There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays”

I wish I wasn’t posting my third trilogy on this blog.

The first one, from March, saw me learning to re-appreciate life during my first hiking experience, a 4-day pilgrimage in Kumano Kodo, Japan.

The second one, from June, saw me struggle to find intimacy and friendship during my first hostel volunteering experience, for one month in South Korea, Busan.

Now, I tried to pursue the same – a search that has been ongoing for six months – yet, as the title suggests, I find myself reverting to my pre-pilgrimage days.

21 August 2023

• 8:30-8:45 shuttle bus from ryokan to Nijinoko roadside station, 9:10-9:42 transfer to bus to Kuroishi, 10:10-10:30 Kuroishi to Hatakenaka bus
• Tanbo art festival, site 1 (10 minutes)
• 5-minute shuttle to site 2, 10 minutes there as well, 5-minute shuttle back
• 12:30-12:50 Hatakenaka to Hirosaki station bus
• Nijo Market
• 18:45-19:20 Hirosaki station to Mutsu-Tsuruda station local train

Tanbo Art Festival

On the way back from the ryokan to civilization, between Kuroishi and Hirosaki, I stopped at the Tanbo (“rice field”) Art Festival. It was ongoing from spring to autumn, but the summer (mid-July to mid-August) was the optimal viewing period.

The festival was smaller than expected. Two artworks in the first site: Monsei-no-Saku by Munakata Shiko (1936), an Aomori prefecture printmaker who had strived to be the Japanese Van Gogh; and Woman with a Pearl Necklace by Johannes Vermeer (1664). Both were very pretty and striking, especially on this sunny day, situated against the tiny, 7,500-people Inakadate village. Odd to think that this was some people’s backyard.

Yet the crazy thing about this was the fact that no dye was used whatsoever. More than 10 varieties and 7 colors of rice was used, including green, purple, yellow, dark green, white, red, and orange. Of these, only the green variant was edible; the rest were toxic.

While waiting for the free shuttle bus to the second site, I came across two shops right nearby, full of heinously cheap clothes and traditional pottery. Ridiculously, maddeningly cheap. And I’d thought the handmade pottery shop in Marsumoto’s frog street was inexpensive.

I’d already bought and written postcards to the Sendai lawyer and Shiroishi sake factory CEO at the ryokan, with the intention of sending them better presents from Hirosaki, in compensation for my embarrassing konbini snack gift. But now, at the first shop, I found the most gorgeous, hand-painted sake container / flower vase pieces.

The second tanbo art site featured a huge One Piece artwork, as well as a smaller pebble portrait of Shiko Munakata.

I took the shuttle back to site 1 and bought two bags full of pottery at the second shop for 500 yen. Then I waited 35 minutes for the infrequent bus back to Hirosaki, where I spent at least half an hour at the post office. Ironically enough, the shipment to Sendai and Shiroishi cost five times the presents.

Hirosaki

Per Hirosaki’s tourist information center’s recommendation, I bought a few unusual dishes at the nearby Nijo Market: nattou hanpen (triangle croquette filled with nattou – heaven); anzu no shiromaki (apricot sushi wrapped in leaf thingy? Even the clerk didn’t know what it was. For today’s couch-surfing host;) and chawamushi (an odd egg custard with vegetables, noodles, and shrimp, usually salty, here sweet).

I passed the afternoon inside Hirosaki station, just on my computer and phone. I wasn’t sure if I needed to work, and waited for a message from my boss, to no avail.

The station was too full of memories for me. Everywhere I looked, I recalled a moment; a scene. I returned to the Aomori-bound platform and snapped a photo of the train from the same angle as in February.

Finally, I took the train to Tsuruda, a village between Hirosaki and Aomori, for my new couchsurfing host.

She was a cool and energetic 30-year-old, a freckled redhead from the mountains of Arizona in the United States, living here for four years now, teaching English. Previously taught English as a volunteer in Ukraine (before COVID and the war). My first host in Japan who wasn’t Japanese.

She’d kept the door open and messaged me beforehand to enter by myself. Like my first host in Seoul, I valued the faith she’d put in me.

We had fun chatting until our early bedtime. She’d volunteered to plant some of the rice for the Tanbo Art festival, so my going there today made her happy.

