Those Days – Japan Trip Day 1: Kamakura Wanderings

August 13th, 2009

The next day I must have been severely jet-lagged because I awoke at the hellishly early hour of 5am. I managed to screw my eyes tightly shut and catnap for another good hour, but the loft in Veronica’s place where I slept was directly under the skylight, making any further attempts at sleep rather futile. I think I facebooked for a few hours while I waited till Veronica finally rose. Since I was already almost noon, and I was leaving for Takamatsu in the western isle of Shikoku early the next morning, we decide to head to the nearby historic temple-strewn town of Kamakura.
This was my third visit to Kamakura, but for me frequency of visits does nothing to lessen the charm and mystery of a place so weighted with centuries of history. Kamakura was once the capital city of Japan and the stately architecture of the traditional Japanese homes and buildings belay its former status.

The blue-tile roof mansions with expansive gardens of maple and shrubs and ponds of ancient koi, the moss covered walls of a stone lined stream, narrow, rambling streets lined with cobblestones, and of course temples and shrines as abundant and numerous as Chinese food in Chinatown. If there is any other city in the world other than the Vatican which sustains its economy from religious devotion, Kamakura comes in a close second.

From August 2009 Japan touchstones

Veronica and I rather aimless wandered through the streets, simultaneously exploring and getting slightly lost (which in my opinion is the same thing.) I kept pinching myself to accept the reality; I’m finally back in Japan~!!! We ended up visiting three or four temples, but only the bamboo garden temple is worth mentioning. The front garden is rather standard, though the sloped pathway one must walk to approach the temple gate gives a visitor the uplifting feeling of leaving ordinary place for holy ground. For me this feeling was confirmed as I passed around to the back grounds of this small temple, and was suddenly met with a deep grove of bamboo, its skyward reaching inviting me to let myself be enveloped in their green wooden embrace. As I proceeded along the cut-stone pathway, I felt like I should not let my voice rise above whisper, lest I disturb the tranquility of this towering bamboo cathedral. On a few stems which leaned close to the path, I could see brown indentations, the marks of thousands of visiting hands. In such a place, I am small; this is the feeling of treading sacred ground.
After our bit of wandering Kamakura’s mainstay, Veronica and I hopped on the old streetcar the Enoden and headed to the nearby beach of Yugihama.
Despite living in San Francisco, I had only been to the beach twice the entire summer, and was dying for chance to don my newly acquired bikini (even if my stomach was not as toned as is proper). Even for a Thursday, the beach was really crowded and it took a bit of asking to find a place to change clothes.
As I strode down the beach, I could feel the eyes of many drawn upward in my direction, I remarked to Veronica how no matter where you go in Japan, as a “gaijin” (foreigner) you are always self conscious, never able to be anonymous, somewhat like a of like a rouge celebrity. Such worries were forgotten in lieu of the pure pleasure of swimming in the warm ocean, the soft waves dancing along with me. The sea of this southward facing bay is very different from the violent sea of the harsh, cold, rough northern California coast.


I kept looking around for any cute guys, but they all seemed have stayed home that day. The memory of man, however, is forever burned into my minds’ eye. He SUPER skinny middle-aged man with long shoulder-length scraggly gray locks. His skin was orange-brown from far too much sun and his small, thin, womanly hips he wore a tighter than flattering shiny HOT PINK SPEEDO. The image of him in my mind makes me giggle even now.
After a short walk down the beach, bought ice creams from the “conbini” Lawsons and sat out front on a bench enjoying the melting flavors of ice cream and a summer early evening… ahhh, after so much hard work this summer to move out and move on, training and preparing, I think this was the first time to sit and purely enjoy time as I lay before me; finally a moment of summer.
As we walked back to the station, the dull ache in my head worsened to full-blown headache and I realized I was probably sun-stoked and dehydrated. But I had to travel 1 hour north to the main railway station at Yokohama to pick up my Japan Rail Pass since I was heading to Takamatsu early the next morning. I managed to grin and bare it through the subway crowded with evening commuters and the busy travel agency packed with Obon travelers. When I finally got back to Yokotsuka, navigated the bus (stopping at Mr. Donuts to pick up my breakfast, though they don’t have my favorite matcha green tea donuts anymore…), it was all I could do to prop myself up long enough to repack my hiking bag, check the time of my train, crawl up the ladder to the loft, and collapse in an exhausted sleep.
My grand-scheme trip awaited… A final thought floated through my mind as I drifted off, “Life is good to those who are patient…”

