Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was on the screen announcing his resignation, making him the fourth Japanese PM to resign his post in less than four years.

His election was a groundbreaking victory for the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which promised to strive for a more transparent national leadership. Not long after, some clouds came to rain on Hatoyama’s transparent regime.

 There were two money scandals, one resulting in the imprisonment of two of his aides for tweaking some campaign contribution documents. The other was a revelation on how far a mother’s love will stretch for her son. Until investigators got wind of it, Hatoyama’s monthly allowance from mom peaked at around $170,000. Really though, just because mom is your biggest fan doesn’t mean you’re a bad politician.

The straw that broke this reportedly aloof and apparently brittle camel’s back was Hatoyama’s failed promise to remove the U.S. army base on Okinawa, which holds more than half of the U.S. troops stationed in Japan. Hatoyama balked at the removal of the base after the sinking of a South Korean battleship which for him must have thrown the instability of the East Asia in to relief.

The next Prime Minister will be chosen by the DPJ on Friday, and will take office after a parliamentary hearing next week. Currently all national trends are pointing to the trailblazing appointment of five co-ruling ministers – the members of Arashi, otherwise known as “the coolest thing ever” by teenage girls throughout Japan.

My team of three, drawn together by a common vision of island relaxation, was as such: a tango-dancing vegan, a bearded trickster, and myself. This is our story.

The tango-dancing vegan, who went by the name Rose-Marie, owned a small blue car of typical proportion to the others of Japan’s motorpool. The car had traded many hands before it came to Rose-Marie, and the hood and roof of it were sunbleached to the color of slate, so that the car looked as if it was graying with age. The interior had the musty smell of old McDonald’s bags and hemp, and was packed to the gills with camping equipment and food. The bearded trickster, going by the name of Puck, sat in the back seat, wedged between an enormous bag of industrially manufactured sandwiches and the carpeted upholstery of the side of the car. I had shotgun, next to Rose-Marie.

I posed a question. “Let’s say you walk in to a room. The room is dark, but not so dark that you can’t see. You perceive a table in the middle of the room, with a number of chairs around it. How many chairs do you see? Blink it.” I say the last bit in reference to the book Blink, which describes the advantages of trusting your initial reactions to things.

“One” says Rose-Marie.

“Infinity” says Puck. According to the personality test of which they are yet unaware of taking, this is how many romances you’ll experience during your life.

“Next question,” says I, “You then perceive that there are several coffee mugs on the table. How many are there?”

“Two” says Rose-Marie.

“Six” says Puck. In reality these answers dictate the number of children Puck and Rose-Marie will be responsible for conceiving. Apparently not together.

“Third question. You get up to leave the room, but as you open the door to go, you see that your way out is blocked by an animal. What kind of animal is it?”

“A dog” answers Rose-Marie.

“A lion” responds Puck. What they look for in a mate.

“Next question.” Rose-Marie’s interest was dipping. “This is a personality test I gave to my students last week,” I say with a sideways look at her. I know she can’t resist a chance at self introspection, and sure enough she perks up. “Next question, you get outside of the room, and you’re walking down a road when you come upon a fork. To the right, the road goes through a meadow. To the left, a forest. Which do you take?”

They both go the route of the forest.  Pessimists.

“Two more questions.  In the middle of this forest, there is a lake.  You have to get to the other side of the lake. How do you do it?”

Rose-Marie swims.  Always challenging herself.  Puck holds on to her leg while she swims, tugged across the lake.

Last question. “Ok, you get across the lake.  There, you see a house.  What kind of house is it?”

Rose-Marie finds a messy Japanese apartment lit from the inside by Christmas lights, with a fully furnished kitchen. Puck is in a forest service cabin. Their future homes.

Mostly we sat in silence, unwilling to shout over the noise of breaking wind or roll up the windows to endure the stifling heat. We continued speedily southward passing from Kumamoto to Kagoshima through long tunnels which seemed to open up just enough to allow a glimpse of rustic little villages tucked in to narrow green valleys, with Japan’s aging population tending terraced rice fields, and then again the austere wall of another dark tunnel.

