Just playing with the WordPress iPad app

Trying to think of a cartoon I can show my kids on our final lessons. Ideas?

Leavin, On a Jet Plane. (Then getting on another one)

I have exactly one month left on my contract here in Japan. It’s a strange feeling, sometimes I feel like I’ll be first in line at the gate in Narita Airport, other times I think that I’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming to my seat.

That being said, it’s time to look post JET and Japan for a while, so I’m going to America for a month.

It seems like the perfect time to do it really, I’ll be inbetween jobs, just moved home so my bags will still be packed and hopefully I’ll get some sort of guidance about what I’m gonna do. If the latter doesn’t happen then hell, at least I’ve got a good trip out of it!

My current plan is as follows:

Sept 1st – Fly to NYC. Do the sightseeing stuff, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty etc etc. Also going to head upstate to stay with a friend for a few days, need me some Americana and all-you-can-eat buffets!

Sept 8th – Fly to Chicago. Spend a whopping 11 hours there (just enough time to get some pizza!) and then get on a train to New Orleans. People seem to think I’m crazy for taking a train down to NOLA, I mean it’s 19hrs vs 3 when flying, but I think it’ll be an awesome experience, for better or for worse. It’ll be nice to see some of America at “ground level” and not from 35,000 feet up. I paid the extra to get a sleeping car too.

9th September – I’m in NOLA for a week and a bit with a friend, drinking it up hopefully, though it’ll be nice to just chill in what sounds like a fantastic city. Then it’s off to…

Sept 20th – Fly to Calgary, to see another friend and stay with his family.

Sept 24th – We are then going to head to Vancouver for a week or so before I fly home on the 29th.

So that’s the plan. Before then there is one final trip planned inside Japan, I’ll save that post for another time

クリスの給食 – 9月14日

今日の給食は:
ハンバーグデミグラスソースかけ
コーンサラダ
ロールパン
なんとかスープ(コーン⁇)
りんごヨグルト

Today’s lunch is:
Hamburger in demiglace sauce, bread, some sort of soup(corn?) apple yoghurt.

自分のひとこと:
「ハンバーグ！！ハンバーグ！！ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ」
My comment: “hamburg hamburg yaaay!!”

クリスの給食-9月10日

今日の給食は:
パン
ココアクリーム
ポークビーンズ
ヨグルトサラダ
牛乳

Today’s lunch is
Bread
Chocolate spread
Pork and beans
Yoghurt salad
Milk

四国遍路−６

Temples open at around 7 so we got up a little before that. We only had a short walk to the temple so we headed straight there. Naturally it was still raining. We had stuffed our shoes with newspapers the night before and to some extent it had worked. We headed out and up to the temple, Kongofukuji. We were both somewhat underwhelmed with the other “cape temple” (#24) as I think we felt that it was going to be something spectacular bearing in mind it was in the middle of nowhere. Luckily though, Kongofukuji didn’t disappoint. Something about the rain made it seem mystical.

We checked the bus times previously, there was a bus at 9am, we figured we would attempt to hitch and if all else fails just get on the bus back and go from there. We waited in the rain for around 45 minutes before we (ok *I*) got hungry, there was a small place doing breakfast so we went in there and grabbed something to eat. There were many cats.

Hitchhiking failed and so we got back on the bus to Nakamura. The bus take a very coastal road, I remember on the way down the previous night looking out the window at the sheer drop that was to my right, this time the sheer drop was to my left, and in broad daylight. Unnerving to say the least. It was strange though, every so often there were small pockets of houses in the hills, and a school or two dotted around, so quaint but you can tell that without a car (public transportation: INFREQUENT!) it must suck living down there.

Killing time

We got back to Nakamura and found we had to wait 50 minutes for a train to take us to the vicinity of the next temple, Enkôji (public transport:INFREQUENT). We were both fearing that today would be a repeat of the previous day, and we’d be sat around waiting for trains and buses and not visiting many temples. Doug took the time to write his travel journal, I took the time to stare out the window and play on Facebook on my phone.

