Beppu: For Lovers.

Posted: November 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure, Musings, Purpose, Radio Stuff | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Have you ever longed for the feeling of being a kid again? You know what I’m talking about; youthful vigor and the sense of wonder for the world around you while being deprived of the cares of what responsibilities lay directly ahead of you. That place may be Oita prefecture on Kyūshū Island, Japan. What other place can you visit a town frozen in the 1950’s? How many places allow for an impromptu parade down cobblestone alleyways while two old men serenade you with ancient Japanese guitar and accordion melodies? Where can you see countless hot springs with billowing steam and water with colors ranging from blood-red to turquoise? Where else can you go shopping for your groceries one moment and then the next you’re steam cooking them using natural steam vents in a local woman’s backyard? The answer to those questions is: ‘Not many places’.

Pinocchio and Mrs. Claus' love child!

Well, this was my third weekend in a row to go to Kyūshū, and I was especially excited because we were going to be going to the hot springs capital of the world – Beppu.  My friends here in Japan had talked up this city, as had the travelling book I bought before I came, hailing it as a honeymooner’s destination. On my walk to my local train station early Saturday morning, the air was crisp and the morning sun smiled warmly on me, giving me good vibes for this approaching trip. When my local train arrived at the bullet train terminal, I grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich so I didn’t have to eat some variation of seafood or rice for breakfast with my coworkers. I’m still not used to that. Imagine my surprise when one of the most beautiful girls I’ve seen on my short time on earth, angelically (and in slow motion, somehow) passes right in front of me and shoots me a smile that seemed to say: “I have 5 seconds before I’ll never be in your life again, tell me why that should change”. Now, imagine my dismay when I smiled back like a chipmunk with 30 acorns in his mouth…a mouth full of bacon, egg, cheese, biscuit, and more bacon. Moral of the story…take small bites.

On the shinkansen ride to Kokura station, Taka-san and I reviewed some notes and studied briefly the legendary and historically monumental Usa shrine in Usa-shi that would be our first of many stops on this two-day excursion. When we arrived at Usa shrine, we met with our tour guide and started down a long pathway towards a Torii gate that looked very similar to the one in Miyajima. Much like the last trip, I fell into the quandary of needing to interview and banter with Taka-san while at the same time, try to get great pictures for the HFM webpage. If I lagged behind, the cord from my mic would become taut and befuddle our sound man Kusada-san.  We made it work with some give and take. From what we were told, the Usa shrine was founded somewhere near 708-714 AD, and was the first of over 40,000 Hachiman shrines now in existence. It is the 2nd most prestigious shrine in Japan and still receives Imperial patronage. This wasn’t the first time I was awestruck with the Japanese attention to detail and overall national pride. Everywhere I looked was like a flawless garden. Historical or religious structures are kept pristine, and it almost seems like every blade of grass knows its place…every bush, trimmed to perfection. Another standard I see is that the elderly citizens comprise most of the tour guide force. Almost everywhere we’ve been, our guide has been well over 65, and they take great pride in being able to serve their community and share information with visitors. After we toured the shrine, we took part of a tradition of buying a fortune…or the opportunity for a fortune (some were warnings or curses), and then tethering them together with others. Mine was a warning: “Your current love interest (crush) may be dangerous.” Which makes perfect sense, since my present crush is a Thai gypsy working for a local circus as a knife throwing expert. I mean…tell me something I didn’t already know! Anyway, we had many places to visit during the first day, so we moved on…

