Travelling with Cultural Baggage

One of the challenges of travel is having to bring myself with me. If the trip is going to be more than passive entertainment, I have to try to erode my preconceived notions, prejudices, blindspots, and cultural programming.

This week I felt shock when I first saw the scene pictured at the top of this post. I had to remind myself I was in southern Spain, and not South Carolina.

Maybe this is just bad taste fancy dress. Then I saw whole families dressed up.

A Very Japanese Christmas

Christmas was coming to life when I visited Japan in early November. Colonel Sanders, an integral part of Japan's Christmas traditions, was in his Santa garb. Ticket counters in some train stations were decorated with tinsel and little ornaments. Christmas trees were starting to sprout.

Four Kyushu Olle Hikes

It can be a challenge getting to a hiking trailhead. Public transport may be spotty or non-existent, and once you're in the locale, trailheads have a bad habit of hiding in plain sight.

Once I've found the trailhead, I can usually muddle my way along the trail with the assistance of GPS, map, signage, and dumb luck. The odd involuntary reroute, in airline parlance, is all part of the experience. Travel without wabi-sabi is bland.

Sometimes, though, I just want to get to a trailhead then walk with my mind relieved of the logistics of the walk. Originally developed in South Korea, Olle hikes meet this challenge in Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island. An Olle hike might include villages, farms, mountainous countryside, and the seaside. The trail may be arduous, or relaxed, depending on the classification.

I don't have to overthink: an Olle hike is a nice day out; I just have to follow the symbols shown at the top of this post.

Snapshots: A Night in a Bicycle Hotel

This week I spent a night in Hotel Cycle, in a converted warehouse in the port city of Onomichi, Japan. I used it as a base to cycle part of the Shimanami Kaido trail across the Seto Inland Sea.

Walking in Silence

Today I walked through a solemn space filled with sounds of flowing water, wishing for an alternate history that does not lead to this place.

Snapshots: Circling and Framing a Volcano

Sakurajima dominates the view across the bay from Kagoshima, southern Japan. It's one of the world's most active volcanoes, regularly raining ash on the city. Surfaces can feel gritty, accumulations of dust are a hazard to cyclists.

Hotel rooms with a view of Sakurajima fetch a premium. Directions are expressed relative to the volcano; e.g., "walk towards Sakurajima." It's a common element in public art.

Yesterday, I cycled around the volcano.

Looking Forward to Winter

It's State Fair time in Minnesota, which means winter is just around the corner.

Winters in Minnesota can be lovely, with blue skies and bright sun reflecting off fresh snow. But there's so much winter: it appears in November, and lingers through April. Some days can be brutally cold.

It's time to nail down winter travel plans. I've planned three international trips lasting a total of 3 months: southern Japan, New Zealand, and (mainly) southern Europe.

An Empty Chair

She sits beside an empty chair outside the Japanese consulate in Busan, South Korea.  A sad, lonely figure.

Until the statue was installed last year, Korean women took turns to sit on a chair for a day beside an empty chair.

It's a dignified scene. There's fresh flowers, and three engraved panels. One panel lists thousands of the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese before and during World War II as so-called comfort women. There's a mail box where people can leave messages.

Around the World in 53 Days

I started my journey around the Northern Hemisphere this morning: I walked to a number 2 bus which took me to a light rail station where I caught a train to the airport.

Long-Haul Journeys

Hidden Cities

The term "hidden city" conjures up all sorts of romantic notions: a Mayan city lost in a jungle; a Soviet-era science city excluded from maps; abandoned tunnels under a city, beyond the rule of law.

It's also part of a strategy some people use to save a lot of money when traveling.

Walking in the Company of Crows

Jigokudani (Hell Valley), Shikotsu-Toya National Park

Between flights at Tokyo's Haneda Airport I noticed a comment on my Beyond the Narrow Road to the Deep North blog post. The writer recommended a book, Ainu Folk Tales.

The Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido. Much of their culture is handed down verbally from generation to generation in the form of stories.

Although the book was published in 1888, it was available for download. I read many of the Ainu stories on my flight from Haneda to Wakkanai in the far north of Hokkaido. I'm grateful for the recommendation.