We got our train and attempted to hitch as usual, The temple wasn’t actually that far but we figured if we could get a ride maybe they would be travelling around and we could hit a few temples with them. One lady pulled over and said that she would give us a lift if we were able to put her elderly mothers wheelchair in the back of the car. Unfortunately try as hard as we did, it just wouldn’t fit in. She apologised and gave us 300 yen osettai to get some tea. We thanked her and continued on our walk. I was actually quite happy to walk, as the rain had subsided and we’d spent a lot of the past day or so sat on trains, so it was quite nice to stretch my legs. We got to Enkôji, the final temple in Kochi and as we were leaving the rain stopped.

The roads in the area were very quiet, luckily there was a bus within 20 minutes and so we headed to the bus stop. We were joined eventually by an old couple who were also waiting for the bus. We were somewhat worried that they would end up screwing up the hitching chances as cars might not stop if they see 4 people standing together. We never got picked up and got the bus into the town.

In order to get closer to the temple we would have to get another bus, however the bus would not turn up for an HOUR. Whilst Doug and I were discussing whether to attempt to find food somewhere the couple who we had been talking to previously at the bus stop came up to us.

“You’re going to the next temple, right? Well we are going to get a taxi, and if you’d like, you could come with us, and it will make everyones journey cheaper”

“Ok sure!”

We got in and off we went. The couple were Mr and Mrs Ishikawa. They are awesome.

We began heading towards the next temple and we were chatting to the taxi driver. He said that he could do us a deal, and take us to the next 3 temples for 3000 yen each. we all jumped at the chance and Doug and I were feeling good that we were going to travel some distance today. We crossed over into Ehime and things were starting to look up!

We traveled together stopping at the temples along the way, it was quite a nice way to travel and we enjoyed our company.The entire day was somewhat of a blur though, up until now when we had been waiting for a hitch or for public transport we had some time to chill, this was somewhat different. In summary though, we blasted through Kanjizaiji (Temple 40) which is the farthest temple from Ryozenji (Temple 1) distance wise.  Here we met a man who was walking the pilgrimage backwards, the most common reason to do this is to reverse some sin from your past, though some also say that if you do it in reverse you can meet someone who had died and you longed to meet again). We moved on to Ryukoji (41) which was small but a had a nice atmosphere and then up to Butsumokuji (42). By this time we were well aquainted with our travelling companions and the weather had done a COMPLETE 180. Sunshine! We realised that every minute we were in Kochi it rained, and as soon as we left it stopped. Thus Kochi is the rainy prefecture.

The taxi driver was very knowledgable about the local area, and said he would take us to the closest city as part of our fare. This was great for us as it meant we would be around a station at 6pm, so we could head towards the next temple and be ready for the morning.  We headed to Unomachi and called ahead, reserving a hotel room. Got some dinner, some beers and settled down to watch some TV

Oh and Doug set out drying his shoes with a hairdryer for the second time.

四国遍路−５

We were hungover. After the crappy day (goal wise) we had had the previous day

He's not impressed, but you gotta do these things.

we were both feeling a bit of the strain. Nevertheless we decided to get on with it and walked to the next temple.  We actually awoke pretty late (comparatively, around 8am) but we both decided we needed the lie-in.

It was raining, naturally. Doug had spent the previous night drying his shoes with a hairdryer (and the room smelt of feet all night) and he wasn’t enthusiastic about undoing all his hard work, I then had a brilliant idea! We grabbed the plastic bags from the Family Mart and tied them round his feet. Fashionable? no, but well, they were inside his shoes and no-one would know really… We headed out and grabbed some breakfast at the cafe next door. I felt like crap, tired, the onset of a cold was looming and right now the only thing I wanted to do was chill out for the day.

