Osaka to Shimane, Day 1: Hyogo

As usual, the first day of our bike tour, started promisingly if far later in the day than we’d planned.  The first leg of the day was an exercise in urban sprawl that carried us from the port ward of Osaka through the no-man’s-land between Osaka and Kobe.  Caught between two metropolises, we spent an hour passing alleys, warehouses, bypasses and elevated highways: all the signs of a great city, but no people, no houses.  Against our better judgment, we took our loaded bikes onto one of the expressways, the speedy if dangerous alternative to riding many kilometers out of our way to one of the few pedestrian bridges.

By midday, we had made it to Takarazuka.  We have some history with this oddly Europe-y-looking city, having visited it twice to see performances by the all-female Takarazuka Revue.  This bizarre institution puts on huge, lavish musical performances of Japanese and Western stories set to original (super unimpressive) music with all-female casts, and the performers who play the male roles have cultish followings among their female fans.  We saw their performance of “Romeo and Juliet,” where two of the songs were titled “I am Scared” and “I am Tybalt,” just to give you some idea.  Every show ends with all of the characters, even the ones who have died, returning to the stage in front of a row of lit-up stairs to do kicklines and sing for awhile longer.  Some of them wear elephant-sized feathery cloaks.  Sometimes there’s breakdancing.  It’s amazing, is what I’m telling you.

Past Takarazuka it was up the mountains.  These mountains were familiar to us as well: we had hiked through the abandoned train tunnels that wound their way through them last August.  The mountain pass lost some of its charm when we were carrying all our worldly possessions, sadly.

Now, pushing our bikes up the endless slope, we found ourselves walking alongside an unending line of stopped cars.  It seemed the Golden Week crowd was heading home after the first long weekend.  The traffic continued for the next nine kilometers that we pushed, winding our way up and up and up.  We kept reminding one another that, as thankless and tiresome and pushing was, at least we weren’t the poor schmucks stuck in traffic for four hours.

The sun sets faster in the mountains.  Before long it was dark, and we took our bikes up onto the sidewalk for safety’s sake.  On a dizzying series of switchbacks that cut their way up the darkening mountain, the parade of taillights glowing at our side, the sidewalk began to grow narrower and narrower.  The railings on either side pressed us in, eventually getting both of our bikes stuck.  We were able to squirm free eventually, but by then it had grown completely black.

There we were, at the top of a mountain (or probably not, as we had been figuring we were almost at the summit constantly for the previous three hours), with no plans for camping and no food except for pasta and a package of quick-cook lentils.  Amazingly, we found a tiny neighborhood park there, just off the road, and we considered this offering from the Travel Gods.  Should we free camp there, several kilometers before our intended goal for the day?  On the one hand, the park was unlit, out of view of the road, and in a quiet neighborhood unlikely to have much late-night traffic, all of which meant good times for free camping.  On the other hand, we didn’t have anything for the next day’s breakfast, and there was no bathroom in the park (which became much more important if we ate lentils for dinner).

Grimly, we decided to press on, and as we pushed uphill for another hour, we cursed our hubris at rejecting the Travel Gods’ blessing.  Eventually, though, it seems we had passed Their test, as the slope finally turned downward, and we coasted right to the park where we had intended to camp after all, which proved to be right by that great spirit-lifer, a Lawson Station.  We got our tent up just before it started raining.

Return to Bike Touring

It was now officially time to bid goodbye to Osaka.  As we ate our burritos at El Zocalo, I felt like a thief, a damn liar, and worst of all, a guy who hangs around the high school well after graduation.  We had already bid fond, tearful farewells to our friends (and the friendly staff of El Zocalo) eight months before when we left our jobs, our apartment and our lives in Osaka.  There were final nights out at karaoke, dinners, parties, and promises to have more fun on our return in December.  Then, after our California adventure, we made a triumphant return to Osaka just in time for Christmas.  We tore up the town and were met with warm wishes, lots of drinks, and free lodging from all of our friends.  Tearfully, we wondered why we ever left, and celebrated for two weeks with karaoke, dinners, parties, and promises to have still more fun on our return in March (and nostalgic burritos).