Tsuruda was nicknamed Crane Village. I thought it would be apt to rename it Ghost Town. It felt a bit sad.

Today’s highlights: everything, good and bad, about the ryokan; nattou hanpen.

Stray observations:

• Japan post forbids the inclusion of postcards inside parcels. The two must be shipped separately.

22 August 2023

• 8:15-8:55 Mutsu-Tsuruda station to Hirosaki station local train, 9:15-9:30 Hirosaki station to Tsugaru-Han Neputa Village
• Tsugaru-Han Neputa Village (50m)
• Hirosaki’s samurai village (1h)
• Hirosaki castle (30m)
• 18:45-19:20 Hirosaki station to Mutsu-Tsurugo station local train

Tsugaru-Han Neputa Village

My host, working as a teacher, woke early – and so did I. By 8:00, I was at Mutsu-Tsuruda station.

It was so small that there was only one platform, and neither ticket gate, nor staff.

Aomori prefecture was normally below 30 degrees, yet this week, a heat wave made it hotter than Tokyo. 35 to 38 degrees.

Despite the weather telling me to stay indoors, I went on to explore Hirosaki today, starting with the Neputa village. It hosted nebutas from Hirosaki’s own neputa festival.

Unlike the merry Aomori Nebuta festival, where dancers skipped and danced to hayashi music, Hirosaki Neputa was more demure. The parade was slower, while the neputas resembled giant fans. This custom had probably begun after ancient farmers had placed small lanterns on rivers to carry their sleepiness downstream. (“Neputa” had descended from “Neputee”, drowsiness in the Tsugaru dialect.)

Inside the Neputa village, staff members provided explanations before playing the flute and taiko (the latter, more deafeningly than in Aomori festival); then I tried playing the taiko myself. Finally, there was a performance by a traditional Japanese guitar player.

It was also possible to participate in workshops to create local, traditional crafts, such as dolls, spinning tops, garments, pottery, kites, and goldfish neputas.

Afterwards, I ate the most delicious apple ice cream. Hirosaki was Japan’s top manufacturer of apples, and last time I hadn’t gotten around to trying its regional ice cream. Now, it was my first unusually-flavoured ice cream in Round Two. I’d been on a mission to try every odd flavour since the beginning of Round One.

The only thing on my mind after that ice cream was to find a konbini, because I was about to collapse from heat and hunger. I ate on a bench under the blazing sun and noticed the only clouds in the sky seemed exceptionally low; almost eye level.

The Samurai District

The time was 11:00. I walked to Naka-cho Historical House Preservation Area, AKA Hirosaki’s samurai district, where samurai lived so as to protect the castle. A middle-aged Japanese man who worked at the first house talked to me for a full hour. He showed no signs at wanting to stop. Might have been itching for a companion, seeing that I was alone in this village.

It was so hot, that during our conversation, beads of sweat were dripping down our chins.

Hirosaki Castle

Next, I walked towards the castle, the first one I’d seen in Japan. Sluggish and tired from the heat, not really in the mood to walk around and see anything, especially since I was carrying my laptop on my bag in order to work later in the station.

Back in February, the castle grounds were frozen solid. The river, the path – it was hard to walk without slipping. The castle was closed in winter, but now, I could enter it for a short peek.

There was a garden nearby, with fully bloomed lotus flowers right next to leaves red, yellow, and green.

Interestingly enough, Hirosaki’s pedestrian crossings featured a mixture of the usual beeping sound, and Aomori’s unique, pleasant melody.

I walked to Kikufuji for a Kaiyaki Miso and a Sakura ice cream, to recreate my lunch in February. I’d arrived a total puddle at the restaurant and collapsed on a chair. This was the only place in Japan where I’d come across a Sakura ice cream.

Sad piano music was playing. How many times had I eaten alone at a restaurant in Japan with such a melody in the background?

After lunch, I returned to the castle grounds, in a sweaty attempt to find that tiny, amazing café I’d stumbled upon in February. I walked and walked forever, the sun wearing me down. I couldn’t find it.

I nearly melted and collapsed and died at this point. Defeated, I took a loop bus back to the station. At 15:00, I was done exploring Hirosaki.

