Hiroshima

Hello again

I was in Tokyo a few days ago and loved it. It had buzz and a hustle about it but it was a polite, free spirited buzz and hustle. The whole time i was there i never heard a police car or an alarm or somebody shouting angrily and there are 30 million people living, working, or passing through it everyday. The Tokyo Metro map looks like a plate of spaghetti with an Imperial Palace in the middle of it but somehow it made sense and fitted together and worked. Somehow all of Tokyo fits together and works.

I saw a lot in Tokyo but i also saw nothing such is the size and scope of the place. I went to the Museum of Modern Art and the Musuem of Photography which were both awesome. I got invited to a tiny one room art gallery by Yuko who was staying in my hostel and having her first art exhibition in Japan. She was from Shikoku and couldn`t believe that i`d walked around it. I saw temples and Imperial Palace parks and islands and rivers and shopping centres and shopping malls and shopping districts and i think half of Tokyo is probably just shops.

I really liked Shibuya. Shibuya is probably what you think of first when you think of Tokyo. It`s a place where five roads all meet at one crossroads and the lights change and all the traffic stops and people walk out into the huge intersection as one swarm of human life while buildings covered in neon and giant TV screen loom over keeping watch. It`s Tokyo at its best and classic people watching territory.

And then there was beer. Lots of beer. There was a bar with no seats where all the drinks were 300 yen. There was a bar where i met a fat drunk Aussie and his equally fat drunk friends including an American who was wearing a wooly hat (it was 30 degrees everyday) who`d been in Tokyo for ten years "doing business, man, business". I met Peter in my hostel and we met one of his old friends and one of her friends and we drank in a cheap bar and then we drank in an expensive bar and then we drank in a bar where the owner "has love of the Manchester music" and he played Oasis and The Coral and The Stone Roses and then it got very hazy and i woke up at 6pm still a little drunk. Good times.

I had to change hostels as the one i was in was booked up in advance so i found a cheap capsule hotel. All Japanese capsule hotels come with the top floor as a communal bathroom/sauna where middle aged Japanese businessmen shower and bathe and chat. One middle aged Japanese business man got chatting to me and asked me if i was Buddhist as i`d done the Shikokuo hike.
"So, you are Christian then," he stated.
"No, i don`t have a religion. I did the hike because i like -"
"No religion. Ah, yes, this is problem in England. Many people crazy."
"Erm,"
"Like John Lennon."
"Wh -"
"Yes, he in Beatles and the go crazy and marry Ono Yoko and stay in bed for one week in Amsterdam and they make sex time and people with camera filming and they say they want peace. Crazy."
"Erm, well..."
"And Paul McCartney angry when John Lennon die, yes?"
"Yeah, for sure. They were writing songs together for -"
"Because Paul McCartney know that John Lennon now more famous than him because John Lennon shot dead so Paul McCartney angry at this yes." And then he stood up from the plastic shower stool that all Japanese communal bathroom saunas have in abundance and washed his bollocks as if that was the end of the matter, which, of course, it was. You can`t really argue with a man washing his bollocks.

Other slighlty happily crazy things in Tokyo include the fact that the bathroom that the above conversation took place in had floor to ceiling windows meaning that you could look out from the ninth floor over Tokyo and the river below and people walking over the bridge could look up, squint slightly and think, "Is that man washing his bollocks?" In Tokyo you can buy all sorts of things from vending machines including juice, beer, food, pornography, socks and umbrellas. It`s illegal to smoke on the street but in a bar, restaurant or a train it`s no problem. Wonky.

Trains here are fantastic. The shinkansen (bullet trains) are as all trains should be. They travel at a speed reminiscent of a plane moments before it leaves the runway. They have 15 carriages each with 120 seats. They are simple clean speed machines and everybody uses them everyday. As i said to somebody yesterday here, "Japan - it`s like the future." I got another here to Hiromshima which is a chunky modern Japanese city.

