We broke our fast with a bountiful buffet at our elegant hotel. The view from our window lured us into an exquisitely arranged garden, a tiny oasis separating the guests from a divided highway just beyond. The subtle infinity loop design deceived the eye; we wandered it happily, retracing our steps without feeling enclosed.
Golden Week kicks off with a visit from one of my most favorite people: my sister is spending the next three weeks with me in Japan!
After tracking each other down in Tokyo last night, we collapsed gratefully into our beds at a hotel strategically situated near the airport. A buffet breakfast, featuring a build-your-own-miso-soup station, fortified us for the train ride north to Tsukuba.
“Japan’s science center,” as the travel guides deem it, attracts few tourists. Outside a commuter town with a sprawling university, Tsukuba hosts rice paddies and the only mountains within striking range of Tokyo. We trekked there to meet with a Christian friend of a friend, who has hosted us bountifully for my sister’s first full day in Japan.
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That’s not a spelling mistake – “tako” is Japanese for “octopus.” This week my friend Gabrielle trekked across the Pacific and down from Tokyo to share my island home. It struck me as the perfect occasion to claim an invitation from the friendly computer teacher here, Rena-san. Several weeks ago, she urged me to partake of a Japanese tradition: the “tako party.”
With curious anticipation, we accompanied my neighbor Shiho-san (our school nurse) across town to Rena-san’s tidy and warmly lit abode. A table decked with mysterious packages awaited us, like the ingredients for a magician’s potion.
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originally published April 25, 2023
Continuing stories of my Christmas travels…
My friends Petra and Eloise transformed a four hour trek from Vleesbaai to the airport, from a chore to a bonus. We set out early in the morning, bidding the beach farewell as the highway unwound across plains and mountains, carrying us west towards the city of Cape Town.
Our road trip ranged from a rest stop petting farm to a local farmer’s market. The enterprising rest stop featured a picnic area, obstacle course, and selfie stations. I sampled a ‘roosterkoek‘ – a pastry whose baffling name initially led me to tentatively inquire why only male chickens featured.
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When I first met Petra in 2018, weeks after arriving in KwaZulu-Natal to begin teaching with the Peace Corps, she invited me to visit her home on Western Cape. This Christmas, I finally took Petra up on her invitation. After a long layover in Singapore, then a short domestic flight, I rode with Petra’s sister and family for four hours from Cape Town, across the mountains, back to the coast.
We arrived in Vleesbaai late Monday, just in time for Christmas dinner. Petra and her husband Preben outdid themselves with lamb and steak grilled in the fireplace, alongside a spread of salads, savoury sides, and cherry cake. We watched twilight creep over the water as I dusted off my Afrikaans to greet old friends and new acquaintances.
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After months of manic planning, with over eight different connections lined up by bus, train, and plane (all booked one-way), the day arrived for my departure from Tokunoshima for the Christmas holidays.
Though my nerves stretched taut as violin strings, I had to smile when the Lord granted me an auspicious beginning in a reminder of his covenant-keeping: A rainbow brightened the clouds as I waited for my first leg of transport, a bus to the island airport.
Read the rest of this entryFor the first time in three years, our southernmost town Isen-cho celebrated a summer festival. (When you live on a semi-tropical island, November is the perfect season for summer festivals.) As Isen is the smallest of Tokunoshima’s three towns, we weren’t expecting much.
Instead, people turned out in force for an extravaganza. Lines for cotton candy and chicken skewers rapidly outstripped the foodstalls’ supplies, leaving ample opportunity to admire the ladies attired in yukata (summer kimonos). After marveling at this scene in countless animes, now I found myself living it.
Silhouetted against the ocean, the stage boasted a parade of traditional and contemporary music from drummer martial artists to a hip hop trio from Osaka. One of my fellow JET teachers performed with a group on the shamisen, a stringed instrument traditionally bound in snakeskin. The night ended with a bang: lasers painted fantastical landscapes across windswept smoke, a mesmerizing prelude to the fireworks concert. Synchronized bursts of color and sound drew shouts of delight from the crowd.
As we regretfully gathered ourselves to go, everyone agreed: Isen wins first place in festivals.
