The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

Alexander Supertramp

When I was 12, I started studying Japanese. Since then, my love of Japan has only grown more and more palpable.

Crazy how a change of place can change your days.

3 August 2023

• 11:50-12:30 Haneda airport to Asakusa station train (Keikyu line)
• Asakusa – shops, street food, Senso-ji temple, konbini picnic by Sumida River
• 18:35-19:00 Asakusa station to Akasaka Mitsuke station metro (Ginza line), 19:00-19:15 transfer to Nakano-Sakaue station (Marunouchi line), 19:17-19:22 transfer to Hounancho station (same line, different destination)

Haneda Airport

I slept three short hours on some chairs inside the airport and woke shivering. At 5:30 am, the air conditioning had been turned on.

At least, compared to the hard wood of Seoraksan’s mountain shelter, the chairs were padded.

I revived myself by resting for a few hours. Finally had time to catch up with a Sri Lankan-Australian friend I’d met in Osaka in March. He told me of an intense and magical fling from his last five days in Tokyo. The guy who lived there said they would stay in touch. Now, the guy was ghosting him.

My friend repeated how much he wanted to see me again. How much he missed me. Every time we spoke it was like this. He’d been inviting me to Australia over and over again. We’d only had two hours together, one night in Osaka, and haven’t seen each other since.

My answer to him was always the same. “It’s only because I can’t afford it. Someday…”

“But we have to meet again while we’re young,” he said. “I’m not going to let you wait until I’m forty or sixty.”

At 10:00, the line to JR office was an hour long. I picked up my pass, a prepaid SIM card, and a green Jagarico (the Miitaka guy’s other favorite snack). Shoot me in the head. Or the chest.

Then I discovered that, from August 2023 onwards, regular IC cards could not be bought anymore in Tokyo.

Asakusa

I took the train to Asakusa, to meet the German girl from my Korean temple stay. Having made no plans for today, hanging out with a friend and showing her around a place I was already familiar with, and didn’t feel pressured to explore, felt apt.

The only passengers inside the train without masks were foreigners. Myself included. Korea had spoiled me.

But the sky was straight out of Toy Story, and laying eyes on Tokyo again, though too urban for my liking, filled me with relief.  

Seeing the German girl again was just as wild. We’d spent two special days together, surviving a Buddhist boot camp, watching the sunrise on a mountain, and sharing degrees in literature.

It was 35 degrees, hotter than in Seoul’s 32, but not at all humid. I wasn’t damp.

Plus, it was very windy.

I immediately broke into long explanations about Asakusa, while taking us to a place I hadn’t managed to visit my last time. A miniscule stand, tucked inside a nondescript alley, that sold matcha crepes.

It opened at 12:00. We reached it at 13:40. The crème brûlée matcha crepe – my reason for coming here, which had bought the stand its name – was already sold out.

Instead, we simply walked around Asakusa, neither of us wanting to rush to tick off its attractions. We recounted our trips since our temple stay on June 8-9.

After Korea, she’d met a Japanese woman in Kansai. They’d stayed at a temple for two nights in Koya-san, and visited the cemetery. (Like I had in March.) Then, to my utter shock and admiration, they’d hiked from Koya-san to Koguchi. A hike so notoriously dangerous, that no one dared to undertake it. Only a brave few. There were always stories about people getting lost there and not making it out (such as a traveler just last month). I’d only met one person who’d ventured into that deadly trail: the American who ran the guesthouse in Shodoshima.

The German girl and her new Japanese friend hiked for four full days. Eight hours of steep mountains, followed by beer and onsens. Staying in Minshukus in towns comprised of ten houses.

Then, they visited Kawayu Onsen in Hongu (the river Onsen I hadn’t gotten around to visiting in March, because it was too cold). Finally, they stayed at a guesthouse near the famous white sand beach in Shirahama, where the girl volunteered for a month (basically did nothing whatsoever, in exchange for free accommodation), and worked at a café for 2-3 hours a day. Eventually, the café added to their menu her usual, vegan breakfast.