Everybody knows Hiroshima. It must one of the most famous places in the world and everybody knows why. 8:15am August 6th 1945. 140,000 people. It exploded 600m above the earth smack in the middle of the city. There are lots of statistics and most of them mean nothing as they are too big to imagine. But today i walked around the Peace Park and Museum and saw the A-Bomb dome, one of the very few builings left in Hiroshima from that day, and read a few things that did mean something. The day after people started working around the clock to get things back up and running and within 24 hours electricity was restored to most parts of the annihalted city. Within three days the street cars were working again. Three days. This is what`s best about east Aisa. The search for the future. Nobody sits around doing fuck all for very long. There`s a rush to split from the past and get to someplace better and it creates and positive inviting atmosphere that i can`t get enough of. Today Hiroshima is a busy city full of life and full of itself whilst constantly remembering the past and promoting itself as the City of Peace.

Japan has been more than amazing. When i think of Japan i will always think of Shikoku. A part of me will always be in Shikoku and a part of Shikoku will always be with me. Japan is a mix of old and new, the past and the future, cities and mountains, beaches and farms and so many other memories, stupid observations and contrasts that i don`t have time to write about.

Tomorrow i`ll be in Fukuoka which was where i was at the start of my Japanese trip which is a good ending. After that the plan is simple. In the words of the Pet Shop Boys, Go West. From here it`s on to Korea and then China and then central Asia. Here`s to the future.

naming names

I`ve been in Japan for two months now and i`ll only be here for a few more days but while i`ve been here i`ve noticed some interesting names. Not people, they have normal names like Nakamura or Muto or Jimmy. No, the strange names i am referring to come from slightly less obvious places and all of them are in English.

Cigarettes I don`t even smoke but these are some genuine cig names.
Hope
Peace
Echo
Golden Bat (that`s my favourite)
Hi-Lite
Lark
Alaska Menthol (??)
Caster
Philip Morris

Coffee I utterly hate coffee but you can buy any of these in vending machines in Japan.
Wonda
Roots Magic Wave
Boss Coffee Rainbow
Black Boss
Jet Cafe

Cars I don`t drive but some of the names are unavoidable.
Honda Life
Honda That`s
Suzuki Every (Everyday? Everybody? Every now and then?)
Toyota Noah (which, although a large vehicle, did not seem fully equipped to withstand a flood of biblical proportions)
Nissan Vanette (it was a small van actually)
Honda Zest (hmm, lemony)
Suzuki Carry (which it can)
Daihatsu Naked (which it is)
Suzuki We`ve (We`ve what? Got a stupid name for a car?)

Music These are actual factual Japanese bands and some of the names of the records they have made.
10 Feet Super Stomper
Veni Vidi Vicious have and album called I Like Beethoven. Especially His Lyrics.
Mongol 800.
Egg Brain have a second album called So Far, So Good.
Baseball Bear released Breeeeze Girl.
Da Pump. Yes, Da Pump. And they have an album called Summer Rider.
Doping Panda. I would pay good money to see a band called Doping Panda. Is is part of there set? Who knows? All i know is they have an album called Decadence and it`s not all that bad.
There`s a band called Best Newcomer of the Year and for all i know they might be. They do have an album called Pizza of Death Records. Yes. Yes they do.
Chaos In Apple. Genius.
There`s somebody called Rudebwoy Face who has an album simply called Bob.

I secretly love this country. And before you get any ideas please note that drugs and psychotropic substances are highly illegal in Japan so either there`s something in sushi that the rest of the world is overlooking or this country really is as happily crazy i think it might be.

Tokyo

Hello again

I`m in Japan`s capital and it`s one crazy amazing place. I`ve spent the week seeing cities and feeling like a normal tourist again after finishing the hike.

I hired a bicycle in Tokushima for a day and cruised around on some wheels for a change trying not to walk anywhere. The next day i hopped on a bus to Osaka and sped along motorways and bridges to Honshu island and into Kobe. I`m sure there`s some kind of distinction between Kobe and Osaka but it all looks like one big blanket of buildings and roads sandwiched between sea and mountains.