The next thing that we did was one of my favorite parts of the trip. There is a giant part of the city we were in called ‘Showa no Machi’. ‘Machi is the Japanese word for ‘city’, ‘no’ is like an apostrophe + s, and ‘showa’ stands for an era of time (1926-1989 AD) where Emperor Hirohito reigned. Obviously many things happened during this period, including: the Second World War, occupation of Japan, the status change of the Emperor from a ‘living god’, and the transformation of Japan into a democracy with a constitutional monarch. As we walked down the cobblestone streets, everywhere I looked had store windows full of retro paraphernalia or movie posters ranging from the late 1920’s to the late 1980’s, mostly from the 50’s and 60’s. The stores were still open for business, selling newer equipment in the back, and displaying nostalgic treasures in the front. The store clerks stood out front to wave to and greet us as we walked by. All of the buildings were from the late 40’s and 50’s and the overall combination of all these things left a mood in the air of a more simple time mixed with an eerie Twilight Zone feeling. We toured candy/toy shops, where most of the candies were also toys, e.g. a bubble gum flavored mint-shaped candy that doubled as an annoying whistle (picture below). In the back of the shop, was a museum of old toys, comics, movie posters, and other collections, while outside the shop were old style cars, a glass bottle Pepsi dispenser and hoards of kids playing with hula-hoops and spinning tops in the courtyard, like they were being paid to be actors…but they weren’t. A little later, a refurbished old bus took us on a more overview-like tour of the area. I had a great time, and felt more like a kid than I had in a while. Showa no Machi was a blast.

That night we headed into Beppu and met up with a couple of tour guides right next to Beppu’s oldest onsen/hotel, which was across the street from Japan’s first, and therefore oldest, arched alleyway. What happened next, was one of those moments that I knew was so special and so unique, that I was intentionally focusing my mind to remember every detail. Pure, unadulterated magic was happening right in front of my eyes as two old men, one in his late 60’s and the other in his 80’s, emerged wearing captain hats holding a guitar and an accordion. A small crowd had gathered at this time and soon we were off. The two captains led the way singing their old Beppu songs down the narrow streets like they had been doing for decades, and I gladly followed suit and soaked up every moment of it.

Oldest onsen in Beppu

First arched alley in Japan

The next day was filled with exploring different parts of Beppu. We spent some time wandering the streets and snapping some pictures, and then around lunch we headed to the local grocery store. I gathered from Taka-san that we would be picking out food that we wanted to have steam cooked, using a natural steam vent from a woman’s back yard. We choose our food, and headed towards her house. When we got there, I saw that she had turned her house into a place of commerce and had drilled down to the water source to use the natural steam to run a steam cooking business. She showed us which food needed to go into which basket, and told us that each kind of food has a certain amount of minutes that it should be steamed. We separated the food into three baskets and put the first basket on the vent, and she pushed a timer. Two minutes later we did it with the second basket, and two minutes after that, we did it again, so that when the timer went off, all the food was ready. Now, being an American, I thought it only proper to choose steak as one of my foods to be steam cooked…but to be honest, I didn’t even know you could steam-cook a steak. As we removed the burlap sacks and wooden tops from the wicker baskets with the food, super hot steam shot up in our faces, and we quickly took the food off the vents. It was all incredibly delicious, except maybe for the banana that we put in for giggles, which had bloated and was literally sweating.

Our final goal of the day was to take the Jigoku (Hell) tour in Beppu. Several different hot springs are on this tour, and it was a little more touristy than the rest of the trip, but still beautiful, nonetheless. We saw hot springs that ranged from bloody colored to turquoise in color, rocks that naturally steamed and a geyser that went off for 5 minutes every 25-30 minutes. Both my manager and myself were snapping pictures like madmen to attempt to capture some of the beauty we were experiencing during this whole tour.

The bamboo stick and basket is someone boiling eggs.

Geyser!

Steaming rocks...

Well, this upcoming weekend will be another business trip to Kyūshū, but this time to Fukuoka. I’m looking forward to sharing that trip with you as well 🙂

Sun setting on Beppu as the steam rises from numerous residential hot springs

Dream Job

Posted: November 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure, Musings, Purpose, Radio Stuff | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

A little over a month ago the president of the Carp (baseball team) had a meeting with my manager, a few other employees, and me about a series of business trips to Kyūshū that he wanted us to go on to help promote travel to that area. This past March, Kyūshū added a bullet train line to Kumamoto, which is a huge deal for an area that already thrives on the tourism generated from Mount Aso and the countless springs and onsens located there.