All this, without speaking a word in Japanese.

I tried to explain to her how rare it was for a tourist to experience all this, especially with the language barrier. She’d had a very special time in Japan. I almost wanted to recreate her itinerary, including the hike and volunteering at the hostel.

In addition, she’d also hiked Fuji-san a mere two days ago. She’d found it a bit difficult to catch her breath up there, but other than that, hadn’t suffered much from altitude sickness (even though she’d never hiked that high). With my shelter and two-meal reservation from June costing me as much as a luxurious ryokan, I decided to cancel it, and hike all through the night with my Tokyo friend instead.

Being vegan, it was very hard to find something edible for the German girl. She kept apologizing. I empathized with her. Korea and meat were like Japan and eggs.

We both reveled in Asakusa’s un-Tokyo-like atmosphere. Almost like the Kyoto of Tokyo, except less crowded. Traditional and charming. While visiting Senso-ji temple, I showed her a video of my time here on May 3, during Golden Week. You couldn’t move an inch.

Today was August 3. It’d been precisely three months since then.

I was about to teach the German girl shrine etiquette, when she said that her friend had taught her. We washed our right hands, then left hands. Then, she washed her mouth, and spit.

What.

I couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone spit during this ritual. But I followed suit.

This time, for Round Two in Japan, I decided not to buy a stamp book. Too expensive for my current budget. Plus, I’d already filled out two books.

Praying was another activity that didn’t attract me anymore. I’d prayed at 70 shrines and temples during Round One, and the gods hadn’t answered.

Asakusa was famous for secondhand traditional clothes. I saved a particular shop with the cheapest high-quality yukata I’d ever seen. A steal at this price. Had to come back to this area for a yukata and a crepe.

Also, for the monja restaurant, where I’d eaten a criminally delicious black squid ink monja. Now, it took me forever to find (I’d forgotten to save it on my Google Maps – lucky I’d been documenting everything on this trip). It wasn’t vegan, so we didn’t eat there together.

Instead, I showed her a stand of the best taiyaki chain in Japan.

The Perfect Picnic

Then we went to 7/11. An angel choir played as the doors slid open. Everything there galvanized me. I couldn’t shut up. I couldn’t stop talking and admiring and reminiscing and explaining the lore of Japanese food to her. Nothing was spicy. I had dozens of options to choose from. I was in consumer heaven.

Onigiri – so fresh and flavorful, the complete opposite of its gross and greasy counterpart in Korean konbinis; a rare and new sighting for me of a nattou and wasabi sushi (YUM); a tofu bar (TOFU BAR! Not chicken, like in Korea! And in multiple flavours)… I recited the 7/11 cash register mantra to her. Remembered every word.

We ate our goods in front of Sumida River, with a direct view of Tokyo Skytree and the oddly shaped golden monument on top of an adjacent skyscraper (“Looks like sperm,” she said). The river was sparkling gold from its reflection.

Seagulls and a slow train crossing a bridge. A blue day, with clouds as charming as the ones from Toy Story. Joggers all staring at my mandarin hat. She kept saying how cute it looked, how much she loved it.

There was nothing we didn’t talk about. One of those conversations I couldn’t even begin to recreate. So far-reaching and intimate. Four hours.

At some point, she asked me if I’d read a book called Into the Wild. I’d been carrying a battered copy with me on this trip, with highlights and scribbling.

She spoke about the quote I’d opened this post with, a quote that had resonated with her, and came to her while discussing with me our trips – and today’s meeting.

I hadn’t expected my first day to be so perfect. I wasn’t even tired. I thought I’d sleep all day at an internet café.

Having made no plans for her brief time in Tokyo, she walked me to the station. I almost dissociated.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just so surreal. I can’t believe I’m back here.”

So happy. So happy. So happy.

I was home.

The time came to say goodbye – but neither of us could do so.

