet to what could be considered its heart.

If you look at a map of Shikoku, you'll notice that its biggest land masses are found on the east and the west respectively, with a narrower piece of land in the middle connecting the two. If you move your eyes east and focus on the right land mass, you'll find a big patch of mountains, shared between the two prefectures which make up most of the east side: the eastern of Tokushima Ken and southern of Kochi Ken. If you're looking at a topographical map you can see that all the main roads bend and warp around a pocket of mountains sitting in between the prefectures, leaving a big green, undeveloped patch which is called Mt. Tsurugi Quasi-National Park; cities vanish, train lines end, and nothing is left but the curvy lines which signify various degrees of altitudes (indeed most of my destinations have such characteristics in common). Iya Valley (祖谷渓) is tucked deep in this area and is said to be one of Japan's "three hidden regions." Now, if I may lay a side note down here: no matter where you go in Japan, that area will be known for something: its food, its water, its rice, its wine, or its people or clothes perhaps. And, more often than not, it's scenic view. I've read more signs than I can count saying that "this spot is one of the three most beautiful views in Japan." Or something like "this mountains is called ____-Fuji due to it's resemblance of Mt. Fuji." After traveling through Japan you get the sense that the country has mobilized on a national scale to make absolutely everything cater to tourists; a spot that has natural beauty, which is worthy in itself to go and see even without being told about its resemblance to Fuji, or Kyoto, or what people "consider it" will be littered with such notifications and observations. So reading that Iya Valley was considered to be one of "three hidden regions of Japan" meant nothing to me. Until I started hitchhiking through it. I have to admit, this place deserved such a claim, and I found traversing through the mountainous area to be more difficult than usual (which was a nice challenge) and many of the region had such little access that my eyes fell upon an abundance of untouched nature. Furthermore, Iya has a role in history to stop even the least interested traveler.

If you've studied Japanese history, the family names of Minamoto (aka Genji) and Taira (Heike) stick out like sore thumbs, the queen and king on the chess boards, figures directly shaping national identity and the progress of a nation. Like any good country, civil wars were rampant in Japan, but one only is thought to be the mother of them all: the Genpei War. These two families fought bitterly overly the dominance of the imperial court (dominance of Japan), and battles took place all over the central and western Japan (check out the map above), on land and sea. Although The Minamoto were to prevail in the end, the battle had so many twists and turns a certain victor could not have been guessed until the fateful battle on sea between the island of Kyushu and Honshu (to the west of Shikoku). When the two clans were entrenched in this civil war, The Taira clan retreated deep into Shikoku and into these "hidden regions" of Shokoku, crossing ravines on kazua-bashi or vine bridges, cutting them after traversed making it impossible for their pursuers to follow. The end of this war and ensuing Minamoto victory marked the rise of military (sumarai) power for the first time in Japan where the emperor was made a mere figurehead, and the first time a shogun was ever to wield power on a national level. Furthermore, the colors of the two clans, red (Taira) and white (Minamoto) became the national colors of Japan, seen today on its flag.

I tried to imagine samurai running along this patch of road, past these houses where cars now drove. My foreigner mind enjoyed envisioning these romantic images; I pictured horses, perhaps some peasants and farmers working in the back ground, a Kurusawa backdrop developed in my mind's eye as I soaked in my surroundings. Did The Taira clan pass through this town way back when? Could this town have lasted through all these years?

I then chuckled, for I found myself, yet again, wondering which word to use for this post of houses, for "town" fell short. This place consisted of a patch of shoulder-to-shoulder houses on both sides of the section of the road. It was, in reality, simply a section of mountain road with a few people's homes lining it, opposed to the usual trees or ravines. There was a post office, in the form of a hardware shop of sorts where you could give the old lady behind the counter a parcel and she'd be sure the next delivery truck, which came once a day, got it. Some of the houses sold vegetables, some snacks, some random necessities like batteries, light bulbs, and such. Almost every shop was the first floor of someone's home, and when I stood there, I felt like I was hanging out in someone's front yard, only that it had been paved over as it was the only place for transportation to get by. For, behind the houses which I stood in front of was a canyon, much to deep to build on, and looming above the houses opposite of me and on the other side of the road was a mountain side which turned into a bluff of a cliff; the houses seemingly fell from the sky and stood as is taking up any vacant space. I adjusted my backpack and waited for another car in the breezy silence of the "downtown area".

