Nick's Worldwide Wanderings!

Forget youth hostels and cheap buses. For the true backpacking experience, nothing can beat hitch-hiking and couchsurfing.

Not willing to pay $60 to travel two hours to Fukui, I look for alternatives. One sticks in my mind - hitchhike! After doing my research, I find that hitch-hiking in Japan is very much possible...if you can get t the right place. I catch a train to a tiny local station, and follow the tracks for half an hour in the hot hot sun with my heavy backpack. But by god I look tough. I put on a tough expression as I walk through the countryside, trying my hardest to look like I've walked here from Australia. Finally, I see it...The Meishin Expressway.

One of the biggest highways in Japan, anyone on the Meishin is generally travelling some serious distance. I have found one of its Parking Areas, the rest stops where people stop, to rest. Here I make my move, waiting on the road back onto the freeway with a big sign written in black texta (finding these two things was actually quite difficult)

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I wait with my thumb pointing toward the road. The book says your meant to smile, and this is no problem as I cannot help but laugh at myself. I look like a complete tool, and all the people passing by know it.

I do eventually find a lift, and am amazed. To be honest, I could not imagine the type of person that would pick me up. In my opinion, anyone who tries to hitch-hike is by definition not the sort of person you want in your car. However, I do not mention this to the person who has just picked me up. He takes me to Maibara, about halfway to Fukui. I am so excited to be hitch-hiking, and the excitement makes all the mountain scenery so much more beautiful. I am covering hundreds of kilometres...for free! The driver took the "Japanese OK" that I had written on my sign literally however, and the conversation quickly turns to the very complex. I am not sure, but I believe it focussed on North Korea, Japanese Militarization, war guilt, and the need for world peace. Here I perfect my subtle art of head nodding, and for the entire hour convince him that I am following him. I try out some new generic phrases - "I wonder how it will all be in 50 years time" and "Hmm...its a complex topic, isn't it", both of which I use when I have absolutely no idea what we're talking about. Still, I do catch glimpses of meaning, and those glimpses are very rewarding. From Maibara, I catch another lift, this time a younger guy. He works in a lolly factory! Basically he is a lolly chef, and I am very, very excited to hear this. His job sounds like the stuff of childhood dreams - one of the things he has to do for research purposes is eat lots of lollies, both his own and those of competitors, to better understand the products from a consumer perspective. Thats right...he gets paid to eat lollies.

I get to Fukui station, and laugh at the JR Station sign. You would have made me pay $60 to get here, wouldn't you! Well here I am station, here I am! I feel very proud at having beaten the system. But my adventures are not over yet, I still have accomodation to worry about. This is where surfing begins.

www.couchsurfing.com is a worldwide network of adventurous travellers, and the idea is that when one is looking for accomodation, you contact these people and sleep on their couches for free. It is indeed a fantastic idea. Even for the relatively quick stay I had, it has been a good experience - once again, getting to meet new people! We go out for $2 beer and noodles, before coming back to their place. Melissa and Stephen are English teachers from Missouri, and we hang around with their friends Darcy (from Canada) and Mami (from Japan) until about midnight. The most hilarious part of the night is when they play charades with a doll of a baby...I don't know why, but a baby playing golf looks so funny we are all in hysterics. I will post a video shortly.

I sleep very soundly on the couch, trying to get a good sleep before the decidedly sleepless schedule of Eihei-ji. I'm about to leave their house, and catch some form of transport (I'm tempted to hitch-hike again, but might give it a miss for something only a few kilometres away) to the temple. I imagine it will be something of a shock changing from my current beer and sake drinking, late night late morning, noodle slurping adventurous backpacker lifestyle to an austere monastic lifestyle, but we'll just have to see how it goes. I am indeed very excited about it. Here I go!