The roadies that Puck and I had finished a while ago were clamoring to have their rents paid, so we pulled in to a rest stop. Back outside of the loo, Rose-Marie was studying a Kagoshima tourism map. I lit a cigarette.

“Here is where we are.” She said, pointing to a red dot captioned ‘You Are Here.’ “And here is where you said we could stay tonight.” Her finger moved further south to Sakura-jima, an active volcanic island-turned-peninsula across the bay from Kagoshima harbor, where our Yakushima-bound Ferry made berth.

Puck lit a cigarette. “Where is Chiran?” he asked. We had planned to visit the town’s WWII memorial museum, where on display are several letters written by kamikaze pilots to their friends and family, before their last flights.

Rose-Marie scanned the map. “It’s way over here,” she said, pointing towards the southwest corner of the map. “I don’t think we’ll have time today.” I couldn’t deny it. We settled on checking out a waterfall on the way to Sakura-jima.

—

“If Ran-Chan were a disease, which disease do you think he would be?” The question was directed at Puck. The three of us were in the car again on the way to a natural hot springs bath on Sakura-jima. Puck balked at the question.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Uh, I think he would be Alzheimer’s.” replied Rose-Marie. I laughed.

We arrived at the resort which housed and appeared to have sole claim to the hot springs, and received our bathing garb – undiscriminating as the hot spring is to gender, you can’t just have both sexes walking around naked. Rose-Marie went ahead while Puck and I had a ceremonial pre-bath offering of tobacco. When we finally descended to the oceanside pool, Rose-Marie was already sitting perched on a rock at the far end, with her he legs in the water, silhouetted by a red-orange setting sun. Reminded vividly of a siren, I hesitated for a moment before wading after Puck to join her.

The water was uncomfortably hot and we spent most of our time only half-submerged, Rose-Marie sitting with her arms folded to hide herself as the white cotton bathrobes would not. After a while we got bored of the place and left for dinner.

—

Our hostel looked like a refurnished Japanese elementary school. That is to say, it looked like a prison with an air of comfort. Still, a room with a view of the bay and the imminent threat of a volcanic eruption – fit for what I’d see at the end of my lake.

—

Woken disgustingly early by an alarm from Rose-Marie’s cell phone. No traces of even pre-dawn were visible from the veranda. Puck went outside for a smoke and I went to brush my teeth. Our ferry was set to leave at 6:00, but we had to be there an hour early to check in. Before that though, we had to catch a smaller ferry to take us across the bay to Kagoshima harbor. We were up at 4:00.

—

On the Yakushima-maru, the ship that would carry our threesome plus a car to Yakushima, there are rooms to satisfy the luxury of a broad range of bourgeois. Going below deck from the private rooms with queen size beds and individual showers, we lower class passengers were corralled in to large one-room boxes, with thinly carpeted floors and a lingering smell of livestock. Walking straight through the stronger smelling of these boxes, we found floor space in a large room at the ship’s aft, looking out on the shrinking coastline of southern Kyushu.

The ferry took four hours to grind its way from Kagoshima to Yakushima, and the three of us took advantage of the constant drone of the ship’s engine to catch up the night’s sleep. As we stretched out on the hard floor Rose-Marie turned to me and said, “Make sure I don’t sleep the whole time. I’ve never been on a boat where all you can see is ocean.” I said OK, thinking that she wasn’t likely to sleep the whole time anyway.

—

I had four objectives on the island.

First, drink some beer and smoke come cigarettes. In other words, submit to my vices.

Second, keep from annoying Rose-Marie with my submission to these vices.

Third, I wanted to scale the highest mountain on Yakushima, as a gesture of domination towards the island which tried to claim my life the previous January.

Fourth, collect sea shells to make necklaces with Puck as gifts for friends back home.

The first was easy enough. Puck and I came well prepared with several packs of our favorite brands and a bottle of shochu given to Puck as a gift by a colleague.

The second was also easy, due to a combination of tactful timing and the ocean of patience welling inside of Rose-Marie.

The third objective began with another unhealthily early start at 4:30 in the morning to ensure that we could make it up the long mountain road to the trailhead. The redoubtable trail to Miyanoura-dake, the highest peak in southern Japan, was packed with Japanese tourists.