Like yesterday, I passed the afternoon in the station, working on my computer. I needed money ASAP. Every time I checked my account balance, I was riddled with anxiety.

Once again, the station brought up too many memories for me. It was strange and quite remarkable (and arguably pathetic) to behold how well I remembered February 21^st. The station had become a surreal place for me. It meant too much.

I took the same train as yesterday back to my host’s; she’d kept the door unlocked for me, knowing she’d be back late. An instant ramen dinner, a much-needed shower, and by 22:30, I was asleep. 

Things I missed about Japan:

• Japanese houses with an automatic ofuro machine and a screen that controls the temperature and announces when the ofuro is ready
• Hirosaki’s multiple, 100-yen loop buses. In Kyoto, they cost 220.
• Ice cream with unique flavours!!!!

Things I did not miss about Japan:

• The fact that Japanese people haven’t heard of whole wheat
• Old Japanese men who slur. HOW am I supposed to understand them, when they sound perpetually DRUNK

Today’s highlights: playing the taiko; the low clouds in Hirosaki’s samurai village; apple ice cream; kaiyaki miso; Sakura ice cream.

23 August 2023

• 7:40-8:00 Mutsu-Tsuruda station to Kawabe station local train, 8:10-8:50 transfer to Aomori station, 11:00-12:30 Aomori station (bus platform 11 in front of the tourist information center) to Sukayu Onsen bus
• Sukayu onsen (2h)
• 16:40-17:40 Sukkayu Onsen to Shin-Aomori station bus, 18:30-19:00 Shin-Aomori station to Kawabe station local train, 19:02-19:20 transfer to train to Mutsu-Tsuruda station

Sukayu Onsen

I woke up at 6:30 together with my host. Today was the first day of school.

Like Tamagawa Onsen, today would be a long day of multiple train and bus rides for another unique onsen. I’d planned the tight itinerary in advance.

At Aomori station, I dashed to the bus stop, because the bus company’s website said it would depart at 9:00 (even though Google Maps and Navitime told me it wouldn’t).

It didn’t.

The 9:00 departure was only for Obon, until 3 days ago… today, the next departure was at 11:00.

With two hours to kill and zero food in my stomach, I asked the tourist information center for recommendations. They sent me to a famous market, a five-minute walk, where one could create their own personalized rice and fish bowl. It was way too expensive for me, so I looked for a restaurant that served miso curry milk ramen, the local specialty, which spoke to me more anyway.

I walked to the only restaurant specializing in it. It was closed.

Damn non-Tokyo Japan and its 11:00-18:00 business hours! I grabbed a bunch of stuff at 7/11 and worked on my laptop inside the station instead.

The bus ride up the mountain to Sukayu Onsen was long and pleasant, offering views of the three forked peak of Mount Iwaki, and a group of obachans picnicking and practicing taichi on a lawn.

Once in Sukayu Onsen, I noticed there was a short, volcanic hiking trail. No staff inside the information center. Started walking a little through a deserted forest, yet the trail was narrow and the visibility poor. I grew concerned about running into a bear. So I went straight to the onsen instead.

The comforting stench of sulphur was always a good sign. Especially when smell was the first sense activated at an onsen.

Sight came after, with the milky white water inside the rustic pools an enticing image. Sound – the splashing of hot spring water from faucets – and, finally, touch.

The water’s temperature ranged between 48 to 67, the pH between 1.5-1.7 (almost as acidic as Tamagawa Onsen). My recent wounds tingled and twinged a little, but nothing unmanageable.

Worse was the fact this was once again an indoor bath. I couldn’t last more than two minutes inside it, and spent most of the next two hours resting in a corner, my head spinning, my vision dark, just listening to the splash of water and thinking, thinking, thinking, about things and people I couldn’t rid my mind off.

At some point I noticed a sign with the pool’s name: 熱の湯, fever hot water.

Five minutes of those two hours were spent at the small, gender-segregated bath. Yet it was the mixed gender bath that was the main event. Nicknamed “1000-people bath”, it was the largest pool I’d seen, capable of hosting actually around 250 soakers. Moreover, it was the second mixed gender bath I’d come across, the first being in my favourite ryokan.

