Stopping halfway up the lengthy climb to Matsuyama Castle to dab my forehead with a hand towel, I asked myself whether all this trouble was really worth it.  There are so many other things I could be doing, I thought to myself.  I could be soaking in the natural hot springs at Dogo Onsen, quaffing draft beer at the local brewery, or simply resting in the shade with a bottle of mugicha (barley tea).  There was no need to hike up to the castle; the damn thing had hardly left my field of vision for the past two hours.

Matsuyama

The chairlift.

By that point, however, it was a matter of pride.  I had come this far, wandered this long.  I was going to stand on the top floor of that castle, look out over the city, and declare myself triumphant over Lonely Planet, whose map of Matsuyama had led me several miles astray.  I tried—unsuccessfully—to dismiss my negative thoughts.  A refined woman with a pink umbrella passed me on the chairlift that ran the length of the hill.  “Bitch,” I muttered.  I shook my head over my own idiocy, pressed my palms into my eyes, and tried again to remain upbeat.  I had woken up grumpy after six hours of sleep on my hostel’s granite-like mattress.  The long walk was not improving my mood.

Thankfully, the castle was spectacular.  I removed my shoes at the entryway and was about to struggle into a pair of tiny slippers when I saw the security guard disappear into his equally tiny office.  He returned a moment later wearing a huge grin.  He handed me a pair of burgundy slippers and, bowing, said, “Big, big!”  I accepted his offering with both hands and returned his bows.  The aged, polished wood of Japanese castle floors can be quite slick.  Having slippers that were not four sizes too small was a true blessing; I would have had to commit seppuku out of sheer embarrassment had I lost my footing while descending one of the narrow staircases.

So close.

Yes, I put a haiku in the box.

“Big, big!”

I took a gondola down the hill and went searching for lunch in the nearby shopping arcade.  There, I found an attractive establishment advertising a set lunch menu for $12.  The food was ordinary—mediocre, even—but after the waitress dropped off my main course, I stared in awe at the table.  Dessert had not yet arrived, and already there were two bowls, two glasses, five plates, and six small dishes in front of me.  It was a bizarre spread of food, including spaghetti with meatballs, an egg roll, a bit of steamed cod with lemon, and miso soup.

Matsuyama.

Matsuyama.

Matsuyama.

When I had finished eating, the waitress returned and held the dessert menu in front of me.  It was nothing but row after row of kanji.  The waitress looked at me expectantly.  I tried to remember how to say “please decide for me” and pointed at the waitress while I thought.  Her eyes grew wide for a moment.  Then she grinned.  I realized I had just implied that I would like to have her for dessert.  “No, no, no, sorry,” I said, laughing.  The waitress began to laugh, as well.  I regained my composure long enough to use my intended expression: o-ma-ka-se shi-mas.  She nodded in understanding, still covering her mouth with her hand to conceal her silent snickers.

After lunch, I strolled around Matsuyama, taking in an unremarkable art museum and a small park in the process.  Cooler weather and a full stomach had improved my mood, but I was stalling; visiting Dogo Onsen was my priority for the day, an activity steeped in tradition that involved soaking in a communal bath with a large assortment of buck naked Japanese men.  I needed to be sure I knew what I was getting into.  I took a seat on a bench and began reading Lonely Planet’s lengthy section on onsen etiquette.

A short ferry ride from Hiroshima, Miyajima represents the idyllic image of Japan that so many tourists seek. And tourists do seek it. Plush, green hills and blue sea flank the main road, which runs between a Shinto shrine and a squat, heavily-wooded mountain. Miniature deer roam freely, sticking their noses into purses and prodding pockets in search of handouts.

I’m ashamed to confess that I have little to say about such a worthwhile afternoon. I wandered around the island, enjoying the ocean breeze and remembering there are good reasons that places become tourist destinations. I chuckled quietly as I watched middle-aged Japanese women scurry away from overcurious deer and stood in awe as teenagers respectfully cleansed their hands prior to entering a shrine.

The ferry to Miyajima.

One of the most iconic images of Japan, taken from afar.

Miyajima.

Miyajima.

Please pay special attention to your babies.

Miyajima.

WARNING.

They did not heed the warning.

I wear short shorts.

The deer were brazen!

Miyajima.

A rare photo of me, taken by a nice Spanish couple.