March came quickly, and once again we were greeted warmly by our friends, who still wondered aloud why we ever left, if slightly less enthusiastically than before.  Karaoke, etc., and great fun with great people, but that reality started to set in as we were spotted yet again in El Zocalo, explaining to the staff that, yes, we did go back to America and no, we still don't live in Osaka, we're just...passing through town kinda often.

Now it was the end of April, and our fifth time in Osaka since leaving the country eight months before.  Five burritos in eight months was a bit low for our average, but still enough to feel that we had never left.  By now, our oldest friends in Japan had left for other cities, other countries, and here we were again, having a blast, visiting with some amazing people, but wondering not why we ever left but if in fact we ever did.  It was time to get back on the road.

We have until June 4th to, in visa terms, gtfo of Japan before being tossed out by our collars and the seats of our pants.  In that time, we wanted more cycling, more WWOOFing, and no mountains.  We would get two of these three.


View Larger Map

This time, we would be crossing central Honshu the only way we could: pushing our bikes up more damn mountains.  After revisiting Takarazuka and, eventually, Tottori, we would follow the northwest coast of the island to Hamada, where we intend to WWOOF at some kind of artist's village/cafe/campground/organic farm.  From there, it's a quick (hopefully) ride to Shimonoseki, where we'll hop a ferry for Korea just ahead of the expiration of our visas at the beginning of June.  From there, we bike and WWOOF in Korea until our jobs (TBD) start up, when this blog will transmogrify back into an account of the day-to-day struggles of EFL teachers dealing with wacky students and cross-cultural kerfuffles.

There is, unfortunately, a dearth of information about biking across Honshu, so we've had to put together our own itinerary.  Google Maps is happy to plan out our route for us so long as we pretend that we're a car, which, despite the fact that we have four wheels, brakes, and several hundred pounds of attitude, we are not.  Will our sticktoitiveness and notgiveupedness carry us across this country?  Only time will tell.  Also, we have Clif Bars.

We left town after only a weekend in Osaka, stopping only to rest, tune up our bikes, and spend time with the inimitable Ellie Streichholz:

Setsukeian 3: 行って来ます！

Our last day at Setsukeian was a tearful one.  Kei-san burst into the computer room while we were still clicking away, hoping to make a job appear, only to scowl, then admonish us in English, "Hey!  Good WWOOFers."  He laughed, then closed the door, leaving us severely confused.  It turned out that he had wanted us to sign the Setsukeian guest book.  We had learned to read his moods well in the previous weeks: when he frowned, which was often, he is an imposing figure indeed, full of skepticism and irritation.  When he smiles, though, it's a thing of beauty...

Oh, no wait, that's me I'm thinking of.

On our final evening, Kei-san taught us a couple of traditional Japanese New Year's games, which can best be described as "like pin the tail on the donkey, but with faces" and "exactly Parcheesi."  I won.

It was hard to say goodbye to Kei-san and Setsu-san.  Setsu-san, despite having to do all of the farm's domestic chores on her own, with neither help nor appreciation from Kei-san, is a fantastic individual.  She can juggle, she keeps a loom in the closet (for emergency weaving), she makes her own clothes, she keeps the farm running with a smile, and she kept singing some AKB48 song and doing the official AKB dance, which may have tied that teacup bunny for Cutest Thing Evar.  When one of us (and then the other) fell ill, it was farm policy for Setsu-san to give us a full-body massage.  I laid on the floor cushions hesitantly, then gasped as fingers rapidly popped and stretched spots that I didn't know my body had.  Setsu-san has the strongest hands of anyone I've ever met, and I would put money on her in a Thumb War any day.

It was hard reconciling just how relentlessly kind and cheerful Setsu-san is with the somewhat crummy deal she seems to get.  One night over dinner, she explained to us that she really didn't like cooking until they started to get WWOOFers at the house.  Kei-san interrupted at this point, explaining between mouthfuls of miso soup that Setsu-san likes cooking for appreciative eaters; at their home in Tokyo, she would cook every meal for the family, and never would she get so much as a word of compliment.  Jenn and I wondered at Kei-san's simultaneous awareness of his wife's underappreciation and decision not to do anything to fix that.