In Osaka i stayed in a district called Namba in a cheap, friendly capsule hotel (it`s like a fancy coffin with a TV and a free breakfast) and busied myself in a huge city by seeing streets and shops. I wandered around huge shopping centres, played video games in electronics malls, listened to music in CD shops and bought absolutely nothing at all as i was happy to be amongst millions of people again.

Osaka is a friendly fun city with a lot happening but there was one thing that was very obvious about the place - it`s sexy as hell. I played a game that i`d played in Fukuoka a few years ago called Spot The Ugly Girl and only managed to see ten in thirty minutes of idle wandering through the evening shopping throng. I probably looked like a freaky lecherous wanker but i`d just spent six weeks hiking up mountains and sleeping in garages or on the floors of temples so i didn`t care much.

I had a day trip to Koyasan Mountain via a train and a cable car which is what i`d promised Muto i would do. Koyasan is home to Kobo Daishi`s mausoleum and is a small mountain packed full of temples and covered in tress. To get to his mausoleum you have to walk through a vast serene graveyard containing thousands of tombs and just as many massive trees shading the sunlight. The mausoleum itself was a simple temple full of candle lights and a place for people to pray near the entrance to a cave where he was placed after his death. The whole of the graveyard and temple area somehow seemed to breathe peace and serenity.

I had one more day in Osaka and saw The Osaka Peace Museum which described the fire bombings in Osaka and the atomic bombs that fell on Japan in World War II as well as the horrors committed by the Japanese in Korea, China and other Asian countries in the 1930s and 1940s. I guess it should have been called the War Museum but it tried to show that the past was shitty and we should use it to move towards something better. I also saw Osaka Human Rights Museum and Osaka Castle which has been burned down, rebuilt, destroyed and renovated so many times that it could be a cathedral home improvement DIY TV shows.

Osaka is on three levels. Underground there are shopping centres, train lines and platforms. Ground level there are buses, cars, shopping malls with rivers of people and more trains and tehn above ground there are hotels and offices split up by raised motorways mazing cars to wherever they need to be. I became convinced that Osaka`s public transport system was designed specifically to help people get lost and make you walk around squinting into middle distance, slack jawed, thinking, "Where the fuck am i?" Actually, that was my default expression most of the time in Osaka when i wasn`t counting ugly women.

And now there`s Tokyo. I`ve seen big Asian cities draped in neon, fuelled by drink, money, sex and petrol, populated by millions and known by even more. At least, i thought i had. Tokyo is on another level. It makes my home city look like less than a village. It`s a place where 30 million people live and work. A place with no limits. A place that never stops moving. A place that constantly demands your attention and gets it in double. Welcome to organised chaos. Welcome to the future. Welcome to Tokyo.

I`ve been here for a day and a night and i`m enthralled with this city already. I could stay here for a month and still not see it all. I`ve got a week. Should be fun.

Tokushima again

Hello hello

I`m back in Tokushima which means that i`m no longer a walking sweaty pilgrim - i`m a walking sweaty tourist. The hike is finished. Yesterday i made it back to temple number one which is the end as well as the start as the pilgrimage is circular. But last Saturday i was in Niihama with Muto and his Grandmother.

Muto`s Grandmother was a tiny woman who kindly let me sleep in her garage after eating a mountain of awesome food and beer with her, Muto and an old bald monk who used to be a poet. When i left the next morning she gave me 1000 yen and wished me good luck. I said goodbye to Muto too as he was staying with his grandmother for a while so i walked down main roads and back streets for 27km until i came to a small town where i managed to find another free place for hikers to stay. It was a tiny temple right next to a house. The old man who lived in the house with his family treated me like a new toy showing me his temple, his house, his TV and the toilet that i could use which was down the street in a hut on the other side of a disused bowling green.

The next day brought two more temples, the first of which smelled like shit but looked beautiful and was up a big hill. The second was a long long walk through forests and at the top of a 1000m mountain and didn`t have the free hostel that i`d been expecting but the woman who worked in the temple told me of another place in a village 5km down the other side of the mountain so i stayed there instead where the owner gave me a load of rice and meat for free to go with the floor i was sleeping on.