“Have you noticed that all of these groups are decked out in brand new gear?” Puck asked me during a break from hiking. He was right, and we both suspected that it was the first and last time this gear would be used. It is a common practice among the Japanese to dress for an occasion properly, even if it means spending a month’s paycheck on high quality hiking gear only to use it once.

The trail began under a dense canopy of the cedar forest which covered most of the island. As Yakushima’s claim to fame, the trees in this forest date back as far as 3000 years, but anything past that I don’t buy, whatever ‘experts’ say. For a long time the island was logged, but the operation was halted and in 1993 the island gained notoriety as a World Heritage Site.

As the trail climbed, our trio passed through the canopy to highland marshes, and eventually on to picturesque grasslands broken by sheer rock cliffs and enormous granite boulders. In four hours and 7.5k, we summited Miyanoura-dake.

—

Objective four was accomplished lazily and our attention turned quickly from collecting shells to following Puck’s lead in building cairns with the scree of white coral strewn about the beach. The highest cairn was one the three of us were building together, placed precariously on the edge of a crag, and reached the height of three stacked toddlers before I clumsily knocked it over.

—

Satisfied beyond words, the three of us made our way back on to the Yakushima-maru. Back on the mainland, our story ended abruptly but spectacularly, with the smoke erupting from the peak of Sakura-jima. As we fled the giant pillar of black billowing smoke in the rear view mirror, we wondered how hot the water in that natural hot springs was at that moment.

The destination for this year’s debauchery is beautiful Misato, about thirty minutes drive from my house tucked in a gorgeous valley carved out by the Midori River.  Misato isn’t only known for it’s natural beauty, but also for various old school engineering feats like the Midori River Dam, old stone bridges, and a 3333 stair climb which claims to be “Japan’s #1 Staircase.”

I spent the day with Papa and the family.  It was a good day.

“You’re fuckin kidding me,” I said to myself, as there was nobody for me to talk to, “He’s going to piss on the bus….” But a friend pulled him away before he was able to start his business.  There was a collective sigh of relief as the driver of the bus pulled away from stop.  Welcome to New Zealand.

I had arrived a day earlier than my parents, so I headed for downtown Auckland for a coffee, a sit down and a read.  The adventure on the bus ride back to my hotel was altogether unexpected, though as soon as I stepped on the bus I could feel the tension as the three vagrants talked loudly and hecked other passengers.

In my educated opinion, New Zealand is a bizarre land.  Here, the natives dress in colorful hotpants and tuck their bleached mullets under flat-billed ballcaps, tilted askew for effect.  The national idol (and subsequent nickname for any red blooded New Zealander, be they a JAFA (just another fucking Aucklander) or a RONZer (rest of New Zealander)… is a nocturnal prairie chicken.  From age 16, the youth of New Zealand are paid a national stipend, enabling them to forgo a typical teenage salary and feed their insatiable video game / fashion faux pas / ‘chillin’ desires unabashedly, funded by the country’s hard working tax payers.  It’s no wonder I heard a local once say that the youth of today seem to feel a sense of entitlement unshared by the generations before them.  I just wish she wouldn’t include me in that stereotype.

Let’s get down to business.  Instead of boring you with details of the entire journey (not that it was boring; on the contrary, I had a great time. But you aren’t me so you probably don’t care…), I’ll suffice it to say that New Zealand is beautiful, I enjoyed seeing it, and moreover I enjoyed spending time with my parents.  I’ll let these pictures do the talking.

The majority of these photographs are courtesy of Debra S. Morrell and Richard S. Sims.

It was a Wednesday night, and as such it wasn’t atypical to find STR and I sharing a few drinks at the local watering hole, WiCo.  Tonight’s atmosphere was different, however for two reasons: one, the next day was a holiday, so the usual lingering fear of what tomorrow will feel like at school was absent; and two, STR and I had made plans to visit Hiroshima the next day.

We caught a bus up to Fukuoka, and disembarked to overwhelming hodgepodge of cold streets, cold weather, and cold people.  Maybe Hell isn’t hot after all.  STR and I agree that we’re better off not being FukJets.  From there we decide that a local train to Hiroshima is a brilliant idea… never mind the six hour ride, because we can get off at any time to pay the rent, smoke a fag and buy another six pack of tall boys.