In Japan, come end of April, the forests turn an awe-inspiring emerald green. As almost all the vegetation is deciduous, the leaves turn color, die, and come back to life in tune with the passing of each season. During the winter, with all other surrounding vegetation dead, the coniferous trees--which don't lose their leaves--glare at you from the landscape, as if they their camouflage has been used up. The rise up, from the base of the mountain, out of place, like patches of fur leftover on a cat after a fight. The bare parts are the now leafless, surrounding trees, looking more like spines of a porcupine. And, although at first looking at a mountain chain in Japan during winter isn't a pleasant site to look at--come Spring, the forests and fields radiate a green kriptonite glow that is a color unto its own . It is so noticeable, especially after a long, cold and desolate winter, the Japanese people have given this period a name, calling it shinryoku（新緑）: "new green". And, although just a tad early, I found myself surrounded by this, on this early morning on some random day (the names of days lose meaning when you've donned your traveling shows). I felt consumed by new, my thoughts on the subtleties of difference in seasons, in landscapes and history stirring my traveling blood.

Some people come to Japan to test out the adage that it is a country where future meets the old, where technology and ancient art collide, the salary man on his cellphone walking past a temple on his way to work, bowing as he passes someone he knows by--the kind of thing that makes me groan, but, like all stereotypes, these images are born in the abyss of truth. This stereotype of the country works on so many levels, so many facets of life, that it is almost pointless to try to talk about it or note it down on a pad of paper, indeed to photograph it. All you're going to get is a photograph that every other person has taken before. The same temple, the same kid dressed in a school uniform playing the most advanced hand-held gaming device; the same geisha stepping in small, bounded spurts, texting someone on her cellphone--images that don't lie, yet don't say anything new either. This fixation the west has with Japan is founded on truth, but it's most tangibly felt not when you take a picture or look in from the outside, but when you make a good friend based on common interests and spend a prolonged amount of time together, or if you work alongside Japanese co-workers, or especially, if you get the chance to work with the guts of the Japanese education system from the inside. Like any country, this clash of tradition and new is one of the many more-deeply felt-than-seen aspects which make Japan the country that it is. My words fail when I try to describe this dichotomy, this guttural difference between the country I live in now and the one I come from. I can't claim to be any sort of expert on this, but this pulling and tugging, this adherence to old but embracing of new, this preserved tradition combined with industrialization affects my daily life on so many levels, and is a foreign feeling to my Canadian, immigrant, roots.

The car nearly skidded to a halt. I was surprised, for it was one of the many company cars which race around the countryside on various errands. Usually the driver of such a company car is too rushed, on too much of a battle against time to even entertain the thought of picking up someone hanging on the side of the road. The car pulled over, and the driver looked at me through the window with a questioning look, begging the question "is that your car? Do you need a jump?"
I looked behind me, and noticed one of the cars which didn't stop to be pick me had stopped and put on its hazard lights. I then looked back at the driver and said "that isn't my car. But I need a ride."

A brief expression of annoyance fell across the driver's face, like when a young kid realizes he's not part of the joke but, rather, that it was on him. He glanced back at the road, then back at me, and in a kind of huff said to get in. It was more of an order than an invitation. I understood and quickly opened the door, tossed my bag in, and sat down--bowing, thanking, and pardoning for my intrusion the whole time in a manner perfected over the five years of hitching. The driver sped off. I chuckled to myself, and thanked the driver in the other car who had turned on his hazards.

I didn't say anything at first, eying my driver. He wore a customary work suit; not overalls but since the off-green cream color of the pants and jacket matched each other, the combination could be mistaken for one. He had some emblem on the chest pocket of his jacket, a company insignia. The suit had stains here and there, stains that told a story of a harder worker, not simply a dirty one--as it looked like it had been used for quite some time. The man's hair was disheveled and greasy, his fingernails dirty and his hands rough with wrinkles--hands of a laborer. When he spoke, he spoke with a lisp of sorts, making it difficult to understand, but not impossible.

"Wayne-san?"

My brows furrowed and I looked at him questioningly. He wasn't asking me my name, but rather guessing at my destination. The Japanese language is made up of one-word questions, hints, comments and responses--single words that speak volumes and at times puts the power of a single English word to shame. I tried to recall the volunteers names who worked at the Chiiori House. I then tried to remember the intersection I needed to get off at. For, the road which lead me to The Chiiori House was one which lead nowhere except up, and up, into the depths of the Iya Valley mountain range as well as into one of the many hamlets which finds itself trapped between mountains folds and living off of the game and land the area provided. But Wayne? Who's Wayne?