I cannot stop laughing about those pants.

“Hey, mate, you know what this building’s called?” an Australian accent inquired to me. I turned and saw a thin teenager on a bicycle. He was wearing a camera around his neck and shorter shorts than I would be caught dead in.

“I think it’s the Treasure House,” I said. The boy detected my accent.

“You’re American?” he asked.

“Yes. Where are you from?”

“Melbourne.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding.

“That’s in Australia,” the boy said.

“Yeah, I know.”

A few more Australian boys in similar attire rode up on bicycles of their own and began talking loudly amongst themselves. Not wanting to be associated with them or their exposed thighs, I wandered down the shopping corridor and found a pleasant little restaurant. I ordered the udon with oysters, which ended up being a bit overpowering. I like oysters—I really do—but they have such an potent flavor that I have no idea with what ingredients I could ever pair them. If I am ever forced to deal with oysters in the kitchen, I will probably serve them on the half shell with gold tequila and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Nothing rinses down raw shellfish quite like hard alcohol.

After my late lunch, I purchased a hydrofoil ticket back to Hiroshima. While I waited for the boat to depart, I grabbed a seat on the shore and sipped on tea from one of the omnipresent vending machines. Two girls walked past me, and their faces lit up into enormous smiles. “Hello,” one of them said.

“Konichiwa,” I said carefully. The girls seemed put out by my response; they were hoping for English. I just smiled. I was enjoying looking out over the sea. I took a sip of tea and exhaled through my nose. This was vacation.

The hydrofoil.

Leaving Miyajima.

I boarded the hydrofoil and, after the short ride, hopped on a connecting ferry to Matsuyama, a city on the northwestern end of the island of Shikoku. During the ferry ride, I stopped to review my notes. Over nine days, I had accumulated 40 handwritten pages. I looked at my camera. I had already taken 800 photographs. It was only then that I truly realized what a daunting task writing this blog would be.

Half of those pages are double-sided.

After such a relaxing evening the night prior, I awoke refreshed on my eighth day in Japan. I strode down to the hotel lobby and gorged myself at the western style breakfast buffet. After a week of dining on miso soup and rice balls each morning, even clumsily-prepared scrambled eggs, boiled potatoes, and sausage links were something to celebrate.

The buffet was included in the cost of my room, which was a good thing; my wallet was feeling a little light. Not wanting to embark upon a long day of travel without a healthy amount of yen, I went searching for an international ATM. My guidebooks recommended the towering banks along Hiroshima’s main street. I visited them all—nine banks total. Not one of them accepted my Visa card. Sweaty and unhappy, and still shouldering my backpack, I stopped at a convenience store to buy a beverage. I glanced up at the sign. “7 & Holdings,” it read.

I paused for a moment. Hadn’t the bank I’d used in Matsue had “7” in its name? Did… did the store have an ATM? It did! Could a downright pervasive convenience store really be the best place for an American to get money in Japan? IT COULD.

A convenience store did what nine imposing banks could not.

One last shot of Hiroshima.

Wad of cash in hand, I made my way to the train station and purchased a ticket to the Miyajima ferry terminal. Before boarding the train, I asked an elderly, uniformed woman if I was getting on the correct train. She nodded fervently, spoke in rapid Japanese, pushed me towards the train, and repeatedly pointed at two wholesome-looking girls in my car. I had no idea why she was so incensed. After I did not take a seat next to the girls, she went over and spoke to them for a moment, this time pointing at me. The girls giggled and hid their faces, intermittently sneaking glances in my direction. The elderly woman again motioned for me to come sit next to the girls. One of the girls shrugged and moved her suitcase a few feet to the side, making room for me. I chuckled and motioned to the girl that I had no intention of intruding on her and her friend.

The old woman finally abandoned her quest to get me seated, and I was left standing in the middle of the crowded train. After a few stops, a seat opened up next to a balding man with a salt and pepper ponytail and casual clothing. He gestured for me to come sit next to him.

“Hello,” he said, speaking with an odd accent. “You speak English? You are American?”

“Yes,” I said. “From California.”

“Oh, with Arnold,” the man laughed, doing his best impression of the governor. “Vacation?”

“Yes, I am traveling for two weeks.”

“You are alone?”

“Yes.”