I finally feel at home in Kyoto. There are so many familiar sights on the roads, I know the stations, the train lines, the different areas of town. I have even picked up some of the Kyoto dialect, and feel very cultured trying it out. I know the best places to eat, the cheapest places to shop, the best way to get around...It must be time to move on then!

Today I head out for Fukui, around 2 hours North of Kyoto, a small city facing the Japan Sea. Tommorow I will check-in at Eihei-ji, a rather large zen temple (http://wikitravel.org/en/Eiheiji). It is around 750 years old, and was the temple of Dogen Zenji, one of the truly great Zen Masters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogen).
Here I will spend four days living with the monks, doing as they do.

It is a strict temple, even by Zen standards. The day begins at 3:30 (yep thats right...I expect my body to be very, very indignant when I try to wak it up at that hour), with meditation in the pre-dawn. The day is spent doing a mixture of meditation, sweeping and cleaning the ancient temple grounds (as a form of meditation), eating special `pure` meals in a ritualized fashion, listening to Zen masters lectures on Zen practice, and more meditation. Everything is done in absolute silence (except the lectures, obviously), and is very strict and ritualized. Reading the above list, something in me is certainly screaming `RUN NICK RUN RUN YOU CAN`T DO THAT YOU`LL CRUMBLE AND DIE RUN RUN RUN`. Indeed, the people that have done it say it is incredibly difficult, especially as they insist that you sit in at least half-lotus position for all meditation, meals and lectures, which becomes painful even for flexible people. However, everyone who has done it also agrees it was an unforgettable, amazing, wonderful experience, and they are glad they did it. As far as true Zen experiences go, this is as real as it gets.

Needless to say, I will not be able to blog or receive any other communications for this time. You`ll just have to find some other form of entertainment until I come out the other side.

Wish me luck!

Ice cream
Before writing this entry, I thought I might go and get some icecream (I am in a manga cafe, with free soft serve icecream). The machine appeared broken, but that wasn`t going to stop me! I ingeniously engineered a method of opening the ice-cream valve without using the proper lever. My coffee cup filled with ice-cream, and everything was going to plan...until I wanted to stop it. Stopping was more difficult than it seemed, and so now I have a ridiculously oversized cup of soft serve to keep me entertained while I write this story.

Geisha
The story begins with a handsome young man (me, in case you didnt guess) in Arashiyama, which is altogether a very nice area of Kyoto, surrounded by towering mountains and rivers and all that lovely nature. However, having blisters the size of pancakes, I had had quite enough of temple hopping for one day, and was ready to go home early. I waited at the bus stop...and waited...and waited...for 15 minutes did I wait.

Rickshaws are a very traditional form of transport in Japan, where a big tough guy basically plays the part of a horse, and drags you around town in your little carriage. They are an integral part of samurai-era Japan, and very culturally important. As I stand there waiting for the bus, a rickshaw drives past...carrying two Geisha!
Geisha are much rarer than most people think (there are only around 1000 left in all of Japan), and the Rickshaw driver seems very chuffed at the opoprtunity to take them. Geisha...on a Rickshaw...on a bridge over a river overlooking mountains in the cultural heart of Japan...could this be the best photo opportunity ever?

I abandon my post at the bus stop and chase after them, trying to get my camera out of my bag. After a few hundred metres however, I realize that the Rickshaw man is actually in quite good shape, and is perfectly capable of outrunning me even with his 100kg carriage. And just as I am on the point of returning to the bus stop, the Gods of Irony send down another ironic thunderbolt.

Of course the bus comes now. Of course it does.

Yakuza
Another saturday night means another night to go out and wander the streets. Me and Nick (the guy who works at the hostel...yes, his nickname is Nick, I`m not talking in 3rd person), an English teacher from Melbourne and a volunteer hospital worker from Britain decide to go out for dinner. Then of course, to a bar. Nick ends up in a long, deep, involved conversation with one of the men at the bar, a man dressed in a suit with a gold necklace, carrying a briefcase. No alarm bells ring in my head just yet though.