I told the driver I was headed to a place called The Chiiori House. He grunted, more from his gut than from his nose, and said, "yeah, Wayne." After listening to him and trying to filter through some of his heavy lisped words, I gathered Wayne was one of the house's volunteers. It seemed like this Wayne also got around by hitching. I wasn't surprised, but still mused a little nod to give respects to the laid-back nature of the area; a random salary man driving through the area in the middle of work--I recognized the insignia on the side of the car and the driver's jacket and thought it to be that of an electric company--knows the locals by their first name. It was just another sign I had left the big city far behind. The driver then said he knew where the turn off was but couldn't take me up the mountain as he obviously had a schedule to keep. I said not to worry about it, as I figured I'd have to walk anyway. He grunted and said it's a long way. Again, I nodded, and said that's what I figured. He then said it was really steep. I said I would be alright. He then said it was hot. I nodded. We then went through these motions for a bit, where the idea of using one's own legs to cover a long distance was alien, and I thanked him for his concern.

I can't lie. I first heard about The Chiiori House because of my Lonely Planet travel book (something actually proving to be damn useful in my travels--not as a book to follow, but one to lay the general game plan). The book had a bit of an excerpt written about the house in the Shikoku section of it, as well as a web link. I then, before Spring vacation started, checked out the website and brought it up in some conversations with my friends. Some of them had heard about it, too, it seemed and everything they heard was positive. A non profit organization, first started by Alex Kerr (A Japanophile and author of some popular books on the country, such as Dogs and Demons) when he was--like I was doing now--hitchhiking through Japan. Finding a vein of Japan which spoke to him personally, he was moved to begin to search out a spot in the country which he could make his own, and that's when he stumbled upon the tiny hamlet called Tsui, tucked deep in the Iya Valley. Here he found an abandoned, 300 year old thatch-roofed house 萱葺　(kayabuki). He fell in love with it on the spot. The process of buying the house was laborious and anything but cheap, but it won over the locals, created deep bonds of friendship, and started a pretty inspirational story for foreigners who want to create a life over here in Japan. He had to renovate and make the massive house livable again, and through this process, he slowly earned a spot in the small, rural and tightly-knit community while learning about local customs, facets of culture and bridging cultural gaps (click here for an article on the Chiiori House. The official website seems to have been changed as the house itself is going through changes, and perhaps is now unavailable to the public for the time being. Click here to check out the book which has this story as well as many others of Alex Kerr's).

Although the fate of the house has become obscured since I stayed there, at that time it was "run" by a lonely planet photographer and free-lance journalist, Mason Florence, with Alex more on the sidelines it seemed. Although, the project is truly run by the volunteers who care for the house on a daily basis, working with the locals and keeping the visitors coming. It was obviously a complex situation, with many people having attachments to it in one way or the other as well as seeing its future in different lights. At any rate, the house has been acting as a non profit organization for years, with various volunteers coming on stints, keeping it running, integrating the house with local programs and trying to make it stand alone as an independent project as part of the community and not propped up by individual funding.

It was the idea of being able to touch and feel a preserved part of Japanese culture which attracted me. That, and be part of a pocket of multi-culturalism, to witness with my own eyes the latticed relationships of people from different countries working and living together in the same community--for the same community. And my mind tried to conjure up some images of where I was headed and what my stay was going to be like as I hiked up the paved but bumpy mountain road. I walked briskly, my legs fresh from all the sitting-in-cars I had been doing. The sun was fiercely shining now, high in the sky creating a white sheen of a haze, filtering through the countless branches of cedar and pine above as I moved. The higher I climbed, the scarcer houses became, but they were present nonetheless. Many of the houses had metal sheet roofs, hinting at long winters, some painted baby blue, some rusty red. As I continued, dogs who had until then been lazily slumbering in the driveways or yards of their master's homes barked and paced as I walked by. Some farmers stopped to look at me, some men took a break from whatever they were doing in their sheds, or gardens to have a peep, but to be honest, most of them didn't take any notice of me. At one point, I looked down the ravine of the gorge on my left. The road I was walking on wound up the right side of the gorge, perched on the hillside, giving each house a commanding view of the opposite wall of valley below. That's when I noticed a massive boar standing, almost perching like a bird would perch, if it had four legs, on a big rock towards the back of a pen. The pen was more like a cage, the flooring messy with mud, and desolate of any life. The boar stood there, and stared bleakly ahead, like a relic of old, a neighborhood statue. It struck me not only how big the animal was, but how sad and motionless it stood there. I'm not one for zoos, especially ones in Japan made of concrete and metal bars, and this cage was no testament for closing in animals. But, it did give me a sense of where I was; it did stop me and make me look about my surroundings and feel a small surge of that feeling a traveler gets when he is in a different country and brushes against some foreign--a feeling that comes to me in very rare doses now.

