Gaijin Versus the Volcano
This is part 3 of a series of posts retro-blogging my trip to Japan in January.
Tuesday, January 9th
We woke up to the alarm on my rental keitai at 5:30 to blistering heat. For those who don’t know, most places in Japan don’t have central heating and air conditioning. Instead, rooms are often heated individually, with dangerously portable kerosene heaters or wall-mounted electric ones. The wall-mounted variety usually has a remote control so that you can command your private furnace from the comfort of your seat. Unfortunately for me, climate control kanji was a topic covered by neither UNL nor Senshu’s curriculum. When we went to sleep, the heater wasn’t doing anything, so I guessed whatever setting it on was a safe choice. But apparently, I had inadvertently turned it to “wait until 3 a.m., then begin spewing plasma directly from the center of the sun” mode. It got hot.
I did manage to figure heater remote settings out by the end of the trip, by the way.
So we left the hostel with plenty of time to spare, but things went sour from there. At the metro station, the ticket machine ate Mark’s 1000 yen bill without giving him change (for what was probably a 160 yen ticket). Because of that, we missed a train. And the one we got on went the wrong way.
Not having used the metro much previously, I didn’t realize that some (all?) subway stations have separate above-ground entrances depending on which direction you want to go. They do. Being the second-to-last stop on the line, I hoped it would turn out alright: after the last stop, the train would reverse directions and head back. While this was true, I didn’t anticipate there being a 10-minute delay at the end of the line.
By the time we got to Tokyo station, we only had a few minutes to make our shinkansen. Not a chance. Fortunately, I was able to get us new reservations on the next one, which was only a half hour later. Lo, JR pass abuse instance number one.
After that we spent a lot of time riding trains, and it was pretty boring. The only semi-interesting thing to happen was that I figured out how to identify reserved and non-reserved seating on limited express lines. We got to Nagasaki a bit after 4. Knowing museums in Japan (or all museums for that matter) like to close up early, I immediately started trying to figure out how to get to the A-Bomb Museum by examining the map by the station.
It was at this point that I heard a voice behind me call out “Harro!” It was the distinct sound of a non-English speaker saying hello to a foreigner. I turned to see a Japanese guy beaming at me. Looked to be about college-student-age. “Harro!” again. I said hello back somewhat hesitantly, half-expecting him to try and sell me something. Well, it quickly became obvious that his goal was to just to practice his English… but not to actually sustain his half of a conversation. So I took advantage of the situation and asked him how to get to the museum. Pardon the shifts of tense as I tell this story.
“Eh?” He cocked his head in that failure-to-parse sort of way that people do when they can’t quite comprehend something in a foreign language. I’ve used it many times myself.
I defaulted to Japanese and repeated my question. “Eh?” again. No head cocking this time. Did I get the word for museum wrong? I simplified the questioning a bit. “Do you know about the museum?”
“Museum?” Clearly not. “I don’t think there’s a museum here.”
“I’m pretty sure there is.” He furrowed his brow to ponder this information. At this point my impatience began to overpower my sense of obligation to give this guy a meaningful conversation.
“It has stuff from the war,” I sputtered out. I couldn’t remember the Japanese name of World War II. But surely that would be clue enough, right? I mean, it’s Nagasaki!
“Ahh…” He seemed to be coming around. “I don’t think there is anything like that here.”
Are you serious? This man, more than likely a native of Nagasaki, does not know about the A-Bomb museum there? The Peace Park? Nothing?!? What do they teach these kids in school? Unfortunately, I had neither the patience nor the vocabulary to give a history lesson, so I began looking for ways to truncate the conversation.
I glanced at Mark, who of course had caught nothing since my initial questioning. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Apparently Mr. Oblivious understood that much at least, because he laughed. Well, I’m glad he at least enjoyed that much of our little talk. After that I took a moment to collect myself and formed an exit strategy. I pointed to the information booth on the other side of the station entrance and said, “Well, they will probably have information about it over there, so I am going to go investigate… Bye!” I began walking backwards as I said it, and turned around just as I finished so that he wouldn’t have a chance to respond. Mark apparently caught the meaning of my body language and followed suit.