“This is sadder than I thought,” she said.

We were standing outside the entrance to Asakusa station.

“When we said goodbye at the temple, I knew I would see you again,” she said. “I just didn’t realize it would be this soon. And we will meet again – I don’t know where – but I’m sure of it. I really want to.”

“Me too,” I said, meaning it.

Such a farewell speech – I was used to being the one making it. Not the other way around.

I was about to walk away. Except I couldn’t. We uttered more and more words, just to extend the moment. 

“Love you,” she said after our second hug.

“I love you too,” I said, surprised to hear it first.

Reuniting with My Japanese Counterpart

At 19:30, I met my host in his neighborhood, west of Shinjuku. If being back in Japan – in Tokyo – in Asakusa, and with a friend, felt surreal, then laying eyes on him was like out of a dream.

He walked toward me, emerging from the shadows of a small, quiet residential alley at nighttime. An indiscernible figure greeting me from the darkness, before growing less dim. There was something mysterious and comforting about this second. A long-lost friend, materializing from oblivion. Like a scene out of a movie.

Round, wiry glasses, messy bangs. A thin 5 o’clock shadow. We spoke Japanese almost the entire time. I had to practice. And I repeated and repeated how happy I was, in this moment. To be back in Japan, to have had such a perfect day with the German girl, only for it to get better, now that I was back with my Japanese counterpart.

We were almost the same person – same likes, dislikes, age, hobbies, passions. I grinned in his presence the entire time.

「嬉しい。」 (“Happy.”)

We ate dinner at a local teishoku restaurant, cheap and tiny, served by the tiniest, most hard-working obaachan. I savored my maguro sashimi and nattou. Red fish sashimi. Red! Not white! Fatty, not dry.

And miso soup. Oh, it’d been too long.

The restaurant’s specialty of the day was whale sashimi.

“Rare,” my host said, “but delicious.”

In Japan, it was still legal.

Afterwards, we played Mario Kart and the new Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on his Switch. He’d purchased the former game during my previous stay with him, just to play it with me.

“Can you move your luggage there?” he asked in English at some point.

“Please speak in Japanese,” I replied in Japanese, wanting to get better at it.

“I find it easier to make requests in English. In Japanese, it feels weird,” he said. “Too direct. Japanese people don’t make requests.”

I’d already known this. But after Korea, it felt strange.

Having left a small suitcase full of all my winter clothes at his apartment in May, I added to it a bunch of things from my current suitcase that I didn’t need. I’d been carrying 26 kilograms of luggage. Every Korean hanbok, mementos, souvenirs, unused medicine, I gave him for safekeeping.

He’d noticed my copy of Into the Wild in my suitcase, a book that was a few meters away from mine, on his bookshelf. Both of us, while reading it, had felt similar to Alexander Supertramp.

I gave him a small present I’d wrapped for him in Seoul. The card I’d written seemed to have touched him.

At half past midnight, he took out kimchee from his fridge. The last dish I’d expected to see. It wasn’t as spicy as the one in Korea. The taste was less strong. But the expiry date was two days ago, so I told him about my Seoul host cooking kimchee fried rice for us for breakfast using my expired kimchee.

I also mentioned the Morioka woman, who had been emailing me suggestions at activities.

“Asking you to come to her town four times by Shinkansen, without offering to pay for it…” he said. “Too much of a request. I’m suspicious.”

I’d been keeping him informed of everything she’d been planning for me. It struck him odd, her enthusiasm. And indeed, four Shinkansen round trips in one month would be absurdly expensive.

I’d see tomorrow, in my first meeting with her, if they might pay off.

Sleeping on his futon – ah. It was thinner than the luxurious futons I’d had the pleasure of sleeping on, in ryokans and in the Ochiai couple’s house. But still. 気持ちいい (good feeling).

I typed this on my phone while he read in bed. He always read before bed. Like me, he wrote fiction as well.

