Realizations

A stranger is just a friend who haven`t met
I was wandering the streets looking for a place to get a very plain breakfast of rice and miso soup. Suddenly, I end up in a very fancy french-style cafe, talking to a beautiful woman over rice and miso with a vast variety of side dishes and coffee. I assume she is the waitress, since she was the one who brought me the menu, and wonder how she can get away with sitting and chatting with me while shes working. Then she introduces herself as 'rie' (at last, I know a name!). I notice that the name of the restaurant is Devinci Rie, and put two and two together.

I help her translate things to put on the signs in English, and by the end of the meal I am acting as chief advisor for an English/Irish style bar she would like to build. When she tells me she could build it in a week, I decide its time to tell her that I actually have no idea out bars, business, or anything really, and that she should almost certainly not put any of my thoughts into practice. The conversation after this is just as interesting however, and as we talk about Australian lifestyles and Japanese backpacking travel, she decides that my lifestyle is very `graceful`. I burst out laughing, and decide to explain with gestures...Over HERE is graceful, and all the way over HERE is me and my lifestyle. Still, she likes the word, and I am told repeatedly that backpacking is graceful, that the Australian style of cooking on a barbeque while drinking beer is graceful, and when I show her photos of my friends, she describes them as `graceful` too (HA! I have to laugh at that one :P). I still go there every morning and receive a huge breakfast, for the price of a cup of coffee...

Not everything is as it seems
I meet some American English teachers through couch surfing, and one of them just happens to have been an Environmental Engineer for many years, which seems like an interesting basis for a conversation! We converse over dinner, and during this conversation I learn a startling fact - Takayama is Japan`s biggest city!
Looking around, at the hills and hillbillies, it might not seem so. Yes, its population is less than 100,000. But in terms of surface area, it is larger than Tokyo. Due to a strange quirk of politics, Takayama has amalgamated with nearby villages for budget purposes, turning it into a gigantic super city which takes about 2 hours to cross from one side of the other.

Alps means `large mountains`
I had heard that the hiking around here is very good, so I bought a book of hiking trails and began to plan out how I could hike through some of the nearby mountains in the Japanese Alps. Eventually, I decide I will just catch a bus out there, and see which one looks the easiest to climb. As soon as we get out of town, I see a white-capped peak impossibly high in the sky about 100km away. Oh....ALPS!

All my thoughts of hiking so much as a foothill evaporate into thin air. Instead, I spend my time goggling at the gigantic mountains in the freezing 9 degree afternoon (its summer at ground level, but not up here!). I travel for a few kilometres on a spectacular ropeway, play around in the snow (theres still plenty, no-one has told the snow its summer) and spend some time on the tourist-filled observation deck. From here I can see all types of mountains - peaceful looking giants with snow wrapped around them like a white blanket, evil looking crags (one of which actually represents hell in mythological Japan), steaming volcanoes and plain old regular green slopes. I plan to climb none of them.

Even the water here is Ironic
After freezing off parts of my body that I would rather not freeze off, I head down to the countryside once more, where there are more hot springs than I can poke a stick at (trust me, I tried). I decide on one with a view on the alps, and as I sit in the steamy volcanic water, I notice that the key ingredient of this water seems to be iron, instead of the usual sulphur. You could say that the water was very ironic indeed :D

Free samples are never free
Takayama is the city of free samples, and I was positively delighted at their stupidity in offering hundreds of lollies, biscuits in little boxes for people to try. There were so many different kinds to choose, I figured I could just try one of each and walk away with a full stomach, without paying a cent. Those naive shopkeepers!

Since then I have spent upwards of $50 on the lollies at those shops, having tasted something which I could subsequently not live without. Those shopkeepers had the last laugh after all...

Always alone, but never alone
Walking through Takama`s most lively district on a Saturday night (I was just looking for some noodles!), I notice a sign with the words `Big Piss Up!` followed by a picture of Australia. Intrigued, I figure this is a good enough reason to go inside. The owner has been to Australia once before, and someone obviously told her that `piss up` means `party`, and I suppose that is true enough! It is a small bar, perfect for conversation with a friend. Now, all I need is a friend...

I end up spending hours chatting to a 25 year old guy from Italy, who is working as a chemist making polycarbonates for Mitsubishi. He is currently on a 6 month internship after finishing his masters degree, researching methods of making materials with certain optical properties (e.g. for CDs) from renewable materials such as biomass. I find the topic of his research and exactly how he does it absolutely fascinating (Grace, you would have loved it as well!). Unfortunately, we are constantly being districted by a group of women in their mid-20s who find us irresistably attractive, but we are far more interested in our conversation, and stay huddled in the corner getting excited about the by-products of fermentation while they sing love songs to us via karaoke.

A very positive person, he practically emits a glow when he smiles (which is most of the time). He loves the ridiculous disorganization of my travelling, and every time I say something like `Im not really sure where Ill go next, maybe Kyoto? Or maybe Tokyo?` he grins and declares it `Fantastic!`. I speak in an Italian accent for most of the night, something which I tend to do when I speak to someone from another country for too long by myself (I find it difficult to stop speaking in an accent the next day however, and have to put in a considerable effort to get back to my normal tone of voice). We have had some similiar experiences travelling, and both of us are travelling alone. Gesturing to the pub full of people, I come up with a catchphrase `we are always alone, but we are never alone`, which he once again declares `Fantastic!` with an smile so huge I worry his head might explode. As the night grows late, we decide it is time for Karaoke. Choosing a song, we find `Good Riddance` (aka `Time of Your Life`), and get very excited.
`I hope you have the time of your life travelling!`
`Yes, and you too!`
`This will be our song!`
`OUR SONG!`

Practically arm in arm, we plug the song into the machine and wait. The owner tells us that there is a queue for the karaoke machine, and we will have to wait about 15 minutes.
`I think we should go`
`Yes, me too...it will be our song next time`