All in all, today’s onsen was very unusual, and worth the 6-hour round trip.

But I did look forward to no longer visiting indoor baths. Rotenburos in Hokkaido, from now on.

After two and a half hours of public transportation, I was back at my host’s. The rest the evening was spent on booking a flight to Sapporo.

Today’s highlight: Sukayu Onsen (particularly resting by the baths and listening to the water splashing).

24 August 2023

• 7:40-8:05 Mutsu-Tsuruda station to Kawabe station local train, 8:10-8:45 transfer to train to Shin-Aomori station, 9:20-9:35 Shin-Aomori station (bus stop number 3 outside the eastern exit) to Sannai Maruyama historic site bus
• Sannai Maruyama historic site (1.5h)
• Aomori Museum of Art (40m)
• 12:30-13:05 Aomori Museum of Art bus stop to Aomori station bus
• Miso curry milk ramen for lunch
• 18:20-19:00 Aomori station to Kawabe station local train, 19:02-19:22 transfer to train to Mutsu-Tsuruda station

Sannai Maruyama Historic Site

A day trip to Aomori. I had a NewDays konbini breakfast in the station. Salmon onigiri, tempura shrimp and squid onigiri, a disgusting slice of pizza, salted caramel crasoun, a divine yuzu and apple juice. All so delicious, that I’d grown convinced that tiny, north Tohoku train station NewDays kiosks were the best convenience stores in Japan.

First attraction for today: Sannai Maruyama historic site. A prehistoric settlement from the early and middle Jomon period (~3,900-2,200 BC).

The path to the village began with stone circled graves and road remains. There were 15 reconstructed pit buildings of more than 550 that had been discovered; small, cylindrical huts, with trees trunks forming a tip.

I crawled inside one. It reeked of fire and charcoal, even though nothing was lit. There was a fireplace in the center. Was it recent? How come it smelled so strongly, as if it burned ten minutes ago?

Inside, the hut was dark and cool. I touched the wood, the straw, the dirt, the stones in the fireplace. Crazy to think someone had erected such a structure and dwelled inside it thousands of years ago. I wouldn’t have objected to spending a night here.

The stones smelled of nothing, and, as I visited more huts, I realized the strong odor was the smell of the earth, and perhaps the wood under today’s blazing sun. For a moment I considered staying here until morning, just to sleep inside one. It was compact and primal, simple and artless. I sat inside the dim dwellings, picturing myself living in antiquity, worrying about game rather than finance.

It was quiet. A butterfly flew in. The sky was clear.

A part of me wanted to be born in ancient times instead. To worry about my present, rather than my future. To focus on foraging food, rather than losing friends. To find a body of water instead of a body to love. To forget everyone I’d ever met, because sometimes it felt as if they’d forgotten about me.

Every struggle seemed distant inside these huts, apart from the flight from death.

The rest of the village included pillar-supported buildings with raised floors; burial pits (adult graves), dug on both sides of the road, as if facing each other; childrens’ graves (inside earthenware urns); and remains of a large pillar-supported structure inside an air-conditioned dome. Outside the dome stood the reconstructed blueprint.

I’d picked one of the hottest days of the year to visit this open-air museum. 45 existential, sweat-filled minutes of exploring it later, I browsed the permanent collection inside the museum. Pottery, stone tools, clay figurines, jade beads, bone picks, preserved pillars…  

For more than 10,000 years, the Jomon people of this village had led a pre-agricultural lifestyle. They’d fished clams, octopi, squids, shrimp; hunted flying squirrels, hares, and waterfowl, using weapons and traps, but also with dogs who they’d later buried with respect. Most of their diet, however, was plant-based: chestnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, ferns, and flower roots.

There were also hair ornaments and jewellery, as well as a large, sharp obsidian stone from Hokkaido.

Aomori Museum of Art

From here on, I walked a few minutes to the adjacent Aomori Museum of Art. It began with a huge hall exhibiting Chagall’s backdrops for a ballet called Aleko. They were as large as they were impressive. Once I read the story behind them, though, I appreciated them even more.