After what seemed to be an hour or so, and sweating by this time, I came upon a bearded, red-haired white guy in his twenties chopping wood at a small looking cabin on the left-side of the road, looking over the valley. He stopped, looked at me and said, "you must be Jamie. How was the walk up? Did you make it alright?"

I told him about my luck with the hitchhiking and shook his hand. He had a strong grip, but shook my hand with an adjusted strength which walked the fine line of showing confidence yet courtesy as well. I didn't doubt his ability to chop wood, but felt a gentleness in his smile which was reflected in that grip--a gentleness which reminded me of someone who has learned to operate independently but would rather spend time in the presence of others. He took me inside the small cabin, leaning his axe against the wall and brushing off his hands. That's when I heard a "hello" spoken in a heavy American dialect--not one which conjures up the south, but more of the west, a very Canadian sounding accent at that. The girl spoke to me, without looking up from the computer, he hair black, her skin brown almost like it had been just a tad too dirty for just a tad too long, the sunshine and earth tones of outdoor life seeping into her face. "Just one more sec, I'm almost done here." She sat on the chair in front of the laptop as if she would jump away from it from any minute, her body already leaning in my direction, her head turned just a bit as she typed the last words on the keyboard.

Wayne asked if I wanted some tea. I said yes. Herbal was fine. I sat my bags down and before I knew it we were all joking around about sitcoms, epic fantasy novels I used to read when I was young (and which Wayne had been staying up late to read with his headlamp as of late) and even found ourselves searching up what a kamoshika is on wikipedia as my stories were received with skeptical eyes. I took a liking to the two almost immediately, and although I found out it was their job to be entertainers and basically it was in their job description to get along with anyone, I felt like the next day or two would be genuinely comfortable and relaxing. That's when they took me up to The Chiiori House to show me where I'd be spending the rest of the day, night and however long I chose to stay.

We wound up a stone path, between houses and through yards until we came upon a dog strapped to a long leash which ran along a line which looked like a clothes line; the house's guardian. My first thought wasn't too look at the house and all it's rumored glory. My first thought was more along the lines of "finally, a dog that isn't a poodle, that isn't a chihuahua, that doesn't have a sweater. Finally a real dog."

Kitty Chan. Doraemon. Anime cartoons. Manga comics. Constr- uction signs with comic book characters telling you to watch out for falling rocks; cars with eyes and mouths drawn on them notifying you of steep grades and water hazards. Japan loves cute and cute loves Japan. Hell, more than once my head has been turned by cute women wearing cute fashion in this country. But the dogs, the dogs are something else. Growing up in rural Canada, a Husky, a German Shepherd, a Rotweiler or Dobberman Pincher. A retriever, a Black or Golden Lab--these are dogs. Here, dogs are cats gown awry. Rodents in knitted sweaters with colored, little booties. Dogs are accessorized fuzzy balls of fashion and it's one aspect of this country's culture which I have to admit I can't meet half-way on. So, to cut a long rant short, The Chiiori House and its owners, indeed all of Shikoku, scored points with me as I my eyes fell upon this dog (it wasn't even that big). It was a mutt, but looked like it perhaps had a bit of Pit Bull in it. After my moment's flash of canine appreciation, I noticed the house.