Yamamoto-bucho, Taka-san, Kusada-san, Nii-san and I arrived at the Shinkansen gate early one evening and immediately Kusada-san started taking sound samples for our radio program special. Part of the job this time was for me to help in the taking of pictures for the HFM website that is going to be featuring this series of trips to Kyūshū, so I started snapping away on my iPhone. Now, I had done interviews before, very many times in fact, but walking and talking with a mic and creating witty banter out of thin air with Taka-san for the next three days was proving to be quite a daunting task, especially with the language barrier.

The first night was spent getting the rental car, eating and then settling into the hotel. 5:00am came very quick, and just like that, we were off on our tour of the Kumamoto/Aso area. The first thing on our ‘list of things to do’ was to visit the biggest natural spring around Mount Aso. On our drive to the spring, the morning clouds spread out like a blanket over the valley below and let the peaks of the mountains bask in the rising sun, while the valleys waited their turn. Our tour guide met us at the welcome cabin and we wandered through a winding garden path with a large stream to our left, and finally entered the fountainhead area…the source of 60 tons of fresh spring water every minute! There were numerous springs where the water burst forth, but one in particular was awe-inspiring; and while no picture could do it justice, we did our best to capture this picturesque spot. Below a few feet of crystal clear water I could see dozens of little volcanoes of gravel, as the water shot up from the earth displacing whatever was directly above it.  We got a few sound bites of Taka-san and I drinking the water directly from the source, and talking about how incredible it was. I, for one, was surprised at how pleasing the temperature was. It was crisp and cool and probably the best water I have ever had the pleasure to drink. I made a joke to Taka that my parents had once told me when I was a child not to drink water from streams, because I didn’t know what was put in it up-stream, e.g. someone adding their ‘water’ to the water; but now I was the one upstream, and in fact, there was no upstream…only a spring of water gushing forth from the earth. I could drink with confidence. I did just that.

We loaded back into the van and started driving directly to Mount Aso. On our drive up the mountain, we stopped twice because…well, the view beckoned us to do so. In stark contrast to my last volcano climbing experience (7-8 hour hike through the night), this time we were able to drive all the way to the top where there was a parking lot and welcome center. Our ‘climb’ up a cement ramp took about 25 seconds, and I we were immediately face to face with the crater of the largest active volcano in Japan. Toxic steam billowed out constantly, and when the wind was to our favor, I could see the pristine turquoise color of the water brewing in the crater. We did some interviews of some of the spectators and gave our own impressions and took a quick look around and were soon on our way to Aso Shrine.

The first thing I noticed was how many children were in Yukata. Yamamoto-san told me that at ages 3, 5, and 7 the children are brought to the shrine for some sort of ceremony. Our tour guide was a 70-year-old volunteer who told us that this shrine boasts a rare two-roof gate, instead of the traditional three-roof gate. It was hard to take pictures there because he kept motioning me to come over to where he was while I was looking for good shots. I’m still amazed at how many rituals there are in this culture. To enter the shrine, one puts 5 yen in a trough, bows, claps twice, bows and prays (or wishes) …the order might be different. At one point, I saw some priest waving a large gold-plated scepter type thing over some children. Pretty standard, really 🙂

Next, of course, was horseback riding at El Patio Ranch. This part of the adventure, I was stoked for. When we arrived, the smell of manure immediately reminded me of the farm where I grew up, as did the dogs who ran to greet us. Riding a horse with a cumbersome recorder strapped to me, while holding a microphone tested my multitasking skills. After my ride-along interview with one of the guides, she asked me if I wanted to get the horse into a run with her. Now, it had been years since I’ve had a horse in anything over a trot, but my manhood was on the line. I dropped the recording equipment off and followed her lead. Running with a horse isn’t a ‘fake it till you make it’ kind of activity, so I was trying my best to recall proper technique while watching closely to how she was riding. Luckily, I did alright and ran Cheyanne about 15 times around the ring. When I got off, I could automatically tell my thighs and lower back would be having a little talk with me later about that little stunt. Taka rode a horse for the first time ever, and did great. I loved seeing him smile from ear to ear. We did some wrap-up interviews and hit the road.

