Steph's Trip To Japan
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30
July, 2004
We woke up bright and early to meet the mayor of Tanabe. I don’t believe
he spoke a word of English, but he was very nice. He gave Mr. H a wooden
business card, which is a great gift indeed—wooden business cards are
very expensive to make, so if someone gives one to you, it is a great honor.
He also gave each of us a string ball (a sort of ornamental ball with a layer
of decorative string on the outside). These were in boxes wrapped with a
special paper infused with silk strings. We thanked him to no end—it was an
honor to meet him.
Afterwards we drove down to a rock beach. I call it this because I have no
idea what to call a plateau made of solid rock with cracks along it. Anyway,
Mr. Yamamoto the science teacher ( I think it was him….) led us around
some rock pools, where we found a greenish sea snail blending in with the
sand. He asked Jill to pick it up (it was under the sand at this point), and
when she touched it, it squirted a dark purple ink into the water. For a
moment I thought she killed it, but she scooped it up. It was more than two
handwidths wide, and resembled a fat tube of moss. Mr. Yamamoto
described it as a snail that had evolved out of its shell.
We found many other creatures here—many barnacles, crabs, tidal fish,
and urchins. I picked up a dark brown urchin and put it in my palm and
watched it wiggle around for a minute. I thought it was very cute, but Mr.
Yamamoto took it from me and quite suddenly flipped it over and shoved a
scoop into its mouth, killing it. He wanted to show us the “radish” that was
the mouth, which looked like a hard seed, and he pulled this out with his
fingers. I was freaking out—to me it was like I was petting a kitten and he
had stabbed it in the chest to show us its lungs. But I handled that. He
showed us its organs, and then showed us how to find what sex it was. He
pulled out a pair of ovaries and goes, “ah, female! Sea Urchin ovaries are a
delicacy!” And as I was mulling this over, he offered it to Alex, who actually
put the ovaries in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Very salty.” She
commented. The urchin died in the name of science. Shudder.
So we left here, walking up the street on a hill till we found a path. Mr.
Yamamoto showed us what used to be rice paddies in the woods, then we
backtracked, and took a really long and steep path to the top of a hill. So
steep, in fact, that bamboo walking sticks were provided. He pointed out to
us that the area we were in now, and most of the area around it (including
the rocks) was part of a national park—the Tenjinzaki Park. It was very hot,
as it was around midday, and I was running out of green apple flavored
gum. We stumbled our way down the mountain after sitting on the bald
rocky top for a little while, and I almost ran off with one of the bamboo
walking sticks.
We left and headed for the Kumano Area of the Kii Mountains. What this
means is that we went to a hot springs on a river. Those of us who
remembered we were going here were wearing swimsuits, but since I was
filming, I just filmed everyone else digging holes in the rocks to get closer to
the warm water in the middle of a cold storm. All of the Japanese boys gave
in to the temptation, though by the time they got out of the water, any towel
they had been planning to use was soaked. Mr. H didn’t get in the water, as
usual—but the rest of our group did. They built a thin wall of rocks about
the height of the river to keep the colder river water out of their hot water,
and some of them climbed a cliff face on the opposite bank and jumped in.
And then it really started to pour, so we abandoned the river and waited on
the road, under a storefront awning. By this time, I was pretty well soaked,
just as much as everyone else was. We tried to dry off and jumped in our
respective vehicles, and headed back to the hotel (the Japanese boys
went home). We all changed and talked about the Adult Plans. See, the
Japanese teachers wanted to take our two teachers out to dinner with them.
Mr. H didn’t want to leave us by ourselves, even though we’re all IB
students of the highest caliber and wouldn’t do a thing. He’d lose his job,
you know? So, a conclusion was reached—we were to go to the place I had
suggested for dinner, a hibachi restaurant. We were going there anyway,
but the Japanese teachers were added into the dinner plan, instead of
being somewhere else after dinner and drinking. Hehe.
Apparently there is no such thing as hibachi in Japan. It’s habachi.
Whatever. We sat at tables very low to the floor that look traditional, but for
the well underneath to put your legs. You have to remember, the Japanese
not a two hundred years ago sat for hours on their legs. Ouch. We couldn’t
handle 20 minutes. Our table had a grill in the center, which the server lit.
We decided we were going to go for the “all you can eat in 90 minutes”
meals, which were about 20$ for girls, and 24$ for guys. Drink bar was
extra, but most of us got it (unlimited drinks AND soft cream! Cool!). The
deal was, you order meat from one of two menus (15 meats on the first
menu, what we got, and 25 on the second menu, which was 1000 yen
more) and they bring you plates of meat. You can have as much meat as
you want, as long as you eat it all. If there is any left, you have to pay the
price of the plate, usually about 500 yen. Same goes for rice. So we
ordered a bunch of plates, and she brought us the raw meat, which we
cooked on our grill. Someone who wasn’t tending the meat would always
gather the most food, so to prevent someone from stealing your food, you
had to hold your chopsticks on the meat. If you did this wrong, or slipped up
while tending the meat, you’d burn your chopsticks. Fun, eh? Our table got
about 15 plates, I think, meaning we ate approximately 3 pounds of food
each. Haha! Plus ice cream (guilty!).
We returned to our hotel and made baggies of stuff, certainly not gifts
because those weren’t allowed. These were to donate to the school as
examples of Florida (in straight terms, give them to the Japanese guys).
Bed.
31 July, 2004
Saturday! Today Kiyono decided to take us to one last place before we had
to go to the train station. We went to the Hongu shrine, a very nice place on
the top of a hill. Weddings take place very often here (but since it was
raining, not today), and the steps are very steep. This shrine was home to
the three-legged crow, a powerful creature in Japan. Not that there was one
there, but that was the symbol of the shrine.
We stopped for lunch at this nice steak house with little TVs at every table
against a wall. I played with mine, but most of the time, when I tried to do
something, I’d see the little yen symbol. Today that yen symbol meant a
resounding “NO”, because I was getting low on yen. I had rice again. This
was the last meal we would share with our Japanese friends.
So, we dragged all our stuffs to the train station (riding the cramped public
bus) and went through the gates. The Japanese boys even bought tickets
to the nearest station, just so they could get into the station to see us off. I
gave them a business card of mine, though I doubt they understood what it
said (oh, well). We hopped the train and said our last good-byes, then sat
down.
There was this funny old man on the train who sat down in front of Jake. He
patted Jake’s knee and babbled away in a dialect our translator apparently
had a hard time with. He put his hand down on his knee and made a cutting
motion to both of his hands—the guy was missing his pinkie fingers after
the first knuckle. Then he drew his finger down silvery scars on his cheeks.
He glanced around furtively, stood up, and opened his shirt wide to show us
black tattoos all over his chest. What a crazy old man, we thought, but he
complimented all the girls and shook hands with our group. It wasn’t until
about a week ago we learned that he was a member of the Yakuza, or
Japanese Mafia. Members of that group cut off their pinkie fingers when
they mess up, and this guy was missing both of his and had scars on his
cheeks, so we figured this guy had really messed up a lot!
Airport and airport food, and 18 sleepless hours or so and we were home,
with Ben and Jerry’s and Pizza waiting for us (not to mention friends and
family). =)