When it came time for us to leave, Kei-san took us down to the bus stop in the truck first thing in the morning.  Setsu-san first shook our hands, then, incredibly she hugged us goodbye.  We hugged her back, trying to summon the words in Japanese for a situation we had never encountered before; hugs are rare enough in Japan that many of Jenn's students wrote identical essays describing how moved they were by getting hugs from their host families during exchange programs when their own parents had never hugged them before.  Now Setsu-san was shouting "Come back soon!" and waving goodbye to us as the house slowly disappeared in the rear-view mirrors.  Jenn held her own hand to keep herself from crying.  Kei-san explained to us on the drive that he would also be shouting farewells to us until we could no longer see him from the bus, but that we should wave back anyway.  When the bus pulled away, we heard his voice shouting farewells to us until we could no longer see him down the mountain road.

What did we learn at Setsukeian?  Among other things, we learned that hard work (contrary to popular assumptions) won't kill us, though it will make us kinda irritable.  We also reaffirmed what we'd already known: that Japanese people are some of the nicest, most welcoming folks in the world.  Sure, we had some moments of culture shock, moments where if we had to listen to Kei-san complain about how kids today are so for shit, they don't even known how to use chopsticks (I mean, really?), we might've lost it.  We continue to thank our lucky stars every day that we weren't born female in Japan.  But for all of that, we still feel lucky to be a part of this family.  This crazy, strict, conservative, 500-member family.  And we will be back someday.

Setsukeian 2: A Day in the Life

Pictured at right: the guest house where we slept.  Not pictured: coffee.

At 6:30 every morning, we awoke just in time to hit snooze and sleep until 6:55, which left us precisely enough time to throw our futons into the closet and stumble downstairs to report for duty.  We were expected to be ready at 7:00 sharp to undertake our vital morning tasks: while one of us would help Setsu-san in the kitchen and begin the lengthy table-setting ritual, the other would clean the toilet and feed the chickens.

Now, you may mock me for this, gentle reader, but I'm a little afraid of chickens.  I will point out, as I often have, that from the drumstick down they are in fact dinosaurs.  Still, I developed quite a rapport with these two chickens, especially since Kei-san let me use a giant stick to fend them away (to my delight, I found that I had already learned the word for "defense stick," bo, not during my lengthy study of Japanese but in my lengthier study of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).  The pair looked pretty lonely in their big coop all alone, especially when Kei-san told us of their tumultuous life history that involved their mates being exsanguinated in weasel attacks and injuries sustained during sex, which explained why the rooster and hen were kept in separate pens.

By 7:30, breakfast was ready, and it consisted unvaryingly of toasted white bread, a salad frequently made of the previous night's leftovers, miso soup, and mayonnaise and jellied seaweed (for the bread).  Please note the complete absence of coffee.  We four ate family style in the dining room, Kei-san having arrived from his morning visit to the neighborhood temple just in time to dig in (funny how his luck always held out on that front).  Indeed, we felt very much like family during our two weeks on the farm, right down to lively conversations over meals and frequent scoldings for doing our chores improperly.  These familial feelings only waned when we thought of how we were Setsukeian's 482nd and 483rd WWOOFers respectively; we found ourselves irrationally jealous of our 481 siblings, though we were also comforted with the knowledge that there was no way we could be the most inept WWOOFers they'd ever had.

When breakfast was finished and the dishes were washed, we hurriedly changed into our "working wear" to get ready for our first three-hour shift at 8:30.  Our working wear was no less crummy than our "room wear," you understand, as our glamorous life of bike touring only left us room for three shirts apiece.  Still, Kei-san was adamant, and when he would see us sneaking up to our bedroom for a quick nap in our working wear, he would chastise us heartily, claiming that we would dirty up our room with outside-dirt.

Here Harry is heartily enjoying one of our many break times.

We labored from 8:30 until noon, with a half-hour break for tea and sweets at 10.  Our tasks varied from day to day, but they were always oddly gendered, something for which we were unprepared.  While I was sent to cut the crass, hack bits of wood into smaller bits of wood, whack rice into giant globs of mochi, or do other heavy lifting, Jenn was put to work sorting rice, sorting beans, kneading bread, or even sewing applique.  Being enlightened 21st-century folk, we had figured that every WWOOFer would be put to hard labor; it was difficult being cool with the assumption that I would be stronger and fitter than Jenn purely based on my possession of a certain quantity of testicles (which, frankly, were pretty unhelpful for most tasks).