It loomed before me, hedged in by grass and roofed in thatch. It didn't take my breath away like some ancient, mist-encircled castle of old perhaps would, but rather hit me with an upper cut of nostalgia. The house took me back and far away from Japan to the fuzzy, unfocused memories of when I was a toddler playing at my grandma's farm back in the Kootenays. Neon signs, public works projects, concrete telephone poles and condensed-milk cities vanished when standing in the presence of this house. It radiated a softness, a calm of sorts, like it was simply part of the landscape, witnessing the coming and going of things, like an old man who feeds the pigeons from his well-used park bench. The sun shone, even glimmered, adding a orange hue to all the earth tones of the scene before me while warming the back of my arms and top of my head. The browns and new-born greens of the surrounding trees painted the canopy for the house, that along with the clothes hanging on the clothesline and the chickens pecking, fluttering and Egyptian-dancing in the front of the house. The dog eyed me curiously but wagged its tail furiously at the volunteer who spoke to it in text-book pet, baby-talk. I took a deep breath of mountain air, and put my pack on the ground to take a closer look.

The house was big, and open. Nearly it's entire front wall, facing the deep ravine, was made of sliding, wooden and glass doors. Light entered and exited the house freely, on par with its visitors. The entire ceiling and rafters above were stained a pitch black from the irori--sunken hearth found in traditional homes used for cooking. The house exhaled earth and grassy scents. I was told to make myself at home (something I already felt) and that we'd be eating together later that night around the irori.


The rest of the day was spent taking the dog for walks, reading outside of the house, and well, simply putting the breaks on all the momentum I had built up and was encircling me since my first initial step out of my front door of my house hundreds of km away. To reach a place where you want to simple "stop" is a big thing for a hitchhiker, a traveler. When you have only an alloted amount of time and you're hitchhiking, you need to give yourself up to the swing and movement of things--never in a rush but never permanent. But here, as my backpack was now somewhere inside, with only a novel on me and relaxing under the sun on a bench, I found myself immobilized, stopped, on pause. I thought about staying here for more than the one planned night.

There are a few places in Japan, besides the tops of mountains, where you can really feel like you've got away from the bee-hive drone of it all. Japan, in a country with nearly four times the population of Canada and nearly thirty times smaller, I've learned how to dance with the ebb and flow of the presence of others, yet also to immensely appreciate the untouched, vast space found in Canada. At the very deepest place inside of me, in the pit of my stomach, like some crystallized pea, resides an innate yearning to find a patch of land to call my home, a patch developed in sync with its surroundings, where the presence of man and its feats is not shunned but used in tune with whatever mother nature provides. I found this feeling which runs through my veins as deep as bone marrow responding to The Chiiori House.

I've always said to my friends that, if I ever moved home, the first thing I'd do is run through a grassy, Canadian park in bare feet. It's funny, for to most of you who read that, such a sentence will be construed as very streamlined "hippie". But if you've ever lived in Japan, you'll know what I mean. Although I was doing no running in parks at this moment, I did find myself with mys flip-flops off and barefoot, feeling the exact experience I would long for if I was running through grass back home. But, I wasn't home, I was on the doorstep The Chiiori House, on the roof of Iya Valley, and in the backyard of Shikoku, Japan.

Shikoku Part IV

There is something odd about walking along pavement with hiking boots, lugging a heavy back pack full of the outdoor essentials. It feels akin to using one of those moving, floor elevators at an airport that scoots you along even after you've checked your bags and have nothing to carry. Everything I wore was made to make me self-sufficient, to lend me ease when living away from the man-made elements. Yet, I was moving deeper into the forest and further up the mountain on the flat but hard surface of a man-made road.

It had snowed through the night, and it was like the thin layer of sprinkled ice-sugar snow had dulled all sounds, muted any sharp edge a bird's voice might carry. Everything was soft, even my heavy foot steps. I stared down at my feet and then looked back: a perfect trail of foot prints were etched in the snow behind me, each step revealing a dark gray and cold concrete patch of the mountain road underneath which I was walking on. The foot prints curved, bended around the corner and down the road, then faded into the distance. I breathed in the crisp mountain air, and moved on, keeping company with myself and the stillness of everything around me.

I think I walked for a good two hours before I reached the trail head. By this point, the amount of snow had increased a good half-foot or so, in proportion with the altitude. It was a tad disconcerting because I had contacted the weather bureau the week before and at that time apparently nearly all the so had melted; it looked like I brought a cold front of air with me from the north. This was not good.

I took a deep breath, knowing that my backpack was much too heavy for a healthy hike up the mountain side, and my knees were going to pay for it. But since I planned to stay in mountain huts within the mountain range itself, I needed to lug everything up there. I put my feet ahead of me and began the climb. My legs fresh from the couple of good nights of sleep and hitching, I made good time.