These Days – Japan Trip Day 0

I was listening to Beatles music this afternoon, searching for good songs to use in my class when I came across one of my most favorite songs, “All My Life”…. “The people and places I’ve known, I’ve loved them all.” I have a pair of big stereo headphones at my desk in the subject teacher’s lounge, and I leaned back in my chair and let the music wash over me, as images of the last couple weeks arise in front of my eyes…. The last couple weeks of adventure, travel, greeting old friends, the many new meetings… there have been more than a few poignant moments which pass by like burst of air carrying away a fallen leaf, threatening to drop out of notice as new day of experiences present themselves.

I catch every leaf memory and preserve them within these pages. Though my ability to quickly acclimatize to a new life seems numb to the new and differentness of life around me, I strive to notice all that occurs around me.

So… these last couple of days and weeks have full of non-stop transporting, traveling, moving, and exploring with little time to properly get my bearings of who’s who and what’s what. My last week at home was insanely busy; actually “busy” does nothing to describe the degree of pressure to accomplish and prepare and double check all which I would need. Every day there was a schedule a mile long, mostly about me worrying about my Japan trip plans. I remember there was so little I knew about what was awaiting me in Korea, there was little I could do to worry about it. So I didn’t worry :)

Japan Day 0 - Aug. 11th

The first leg of my journey with confidence amidst exhaustion; I was pretty sure of where I needed to be, though not entirely certain how I would get there with my 200 lbs of luggage.


On the flight from SF to Tokyo, I was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of a young British guy “John” who was going to teach English in Japan. We were both tired of the hours of sitting and waiting, so we stood in front of the airlock, asked the stewardess from some screwdrivers, and had ourselves an impromptu midflight cocktail party. (We tried to get a Japanese stewardess to join us but she only gave a polite smile and declined.) With John’s help, I managed to get my heavy carry-ons off the plane, wade through the trenches of immigration, and reunite with the other 100 lbs of my life-in-bags. We said our goodbyes at baggage claim and I set my jaw to face my biggest challenge: getting from the airport in Narita to my friend Veronica’s house in Yokotsuka, 3 hours from the airport. I managed fairly well… with my hiking pack strapped to my back, a rolling duffel in one hand and a large suitcase topped a duffel in the other, I huffed and puffed and with the help of station agents somehow got myself from train to train. Once I had to change trains and get my bags up a steep flight of stairs, but I simply turned to an open looking guy about my age, explained my plight and he offered to help me. (Not everyone I met was so willing to help… I had to ask 2 or 3 people before I found someone going my way).
Four hours later, I finally made it to the tiny US military base town of Yokotsuka, where DVC friends Veronica and Saori were there to greet me. I was so happy to be able to spend my first night traveling not in some hostel or hotel, nibbling on granola bars. We were all invited to Saori’s family’s house for a delicious dinner of yakiniku. To come back to Japan and feel at home in a Japanese home was more than I could have asked for.
Veronica and me just chilled and hung out with Saori and family; sitting back watching them watch TV, I had to pinch myself and really ask myself again, “Am I really back here in Japan???”
I was also so lucky Saori’s family came with their car to pick us up, as I don’t think I would have been to manage my luggage up the steep hill to Veronica’s house. A bit more heaving and ho-ing and I finally made it with everything in more or less one piece. It was all I could do to un-strap the pack from my back, crawl up the ladder to thin futon in the loft of Veronica’s studio apartment, and collapse from exhaustion. As I let sleep take me, the question rebounded in my head, “Am I really here….?”