Sure enough, the information desk was able to give us a map, directions, and tell us the museum’s hours. When we came back out, our talkative little friend was gone. I still feel kind of bad for blowing him off, but God damn it, we were in a hurry and he was totally unhelpful! And I can’t believe he didn’t think Nagasaki had any sort of war memorials!
So we took the tram out to the A-Bomb museum and did that first. Having been to Hiroshima 2 years prior, I was actually disappointed in Nagasaki’s museum. I had heard it better than Hiroshima (more gruesome in particular), but it was certainly not. Maybe it just didn’t have that first-visit shock value, but I found it boring compared to Hiroshima. The one thing it did have going for it was more items that survived the blast on display, and more pictures of people’s nasty wounds.
Afterwards we walked around the Peace Park until it got dark. Nagasaki has a very large statue and fountains in its park, which were pretty cool. I don’t know if it stands up against Hiroshima’s Peace Park with the eternal flame and stuff, but at that point I was tired and it was getting cold and dark out, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.
When we got back to Fukuoka we had some trouble finding our hostel. The map was awful. We eventually got help from a local (who was extremely nice and even walked with us part of the way!), who also had some trouble figuring our map out. By the time we were there and unpacked it was pretty late so we just grabbed some food from a conbini for supper. Later we discovered that the yukata at this particular hostel included a jacket part. So being the mature adults we are, we put those on and posed for a bunch of ridiculous photos.
Wednesday, January 10th
Today we made a day trip to Mt. Aso, the largest volcano in Japan. My original intention was to visit Aso in the late morning or early afternoon, and stop in Kumamoto on the way back. But a late start coupled with difficulties in navigating the trains made things turn out differently.
First thing in the morning, we went down to shower and check on the breakfast situation. Well, apparently our ryokan was a little more traditional that I’d have preferred, as there was no hot water. Mark attempted a quick cold shower, but I decided to rough it and go without, since we were mainly going to be walking around outside and wouldn’t see anyone I know anyhow.
So we got to the train station (carefully memorizing our route) and I managed to identify the Tokkyuu Relay Ariake which would get us as far as Kumamoto. It was leaving in 20 minutes. Then I realized I’d left my rail pass back at the ryokan. We rushed back, but only had about 8 minutes from the hostel to catch the train. We decided instead to go leisurely by way of a nearby temple. Took some pictures as well.
The next Ariake didn’t leave for about an hour, but after talking to the station master (which went well, I must say) I found out we could take the Tokkyuu Relay Tsubame instead, which was headed for Kagoshima but did stop in Kumamoto.
Using my newfound ability to identify non-reserved seating, we got to Kumamoto without incident. Unfortunately, from there I became thoroughly confused about how to get to Aso. The station master explained to me that a local train would be faster than waiting for the next tokkyuu (which only runs like 4 times a day). I tried to ask about what transfers were necessary, but… well, that conversation didn’t go so well. Eventually I got her to write down (with furigana, thank goodness) that we needed to transfer in Higoozu.
So we went to platform—get this—0a, and boarded—wait, it gets better—a diesel train. Hello, inaka! At Higoozu I just used a process of elimination to find our train: there were two platforms, and one of them had the train we came in on (ours was bound for Miyaji, a couple stations beyond Aso). This train was even stranger. It looked nice and new, and had forward facing seats (which were reversible) and an electric next station marquee. But what it didn’t have was a placard with all the lines’ stations on it! And the noisy-ass diesel engine made the announcements almost impossible to hear. I had to pay attention the whole way to be sure and catch when Aso came up.
The ride through inaka Kyushu was slow, but the scenery was beautiful. Our train sort of zig-zagged up the mountain between a couple stations, and at one point we stopped in the middle of nowhere, and the conductor actually walked the length of the train to the other end, then took us up in the other direction on a different track.
