Glimpses of a Familiar Japan - Part 1

             

                Early morning light kisses my face and warms it against a slight chill in the air.  Around me, trees of birch and pine shiver with the breeze, leaves of gold and red and purple flicker across the gravel path.  Ahead, a single crow caws once then twice, I hear the flapping of its wings, see it glide over the path.  It settles with  a clack of talons on the worn surface of a torii gate, grayed with time and stricken with moss and ivy that creep along its wooden joists.  I breathe in the air, the scent of mist, and close my eyes with a smile.  It's autumn in Nikko, Japan, and I am living a dream.

                The country lies five thousand miles and fifteen hours across the ocean, give or take, so my journey here was neither easy nor quick.  In fact, it was one almost 25 years in the making by the time I finally arrived there in October of 2012, just in time for my thirtieth birthday.  I have been in love with Japan for as long as I can remember.  Everything from food to culture, eccentricities to common acts fascinates me about the nation the Japanese call Nippon. 

I suppose this love first grew from a seed planted in kindergarten when I had a Japanese friend, Todd.  He invited me over to his house, and I found it so strange that we had to take off our shoes in the front entry.  What was more surprising, and enticing, was when his mother brought us snack and it was steamed rice wrapped in this weird green stuff.  I remember eating it and liking the taste, and when I asked my host what it was, I was astounded to know we were eating seaweed.  From that moment on, I wanted to know everything there was about my friend’s homeland.   My parents, God bless them, nurtured this the best they could and put up with my endless fascination.

I read any books on the subject and watched tv specials whenever they were on.  Big Bird in Japan was the deepest resource on the subjects of Japan when I was little, and I could recite simple facts and figures of history, culture and religion, but I always wanted and needed more.  Anyone can spend a lifetime and only just grace the surface of Japan and the Japanese people.  There are some people who are very much like me, becoming true fans of all things Japan and sometimes specific things.

The Japanese call these fans Otaku, and I was never one of those.  I didn't have walls plastered with posters from anime, nor bookshelves of manga.  Heck, I didn't see a Miyazaki film until my freshman year of college.  I still loved everything about it, and it wasn't a difficult decision to pick a school where I took courses on Japanese culture and history.  I saw the darker side of the nation as much as the part I loved, and I came to understand more what forged Japan into the nation it is today. 

I was always an avid writer before going to Japan.  In fact, I got my degree in creative writing and I’ve been writing books and creating stories for as long as I can remember.   I’d toyed with writing something about Japan, but never got around to it among all the fiction and fantasy I enjoyed in my younger years.  When I graduated in 2005, at the time I was so used to writing different things that were for others and not me, that I couldn't fathom doing something on my own.  It wasn't until three years later that the spark ignited once again.   I decided to write a book based around my love for Japan, its culture and history.

The book would be based on the Japanese myth of the kitsune or shape-shifting fox.   The concept of a mercurial, mischievous fox that could turn into a pretty girl sounded like a great book concept.   I wrote the book over the next two years and I kept wanting to see the actual places in the book.   It was one thing to write about, but another to have first-hand experience.  How could I write about a place I had never been? 

       It wasn't a hard decision to want to travel to Japan, but there remained a hesitation on the part of my parents and me.  After all, it’s such a far-away place with a completely different language and culture of its own.  It felt like traveling to Mars and expecting country home cooking.  Our first real attempt was in 2005 when we began to plan for a trip the following year, and the plan was to go with a tour.  We did countless hours of research on locations to see, places to stay, things to do.  We finally settled on a good looking company with a nice itinerary.  We set a date of Spring 2011 to see the beauty of cherry blossoms. 

        Then, the unthinkable happened and the great earthquake of March 2010 rocked Japan and sent a tsunami over coastal cities in the north of the main Island of Honshu.  I watched, helpless to see water as black and dark as night sweep over towns, houses and people.  It was horrific, and I couldn't imagine it getting any worse.  Then it did, when Fukushima Daichi plant had a meltdown following catastrophic damage to its buildings.  In that instant, everything we’d planned, everything I hoped for went out the window.  It was literally a month before our trip, the cut-off date to do or die. 

I sat with my parents.  We surveyed the binders of information, the plane tickets and all the research.  We looked at the TV, still showing the horrible images, and we could not think to impose ourselves upon a country in such dire straits.  In the end, we canceled our journey, and I was left in a very terrible depression.  I didn't know when or if I could ever travel to Japan, or if the country could ever recover from such a thing.

        Thankfully, the Japanese people have proven as resilient as they have resourceful, and while the situation at Fukushima and the loss of life has been dire, the country as a whole began recovery.  So in spring of the next year, we began to think once again about going to Japan with a tour.

      This time, we used our existing resources, but the more we explored, the more we began to think, “Maybe we can do this on our own.”  The prospect of it was daunting, but we were in a Goldilocks scenario with tours.  Some tours offered some things but not others, and yet more tours went to places we didn't want to go and skipped ones we did.  At long last, we made our decision to go it alone.  We made a new binder with all our itinerary, we set up our arrangements and we set a date for October of that year, just in time for my birthday.

                We had what seemed like a simple itinerary.  First was Tokyo, of course, which would last the first week.  Second was Nikko, a tiny area to the north of Tokyo that I had discovered perusing the internet.  We would stay there two nights to take in a more primeval Japan that resided in the mountains.  Finally, was Kyoto for the last week, which was one of the places I really wanted to go since childhood, with a branch off to Nara which was south of there.  The plan was to use our hotel as a base and take trains out to different parts on different days.  If we couldn't go to one place, we would try another and use the mass transit available to us with maps and guides my father found on the internet. 

My mother found two hotels in the two major cities, both belonging to the Okura chain and both which served breakfasts as a staple.  With a good, healthy morning appetite, we hoped to power through till lunch and find a place before continuing and then returning back to the hotel.  My mother also found a hotel in Nikko, called the Nikko Lakeside, which was described as funky but fine, and it would do us all right for the two nights we’d stay there.  

                With each passing week my anticipation and my anxiety grew.  What if we couldn’t do this?  What if something else came up, just as it had the last time?  What if we were just not prepared enough or got lost or couldn’t communicate?  There were so many things to consider.  I crossed my fingers and awaited the big day.

                  I remember being terrified, and I was physically shaking as we pulled up to the airport in my hometown of San Luis Obispo.   I also remember pacing quite a bit, my stomach turned in knots even when our small plane departed for LAX.   It wasn’t until we actually arrived in LAX that I think I started to relax … if only a little bit.

               I have to compliment my parents once again.  Mom and Dad were troopers from the beginning of this journey.  They had everything prepared and packed.  We had a minimal amount of luggage and clothes, all carefully stowed in a very efficient manner.  My dad and I had exhaustively researched our transportation once in Japan, and he was handling the airfare.  The prospect of a 15 or so hour flight over the Pacific was a daunting one, but I was prepared to endure coach for my love of Japan.  Imagine my surprise, however, when we got on the plane, and instead of turning right to coach, we turned left into business class.  I turned back around to my dad who was grinning ear to ear.  He’d paid for business class there and back so that we could all be comfortable.  This was the first of many wonderful surprises, but it was perhaps one of the most touching. 

My family has never traveled anywhere business class, and it was worth every penny.   I settled down into the plush comfortable seat, with my own little TV and the prospect of a fine meal.  I thought back to everything that had occurred up to this point.   In just a few hours, we would be halfway across the ocean.   As the plane taxied out and the engines revved, my parents and I put our thumbs together in an old tradition among ourselves.  This was the start of a great adventure.  Next stop, Tokyo, Japan!