I couldn’t believe how much could change in twenty-four hours. From crying inside a plane, to a simple change of location that turned my mood around. How a place only 2.5 hours away could make me feel at ease.

Throughout the day, I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t yawning. I wasn’t lethargic.

Instead, I felt at home. I felt wanted.

I regained my hope for Japan. First day back here, and I couldn’t have asked for it to go better. It already felt special.

Things I missed about Japan:

• Washlets
• Public toilets that don’t reek
• Politeness
• Clerks dramatically turning around, looking up, and covering their eyes with their hand while you press your PIN code
• Bowing with every sentence
• Being able to communicate with locals again
• Friendly and helpful staff positioned everywhere
• People wearing masks
• Avenues with TREES
• SILENCE in public transportation
• Trains with conductors
• “Silent mode” being called “manner mode”
• Train seats being padded
• People waiting neatly in line
• Food that doesn’t make my mouth burn
• Straight guys wearing nail polish
• Middle-aged straight men using pastel fans
• Waking and riding escalators on the left side
• Futons
• Less humidity than Korea
• Literally everything meatless from 7/11

Things I didn’t miss about Japan:

• The JR pass still being paper-only
• Some ticket machines only accept cash (in Korea, EVERY ticket machine only accepts cash)
• Public Wi-Fi being as bad as Korea’s
• Coin lockers only accepting 100-yen coins (my worst nightmare)

Today’s highlights: speaking in Japanese again; using a washlet; the train ride to Tokyo; exploring Asakusa with the German girl; the matcha crepe; shopping at 7/11; the view of Tokyo Skytree by Sumida River; playing the Switch with my Tokyo friend; nattou and sashimi for dinner; sleeping on a futon.

4 August 2023

• 11:05-11:10 Hounancho station to Nakano-Sakaue station metro (Marunouchi line), 11:10-11:40 transfer to Tokyo station metro (Marunouchi line), 13:20-15:30 Tokyo station to Morioka station bullet train
• Morioka Sansa Odori festival + Hachimangu Shrine (2.5h)
• 21:35-22:20 Morioka station to Kakunodate station bullet train

Farewell to Tokyo

My host and I woke at 9:45, 15 minutes before he had to start working. (From home.)

Immediately, without wasting a second, we walked two minutes to 7/11 for some pre-cooked rice. He made kimchee fried rice for breakfast – spicy, all right – and we talked more and more. A discussion about Korea led him to bring up their beauty culture. He’d heard of it. The things I told him made him exclaim with shock.

“Japanese people are more open to variety,” he said at some point.

Before leaving for 7/11, neither of us had looked in the mirror.

He struggled to pronounce the few Korean words I knew. But he spoke Japanese, English, Chinese, and some Spanish.

Before long, it was time for me to go.

I’d just arrived in Tokyo, and already had to leave. Saying goodbye to him, even though we’d reunite at the end of the month… it hurt.

“You are going to do in Tohoku in one month things I’ve never done,” he said.

After my first three months in Japan had convinced me to live in Sapporo or Matsumoto someday, recently, I’d changed my mind to Tokyo. This was where everything was. Him as well.

As I left, I wondered why I still added a polite “san” to his name, when he hadn’t added it to mine once.

Next stop for me was a shinkansen to Tohoku region. I’d arrived 1.5 hours early to the station, with plenty of time to help a struggling French family of nine to buy Shinkansen tickets. It took us around 40 minutes, because they’d forgotten to pay the basic fare, and then missed their train.

Having missed out on a return to Shinjuku station, which I’d visited at least twenty (maybe thirty?) times and gotten lost inside at least ten, Tokyo Station’s Shinkansen platforms were a consolation prize. An absolute madness, with a gazillion passengers everywhere. Big, huge, chaotic, but somehow, in perfect order.

Taking a bullet train again for the first time since late March reminded me of my initial reaction to them on February 19. Why didn’t the entire world boast of them? And how could a train ride be so soothing?