The devil got up early one morning, long before the sun had risen, with the intention of swallowing it. But God knew of his designs, and made a crow to circumvent them. When the sun was rising, the evil one opened his mouth to swallow it; but the crow, who was lying in wait, flew down his throat, and so saved it. [From an Ainu legend explaining how a crow saved the sun from the devil.]

Crows often invaded my solitude as I walked alone in Hokkaido. On my first day of hiking, they barked like dogs. On a busy city street their defiant "f*ck, f*ck, f*ck" rose above the sound of traffic. At other times they declared a simple "ah, ah, ah."

Let's Play "Which Button Do I Press?"

Question 1: Which button do I press to dispense hot water? 

A Japanese hotel room is an oasis from the complexity of navigating Japan. I can kick back, have a nice cup of tea, and calmly plan my next adventures.

Or can I?

Mt. Asahidake: Shapes in the Mist

The cable car goes part-way up Mt. Asahidake in central Hokkaido. I took it to reduce my round-trip hike to the summit to 3½ hours.

When I started out from the cable-car station, I could not see the summit, but I expected the sky to clear as the day warmed up. Sulfurous steam vents did their noisy best to create vog (volcanic fog) and change my expectations.

A Place Where Two Seas Collide

Getting to Rishiri Island via Wakkanai  (northern Hokkaido) from Minneapolis is straightforward, with a few perturbations. A place where the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk collide is bound to have perturbations.

An agent at Tokyo's Haneda Airport warned me the flight to Wakkanai might have to turn back. I was sure something was lost in translation, until I went online to review the status of my flight: "May return to Haneda (Tokyo) due to bad weather."

Beyond the Narrow Road to the Deep North

I'm drawn to places at the end of train lines.

Today, my backpack and I head to Wakkanai in the north of Hokkaido. It's as far north as you can go without entering Russia.

Fictional Hokkaido

I was on a train, traveling through darkness. The elderly woman next to me asked if it would be OK if we chatted.

She was on her way to her home on Shikoku having stayed with friends on Honshu. I was returning to my base after cycling on bridges and islands across Japan's Inland Sea.

After some basic pleasantries we talked about the Meiji era at the end of the 19th century when young Japanese traveled to America and the UK to learn how to modernize Japan.

She chatted about her year working at Johns Hopkins, and her travels in the UK. She connected with northern industrial cities like Manchester and Glasgow. She did a side trip to Denmark because she loves Hamlet.

Tracing a Victorian Woman's Hokkaido Journey

In the summer of 1878, Isabella Bird sailed from Aomori in the north of Honshu to Hakodate in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island of any size.

She then sought undeveloped places beyond Hakodate.

When she returned home to Edinburgh, Scotland, she published a book of her letters, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. It's still in print and available as an ebook. It's a good read, full of intense and detailed observations.

She was the first Western woman to explore beyond Hakodate. She traveled on horseback, accompanied by a native-Japanese interpreter, and stayed in the homes of the indigenous Ainu people.

Japan's First ESL (English as a Second Language) Teacher

September 2016: I'll land in Wakkanai, Japan's northernmost airport capable of handling commercial jets. If the plane were to fly 30 miles further, I'd be in the Russian Federation.

I'll then take a boat to Rishiri Island.

July 1848: Ranald MacDonald, 24 years old, half native American, half Scottish, landed on Rishiri Island. He represented himself as a castaway to the Ainu, the local, indigenous people.

But MacDonald was not a castaway. Driven by curiosity, he was risking death by entering a society that was closed to outsiders. He had boarded a whaler in Lahaina, Maui, and persuaded the captain to set him adrift in a small boat in the Sea of Japan.

Cycling Around Hakata Station

I had thirty minutes to kill before boarding a bullet train, enough time for a bicycle-themed walk.

I was outside Hakata Station, the busiest train station on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands. I tried to walk predictably so as not to confuse cyclists who shared the sidewalk with pedestrians.

About 17% of weekday trips in Japan are by bicycle. These are short trips around town. Most bikes are simple, heavy, one-speed mamachari (Mommy chariots).