Some hours later, I have a conversation with this man about his sons, who are overseas in Australia at the moment, and also about the philosophical connotations of `Emptiness` in Japanese language...the second topic required skilled use of the subtle art of head nodding. Then he gets out his mobile phone and shows us some pictures of him when he was younger - covered, from head-to-toe, in a set of intricate red tattoos. Amazingly, still no alarm bells go off in my head. In the end, Nick explains to me in English that this man is Yakuza, and a very high-ranking one at that. The next set of photos he shows us serve to clarify that - Here is a photo of his collection of sports cars, here is a photo of him, muscle bound and tattoo covered, sitting on a white yacht in Hawaii in the classic pose of those who have made a lot of money from underworldly activities. He gives his phone number to Nick, and it too reeks of status and power - a special number, something like 080000003. His presence allows us to stay in the bar until well after closing time, and predictably, as soon as he leaves they kick the rest of us out.

A Monkey
The pub may be finished for the night, but we are certainly not. I want to prove to Robbie (the Australian) that there is more to Kyoto nightlife than his impression - monks sitting around in a club saying `cmon guys, lets meditate another hour...I don`t have work in the morning!`. We visit a nightclub first, but it is far too black for my tastes...I am not black, and neither are any of the people in here, but they don`t seem to understand that. The most interesting thing there was two girls dancing on top of the Bar, whom my friend assured me were Russian. To me they look just like any other girls, and I assume he was just having a wild guess, so I call his bluff and ask where they are from. `Moscow, Russia`, is the reply, in a thick accent. Damn him!

At the end of the night we end up in Nick`s favourite bar. So...warm! Nick knows everyone, everyone knows Nick, and I have never been in a more warm or friendly place. Only about 15 people, everyone singing songs together and sharing drinks around the table. Tonight is a special celebration, the bar has a new manager. His face is printed on the bottles we drink from, but he looks a fair bit different stumbling around the bar...a fair bit drunker to be precise.

The alcohol is both expensive and terrible, $40 for what is essentially Passion Pop, but what they are really selling is the atmosphere. I love the place, I love talking to everyone, its so warm and noisy and warm and warm. I end up talking to two Japanese girls, one of whom speaks English quite well. No matter how many times I tell them that I can speak Japanese, they insist on translating everything through her...I suppose it is something of a novelty when talking to foreigners, so I go along with it. Eventually I come to the conclusion that they perhaps are just forgetting that I can speak Japanese, as they seem quite drunk. To prove my point, I convince them that I am French, and can only speak French (`Parlez vous Fromage?`), not English or Japanese. Despite the fact that we have been talking for half an hour in English, and Japanese, they believe me, and try to communicate with me in English that they cannot speak french...I laugh and laugh.

The girl who speaks English turns to me at one point and says `I am a monkey!` with a very straight face.
`You are?`
`Ya! I am!`
Then she pulls the most hilarious face, and I am sad to say she did look awfully like a monkey. She seems to consider it a compliment rather than an insult, and pulls the same face at least 100 times that night, each time making me laugh at loud. Nick has work the next morning (at 7 30), so we decide to head home early at 3 30. I went to see him at work this morning, but he is not there...oh dear!

Sigh, well I had hoped that you guys would be able to take your own adventure looking for my photos in this incredibly poorly laid-out site, but here's the link for those who haven't been able to find it:
http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/gallery/users/NickRennic/

The best way to find it otherwise is to click on the "authors" tab on my page, and my photos will come up. Click "more photos"