I ate a konbini lunch on the train. Soon, I would probably tire of onigiri. But not today.

「すいません、失礼いたします,」the train staff said with every single cautious step, while wheeling the beverage trolley down the aisle.

Morioka Sansa Odori Festival

At Morioka station, I bought a SUICA card and some food. The Morioka woman arrived at 17:30, clad in a deep blue yukata, with an obi and a traditional, round straw bag.

She’d messaged me a few days ago, implying that I should wear the samue I’d worn at Narita airport on the day we’d met. I’d responded that I’d already planned to bring my jinbei (THE traditional festival garb).

We walked to the festival. Morioka Sansa Odori was one of the five great summer festivals of Tohoku. Moreover, it held the Guiness world record for the largest taiko (drum) festival.

Morioka was insanely crowded, with a surprising number of foreign tourists around. The parade was as enjoyable as expected. Music, songs, traditional outfits in every color. Drums and adorable children. I was so jealous of the participators, that I wanted to partake in the festivities. The Morioka woman said that, this being the final night, the audience could dance with the participators in the end.

During a visit to the adjacent Hachimangu shrine, the Morioka woman taught me shrine etiquette, most of which I’d already known.

“We walk on the left side, because the gods walk on the right,” she said. No one in Japan deigned to do this nowadays, though.

Like the German girl yesterday, the Morioka woman also washed her mouth after her hands. So I should’ve been doing this the entire time? Okay.

We extended our hands in front of an enormous boulder, which the woman said was considered a “power rock” full of magic or something. Then, we found a street food stall where we sat down and ate. Sea urchin rice (new for me – a revelation), roasted squid (criminally delicious), lemon sour. A long conversation ensued, turning dark and existential.

“In life, we need love and money,” she said, after we discussed working in Japan, and maybe even together. “After I met my fiancée, everything improved.”

I mulled over the power of love. My entire life, romance had never attracted me. I’d always focused on the power of money. But maybe the Morioka woman had a point.

She said I should find love in Japan and get married. “Lots of foreign guys love Japanese girls,” she remarked.

She had studied English in London. Her Chinese fiancée was now living in the US. “I’m not a regular Japanese person,” she said at some point.

That conversation took many twists and turns. For example: “Korean men are hot and tall,” she uttered later on, “but when they’re angry, they’re scary.”

She suggested publishing an e-book together – she would draw, and I would write in English. 

Then she mentioned guesthouses in Japan having a 21:00 curfew. I’d already booked a Shinkansen for 21:35.

Shit.

I messaged my guesthouse in Kakunodate about a late check-in, at 22:30. This might be too late of a notice. What was I going to do?

A few, tense minutes ensued. We returned to the festival. Loud drumming – singing – chaos – people everywhere. The scene turned boisterous, and my mood, paranoid.

Finally, the guesthouse responded that they would leave a key for me with instructions. And I worried that they wouldn’t let me enter.

At 20:30, the parade ended, and the waodori (dancing in a circle) began. It took me a few minutes to learn some basic moves. But participating in the festival – another thing in the last two days I hadn’t anticipated doing. Two girls saw me struggling and helped me out. Such joy; such fun.

Walking back to the station, the Morioka woman remarked that festivals in Japan were like nowhere else on this planet.

We chatted in the station’s waiting room for a while. Then she left. We would have several more activities together.

Waiting for the Shinkansen on the platform, I watched the video of me trying to dance. I couldn’t stop grinning. The kind of grin a person who made you melt raised on your face. Only this time, it was a country.

Sitting by the window during the train ride, my view was pitch black. The bullet train was bolting through the countryside at night. No lights whatsoever.

Kakunodate

Kakunodate was the kind of small town whose station featured only one platform. On the way out, a Japanese woman called my name.

She was the owner of the guesthouse. Having guessed my Shinkansen arrival time, she’d come to pick me up.

Another shocker, on top of a free ride: she’d been planning a trip to the Middle East, and recently bought a travel guide for Israel.