The man talked for a long while about his own travels. He had lived in Spain for eight years, had visited the United States, and had travelled extensively around eastern Asia. He joked often about the differences in culture between Japan and Spain and continued to impersonate Arnold from time to time. We laughed for the majority of the 30 minutes we spent together on the train. The man was carrying a small gift bag.

“You are so worldly,” I laughed. “That gift must be for your 20-year-old girlfriend.”

The man laughed, which made his next statement all the more harsh. “No, this is for my wife. She is in hospital for many days, so I must visit.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“She will be fine, fine,” he said, but his face was grave. “Four more stops for you. Four, I think.”

A few innings into the baseball game between Yokohama and Hiroshima, I concluded that the Japanese know how to play ball.  And it was the kind of baseball I love.  After a single to opposite field, the next batter would dutifully bunt the runner into scoring position—or the team would attempt a stolen base.  Even after tapping an easy ground ball to the shortstop, players sprinted towards first base, not slowing down until the umpire called them out.  These were players with an appreciation for and understanding of the game.  To them, baseball was about more than home runs and strikeouts.  It was about shifting the outfield ever so slightly before an outside pitch, fouling off enough pitches to earn a walk, and much more.

Hiroshima before the game.

The stadium.

The fans were rabid.  In the United States, the common chant of “DE-FENSE” tends to start strong and fade to nothing after a minute or two.  “The Wave” might last a couple of revolutions around the stadium.  But the Japanese fans had intricate, synchronized cheers that did not stop until the end of the inning.  Foot stomps, thigh slaps, claps, shouts, fist pumps—these cheers were not simple affairs.  A brass band in left field led the proceedings.  As with the fans, their dedication and stamina was incredible.  Surely, I thought, they will stop playing with such enthusiasm after a half hour or so.  If anything, they seemed louder and more determined as the innings wore on.

The stadium.

To me, a baseball game is not complete without an ice-cold lager.  I was prepared to open my wallet; in the United States, a tiny plastic cup of beer at a baseball game can cost as much as $7.  I flagged down an extremely fit young man who was carrying at least five gallons of beer in an insulated backpack.  32 ounces of draft beer set me back a cool $6.50—quite refreshing.

I was especially excited for the seventh inning stretch.  I doubted anything could be as hilarious as 20,000 Japanese fans singing “Take Me out to the Ball Game.”  I was wrong.  Something could indeed be more hilarious.

When the seventh inning arrived, at least half of the fans in the stadium inflated—and there is no other way to describe them—four-foot-long, penis-shaped balloons.  With bulbous tips.  I was left speechless as I gazed out upon a veritable sea of flesh-colored schlongs being held at rapt attention.  Suddenly, the crowd let their balloons fly.  Try, if you can, to imagine 10,000 penises simultaneously rising through the air, going flaccid, and falling back to earth.  I wanted nothing more than to turn to a friend and ask, “Am I losing my mind, or did that honestly just happen?”

After the game, I went for a walk around the city.  Still feeling a bit too timid to visit a bar, I checked out an internet cafe nestled amongst the neon.  $10 netted me a private cubicle for three hours.  The cubicle had a locking door, a modern computer, a Playstation 2, a small desk with a reading lamp, and a comfortable bean bag chair.  All-I-could-drink beverages, everything from coffee to Slurpees, and a library of manga were just a few feet away.  After all the walking, sightseeing, and yes, drinking, I needed a bit of downtime.  The internet cafe was perfect.  I nestled into the bean bag and tried to figure out where to go next.

I awoke early the next morning, my determination renewed. One bad experience was not going to taint my trip—not a chance. I tried to scrub out my frustrations under the shower’s ample water pressure.

On my way to the Hiroshima Museum of Art, I passed the local baseball stadium. A long line of people wound around the circular structure. I asked a uniformed man if there was a game that evening. “Hai,” he said, pointing to the line. Excited at the prospect of attending a professional baseball game, I took my place at the back of the line. Ten minutes passed. I grew curious as to the opposing team. “Excuse me,” I asked the young couple in front of me, “speak English? Tonight is Hiroshima and…?”

Fives minutes of miscommunication ensued. The young man was confused as to what I was asking. The young woman was confused, too. Four other people entered the conversation, all of whom were eager to figure out what I was asking. “Hiroshima and… Tokyo, Osaka?” I asked hopefully, by this point turning a bit pink out of embarrassment.