Act 1: Aleko and Zemphira by Moonlight
Tired of civilized society and in search of freedom, Aleko joins a group of Romani travellers and falls in love with Zemphira, the leader’s daughter.

Act 2: The Carnival
Aleko, Zemphira, and the Romani group travel across Russia and join a carnival. Aleko relishes this free lifestyle – the antithesis to the rigidity of the city.

Act 3: A Wheatfield on a Summer’s Afternoon
Aleko grows miserable as Zemphira finds herself a new lover. He pleads for her to return to him, but she wants nothing to do with him.

Act 4: A Fantasy of St Petersburg
Aleko goes insane as he burns with jealousy over the loss of Zemphira. Nightmares and visions of monsters drive him insane. He stabs Zemphira’s lover to death; she kills herself in despair. In the graveyard, he loses consciousness, and falls to the ground.

The Act 3 image of Aleko alone on a boat, both coloured blue against the golden wheat fields, spoke to me perhaps more than it should have. He seemed lonely and contemplative, lamenting the loss of his love. Two suns weren’t enough to brighten him up.

The museum’s collection continued with paintings by Munakata Shiko; cool oni sculptures by Narita Tohl; amazing, colourful vases by Ishii Koji, painted after the seasons; and the huge, famous sculpture of Aomori-ken (local breed of dog) by Nara Yoshimoto. I found the latter a bit too Jeff Kuntz-like.

I also found the museum ill-designed, with confusing walkways, and excessive backtracking. Detours where doors could have easily been installed. Staff members were positioned every few meters, to point visitors where to go. If exasperation was the architect’s interpellative intention, it worked.

Two hours of sending couchsurfing requests at the Aomori Station lounge later, I returned to yesterday’s closed restaurant for the one-of-a-kind miso curry milk ramen.

It was the second-best ramen I’d had in Japan, and I’d figured it would be worth going back to the city centre for. Miso, milk, thick noodles – the only caveat was the slight spiciness of the curry. For this reason, it did not dethrone the second ramen I’d eaten in Japan, a miso cheese variant in February, in Sapporo, which I would have the privilege of re-tasting three weeks from now.

Afterwards, I went to the post office to send yet another postcard, this time to an area close to Miitaka, in western Tokyo. I’d left the ryokan with a phone number and an address; yet my text from a few days ago had remained unanswered.

Finally, I returned to the station.

My phone died at this point, after spending two hours on the couch-surfing app, with no socket in Aomori station to charge it. Furthermore, my power bank, fully charged, decided to stop working as well. So I spent the next two hours, plus hour and a half of train rides, waiting for time to pass. Having memorized the way to my host’s, I was able to reach her house without the aid of technology.

Todays highlights: the NewDays breakfast; the ancient dwellings; the Aleko ballet hall; miso curry milk ramen.

25 August 2023

• 7:40-8:15 Mutsu-Tsuruda station to Hirosaki station local train, 9:40-11:45 Hirosaki station to Akita station limited express train, 11:50-13:25 Aomori station to Shimoyuzawa station local train

Problems in Yuzawa

I took the same train this morning with my luggage, having bid my host farewell. She was unlike most Americans I’d had the doubtful pleasure of meeting in my life.

What ensued was endless train rides from Aomori to Akita prefecture, all the way to my couch-surfing host’s from the night of Akita Kanto festival. He’d kindly agreed to host me again for Omagari Fireworks festival, which was even closer to his house than Akita.

Yet he was away for the whole day, traveling in Iwate prefecture, and I’d arrived at Yuzawa around lunchtime.

Having eaten only one squashed onigiri and a melted zunda-chocolate bar today, since waking at 6:30 AM, I died. Of hunger. Of thirst. Shimoyuzawa station was dusty and derelict, and the entire village a ghost town.

I asked a Japanese man in his eighties on a stroll outside his house if there were any shops around here. He said no, and immediately recounted to me his entire life story in indecipherable, slurred Japanese. I stood in the middle of the road under the blazing sun for ten minutes, nodding while he kept on talking.

Once the story was over, I dragged my suitcase for a long time in the direction of my host’s, and arrived at the only restaurant around. A surprisingly stylish café, for such a miniscule and sparsely populated village, deep in the countryside. The price was in accordance to that image.