By now my legs were talking to me every morning. They were saying things like, "Dave, don`t move. Stay here. Go back to sleep. Sleep is good. Walking is bad. The wheel was a major development in human evolution. Use some. Stop using me. No, don`t get up. Sit down sit down sit down." On day 34 i wish i`d have listened as it was 34km and 34 degrees. There were six temples to see that day and after wandering in the hot sun through country roads and farms i was shattered when i arrived at temple 75 to find yet another free place to stay and got washed in an onsen/spa with a load of old Japanese men.

The next day was a uneventful dull day mixed with rain and heat where i walked all day by main roads until i reached the small city of Sakaide. Day 41 was 37km long and full of hazy hotness. It included forests, mountain roads and lots of sweat and ended in Takamatsu city which looked like decent enough place but i saw almost nothing of it as i left early the next morning amongst clouds, thunder and a lot of rain. I walked along getting soaked until i reached Shido where it stopped raining as soon as i got to a guesthouse.

By now i`d become tired of walking. My legs were right. Wheels were good. But i couldn`t just give up. I`d just seen temple 86 and i`d walked over 1000km. I was so close to the end that i couldn`t stop walking there in Shido so i decided that the next day would be the longest one and walked 52km. I walked in the morning to temple 87 along flat roads which then started to climb and climb the mountain where temple 88 stood. The trail left the road and went up through forests and i followed a path that wasn`t on my map to the top of the mountain at almost 800m. It felt good as i knew that it was all downhill to the finish line from there. I followed the path down to the other side of the mountain expecting it to come to temple 88. It didn`t. The path got thinner and the trees denser and the mountain steeper until there was no path, there was just ground that was nearly vertical and a lot of vegetation which i managed to use to keep me from tumbling down the side of the hill by grabbing and pulling so i could lower myself. I was lost. I was full of mud, sweat and fear. My glasses fell of my head and disappeared into a load of leaves on the ground. I followed a dry stream down the hill for an hour or two lowering myself all the time using tree roots, branches and damp rocks trying to prevent myself going arse over tit and breaking bones. I found my way out to a road which was about 100m away from the temple 88 entrance. I stumbled into the temple complex covered in dirt and sweat with blood trickling from cuts on my arms. I was quite a sight and quite a state. I managed to get myself cleaned up and and set off for temple 6 which was where i spent the first night of the hike in the temple guesthouse. This time i slept for free in the bell tower.

The next morning i walked back to temple number one which was once the start and was now the finish. I`d done it. 1150km, 690 miles, 44 days, 88 temples (not that i was counting, of course). I sat at the temple for a while, which was packed with bus tour pilgrims, and looked back on the past few weeks. It was already a blur. Muto, temples, sleeping on floors, Buddhists, farms, villages, cities, sun, wind, rain, beaches, mountains, smiles, friendly huge hearted people. It`s like a movie. Part of me felt happy and slightly proud. A tiny part of me wanted to go round again. Most of me just wanted a bath.

I got a train back to Tokushima and looked around trying to figure out where the bad smell was coming from. It was me. I stayed in a nice hotel in Tokushima that was wonderfully called The Agnes and wondered how to celebrate. I called Muto to tell him i`d finished and thank him for being a Japanese and Buddhist teacher and then bought four cans of Asahi in a convenience store and sank them slightly too quickly whilst watching baseball on TV.

So, what next? Osaka and Wakayama tomorrow. I promised Muto i would go to Wakayama as it`s Kobo Daishi`s "resting place". Then it`s onto Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima so hopefully i`ll be able to write something about Japan and not just about how many kilometres i`ve walked and free lunches i`ve eaten which i`m sure you`re bored of by now.

Niihama

This week i`ve been sleeping in store rooms, on temple floors, guesthouses and grandparent`s homes. Here`s why.

I was in the city of Matsuyama which is an old Japanese city with trams, a rich history and a drought. It is also home to the oldest onsen (spa/sauna) in Japan and i spent an hour there showering and soaking in a hot bath with old Japanese men before meeting up with Muto again in another free Temple hostel that smelled of spam and didn`t have working lights. Muto is doing well. Somehow he`s acquired a portable TV/CD/DVD player but he won`t tell me how and he still drinks and smokes as if his life depends on it.