I did this with my testosterone.

Lunch was eaten outside during good weather, probably to avoid having us change back into our room wear in order to help Setsu-san in the kitchen.  It was always delicious and extremely starchy, usually either udon soup with rice, ramen with rice, or grilled rice balls.  By the time we finished with lunch, we had just enough time to pass out from caffeine withdrawal before getting back to work for the afternoon.  I was put again to the hard stuff: harvesting field greens, building a playground out of wood, planting rice, spitting, etc..  Meanwhile, Jenn was weeding the garden or sorting more rice, all the while thinking of all the books she read as a child that featured 19th-century farm girls doing needlework and longing to be outside with the boys.

Traditionally gendered divisions of labor make Jenn FURIOUS.

From 5 until 6:30, we were allowed to take showers and use the Internet, though not usually at the same time.  Of course, since by this point we were frantically looking for jobs online, our rest time usually was squandered on scouring job boards and other nonsense.  The rest of the evening was spent helping Setsu-san in the kitchen (not that she needed any real help), eating her amazing meals, generally being impressed with her, and then passing the fuck out at 8:30.

This routine was always the same save for special events such as the appearance of a corgi-sized tanooki that bounded down the path and under the house in broad daylight.  One night, the guest house was reserved by customers, visitors who had WWOOFed at Setsukeian years before and had since gotten married and had a baby.  The promise of a change, of visitors coming, filled us with bizarre excitement, and again we felt connected to all of the books we had read about 19th-century American farmsteaders.  We left the farm only once, our holiday, to go into Kyoto to visit the monthly flea market that commemorates the death of Kobo Daishi, a revered figure in Zen Buddhism who apparently had a fondness for good deals and fried food.  Of course, we were free to go out whenever we wanted, but the nightlife of Nantan was a little much for our blood:

"On break/vacation."

The main drag of Nantan City.

Setsukeian: Garden in the Dirt

Two things were counted against us on the morning of April 13th when we were preparing to leave for our first WWOOF experience in the mountains of Kyoto: first, April 12th happens to be a very special gaijin's birthday, and we had spent the evening wiling away the hours with friends, discussing the lesser works of Virgil over brandy and cigars; second, there was an earthquake at 5 a.m. that morning, as unmistakable a sign from the travel gods as ever you will see.  Of course, we hadn't left karaoke the discussion salon until 3:30, so by 5 we were unconscious and not even aware of the earthquake, but it seemed as good an excuse as any to sleep in.  Thus, rather than a breakneck 3-day ride through the city and the mountains to get to our host, we elected to stay in the Big O for a few more days, enjoying the company of good friends and more karaoke, before taking a series of trains and buses to our first organic farm, Setsukeian.

Three days later than we planned to leave, we still managed to miss our train.  This was our first train voyage in awhile, and it was odd to have no recourse when running late except to try to will the trains to move faster with the power of one's mind.  We did pass a few hours staring out the train windows and thinking about how fantastic a bike ride it would have been, though.  We also spent a good deal of time thinking about what life on the farm would be like.  Though both of us are children of the Midwest and avid lovers of corn, wheat, and other boring shit, neither of us had worked on a farm before.  Indeed, we had a perfect track record of killing every plant we had attempted to raise, although we had nurtured several hearty species of fungus on our bath mat.  Also, I'm afraid of bugs, dirt, and hard work in general.  It's a condition.  Indeed, it was something of a modern mystery why we had registered for WWOOF (which, again, stands for WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms, one of the most arbitrary acronyms on Earth).  No matter how we took to this work, we would surely learn something, whether it be how to eke out a living from mud, sticks, and other organic things, or just that we really don't like farm work.

When our bus pulled up to the stop, we were greeted by an extremely healthy-looking bald man, who greeted us with, "おかえり！" (roughly, "welcome back").  He drove us and our bags (which in this case included only the essentials: clothes, a can of macadamia nuts, and our viola and ukulele) up the hill to the farm where we would be staying for the next two weeks.