Eventually we arrived at Aso. The station was cho-inaka! No electric wickets; just a station master waiting at the station’s wooden sliding doors (and grinning from ear-to-ear for some reason—I guess he likes his job).
Outside the town’s barrenness reminded me very much of my own inaka hometown. We went into the visitor information center near the station, and I prepared some set phrases in my mind in anticipation of the need to use Japanese. When the lady at the info desk saw us, she said “English, yes?” I breathed a sigh of relief and said yes. But before I could get another word out, she directed me towards a little TV monitor and webcam setup they had on the counter. Apparently she didn’t actually speak English—they had some sort of fancy videoconference translation service going. I would say something to the woman on the monitor, then she would regurgitate it in Japanese for the desk worker, and vice versa. It was actually kind of a neat system, but had I known that was what “English, yes?” entailed, I would have definitely opted for no. It took forever too, and by the time we had gotten all the information we needed we had only 5 minutes to catch the bus! Not that that was a problem, since the bus stop was at the station 100 yards away.
The ride up was long and boring. Being the last bus up the mountain, other riders were scarce; in fact there was only one other guy riding. This guy, whom I will henceforth refer to as Other Guy, went all the way up and down by himself, and for a while I thought he was stalking us, since we kept seeing him. He’s in a bunch of our pictures too. I kind of wonder why he was visiting the volcano all by himself, and why he was doing so so late in the day. Other Guy, if you’re out there, shoot me an email or leave a comment!
At the top, we found ourselves among a massive group of Chinese tourists in line for the ropeway to the peak. It became immediately obvious that we were a source of much amusement to them. It also became obvious that they were racist dicks. When our cable car came, the line had worked out such that we were the first ones in. Naturally, we went to the front for the best view. As everyone filed in, the car got a little front-heavy (because everyone else was going to the front too, of course), and so some old Chinese guy yelled at me to move to the back. I did, but then like 4 or 5 Chinese people just shoved their way to the front right where we had been standing! And when the car got full it was standing room only, so it’s not like it even mattered! He had clearly yelled at me just so that his Chinese buddies could go stand up front! Looking back on it, it was a very Rosa Parks-esque scenario. I wish I had held my ground; I could have started a civil rights movement for the gaijin of rural Japan! (Probably not, especially since I was dealing with Chinese people, not Japanese. But still!)
The peak of the volcano absolutely reeked of sulfur. From the observation deck we could see the fumes pouring out of the crater. It was actually pretty impressive, despite there being no lava, or ash, or giant eye of Sauron, or any of that brand of excitement. It was also cold as hell. This was easily the coldest place I visited in Japan.
After no more than a couple minutes of pictures and freezing our asses off, the wind shifted, and the giant plumes of sulfur started wafting towards us. It was kind of scary for a minute, but it turned out God was smiling on me: the cloud moved over the far part of the observation deck first, totally engulfing the mass of Chinese tourists. The Japanese staff quickly made an announcement about the danger and herded everyone down, but the damage was done. People were coughing like crazy (myself included; that shit was nasty) on the way down.
Back at the ropeway station, we sat around in the gift shop for about 20 minutes waiting for the last bus down. I almost bought some weird food (some kind of seaweed I think, but I have no idea why they would be selling that on a volcano nowhere near the ocean) omiyage just to kill some time. A few more people on the bus this time, including Other Guy of course.
On the train ride back I noticed that these inaka trains had a weird ticket system. Which is to say, no tickets at all in some cases. The tiniest “stations” we stopped at were little more than a roof and bench, without so much as a wicket or a single employee. At the front of the car there was an electric price display board, like I’ve seen on buses before. When people got off at one of the tiny ekis, they’d go pay a guy standing by it. I have no idea how it all worked out, and I’m glad didn’t have to deal with it.
Back in Fukuoka we made it another conbini night, which was fine by me as it was tasty and cheap. Plus I had still not satiated my craving for melon pan, so it all worked out.