We begun walking after breakfast and knew vaguely where we were going. On the way an old lady passed us and stopped us. She gave us 1000 yen as osettai. This perked us up a bit. We also managed to hitch a ride to the base of the hill where Temple 35, Kiyotakiji, was. The temple had quite a mystical air about it, the rain enhanced this. We arrived at the temple gate and took a few minutes to catch our breath. Whilst we were waiting a young woman came and spoke to us in English. She told us how she was from a town in Tokushima called Anan. This town is very small, with only 17 houses and everyone is related. Most of the time they just exchange goods and don’t use money much. It’s kinda strange to think that towns still function like that in this day and age, Especially because Anan wasn’t especially secluded (both temples 21 and 22 were in Anan it turns out). She gave us her name slip and wished us well.

We climbed up the stairs to the temple to find a group of bus pilgrims. It was quite a busy temple with many people, including an American couple who were being shown around the area in a taxi. We didn’t get the chance to talk to them, so don’t know if they were doing the entire pilgrimage (though in a taxi that must be EXPENSIVE!). We prepared our sign for the next temple and stood near the entrance to the car park. We didn’t have much luck. We waited for around 45 minutes, and although we gathered quite a crowd of people interested in what these crazy foreigners were doing (including people taking our photographs), none seemed willing to pick us up. Doug and I would try to predict if someone was going to stop or not, He was far more optimistic, I was more pessimistic and it turned out that I was right, we waited 45 minutes before deciding to head down the mountain.  We took shelter again in a car garage and held out the sign whilst snacking on some chocolate. We held up the sign just in case and as luck would have it, a man from Wakayama stopped for us!

Shoryuji.

He was heading to Temple 36 (Shoryuji) before heading home on an afternoon ferry. This was great news for us, and away we went!

The next portion of the journey posed an issue. Getting to Iwamotoji. This was around a 55KM journey from Shoryuji and there were no cars and no signs of public transportation (read: INFREQUENT) available in the area around the temple. We were stuck.

Then, my phone rang. It was a local number that I didn’t recognise.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Is this Chris?”

“Yes”

“This is the Tosa Business Hotel. We were cleaning your room and found a pair of headphones”

“Oh”

Lets pause the conversation there for some explanation. Doug snores. Because of this I normally slept with my headphones (which are noise cancelling) near my pillow in case the rumbling wakes me up in the night. In our rush to get out of the hotel in the morning (we were late, remember?) I had forgotten them. In the words of a famous man: “D’oh!”

“We can post them to you or you can come to collect them”

“I’ve already left Tosa, can I call you back?”

I had been studying the map book we bought with us (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Shikoku-Japan-88-Route-Guide/dp/4829710543/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282190920&sr=8-2 – Worth every penny) and found that despite there being no link between Shoryuji and Iwamotoji, there was a train station next to it! Our driver was willing to take us back to Tosa and so we formulated a plan. We go back to the hotel, pick up my headphones, get in a taxi, get to Tosa station, get on the train to Kubokawa and go to the temple.  It was hardly ideal, but we couldn’t risk being stuck at Shoryuji with no transport method out.

We got back to Tosa, grabbed my headphones (the bags from the American girls we had met on the previous day were in the lobby, guess they were staying there too?) and headed to the station in a taxi. We managed to get a train (at great expense – seriously) and headed to Kubokawa. We planned on the way to make it as far down to Ashizuri (http://maps.google.com/?q=32.725141,133.014516) as we could. Thismeant we could get off at Kubokawa, go to the temple, get back on the train and then get a bus down to Ashizuri. We wouldn’t make it in time to hit up the temple, but we could be there to go first thing in the morning!

The train down to Nakamura was slow and stopped frequently, it went through some of the most rural locations I’ve seen – deep in the mountains. At one of the stations another foreign guy got on and seemed very shocked to see us, he kept peering back at us. I guess he doesn’t see many.  We transferred to a bus at Nakamura when we decided it was time to search for accomodation. Doug and I went through our trusty guide and started ringing through minshuku (bed and breakfast) and hotels to see what we could find. After finding the hotel booked, and having one man hang up on me we found one which had room. We figured we would be able to get some dinner there once we’d checked in.