Later, Kei-san would tell me that this small road that ran past their house had been there for hundreds of years, and could be seen even on ancient maps.  Merchants would carry baskets of fish on their backs from the Sea of Japan through the mountains to Kyoto, then trek back with armfuls of silk.  Made us feel lamer than ever for taking the bus.

Setsukeian is a couple of small houses decked out in wickerware, artwork, and assorted farm implements.  Our host, Kei-san, sat us down at the small outdoor table while his wife, Setsu-san, brought us tea and welcomed us warmly.  While Kei-san shuffled through some preliminary paperwork, we looked at the names of WWOOFers past scrawled on various projects: Matthias had made the wooden pavillion, David the stone oven.

Hidden throughout the house were these images of monks, all made by their middle son, Saboten (which means "cactus," and which I was a little disappointed to find is a pen name).

Kei-san, relieved to discover that we spoke enough Japanese to get by, ran us through our daily schedules (more on this tomorrow) and the rules of the house, which I shall reprint in their entirety:

1. Please be on time for all assigned duties.
2. Men: please pee sitting down.

We would discover, of course, that there were far, far more rules than these.  In general, we were expected to "work" for six hours a day, as is standard for WWOOF, plus we were expected to help with dishes and food prep.  Cooking and washing the dishes, to my amazement, is not "work."  Still, we signed our permits and dropped off our things in our room in the guest house, then were put to work at once.  Jenn was tasked with sorting rice, one grain at a time, into three piles (seeds, broken pieces, and other), while I was sent to the rice field to gather a wild green called "seri."  Kei-san drove me down to the three fields that make up Setsukeian and explained to me, "Everyone else just kills seri with pesticides, they think it's a weed.  But that's me.  Whatever everyone else does, I don't do, and whatever nobody does, I do."

Kei-san handed me two plastic shopping bags and a pair of scissors, brought me to a spot that was dappled with green, then demonstrated how to harvest seri.  When he was convinced that I understood and was unlikely to slice off my own fingers, he left me to my own.  "So first I should do this field, and then the other two, right?" I asked.  He rolled his eyes and nodded, then drove off.  For three hours I squatted in the dirt, never once leaving the same small section of the first field.  Somehow the herbs which seemed so small and scattered multiplied as I began plucking them one by one, gradually filling the shopping bags as I grew tired and mud-covered.

At last it was quitting time; the town PA system began playing "Moon River," and I hiked back up the road to the farm.  My back was aching, my fingers cold and sore.  Clearly, I deserved a medal for such labor, or at least the rest of the day off.  For the first time, I think I might have understood the mind that created country music.  Of course, when I arrived back at the farm, it was time to change into my non-work clothes and help Setsu-san cook dinner.  Just as I had rolled up my sleeves and was ready to show my culinary prowess, Kei-san called me away to teach me the proper way to set the table.

Kei-san surveys his domain.

Setsu-san.  One day I would like to be as badass as a 60-year-old Japanese woman.

There is no flow chart big enough to contain the Setsukeian art of table-setting.  Each floor cushion, you see, must have its zipper oriented in a very particular direction.  When serving, Kei-san must be served first, followed by me (as a man, natch), then Jenn, then Setsu-san last.  There is no room for fucking around on this point.  First, of course, food has to be offered for Buddha, small portions of whatever the family is eating, excepting meat or fish, as Buddha is vegetarian; after we've begun eating, then it's OK to eat Buddha's food (he's the forgiving sort, evidently).  Each dish must be arranged in such a way to make a pleasing geometric pattern at each table setting.

Against my better judgment, I started to rankle at all of this instruction.  I toiled in the field, I helped with dinner.  We barely do dishes more than twice a week at our own home.  What's wrong with just sitting down and eating your damn food?  A few bites of Setsu-san's cooking, though, and all was right with the world again.  We had finished dinner and the dishes by 8, and were asleep in our room by 8:30, conked out even before we could confer about how the day had gone or how we would get through another two weeks.  Which would win out, our gaijin openness to new experiences or our Amurican pig-headed individualism, our Puritan work ethic or our natural hippie laziness?

Return to Shikoku: (More Than One) Day in Photos

The last of the sakura, still blooming on Ommishima.