We left the ranch and headed back into town where we took on a new tour guide who showed us around the merchant district of town. I was very impressed by the fact that there were no major restaurant or business chains. Everything was private and had, in most cases, been in a family for generations. We walked into several shops and did interviews and, to my great joy, walked into an akaushi (Red cow) burger shop where the owners were more than happy to provide us with as many free burgers as we could eat. I had two, and I can honestly say this beef was on a different level of freshness than anything I’ve had before. Ever. These cattle roam on the steep mountainsides and drink fresh spring water everyday. A cow’s lifestyle couldn’t get much more healthy than that if they had a gym membership. The rest of the evening consisted of doing literally THE most awkward thing I’ve ever done…interviewing gentleman as they bathed in the onsens. I’m not joking, we would march in…Taka and myself with mics and Kusada-san with his boom mic, and Taka would interview them as they sat there bathing and looking completely sheepish. Apparently, it didn’t strike my co-workers as awkward, but I was acutely aware that I was interviewing naked Japanese men.

Awwwwwkward

When we got to the traditional Japanese hotel we were staying at, I was still stuffed from the two mammoth burgers I’d had a couple of hours earlier. I had no idea that the hotel had prepared a substantial spread of food, and that I would be eating and giving feedback on how it tastes for the program. It was at this point that I remembered that one of my dream jobs was to be able to travel and get paid to critique food and amenities. Never in my life did I imagine myself being able to do that. I guess interviewing old bathing men was my payment to be able to live out that dream. After dinner I went to the onsen in our hotel and later went outside and soaked my feet in a hot spring and read a book in my yukata. That night was filled with a symphony of snores as my three male co-workers and I slept in the same room on futon mattresses on top of tatami mats.

Another early morning, we had to be up at 5:40. We had a quick breakfast and then were picked up by a tour bus that took us on a tour of the Aso mountain range, which is really the remnants of the ring of the original crater left after the mega eruption thousands of years ago. Everyone in the bus had their own winter coat folded and waiting in their seat, and at first I didn’t know why, but later when the roof of the tour bus retracted to give everyone a better view, nobody asked any questions and donned their nifty blue coats quickly. We got a good view of the sunrise and Taka and I shared the view into our mics. Next on the schedule was going to a community festival at Kumamoto and then touring the castle. The festival was fun, and I got a chance to see what a Japanese marching band was like and we also got a private photo-op with Kumamon. (Japan’s most famous ‘regional mascot’) Japan has a mascot for almost everything. Some cities have them, companies, all sports teams… you might think I’m making a gross overgeneralization, but come and see for yourself.

Last but definitely not least, was touring Kumamoto Castle. One of the most famous castles in Japan. We turned a lot of heads marching into such a crowded area with a posse of people recording what we were doing. We had two tour guides during our tour of the castle and it took quite a while to get through the entire thing, but when we got to the main area on the other side of the main structure my heart skipped a beat as I saw men and woman dressed in samurai, ninja, and guard apparel. I HAD to get some awesome pictures. One of my mantras is to ‘never shrink away from an awesome moment’. Once we got our fill of incredible pictures and interviews we went into the main castle. It was magnificent, and one of the most interesting parts was the area where the lord of the castle used to sit while people would come to visit him, or to have tea. It was incredibly ornate, and there were several sections of tatami that one had to cross over before finally arriving to where the lord was. To end our tour, we were given special privileges to go to the level above where the dining area used to be and eat the same meal that used to be served to royalty there hundreds years ago. This area has since been reserved for wealthy individuals to have wedding parties, etc. to gain funds for further reconstruction. Since we are doing a series on promoting travel to this area they allowed us to partake.

Caught a ninja on camera. That's more rare than seeing a unicorn.

Japanese super hero friends

I had an absolutely wonderful time on this business trip, as usual. Since it’s Thanksgiving, it’s even more proper to give God thanks for allowing me such an incredible opportunity to be able to do so many cool things. He truly has blessed me beyond measure in all areas of my life. I wish all my friends and family a happy Thanksgiving, and I’m excited to see you all over the holidays. Take time today to take stock of what God has given you and tell those closest to you how thankful you are for them.