The only meatless option on the menu was a vegetable and cheese gratin. Fitting for my level of hunger.

How did I end up spending today triple than what I’d spent in one day in Tokyo, though? I wondered, as I devoured the hot gratin. The trains alone had cost more than a night at a hotel. The lunch, more than an affordable Tokyo dinner.

I worked on my computer afterwards, planning my Hokkaido trip. Then the restaurant closed at 17:00. It was a stone’s throw from my host’s. So I waited outside his house for two and a half hours.

He parked in the evening and saw me standing there. Might have been surprised by my presence. He hadn’t replied to my text, even when I’d notified him earlier today that I was on my way. I’d remembered he lived on the same street as the miso and soy sauce factory he worked in, so it was no problem for me to navigate there myself. I even recalled the façade of his house.

That might have been a mistake. It soon turned out that he didn’t want to talk much, and mostly stayed in his room. Last time, we talked a bunch, and he remarked that it was a shame I’d only come for one night. Now, our interaction was kept to a minimum.

I felt that I was intruding, and that he didn’t want me there.

At some point, I gave him some of the pottery I’d bought up north as a present. He unwrapped it and recoiled.

“Isn’t this important, though?” he asked. He clearly felt uncomfortable, receiving such a present.

I felt so bad about my intrusion, that I insisted he accepted it. Then I went to bed, waiting for today to end.

Today’s highlight: blasting Carly Rae Jepsen while taking slow train rides through the Japanese countryside.

26 August 2023

• 9:00-9:35 Shimoyuzawa station to Omagari station local train
• Waiting for tonight’s fireworks for NINE HOURS UNDER THE BLAZING SUN
• Omagari Fireworks festival (3h)
• 21:55-22:15 Omagari station to Yokote station local train, 22:50-23:10 transfer to train to Shimoyuzawa station

Omagari Fireworks

The plan for today was simple. Omagari Fireworks.

Arguably the best, most famous fireworks festival in Japan, people booked hotels in Akita prefecture for it as far as an entire year in advance. There were precisely zero accommodations in the prefecture with vacancies for tonight. So while I’d intruded upon my Yuzawa host’s house, at least I wouldn’t spend the entire night waiting for the first train in the morning – which was a thing plenty of festival-goers did, in Omagari.

Since I couldn’t afford a ticket, I’d resolved to show up first thing in the morning, and secure a decent spot. So I rushed to the train station, arrived in busy Omagari, and left NewDays with a gigantic bag of provision for today.

At 10:30, I found a spot right by the river, directly in front of the center of the fireworks, and settled. It was far, but the view was unobstructed. As good it as could get, for free. Less than ten people had already placed their mats here.

The next 9 hours were spent in that same spot, sitting on old newspapers and sweating under the 38-degrees sun.

I died. My entire body was dripping with sweat. With nothing to obstruct my view, there was also nothing – no tree or building – to obstruct the sun.

Unable to focus on anything, I simply sat there and waited for time to pass. I couldn’t write, journal, listen to music. The weather was unbearably scorching.

Naturally, what ensued was a lot of thinking.

Lately, I’d been reaching out to a lot of people who had ignored me. I’d sent a postcard to the Ashikawa woman from the ryokan, where we’d met in February, and later reunited in her hometown in April. She and her husband had known I’d returned to Japan, but hadn’t suggested reuniting. Now, they hadn’t even replied to my postcard.

I’d sent postcards and sake containers for the Sendai lawyer and sake factory CEO. According to the tracking numbers, both had received their packages a few days ago. Neither had texted.

I’d messaged several friends, people close to me. They hadn’t replied back.

I’d written tour guides about Japan for my new remote position. The company hadn’t even texted that my work had been received. Let alone what further work I should be doing.

I’d sent 20 or 30 personalized requests on couchsurfing to hosts in Tokyo and Sapporo. No response.

And, most of all… I’d messaged the Miitaka guy’s mom… having finally found a way to contact them… only for a response to never come.

Had they received my text? Had they chosen to ignore it? Did he want to see me again?

Going from not getting his number, to maybe reading too much into his smile… maybe I’d been imagining things, but I’d gone from fearing rejection, that day in February, to welcoming it, now in August, over nothing.