We arrived in Hiroshima a little after midnight and booked our next three nights at the ever-convenient Toyoku Inn.

The highlights of the trip:

Once a year, every year in Kumamoto city, 68 groups of men, women, and children each accompany a solitary horse – one per group – as they scream, chant, dance, and drink their way through roughly 16 hours’ worth of winding city streets. Meanwhile, they feed their thirsty beasts a mixture of water and alcohol, leaving the horses deranged and, more often than not, blowing more chunks than my first college roommate. Back in the glory days, they horses would be butchered and eaten raw at the end of this precocious promenade, but I heard they’ve stopped doing it recently. Something about animal rights. Whatever.

The reason for all of this delicious debauchery stems from a victory by Japan over Korea in a battle about 500 years ago.

The first group of marchers to parade bye after the break had finished was the first group of the entire procession. Fortuitous, because now I can describe the entire procession to you. The first to come were Shinto priests, dressed in white and leading children who carried large offering coffers on their shoulders while the crowd pelted them with coins. Next to come was a pair of men waving giant flags, followed by several rows of men carrying pikes with black balls of fur stuck at the end. Heads of the defeated?

Shortly after that came the horses. Each group was about 50 yards apart from the other, and the horse would be generally kept in the middle of its group of courters. Every once in a while a horse would be taunted in to bucking, kicking out his hind legs at the crowd with saliva foaming from his mouth and eyes rolling drunkenly in his sockets.

65 or so horses and several hours later, we saw STR. Beer in one hand, traffic control light in the other, it appeared to be his job to keep the crowds at bay lest somebody be knocked the hell out by a flying hoof. We bade him farewell after a few minutes, and I went home. STR showed up at my house a few hours later.

‘What time to we have to get up in the morning?’
‘Papa will pick us up in front of Lawson’s at about 6.’
‘So in like 4 hours?’
‘Give or take.’
‘Fuck me.’

Daybreak had me making a pot of coffee and sharing a smoke with STR on my balcony. Today we would go to Fukuoka to visit Costco and see a Japanese pro ball game. STR would fall asleep in the back of the van. I would talk to Papa’s kid about his skull wallet chain and where he wants to go to high school. We would eat hot dogs and pizza in Costco, after purchasing bricks of cheddar and a giant jar of Jelly Bellys. And now I WILL leave behind this passive voice nonsense with one last tidbit for you to gnaw on… The setting: the Yahoo Dome, home of the Softbank Hawks, Kyushu’s only professional baseball team.

It’s the bottom of the ninth, and Chiba is up by two runs. In a fairy tale series of events, the Hawks load the bases. Two outs. The batter steps up to the plate.
Swing and a miss. Strike one.
Ball, low and inside.
Ball, low and inside. The batter is holding his ground. The tension is rising in the stands. People are on their feet.
Foul ball, strike two.
Ball, high. The stadium is electric. The pitch comes – and the batter connects! The ball rockets to the left of the shortstop, it will find a hole! But no, the shortstop makes a spectacular diving catch. Game over. I look down at my beer. I wonder what became of those horses.

The first time I met Good Time Charlie and his Cannonballs was within my first month in Japan, when he performed for a local summer festival in Tomiai.  I sat with him in his band in a beautiful old house and we ate raw horse and talked about country music together.  These cowboys had no qualms with bonding with their beast over a bit of ginger and soy sauce.  But man can these cats play.

It wasn’t long before Mary was working her way in to the Yakuza circles, and she eventually even married a mafioso.  She had a child with this man, and everything was going fine.  Until the day she met another mafioso, whom she was very attracted to.  Mary ended up having an affair.

Well, as you might expect, word of this Yakuza love triangle got around.  One day, Mary and her daughter vanished without a trace.  She didn’t show up for work, nobody could reach her phone, and she wasn’t at home.  The police searched her apartment, but all they found was a mysterious stain on the floor, and fingernail marks on the wall.

Mary was never found.  People who rent her apartment never stay for more than a month.  The man living in the apartment next to Mary’s says at night he sometimes hears a baby crying, and the sound of fingernails running down the wall.

Such is the legend of Mary of Ozu.  Happy Halloween.