The next day the drought ended in a big way. It hosed it down all day. Monsoon. Stair rods. Cats and dogs and other animals as well. I walked with Muto for a bit but he told me to go on ahead as he wanted to try and find a place dry to pitch his tent. I wandered on along the main road next to the sea and through towns and vilages getting more and more wet. Within a few hours i thought i`d reached saturation point and then i got car splashed by an elderly couple driving through a huge puddle. I couldn`t have been more wet if i was underwater. I could have put out a camp fire simply by standing next to it and doing a bit of a wiggle. I stopped in a supermarket to by some food for the night and as i was browsing around realsied that i`d started quietly singing along to the instrumental music being played on the speakers in store. It was I Can See Clearly Now The Rain Has Gone. I swore audibly.

That night i made it to the village of Asanami where there was a small local temple with a floor to sleep on for free. It was shut. I asked at the post office and Mr Nakamura the postmaster told me to wait in the post office as the owner of the temple was out shopping. We passed the time by chatting in bits of English and Japanese and he told me that my backpack was too heavy guessing it weighed 20kg. I disagreed a lot and said it was only about 7kg. He looked at me, looked at the backpack, glanced at the counter, shrugged and plonked my bag on the electric scales. The correct weight was 9.3kg so i was declared the winner and given some ice tea and cake. Muto arrived as i he couldn`t find anywhere dry to pitch a tent and we spent the night in the temple drinking beer and watching his TV.

The mext morning we walked in the sun by the coast but at lunchtime the clouds came and swamped us with more rain. That day we squelched 30km and saw five temples the last of which, Temple 58, was in a forest up a huge damp hill. We stayed in another free hostel or to give it a more realistic description a store room under the toilet block in the car park. Thankfully they had a washing machine and a dryer so we got cleaned up and Muto tried unsuccessfully to get a reception on his TV while we wolfed down more supermarket food.

Day 34 of the hike started way too early as Temple 58 has a monk who does a morning prayer so we were invited along to pray and chat with an old bald man in a yellow and purple robe in an ornate temple at the top of a damp hill in forest. A usual Thursday morning really. After the long prayer he sat talking to me and Muto. He asked Muto a few questions which i guessed were to do with his reasons for doing the pilgrimage. Muto spoke for a quite a while, the monk listening intently. Muto`s voice appeared by break at one point and it might have just been the incense wafting around but his eyes weren`t dry. When Muto finished the old monk considered his answer and spoke at length. Then he turned to me and asked which country i was from. He smiled when i told him England and he then told me about the time when he was in a karate competition in Manchester. He didn`t ask me anything else, turned back to Muto and talked more with him until my legs went numb from sitting crossed legged for so long.

I asked Muto later that day what he was talking to the monk about and he tried to think of something to say and then just smiled, waved his hand and said, "No English, no English." Later that day we arrived at another village with a small temple and yet another free place for walking pilgrims. We ate fried chicken and beer in the village chicken and beer resturant and then sat on a park bench near a beer vending machine and drank to much Asahi and tried not to look like tramps and failed miserably.

On Friday we walked 30km through more quiet villages and up another huge hill where we saw temple 60 and, thankfully, no rain. We wandered back down the slippery path through the trees to another village called Komatsu where i found a guesthouse and paid for some accomadation for the first time in a week and Muto camped somewhere. We met this morning, saw four more temples and had a dull day walking alongside the main road as cars and trucks glided past in the sunshine. Now we`re in Niihama which is home to Muto`s grandmother who is an 83 year old classical three stringed Japanese guitar teacher who wants to feed me lots of food. And Muto wants to get drunk. Again.

I`ve got less than ten more days of walking left and then i`ll be finished. Today broke the 900km mark so we`re over three quarters done. It`s been a hell of journey so far and this is just the start. I`ve got five more months of travelling to come after this. Should be fun.

If you want to see some pictures and don`t have access to the always annoying facebook then send me an email and i`ll send you a link.

I`ll update the blog again next week and try and write less next time. Keep in touch.