The guesthouse was small and traditional, with tatami mats, a garage full of wood for fire, and beds with those buckwheat-filled pillows and thick, euphoria-inducing, heavy futon blankets. A family from Kobe was staying in my dormitory, doing the same itinerary as me (Akita-Aomori-Sendai), except a day ahead.

The owner said that I could check out whenever I wanted, and borrow a bike to sightsee Kakunodate.

“It takes one hour,” she said. The only attraction was the samurai district.

And so, after reserving multiple Shinkansens for tomorrow already in Seoul, I found a different train at noon going straight to Akita, and changed my plans.

The owner also mentioned the fireworks in Akita on the 26th being the biggest ones in Japan. The most famous. Needless to say, her guesthouse (and every other accommodation in the prefecture) was already fully booked for that day. Apparently, some guests had made reservations a full year in advance.

I really wanted to see the fireworks, so I figured I wouldn’t sleep that night, and wait instead for the first train.

As I went to bed, a symphony of frog croaks and cricket buzzing made me nostalgic for my days in the Japanese countryside. Yet another thing in the past two days that raised a smile on my face.

Things I missed about Japan:

• Gargantuan, chaotic train stations with a gazillion of people, somehow all maintaining order
• Train conductors everywhere
• Conductors’ hats and light blue uniform
• SHINAKNSENS
• Apologizing with every sentence
• “Be careful” being uttered every second
• Tatami mats
• Futon blankets and pillows

Things I didn’t miss about Japan:

• Even more single use plastic than in Korea
• “How are you?” being a question you only ask close friends. A bit weird, to see someone and not start the conversation by asking for their well-being. Then again, no one but close friends would reply anything other than “good, and you?” so it might be a waste of a question.
• WHERE ARE THE VEGETABLES? WHERE ARE THEY?

Today’s highlights: kimchee fried rice; the craziness of Tokyo station; taking a shinkansen; more oginiris; dancing in Morioka festival; sea urchin rice and roasted squid; traditional futon blanket and pillow; the various sounds of the Japanese countryside at night.

Stray observations:

• When boarding Shinkansens, one must purchase a fare ticket in addition to the bullet train ticket, just like when boarding limited express trains. I’ve never noticed this, because I’ve always used a JR pass for them.

5 August 2024

• Exploring Kakunodate and the samurai district (1h)
• 12:20-13:05 Kakunodate station to Akita station bullet train
• Akita Kanto matsuri – day festivities (30m)
• Neburi-nagashi-kan – Akita city folk performing arts heritage center (30m)
• Akita Kanto matsuri – night parade (1.5h)
• 21:00-22:35 Akita station to Jumonji station train (Ou line)

The Samurai District

A beautiful, scorching day. Atrocious, the amount of sweat. Right when I’d remembered to moisturize for a change in the morning.

But what a charming town was Kakunodate, with picturesque clouds and blue sky, lush mountains, tranquil streets – traditional, wooden buildings – a nice river. Amazing in Sakura season, good for only one day in this time of the year.

I stopped by every house in the samurai district (more like samurai avenue), but only went into the free ones, viewable only from outside. I’d been to plenty traditional houses like this on the inside already during my first three months in Japan. So it was fine. With the big houses that cost an entrance fee, I supposed sightseeing the district could take one hour.

The samurai avenue was heinously touristy. But then I cycled back and got lost. Just me and cicadas in quiet streets. Worth getting lost.

So, from the guesthouse and back, my tour took exactly one hour – just as the owner had said. I checked out Kakunodate Onsen on the way back, but it seemed indoor-only.

Akita

Back at the guesthouse, I rested from the heat (worse than Tokyo – apparently Kakunodate was known for its heat. And snow), when the owner returned, gave me an ice-cold drink, and asked for future recommendations for Israel. I gave her my business card (first time) and she gave me a ride to the station. Only in the countryside could that sort of thing happen.