Our Dinner. Seriously.

Turns out there isn’t much in Ashizuri. The minshuku we stayed at was run by a lovely old lady, and said it was the first time that foreigners had stayed at her establishment. There were no convenience stores, no restaurants, it was pitch black outside, so our dinner consisted of whatever was in our bags. Luckily we had saved up some osettai and I had been hoarding snacks for such a situation. It consisted of Chip Star crisps, a box of Pocky, two mikan some various rice cakes, a banana Kit Kat and a apple Soyjoy. We could only laugh at the hilarity of this situation, after we had taken baths, we tucked in to our hilarious feast and watched some TV.

Oh and I think Doug snored. Good thing I had my headphones.

四国遍路−４

Oh how we would need this...

We ended up staying in Kochi City as although it meant the next day we would have go backwards a bit, statistically we thought we would have more luck finding somewhere to stay in the Prefectural capital. We stayed at a guest house / hostel place ran by a lovely lady who gave us both a banana and an energy drink with disgusting amounts of Taurine and Nicotine (!! – not quite that found in cigarettes but a close relative) .

I was thinking back earlier about the family we hitched with the previous day, I somewhat glossed over the adventure we had with them, ranging from faulty navigation in the car (It seems that the GPS in Japanese cars are ALL incorrect, or at least enough of them are to make someone put up a sign saying “THE GPS IS WRONG, IT’S THE NEXT ROAD ALONG!) and having to translate “Puff, The Magic Dragon” for the 15 year old child who loves English. We left out the whole “drug” thing and kept it to a very literal translation for him. They really were a lovely family and we had a great time with them.

Anyway back to the present (kinda)

We set off and headed to the station and towards Noichi station. This is when it started raining.

Doug. Kryptonite.

“Chris, I should tell you something…Rain, it’s like my Kryponite.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Well, I HATE rain. It makes me miserable. Also, water is going to leak into my shoes, I can just tell.”

“…Oh”

By the way, this photo is perhaps one of my favourite from the entire adventure, it sums up so much about the trip.

We had prepared for this a bit, I bought rain gear with me from home, and Doug decided that a 100 yen raincoat. I was skeptical but there we go. We got to Noichi and failed to hitch the 3KM so we ended up walking in a slight drizzle. We got to Dainichiji (#28) which had amazing cherry blossoms in bloom. The rain actually gave the temple an eerie atmosphere. Up until now every temple had been quite busy, but today was a Tuesday and the 3 day weekend was over. This meant that the number of people who were driving the pilgrimage was lower. By now we had also realised that the walking pilgrims all followed a similar schedule based on how much one can walk. The temple was truly deserted.

We headed out to the car park in attempt to hitch to the next temple and were luckily picked up by an old couple from Okayama. The gentleman had walked the pilgrimage 3 times in total, which is around 4500KM! Impressive! However I do remember a few times fearing for my life in the car, some of the corners were quite…sharp. We were quite tired by this point, conversation was becoming harder and the rain was a big hit to morale.

We hit temple 29 (Kokubunji) and got our books signed and moved to the next temple ASAP. We had decided we wanted to attempt to get as close to temple 38, Kongōfukuji as we could today, as that was going to be one of the hardest parts of our journey, a good 80KM distance between 37 and 38.  This might sound like a huge goal to set ourselves, but many temples in the region are close together, sans a few exceptions so we figured (especially after the previous day) we would be okay.

Empty...

After attempting (and again failing) to hitch to temple 30 (There were NO cars, and the previous old couple drove past us ) we ended up deciding to walk. We attempted to follow the roads to get to the temple, however our map wasn’t awesome at the small roads, so we pulled out the trust iPhone. We were looking for a road of reasonable size according to the map (a numbered road) and we were convinced that it was just behind the road we were walking on. Turns out we were walking on the road. It was TINY. We ended up going in the wrong direction, in the rain for around 15 minutes. We were not impressed, iPhone had failed me .