I’m looking forward to posting my most recent new experience of watching Sumo wrestling in Fukuoka as well as attending a home church there. I have another business trip this weekend, which will be my third trip to Kyūshū in three weeks. Thanks for reading 🙂

The Beach.

Posted: November 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure, Musings | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Last week, I got to take part in one of the coolest things I’ve seen here yet. Every year, people from all over the area meet together and go to a selected beach and clean it from all the debris caused by oyster farming. Now, I realize that sounds pretty dreary, and to be honest, when I was staring at this event on my calendar before last week, I was wondering what I had signed up for. I didn’t realize that I would see the true heart of Japan in the process.

Oyster farming is an important business along the coast of Japan, but it unfortunately produces some debris in the water from the equipment that is used. Styrofoam floats as well as plastic and rubber tubing in-between each individual oyster can sometimes come loose and wash to shore. It’s not just a few of these floating oyster harvesters but hundreds, if not thousands. On the ferry ride over to Etajima, the scenery captivated me. There were islands everywhere, jutting out of the water, towering over the docks below and forming a sort of maze. We arrived at around 7:00am and headed to the beach where this year’s ‘HFM Clean Campaign’ would be held. When I first saw the debris, I went white in the face because it was only HFM employees there at this point and the task at hand extremely seemed pretty dire. I knew that there would be others there eventually, but I didn’t know how many. We set up some equipment, and everyone, except me, discussed the schedule for the day, and everyone’s responsibilities. I was briefed a few minutes later that I would be speaking in front of everyone and that the event would start at 9:00.

Between 7:00 and 9:00 people leaked in from everywhere. Some took the ferry over, while others drove or walked from the island we were on. The beach was teeming with people ranging from young to old, and by starting time I was confident that this beach was going to get one heck of a facelift. Luckily, the ‘talking in front of everyone’ was only a brief introduction, and shortly after the introductions were given, we gave the teams of people their instructions, and they were sent to their section of the beach to start picking, sifting, sorting and bagging the endless amount of debris.

The children were given tongs to pick the trash up and most groups had sifters to rid the trash bags of heavy sand. It became clear to me throughout the day that these people take tremendous pride in the way their country looks. They realize that this oyster industry brings commerce to the area, and are willing to give of their time and energy to help do what needs to be done to clean the area. I feel like sometimes in America there is a dichotomy of people who clean beaches and protest the businesses that might negatively contribute the debris, and then there are the people who argue for the rights of the businesses but don’t feel it’s their place to clean the beaches. What I saw happen bridged that gulf; and they are training their children to take pride in not only their nation, but in cleanliness and order and responsibility.

When the time was up, and we had carried the myriad of bags to the collection area, I turned around and saw a different beach than the one I saw in the morning. A co-worker told me that we would now be heading to a Mikan orchard (Mandarin Oranges), where everyone would get their free pick of as many oranges as they wanted (I had four). It was the community’s way of giving back to the volunteers that helped clean the beach. I never cease to be amazed at the generosity, politeness, and overall respect that the Japanese show each other and me. For anyone who gets a chance to visit Japan, I strongly recommend following through. If every country had an ounce of class that the Japanese possess, the world would be a very different place. I strongly believe that.

I’m growing to love nature more and more. It helps that I’m surrounded with beautiful scenery 24/7. For those of you who know me well, know that I’m not a granola-eating tree-hugger or an activist in any capacity on this issue, however; being in Japan has shown me a glimpse of national responsibility. They recycle everything. I would go as far as to say, I’ve only seen a handful of trash cans that aren’t marked with what is supposed to go inside. Most of them say either ‘combustible’ or ‘non-combustible’ at the very least. People tear off labels of bottles, and put the label in one container and the bottle in another. If there is no trashcan in sight, or it’s not the right kind for the trash for the container they see, they will carry it until they find one or put it in their bag until they get home. People also clean their walkways in front of their shops and homes at least a few times a week. I’ve never seen cleaner streets. I guess last week I was reminded that a little bit goes a long way when everyone is giving that same little bit; and that goes for any issue.

The next four weekends, I am traveling for business, and then I am going to New Zealand for a week and finally America to visit for 4 weeks. I can’t wait to see my friends and family for the holidays!