In the chain of islands between the bulk of Japan and Okinawa, the ferry passes twice a day: once on its way north, and once on its way south. Affordably priced and unrestricted by baggage allowances, ferries offer a convenient means of travel – if you’re headed in the right direction. I had hoped to make myself at home with our nearest neighbor to the north, Amami, but the red-eye arrival and departure times have dampened my enthusiasm.
As for Okinoerebu in the south, I had only heard of it in passing — literally — over the loudspeakers en route to teaching on Yoron. It was high time to visit.
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Three typhoons swept by our little island in the past two weeks. Despite the raised alarms, it’s come as something of a relief. The fierce winds cool down the heat, and the downpours can’t rival a stretch in June or July when I sloshed into school every morning in a sodden raincoat, only to contemplate the same prospect every afternoon.
JET group chats assemble in advance to instruct us on emergency preparation: stocking up on shelf-stable foods, rolling out the storm shutters, and filling the bathtub with water. One of our veteran JETs on the island endured two days without water and five without electricity during his first year on the island, but we’ve yet to face anything so severe. Besides the hardship of reduced grocery stock (without the ferry’s twice-daily visit, the dairy and aisles dwindle to nearly nothing), life continues apace. My church gathers as usual, in spite of the typhoons timing their maximum impact repeatedly for Sunday mornings.
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A giant painting greeted me at the school gates last Saturday: green dragon, blue tiger, and red hawk for the senior (Grade 3), junior (Grade 2), and froshmore (Grade 1) classes. The students impressed, in their color-coded jerseys and seamless choreography, as they fought the sun to compete on the annual Sports Day.
Ignorant of the schedule, I missed the opening ceremony (a combination of patriotic singing and coordinated warm-ups, if the closing ceremony gave anything to go by) but arrived in time for the opening sprints. Every year, it seems, students fall prey to the heat and dehydration, and that day was no exception. Besides a respectful silence, no one seemed unduly concerned when an ambulance arrived to ferry a fainted runner away.
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Former JET participants had alerted me to anticipate sports day at my school, but the school culture festival caught me off guard. On Saturday the entire student body took over the town performing arts theater to showcase their musical talents, art projects, comedy routines, body-building, and other shenanigans.
Some elements struck me as quintessentially Japanese, both classically (the calligraphy and martial arts demos) and modernistically (the pop idol routine and horror movie spoof). Besides a chance to relish my students’ inventiveness, the all-day weekend event also granted me an unexpected holiday: Most teachers would take off the Monday of that same weekend, but I was due to ferry to Yoron that morning — so I extended my stay on the little island instead.
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“Did you make it back home?” a friend from the Christian retreat asked me.
“Well…”
My secondary school had asked me to teach the week immediately following the holidays — so instead of taking a 15 hour ferry home, I sailed for 20 hours to Yoron Island. Thankfully, my itinerary allowed for one night’s stopover in Kagoshima City, where the international Calvary Church welcomed me warmly as ever.
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After ten days of wrestling with ticket vendors — online, over the phone, via app, at the train station, in merchandise stores, even at the convenience stores where Japan typically buys its event tickets — I gambled a last-ditch effort on asking at the park gate.
Though every other employee swore they would deny me same-day entrance (COVID regulations, naturally), when I presented my sob story in person, sanity prevailed. The beneficent attendants conducted me at once to a backstage office, where a smiling lady issued my ticket to the world of Disney.
It dawned on me that Kabukiza Theatre was a big deal when I spotted the metro riders decked out in kimonos.
To bookend my ballet excursion with something more local in flavor, I had secured my seat for a matinee performance without knowing what to expect. It turns out that kabuki drama operates as a full-day experience: you can attend three separate performances in a single day, from courtlier eras when the leisurely had no reason to rush.
I settled for just one performance, in two acts: the escape of Yukihime (“Princess Snow”) from a rebellious overlord, followed by a coquettish spring dance themed around irises.
I was overdue for transportation travails this trip, and today delivered in spades.
My worries over catching the express to Mt. Fuji proved groundless — it was the local bus lines that foiled me. Golden Week traffic had stretched the two hour express to four, then I took the wrong bus, missed the right one, and finally staggered to my intended destination six hours after departing from Tokyo Station.
Happily, mineral baths overlooking the mountain promised the restoration I sorely needed.