We were almost to the temple when a gentleman picked us up and drove us within 500m of the temple and we walked up. We hung around for 30 minutes and I ate a sandwich whilst we attempted to get a ride, which (AGAIN) failed. We walked down towards the main road hoping to get at least part of the way, and luckily a lady picked us up and took us to the temple. She said we reminded her of her son and the kanji on our whiteboard (the temple name etc) was pretty. She drove us up to the temple which was on top of a hill.

Then Doug got in trouble with an old woman.

It was cold, so we took refuge under some sun parasols whilst I made the sign and Doug put on a fleece. Turns out this was actually the front of a shop, and the old lady who owned it came out ranting and raving at Doug. This, in hindsight was quite entertaining, but at the time it was just another thing that was going wrong that day.

We began walking down the road a bit to try to hitch when we saw two ladies dressed up in henro clothes and a Japanese lady talking to them in very broken English. We decided to step in and see if they were okay. They were from California (originally Taiwan) and were walking the pilgrimage. They were on their 16th day but today had decided because of the rain that they were going to get the bus down to the next temple. After chatting to them, a taxi driver, the old woman AND consulting the bus timetable ourselves (read: INFREQUENT) we decided that if the 4 of us split a taxi it would be cheap, so we did that. It was quite interesting meeting some foreign people who were walking the pilgrimage, we hadn’t actually met any other foreign people the entire time we had been hitchiking, which surprised me a bit.

I am not making an "I'M ON A BOAT" caption. Sorry.

We got to Zenjibuji (32) and wandered around for a bit before heading off. Another groundskeeper gave us a lift to the ferry port. Wait, what? FERRY? Well, turns out that the easiest way to get to the next temple is to get on a small ferry which goes across a lake. We got to the ferry port (which was, in actuality, a shack with a TV in the middle of nowhere) and had to wait 50 minutes (public transport: INFREQUENT) for the ferry. I attempted to find a convenience store, or anything to get something to eat or drink as we were quite peckish by this point but no luck.

The boat took 5 minutes and we walked the 1KM to Sekkeiji. Luckily an off duty taxi driver picked us up and took us right up to the temple. It wasn’t a large walk by any means, but we were growing increasingly tired, we were way off of our target (it was around 2pm and we had only made it to number 33) and we were very wet.

When we arrived there were a couple of men who were walking the pilgrimage. We talked to them about how we were hitchiking the pilgrimage, and to be honest I wasn’t sure how well this would be received by those who were walking. They seemed okay with it, as it’s not how you do the pilgrimage, it’s what you learn. They asked us what we’d learnt so far, but to be honest, we were only 3 days in so didn’t have much to say beyond “the kindness of strangers” We left and headed towards the main road in an attempt to hitch. We were both starving and luckily found a self udon place and managed to grab a quick bite before we headed out. Hitching failed yet again and we got a taxi to the next temple, Tanemaji. By now it was around 3pm and we just wanted to get moving. Lunch had given us a boost but the Kryptonite was still falling and our patience was wearing thin (mine especially) We took a short break at Tanemaji to refresh and decided that we should aim to get to number 35 by the end of the day and stay in Tosa city for the night.

Tosa City, our objective for the following day in the distance.

Turns out that hitching just wasn’t working. A young guy pulled over but only to say sorry that he couldn’t take us because he was on duty with his job. We decided to alter our plan and hitch to Tosa city and just crash out. It was 4pm by this point, we were tired, wet, grumpy, hungry again and the chances of getting to Kiyotakiji by 5pm were next to nothing. Luckily a local lady picked us up. She was nice though a bit eccentric haha. It was her first time offering anyone a lift, let alone two foreign guys. She took us near to where we wanted to be. We checked into a business hotel.

We went out, got some McDonalds for dinner to cheer ourselves up, picked up some beers and a small bottle of whisky, put our clothes on to wash (Doug spent an hour drying his shoes out using a hairdryer) and we toasted to a crappy day. Saying that though, we had a good night watching TV and drinking booze, so it’s not all bad.