I thought about Hegel’s master-slave dialectics and how people went into endless struggles because one ignored the other. The worst thing a sentient being could do to another was deny them recognition. To not acknoeldge their subjectivity, and act as if they didn’t exist.  

Ignorance wasn’t bliss, I decided. It was the direct opposite.

I always preferred for people to tell the truth straight to my face, rather than play games. If someone didn’t want to see me or talk to me again, they might as well say it, rather than leave me hanging. Rather than me thinking they still liked me, but for some reason, ignored my being.

That was too confusing for me to accept. Too inconsiderate of one’s feelings. I personally found it easier to process rejection than mixed signals. At least the former was clear.

I hated how no one deigned to reply to me. It took ten seconds to form a simple response.

I truly hated people sometimes.

It had been a full week since I’d last logged into Instagram. I’d known there was no reason for me to. I would open it, only to find more disappointment, on another app.

At some point, a 34yo Canadian guy joined me. He had also showed up to Omagari alone without a ticket. When it became clear that the area I’d settled in was the best one, he’d asked if he could join me.

He was the outdoorsy and athletic type – the kind of guy who regularly went camping in northern Canada, in winter, in minus 40 degrees, and performed ice cold plunges. Today’s heat was a first for him.

It was nice for us both, I thought, to find company. We chatted endlessly and then napped for an hour. People crossed us on the way to the seating area nonstop.

The number of people coming to Omagari was insane. One could film a documentary about street style just by filming the road to the ticketed area, because there were so many subgroups of people from all backgrounds, who had come from all over the company. Many clad in kimonos and jinbeis. Some Koreans, Chinese, and white tourists, too.

Many were carrying small full of provisions or kids. The amount of preparation and looking forward ness that went into this event was insane. In a small countryside village.

The Canadian guy bought us ice-cold sake (a godsend, in this weather). As we stood and chatted, a lot of people stared at me as they walked by. This hadn’t happened in a while.

I felt uncomfortable, and found myself itching to find out why. Was their staring good? Bad? Was I that weird-looking? Was it my lime-green jinbei? Because I certainly wasn’t the only Caucasian around.

Ignorance wasn’t bliss. I needed to know why.

At 17:00, day fireworks began. Nothing much titillating, until at 18:50, it was time for the main event.

After the forecast earlier this week had indicated rain, the weather turned out perfect. A cool breeze and clear sky. Music accompanied the fireworks, which was already unusual, and set tonight apart.

There were fireworks that remained suspended in air, and some in odd shapes. Most of the segments were just “here’s a bunch of colourful lights”; I enjoyed the ones that were more creative than that, whether in terms of music or shape.

As the fireworks went on for three hours, and people never once stopped arriving to watch, I realized Omagari might have been on a bigger scale than any other event in Japan. With almost one million festival-goers, I wondered if this was also the most attended event in the country.

At 21:15, before the finale, the sponsor’s segment made my jaw drop. It was next-level; on a completely different scale.

After that, everyone started leaving, and so did the Canadian guy and I. We walked to the station. Lines to every departing line were formed well outside it. I hadn’t seen this in previous festivals in Japan; no event had had such divisions outside the station, to separate the crowd into lines.

We said a goodbye that felt quite premature. He’d only come to Japan for one week.

The train to Yokote was as crowded as they got. While waiting at the platform to transfer to Shimoyuzawa station, I downed the rest of my sake and blasted Carly Rae Jensen again. The tipsier I grew, the more I lip-synced and danced on the busy platform.

It was a liberating moment, no matter how much I’d embarrassed myself. I just wished her songs, pop bops about heartbreak and longing, hadn’t spoken to me this much.

I walked through dark, sleepy Shimoyuzawa and made it to my host’s by 23:30. The town was as good as abandoned; I was on the lookout for bears.

At least my host had kept the door unlocked for me. He was spending the night in Iwate prefecture.

Maybe it was good that tonight, for the first time in a week, I was alone.

Today’s highlights: Omagari Fireworks (particularly drinking sake while watching the fireworks & the sponsor segment); dancing to Carly tipsy on the train platform at night.