While waiting for the Shinkansen, I met two girls living in Sendai, one from Canada, the other from Switzerland. Their plan for tonight’s Akita festival: sleep in a karaoke booth. Thinking I might do the same on the 26^th for Omagari fireworks, I asked them to let me know afterwards if that plan worked.

After a frantic search for a coin locker at Akita station, I watched the day festivities in front of Seobu department store. Guys balancing enormous and heavy Kanto poles on their palms, shoulders, or even just foreheads. How much strength and balance did this require? Training and precision?

Next, I watched the balancing competition in front of Akita Museum of Art. Guys cheering each other and performing feats of balancing, such as on their butts, to the applause of the crowd. Girls drumming in perfect unison the entire time. Flutes and clapping, sweat dripping down my back, a blazing sun. A lotus field across the road.

At the small Neburi-nagashi-kan, I learned the story behind Kanto festival.

In the old days, Neburi-Nagashi (“washing away”) was used to mourn, pray for harvest, etc. People had done so so to ward off evil spirits while carrying paper lanterns placed on high poles at night.

In the Edo period, this custom had evolved into carrying long bamboo poles decorated with Neburi-Nagashi lanterns. Nowadays, they were also balanced in various techniques.

They pole-bearers practiced every year between June and July, in streets and parking lots.

I tried balancing the smallest pole. Very difficult – but if I’d had more than two minutes, I might’ve been able to do carry the bigger ones.

Upstairs at the museum, I played the huge drum. A group of ojiisans came and did it perfectly.

When I headed out, it was only 15:00. Plenty of time to kill. Per the tourist information center’s recommendation, I checked out the old school park and Hachiman shrine. A deafening cacophony of cicadas. Loud drumming from afar. Crows and a small shrine.

So went to the night parade venue, called Kanto Odori (“large road” in Japanese), to catch a good spot. At 15:45, exactly three hours before the parade, only three people were there.

Weird – three hours were already a time when people had gathered during my Japanese festivals in April and March. Maybe August’s heat had pushed everything later.

I asked the three people here if this was the right avenue. A middle-aged Japanese woman from Akita, and two young Vietnamese guys, who had relocated here for work. She was very excited to chat, and immediately invited me to sit with them, on plenty of newspapers they’d brought beforehand. She let me try on a hanten, the traditional festival jacket. It was so cool, that I yearned to buy one.

Talking to the Vietnamese guy in Japanese was funny, because he spoke it better than English.

During the 3-hour wait, I ate new things from 7/11 – Chinese yam, sea lettuce, and oyster soy sauce; kimchee with napa cabbage, Chinese yam, and cucumber.

We scored the best location for viewing, because after a while, cops showed up and barricaded the sidewalk with traffic cones and bars, and we sat in front of them, by the road.

Still, waiting like this for three hours was a bit boring. At 18:00, the road got very crowded. It seemed as though every western tourist I’d came across in Tohoku spoke Japanese. Perhaps only the hardcore fans of this country came to this region.

No sooner had I nearly dozed off than, at 18:50, the festival began.

Akita Kanto Festival

After a twenty-minute parade, the guys started hoisting up the poles, and balancing them on their body.

My jaw dropped.

How could they balance weight and height poles on their palms? Shoulders? Forehead? Butt? How did the poles stay intact? How did the bearers not crumble?

The largest poles measured 12 meters tall, weighed 50 kilograms, and included 46 lanterns. They were being carried all over the road, dozens, if not hundreds of them.

“Dokkoisho!” everyone was chanting. “Dokkoisho!” (“Heigh-ho!”)

Drums, claps, flutes, chanting. Pole balancing, camera flashes, lanterns; heart beating to all the sounds around me. People fanning themselves and waving, exclaiming in admiration every now and then at certain feats of balance. An absolute frenzy.

My mouth was agape the entire time. There was nothing like it. Not even Takayama festival compared.

This went on for twenty minutes, until 19:30. Only one pole fell during this time.