At the very top of that mountain, children, is the very site to which we pushed our bikes, the place where we weathered a storm and a crow took my goddamn gyoza.

We dined like kings on Ommishima, where the speciality is a kind of fish known in English as "convict grouper."  Bon appetit!

We did not take advantage of the Kaido's many offers of a cup of pee.

Strange omens, indeed.

The sign that graced every one of those bridges.  A pun of sorts.  That anguished boat became a familiar friend by the end of our trip.

Shimanami Kaido 3: If You Travel Far Enough, Sooner Or Later You'll Meet A Kiwi

The tent was full to bursting with the smell of unwashed cyclists.  The only speck of food that hadn’t yet been eaten (by us or by crows) was two packets of spicy mustard and three dozen teabags.  It was time to take our leave of this horrible place.

Also, by this point Harry really was starting to need a shower.

We made it back to sea level in distressingly little time and pried our fingers off the brakes just long enough to eat a massive lunch at a supermarket at the foot of the mountain.  Protip for those of you considering cycling in Japan: conbinis are extremely convenient (hence the name), but they will drain your wallet quickly and fill your stomach with food of questionable nutritional value.  Supermarkets are less plentiful, certainly, and less likely to have WiFi, but their bentos are typically cheaper and fresher than their 7-11 or Lawson equivalent.

Our bellies full, we hurried on, passing over Oshima, Hakatashima, Ommishima.  Each bridge was an exercise in frustration on the way up, with spiraling cycle paths steadily climbing into the troposphere.  Then, on the way down, no matter how tired we were, neither of us could resist saying “Wheeeeeeee.”

Found by the side of the road on Ikuchishima.  Almost assuredly a disused time machine.

Caution: Pumbaa.

We paused only to take photos or meals or breaks.  Before long, we found ourselves at another campsite, this one nestled in a coastal valley, unreachable by car.  There, we met some very rare creatures indeed: fellow cycle tourists.  Davide and Thijs (I dare you to guess which of these names is deemed acceptable by Autocorrect) had already started the party with a box of sake, and we joined in with our beer and instruments.  By the time it had grown dark, we four had a nabe party ending with Davide’s speciality, fire-grilled mochi, dipped in soy sauce and sugar.  We retired to the tent like kings: dead drunk.

The following morning, we rode the final leg of the Kaido, skipping over another island to take a look at mainland Honshu.  Unfortunately, contrary to our understanding of the whole “bicycle route” business, the only way to set foot on Honshu was to take a ferry across the final 50 meter canal.  We shook our fists at such an indignity and promptly turned back towards Shikoku, where we had purchased ferry tickets to take us back to Osaka four days hence.

We have nothing for you but ferocious selfies, Honshu.

On the way back, we passed by our campsite, which was still vigilantly guarded by the fierce Dinosaurus.

More Haps

We interrupt this wildly out-of-date account of our activities to bring you a more timely update:

I type this hundreds of kilometers and dozens of days from the Shimanami Kaido, hiding from the rain in a Lawson conbini somewhere in the mountains of Hyogo prefecture.  Since you've last heard from us, Jenn and I have done the Kaido up and down, caught a ferry back to Osaka, toiled on an organic farm for two weeks, and begun another bike trip.  Also, we've finally run the numbers on the Plan, and have since found a slight flaw in its design: we've run out of money a bit faster than we'd thought we might.  There are reasons for this, naturally, but for the purposes of space and ego, let's just write it off as "witchcraft."

So, rather than working for the summer in Korea to replenish our coffers (we've been informed that the job we'd been planning to return to won't have us back due to visa-related reasons), we've begun the process of applying for any job we can find in East Asia.  We've interviewed with kindergartens in Hong Kong, conversation schools in Vietnam, universities in Korea, and Disney-owned Mandatory English Fun Centers in China.  I think we're getting close to finding something, though, so most likely we'll be working somewhere in Korea from this July or August until the same time next year.  Which means, of course, that you all are in for another batch of teaching-related hijinx and/or escapades.  Hooray?

In short: biking and farming until June, then doing something in Korea, then working from July or August.  More info as it comes in, and blog posts about the farm and job interview process to follow.  A teaser:

Rough day on the farm.

Whoever this guy is, he seems excited about looking for a job.