That's when I realized I wasn't alone. To my right, across a small ravine and on the bank of a fold in the mountain, I could see two or three kamoshikas; big enough to stop you in your tracks, with eyes which try to stare you down I felt a mutual distrust grow between myself and the animals. They would walk, stop, stare at me and wait for my move. I continued ahead and we kept our distance. Everything seemed fine, and as long as they knew my whereabouts, they would make the effort to keep away. But, like some eerie bringer of fate I came upon a massive tree, its bark stripped bare, from the ground up a good five feet. Whatever did this had paws, claws, and strength; the good old bear, I thought.

In Japan, besides way up north in the eastern areas of the island of Hokkaido, the Asiatic Black Bear is what you're going to run into, if anything. Although it keeps to itself and mainly eats berries and vegetation (you should note that it does it meat, though), it can still grow six feet tall and weigh up to 300 pounds or so in weight. I stood there, looking at the tree for a moment, but couldn't picture a black bear doing this. Too much of the bark had been stripped away. But it couldn't be a brown bear as they aren't found in Shikoku (a grizzly is a sub-species of brown bear, only found in North America), which are known to be more aggressive and much bigger. So that left me with alone with my roaming imagination. In all my hiking travels, I have only come upon a black bear once. It was young, but not a cub. The first thing it did when it saw me was dash back off into the forest. The most important thing to do concerning bears is not to surprise them--hence the bear bells that most "serious" hikers wear. Making noise is probably the best safety measure you can take while hiking, and thus it's a good idea to always hike with someone. In my case, as I often hike alone and don't wear a bear bell, I yell every now and then, before blind curves in the path, and am general mindful of not being quiet. After eying the scalped side of the tree, I made a rather loud noise to let any unknowing animals nearby that I was here then continued ahead.

Mountain climbing is a sport which sneaks up on you. Although I don't consider it a sport, even to this day, as much as a I consider it a lifestyle. I have never been one of those people who live, die, and breathe for the feeling you get from reaching the peak of a mountain after putting in the time, energy and body power that it takes to reach it. But, somewhere along the line finding myself scraping the sky's ceiling, my own two feet and planning being the sole reason I made it there, combined with the surrounding sights gave me such a strong feeling of satisfaction that I hit the foothills of Japan whenever I get the chance. Yet, this feeling is made up of so many other subtle emotions and elements that hiking is something that becomes more of a mindset and way of life than most other sports.

I've played various sports all my life, from volleyball to basketball to ultimate frisbee. But soccer came out on top as my favourite. Competitive sports get the blood and adrenaline going, releases endorphins like any other prolonged physical exercise, giving you that sense of satisfaction that comes with getting your body in shape. Furthermore, working with a team and against another team, winning a game to prove your skill creates a feeling unrivaled. Yet, I think of hiking more in a class of its own, separate from the common term "sport". Hiking is more akin to surfing. This may come as a surprise, but some of my best friends are surfers and although it's true that the rush and sense of adrenaline that a surfer longs for is obviously not found in hiking, both of these sports become an aspect of one's life more than a team or competitive sport does. Of course, if you are a professional athlete you must train daily, eat a specific diet, and your life changes to support your role in this sport. But, if you take hiking or surfing, your purpose is to enjoy an element of the world that has always been there, and to find your place in it. Surfing: the ocean. Hiking: the mountains. And so the environment is perhaps the biggest factor when doing these sports--the surfer and his/her relationship with the water, and the hiker and his/her relationship with the mountains.

Hiking, though, is different because it is such a long activity--hiking for three or four days straight, especially solo, focuses the mind and is a test of endurance, strength, will as well as planning. After awhile of climbing a mountain, you find yourself in a rhythm, completely disconnected from society and its suit-and-tie clock but in tune with your self. Your body is tested on a daily basis to such an extent that all food becomes wonderfully delicious, your mind slowly gets rid of its stresses and worries attached to your city life, and you then begin to become aware of your surroundings more than you do when you're back in the urban salary grind. Cooking becomes a milestone of each day. Simplicities, like boiled rice and miso, becomes gourmet. A cup of instant coffee is the desert of a lifetime. A peanut-butter and banana sandwich is food sent from the gods. It's these small elements which all slowly add up, over the course of your trek which change your perspective on life as well as your lifestyle; what you deem important becomes embedded with the reasons you hike and what hiking means to you. Thus, arriving at your destination after a days of hiking through a remote mountain range, it is not so much an adrenaline rush you get, but the range of feelings you experienced from living solely out of a backpack, carrying everything you need on your own, self-sufficiently, while the whole time your body being the vehicle for any progress made or lack thereof.