Walking along the path at the end of a very long day in Nara, patting the deer as I walk past them. The ancient capital of Japan, it dates back to the 700s, before Kyoto and long before Tokyo. It contains no less than 1,000,000,000 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (I counted), but is far smaller than Kyoto, and easily navigable on foot. It also has deer...lots of deer. These are not your pleasant everyday deer, but super-intelligent deer which know where the food stalls are, and are fully capable of ripping the little biscuits out of whoevers pocket they may be in. I spent the day looking at Buddhas - lots and lots of Buddhas. In the museum they have statues of all different Buddhas (there are many in fact - from the familiar Shakyamuni Tathagata to the 11 headed, 1000 armed Kannon) and from all different places and ages. From 5th century Chinese to 19th century Japanese, its like a Buddha emporium. And when you've had enough of the museums, there are of course the temples - including the one and only "Daibutsuden". The Daibustuden is the world's largest wooden building (its really, really, really big) housing, you guessed it, the worlds largest indoor buddha. It's also really, really big.

However, when I arrive at the daibutsuden it turns out there's only one thing as capable of attracting a crowd as the gargantuan buddha, and that's me. Crowds of schoolchildren flock around the temples, and upon seeing me scurry up in groups with "excuse me could we please ask you a question???". The question would eventually come, and many more after that. I soon got used to the routine (they usually had a set number of questions they had to ask, in a set order), and they always finished by saying together "thank you very much have a nice day goodbye", which I thought was very cute. On top of that, I had the usual foibles of celebrity life, such as the occasional passing "hello!" from someone I had never met, and a few photos with groups of people who didn't even know my name. Why do they want a photo of me?! What are they going to say? "Hey mum, I saw a guy today, here's a photo of us together". What kind of a photo is that?!

Anyway, the point is I was very tired by the end of the day, so I went for a brief walk in the park. I saw a forest path leading upwards, and I thought it looked rather nice, so I followed it. Buddha statues begin to appear once again (some once again with many more arms than the average person), and I begin to think that maybe this path leads to some super special temple in the forest (in Kyoto and Nara, that line of thinking generally works, as there are temples everywhere). Half an hour later I find myself hiking up a massive slope, through thicker and thicker forest, thinking "why exactly did I come here?". But something spurs me on higher and higher, and I eventually come out onto a barren mountaintop, where a spectacular view awaits me (I can even see the point far, far below where I started climbing). I see another point even higher, and something mystical draws me up there, and my mind still clings to the idea that some mysterious temple or otherworldly force awaits me there. By now all remnants of civilization are gone, just me and the deer. Even the sounds of the city have vanished far below, and I am completely, totally alone on what seems to be a rather abandoned mountain track. Finally, I reach the peak of the mountain...

Christoph?!

Yep, thats right, Christoph. Never mind that I left him in a city some 60km north of here. Never mind that I had no idea where he was going, or what he was doing from now on. Here he is, right in front of me. Attempting to contain the "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD", I instead try to smile and look cool, like cosmic coincidences happen to me all the time. Turns out he did a similiar thing to me, just randomly saw the mountain top and decided to climb it. The path isnt as abandoned as I thought however, I just took a rather foresty shortcut - it is a tourist highlight, complete with a 150 yen charge to access the top of the mountain (luckily, its closed by now, so I don't pay). So we stand around on top of the world, looking down on Nara and over the 360 degree panaroma of the mountains that surround us, and talk about this and that. He is such a fun person, so artistic. He likes to take time with everything he does, and is quite happy spending an age standing on the mountain top taking it all in. It proves to be a good opportunity to ask more about his artwork, now that I had seen it, and his music (turns out he was the saxophone player in a punk band...that's right, punk saxophone!). The walk down in the failing light is painful, but much better with company.

And so another day ends....

As a side note, some of you may well have noticed that in writing these blogs I tend to write absolutely every tiny detail. That's because this is actually more of a journal than a blog, its for my own purposes so that I am able to recollect these little details when I am 90. I do not expect you to hang on every word, in fact I would find it rather creepy if you did (Grace and Demi, this means you!). For those of you with jobs (Or homework....Grace and Demi!!!), please feel free to just check my photos instead to get a rough idea of where I've been and what I'm doing. It's all there, just with less words and things.