Finally, the young man exclaimed, “Oh, today game Hiroshima and Yokohama!” I thanked him profusely, glad to have my question answered, but mostly glad to have the group’s focus off of me. Ten more minutes passed.

“For today game, over there,” the young man said, pointing to an open ticket window with only a single person in line. I blinked.

“Tickets for today’s game are over there?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Arigato gozaimasu,” I said, bowing slightly. Why the young man had taken so long to offer up this information was beyond me, but I was glad to have avoided an hour-long wait in Hiroshima heat only to be told that I had been waiting in the wrong line.

The woman in the ticket window showed me a diagram of the stadium’s seating areas and asked me where I would like to sit. I chose the block just behind the home team’s dugout, down the third base line—great seats. I assumed the ticket would be expensive, but seeing a baseball game in Japan was an opportunity I doubted I’d ever have again; I was willing to splurge. The woman asked for 2,000 yen, approximately $20. I couldn’t get my wallet out quickly enough. $20 for those seats? In the United States, that’s unthinkable.

My guidebooks indicated that the Hiroshima Museum of Art, my original destination, was only a short distance to the north. I wandered in that direction and encountered a veritable amoeba of aging Japanese tourists attired in elegant dresses and well-cut suits. The crowd was easily 3,000 strong, and they were all going south through the sports complex—hundreds of meters of tourists crowded onto a 20-foot-wide street. I felt conspicuous and unwelcome as I fought through the crowd in a fruitless attempt to find the art museum. Annoyed and wanting nothing more than to be alone, I made my way towards a Chinese-style garden located across the street.

The garden.

The garden.

The garden was deserted, with two quaint gazebos overlooking a tranquil pond. I rested for a moment and contemplated my next move. The Peace Memorial Park and Hiroshima Castle were in opposite directions. If I hurried, I could take in both destinations, but with my camera running low on battery power and the weather being especially hot and humid, I elected to proceed directly to the Peace Memorial Park.

This is as close as I got to Hiroshima Castle.

The A-Bomb Dome.

I didn’t think the A-Bomb Dome would affect me as much as it did. Every tourist around the dome, myself included, snapped a single photo and then stood in awe of the setting. Knowing that an atomic bomb had exploded a couple hundred meters above our heads, killing 70,000 people instantly and demolishing everything with a kilometer radius, was disquieting. I thought of all the people who know and care about me, of all the people I know and care about. Then I tried to imagine each of those innumerable connections severed—70,000 times over. Defending or condemning the dropping of the bomb was not on my mind. This wasn’t the time for justification or finger-pointing. All I could think about was how tragic it was that actions of this magnitude were ever considered, let alone carried out. And Hiroshima was hardly an isolated incident. Warfare is tragedy. The ability to level a metropolis with a ten-foot-long object—I didn’t know what to think.

Peace Memorial Park.

Next, I went to the Peace Memorial Museum. The many Japanese patrons filed through the exhibits in orderly, single file. Still reeling from the A-Bomb Dome, I found myself skipping many of the more uncomfortable sections of the museum. The museum’s goal seemed to be to humanize the victims of the atomic bomb. No person was a statistic. Full names, brief biographies, and family histories were included where available. Tragic stories about the “A-bomb orphans” and ten-year-olds dying of leukemia abounded. It was too much to absorb. I touched some formerly-radioactive objects and tried to avoid the tales of those who took hours, days, or years to pass away.

A scale recreation of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Some background.

Some background.

Art done by a survivor.

Some background.

Peace Memorial Park.

On the way out of the museum, a Japanese man in a dark suit asked if I thought there would ever be a world without war. I said no. “I would like there to be,” he said. “I have accepted Jesus Christ into my heart. Do you know about the teachings of Jesus Christ?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Would you like to hear more?” he asked, offering me a pamphlet.

“I appreciate what are you are doing here, and best of luck to you. But for me, I don’t think that’s the answer,” I said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible. I shook his hand and bowed as we parted.

Further down the road, there was a small shrine with a wooden sign that read, “All people, by nature, own nothing.” I stopped for a moment and thought about the desire for power that drives people and nations into conflict. Maybe a world without material possession was the only answer, which to me, meant that there was no answer. I walked back to the Peace Pot restaurant and treated myself to an especially large dinner, complete with a chocolate-covered dessert.