And, so time flew by as I put each leg ahead of the other. My mind wandering from thought to thought. I'd stop now and then, drink some water, eat a little food, and be left with nothing else to do but continue ahead. Each bend in the path was a step closer to the top. I had to do up my hood as the wind started to blow harder. I was still hot and sweating beneath my fleece and wind-breaker, though, but knew the moment I stopped moving I'd start to cool off pretty quickly. I continued ahead, and before I knew it, I was at the top of Tsurugi-san--a decent 1954 metres in the sky. As I stood on the top of the mountain and looked around, I saw snow-capped mountains everywhere. The wind was raging now, blowing me in one direction or another. I was a constant standing leaning tower of Piza. My heavy backpack putting me even more off balance. It was barely noon, and if I continued according to plan, I was to hike for another four hours to a remote mountain hut tucked somewhere off in the South-Eastern part of of this mountain range. My fingers tingled with frost, begging the question if I had brought enough warm clothes with me to last through the night at an elevation this high. I stood there, debating my options. I hate turning back--it's a bad characteristic to have as a solo hiker--but my memories returned of the lone hike I did when I lived in Hiroshima and found myself stuck on the top of a mountain in below-freezing weather, trapped in a snow storm which blew in off the Japan sea (click here and scroll down towards the bottom of the page for that experience). Although I had been in a mountain hut at the time, I hadn't been prepared for such a freezing cold night, and even though it was a rookie mistake, the sense of being at complete mercy to a raging snow storm has stayed with me and it was saying something to me as I stood on the top of this mountain deciding whether to continue ahead into the unknown alone or not.

That's when I heard a couple voices from behind me. A man and woman, shielding their faces from the wind were at a near run towards the summit sign to snap off a picture then make their way back down. I could see they had come up here solely to get this shot and were going to shoot it and turn around immediately. My mind started to spin: if I turned around I would have to hike all the back to the base of the mountain then down the road all the way to where the obasan lived who drove me up here. I had seen no cars on the road the entire way up, and it would be a good nine hour walk to anywhere with moving vehicles. I would rather make my way into the mountains than retrace my steps on a road for another day and half. I felt another gust of wind hit me, sending shivers up my spine. I approached the couple before me. They had a car. They were going to be driving out of here. They were headed south--where I wanted to go.

I was at one of those moments where your trip could take on something complete unplanned. I sat there, thought for a second, then decided to see where getting a ride with these two people and the resulting decision would take me. Hitchiking and traveling alone is all about giving yourself up to fate, chance, and the random order of coincidence.

"Would you mind if I got a ride with you?"

"Of course not. But we're going to head down the mountain to the car in a moment."

"Alright, I'll meet you at the parking lot. I'm carrying a lot so it may take a bit longer for me to get there."

"Take your time. We're in no rush." The man talked with confidence, and with a simple air that was refreshing to my ears as it was easy to understand; I was pretty sure he was from Tokyo. He didn't take any notice of my foreign-looks, and said things as a matter of fact. The woman with him simply smiled a warm smile that concealed nothing. I smiled back and bowed.

I had passed the parking lot on my way up. It was near the trail head, next to a temple. I looked back again at the rolling mountain tops, and shrugged the shoulders of my mind. I guess this trip wasn't going to be as much as a mountain hiking expedition as I thought. But, I could see my father approving of the decision I had just made, a decision not to push the limits. My father being a helicopter pilot and doing many search and rescue missions for lost hikers, skiers, snowboarders and outdoor enthusiasts, especially during the winter. It felt strangely mature to make a responsible decision. Perhaps it was one of my first, I thought and chuckled to myself.

I could use a nice warm hot spring soak anyway, I thought. The couple offered to take my picture--one of those classic ones where you stand on the summit next to its sign. I agreed, lent them my camera, then packed it away and began my descent of Katana Mountain. My mind already beginning to picture my map of Shikoku and what destinations lay ahead of me. I still had a good week and a bit of vacation left, and again, I put one foot ahead of the other with no plan and no destination.