The poles were lowered to light up extinguished lanterns and parade them around. Then they were balanced again between 19:45-20:00, and 20:15-20:30.

The biggest highlight of the night was a guy who balanced the biggest pole on his rear end right in front of me. He opened a parasol and fanned himself while doing so, to the uproar of the crowd. As if it was no biggie.

It was one of those moments who would never be rivaled in my mind by any future challengers. A true feat of faith, training, and determination. Pushing human ability to achieve something great. No festival would ever surpass Kanto, in my opinion. Just as no sculpture in nature could trump the cliff side Buddha in Shodoshima.

I left at 20:20 and rushed to the station.

Yuzawa

The slow, local train to my couch-surfing host for tonight was as dark as yesterday’s bullet train. The Japanese countryside. A vast world.

Vehicle windows had always made me think about life. Now, listening to a certain song, I closed my eyes and found myself crying once more. Were all these excessive tears a build-up from school? I recalled my diaries from middle and high school, in which I’d documented my inability to cry for years.

These past three days, I was happy. Yet some recent experiences still stung. They still hurt.

Jumonji station was the kind of station that was so small, there was no elevator, no ticket gate, no ticket machine, no staff, and only one platform. To get in and out of the train, a button had to be pressed. The doors didn’t open automatically.

My host came to pick me up. Lucky I had stocked up on souvenirs (I’d spent too much money at the Myeongdeung branch of HBAF almonds).

He was my age, with a goatee and a ponytail. Originally from Morioka, he had studied in Akita and now resided in Yokote, working at a miso and soy sauce factory. (I’d mentioned tasting both miso and soy sauce ice cream.)

“There is no festival in Japan like Akita Kanto,” he said. I’d already thought so.

His home was a two-story house, formerly a fish seller’s. Very old. Very countryside. Wooden floor, narrow, winding staircase, and too many rooms to know what to do with.

His bedroom was bigger than my Tokyo friend’s apartment. I received one of the guest rooms.

He kept apologizing and warning me about things. “I haven’t finished unpacking everything yet”; “I have a cat, it’s not one yet, it can be a bit loud, lately it’s been under stress and doesn’t like to go to the toilet”; “the shower light flickers on and off”; etc.

Not only did I not mind any of this – I even confessed at some point that I was a bit jealous.

Yes, the living room was inaccessible from giant piles of mess. The shower light went off like in a horror movie. A large bug (an eerie cross between a cockroach and a centipede?) was waiting for me inside the bathtub. Some parts of the walls were exposed. There was no air conditioning. Instead, there was cat hair everywhere. This town was as tiny as they got, with no young people. And the toilet seat was on a low, raised platform, without an ability to flush – but then again, there was no need to, since you could look down directly at the pipe to the sewer, and everything went straight there. A sight that had not graced my eyes beforehand.

But the house was cozy. A constant, soothing buzzing of bugs from outside. Sliding doors and a cat roaming around; books stacked on floors. A kitchen with lots of alcohol.

This house must have cost him peanuts.

Why had I come here for only one night? He’d invited me for more. He immediately talked to me using the most casual speech, not adding “san” to my name. Why did I keep meeting Japanese guys my age who I got along with? (In Tokyo, Itaewon, Yokote…)

He left at some point to give a ride to his drunk friend, while I was in the shower. He took so long to come back, and I was so tired, that I just dozed off.

Things I missed about Japan:

• Heated toilet seats
• Self-flushing toilets
• Cycling through the tranquil countryside
• The whistling and beeping sounds of green lights at pedestrian crossings
• Being able to befriend locals who don’t speak a word in English

Things I did not miss about Japan:

• Having to sign up and agree to terms and conditions whenever connecting to public Wi-Fi

Today’s highlights: a heated toilet seat; cycling through Kakunodate; trying to balance a Kanto and playing the drum; Akita Kanto festival (particularly the guy with the fan and parasol); a slow train ride through the dark countryside; couch-surfing at an old, rural house.