Monday, May 23, 2005
Hitching Saga-ken
A little debriefing first. The hitch-hitching was a charity event, a race to raise money to build some school in some country that needs more schools than they have money to build. Don’t think I’m a horrible person for saying this (or do, maybe I deserve it) but the charity part was not the reason I was doing this. Here I am asking people to drive me around everywhere—I’m sorry, but I’m not going to ask them for money on top of it! I raised a fair sum of money from people I know on Goto before I left, but we didn’t ask anyone who picked us up to donate. I would have felt uncomfortable and extremely guilty. I thought of it as a cheap vacation, and an opportunity to see Kyushu and spend time with my friend Peter.
There were three challenges in each of the seven prefectures on mainland Kyushu. We didn’t go to Okinawa, even though it IS a prefecture in Kyushu and Peter and I could get into a huge debate about whether or not Okinawa is considered Kyushu, but we already did that and it wasn’t fun. The challenges were like “take a picture of this waterfall” or “take a bath in this onsen” or “get an entry ticket for this museum.” We only had to do one of the challenges in each prefecture, but Peter and I did all the challenges in all prefectures because we wanted to see as much as possible. (And ‘cause Peter was a bit neurotic about points.)
And since it was a race: Our start time was 12:21 on April 29th in Imari. We ended at 19:34 on May 6th in Nagasaki. So, we clocked in at 7 days, 7 hours, and 13 minutes.
Without further ado, let’s see these pictures!
This is our first driver. Seigo Matsuda. It took us about 2 minutes to get this ride. He drove us a short distance: Imari to Okawachiyama in Saga Prefecture. We had to set the camera on his car roof because there was no one around to take it. (Also, please note the number of pictures where I’m the tallest person—it’s most of them!)
I was surprised how hesitant I was to make this first hitch. I’ve actually never hitch-hiked before (minus one time when I stuck my thumb out for my mom because she wasn’t getting any stops and I knew a youthful sport like myself would have better luck). Japan is still pretty innocent and I never felt unsafe during the trip, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into before I started. As Peter and I were planning where we would stand for our first ride I thought, “I don’t want to do this anymore! I’m scared!” I hate inconveniencing people and asking for help, but I eventually got over it (and had a lot of fun doing it!) Standing there with your thumb out, you have no idea who your next driver is going to be or the adventures you’ll have together.
The first place we went was this little pottery village called Okawachiyama. Imari is well known in the world for it’s pottery. Someday I’d like to go back and really look at the pottery from the area. A beautiful town.
The challenge was to take a picture of a kiln. This is a kiln named “Seira.”
We took a walk, rather a hike, up to this little shrine built into/under the side of the mountain. It’s called "Shrine of the Throat God" in English, but Peter says the Japanese name was not like that. The unusual name got us up there though!
The view of Okawachiyama from Shrine of the Throat God.
Saga’s second challenge was an onsen in Takeo. I wasn’t too impressed with the onsen actually. There were a TON of old women in it and I wasn’t prepared with shampoo and conditioner because in my experience most onsen provide it for you. But an old woman noticed I was without and she brought me her little bag of soap and shampoo and told me to use whatever I wanted. It was really sweet. The water was really hot and so instead of relaxing, I just boiled away in the water for as long as I could handle. As I was leaving the old woman goes, “Hayai, ne?” (You’re fast, huh?”) and I can’t help but think, “I’m not stewing myself for dinner. It’s a bath!”
That reminds me of a Friends episode where Monica is trying to convince Chandler to take a bath to relax and he says he doesn’t understand how she can do that, sitting around in her own filth and Monica goes, “How dirty do you think I am?”
Probably funnier when you see the episode yourself, but I swear those women just sit in that bath all day. They spend hours, stewing in their own filth everyday. It’s relaxing, but I don't need to spend eternity in there.
We had a late lunch/early dinner in a little ramen shop in Takeo. I noticed the ramen-boy was kinda cute—he was wearing a towel around his head and for some reason I think that is really appealing. He seemed pretty uninterested in us though. We were his only customers, being an odd time of day for a meal, and he looked busy with cleaning and prepping. However, when it was time to pay he asked us where we were going and offered to give us a ride to Taku, closer to the highway and our next destination.
His name is Takeshi. It’s important. It might come up later. Remember it.
From that point on, Takeshi seemed so excited to be associated with us. His family, which we learned later in the car, owned the ramen shop and the gas station on the same street corner. I sat in the front seat and we bashfully smiled at each other, trying to have a conversation while Peter translated for us. He spoke basically no English, but we flirted plenty with our eyes and our smiles. He bought us tea and gave us a map of Kyushu from his car. Really sweet. We exchanged phone numbers and email and as it turns out, Takeshi and I emailed (on our keitai) several times a day for the entire trip. We email much less now, but I still heard from him yesterday. He still wants to come visit me on Goto, but I’m beginning to doubt it’ll ever happen.
(By the way, Peter and I decided to tell people we were siblings in case people felt awkward thinking we were a couple. People have asked us if we were brother and sister a lot in the past anyway. We later changed “siblings” to “cousins” because lying about that just got too complicated. And in the end, I think just saying we were friends wouldn’t have ever been a problem either, but we didn’t know. So Takeshi still thinks we are siblings. Whoops.)
So this is Takeshi where he dropped us off in Taku. (Yeah! ALMOST taller than me!) Unfortunately he took the towel off his head, but he’s still pretty adorable!
Our next ride, from Taku to Karatsu was from my all-time favorite drivers. Nishi and Ryo rank number one for the entire trip. They exuded cool. An awesome young couple in an awesome car listening to the awesome Beastie Boys. Nishi (the woman) was driving and Ryo was really talkative. We spoke mostly in Japanese, but eventually I discovered that their English (especially Ryo’s) was spectacular! They dropped us off on this beach in Karatsu where we got this beautiful picture, but about 40 minutes later they came back and offered to let us stay at Nishi’s family’s house for the night. We, of course, took them up on it!
Ryo was super skinny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that skinny and not be malnourished. He was such a sweetheart though. The way he was able to keep the conversation going reminded me a lot of my father. He works for the post office and Nishi works in the Prefectural Office.
So we got back to Nishi’s house and there was a ton of extended family there. Here’s a picture of us with the lot. They fed us dinner and gave us futons for the night. The house was really nice, about 4 years old and really big for Japan.
The next morning we got to meet Sherry, the family dog. A very smart puppy would loved my shoes!! Nishi’s father obviously trained her very well as she did everything he asked—including jumping over his leg in the air! This was a wonderful family with whom I felt right at home. If we didn’t have to move on I might have stayed all week.
Unfortunately, we also told them we were siblings and had to get deeper into the lie about our family. It was after this experience that we decided to be cousins. Fewer questions. They drove us to the Karatsu forest the next morning and this is where they left us to find our next ride.
It took us about 5 minutes to get our next ride—all the way to Fukuoka, but that’s where I’ll pick up next time.
Love,
Love, Sierra
