Drivin' on 10

One tank of gas, one bike, one sleeping bag, one towel, one change of clothes, one Super Mapple, four days, one dream: to be an itinerant drifter in Southern Kyushu with no responsibility whatsoever. Result: success!

I pulled back into Kusu yesterday, Saturday, at around 2PM, making my outing across the island exactly four days in length. Part of me was ready to come back--especially the part which had no money in his pocket--but the other part that I like to call "The Dreamer" is still floating in space somewhere over Kinko Bay in Kagoshima. It was an eventful four days.

To start off with, why now? Well, this week was what's called "Golden Week" in Japan, when the cluster of coinciding national holidays for Children's Day, Constitution Day, Green Day (no relation to the band, really) and the Showa Emperor's Birthday give workers a free handful of days off in a row. Of course, like many other holidays, workers get the shaft when any of those days fall on a weekend, automatically eliminating the benefit. This year two of the days fell on the weekend, turning it into Golden...Day. For me this was compounded by the fact that one of the remaining holidays was Children's Day when Japanese put out koinobori in their neighborhoods and hold festivals and stuff. No problem, right? Sure, except that Kusu has the largest koinobori in Japan with a large festival to accompany it and guess who had to wake up at 7:30AM and work until 4PM as staff (because he's a city employee, technically)? Out of a misplaced sense of spite I decided I was going to take the rest of the week off and do my thing.

The original plan was to hitchhike to Kagoshima and hang out there for the duration, maybe hitting up the Kirishima and Ibusuki hot springs regions while I was around. Complications arose though when I started to make an inventory of all the places in Southern Kyushu I wanted to visit and what equipment it would take to prepare. To make a laborious explanation short, too many places on my list I wanted to go, a loss of freedom of movement within Miyazaki and Kagoshima cities, no good backpack and no will to spend the money to buy one and, finally, I couldn't find a small blackboard to use as my destination sign. So Plan B became drive your car to Miyazaki and Kagoshima, park somewhere and ride your bike around. Retrospect can be a wonderful or terrible force, but in this case I'm monumentally pleased I used this plan since doing otherwise would have changed the wondrous things I was able to see.

And so it was that at 2PM on Tuesday I set out from Kusu, through Kokonoe and over the Kuju Range into Taketa, Bungo Ono, Mie and the northern outskirts of Nobeoka City and Miyazaki Prefecture on National Highway 10. Highways 10 and 3 are the two north/south trans-Kyushu highways (10 being on the eastern coast and 3 the opposite, of course) that both start in the former city of Moji, the island's northernmost reach. Funny bit of trivia about Moji, you know the saying "all roads lead to Rome", well on Kyushu every national highway road sign indicates how far you are from Moji Station so you could also say here that "all roads lead to Moji." That's not the interesting bit though. Moji Station is the oldest station in Kyushu and was built coincidentally as a replica of Rome's former Termini Station (it's since been remodeled), hence, in a way, all roads in Kyushu lead to Rome.

Even major Japanese highways are scarcely discernible from any old street. Highway 10 is, for example, a two lane road almost the entire length of Kyushu despite being the main automobile lifeline between all points north and south in Eastern Kyushu. Between Beppu and Oita (about eight kilometers) it grows to six lanes, and again within Miyazaki City (about 10-12 kilometers). I drove this road with my parents four years ago and things haven't become much quicker, but perhaps that's for the better--it's a gorgeous drive at points. The city of Hyuga, known well 'round these parts for fantastic surfing, is a charming little tropical wonderland that I will certainly be returning to this summer. Nobeoka, except for its rural outlands, not so interesting. I found a fantastic used goods shop in Miyazaki City's neighboring municipality, Shintomi, and spent almost an hour there checking out its great selection and low, low, low! prices. If only I weren't on a budget. I pulled into Miyazaki City around 8:30PM and hastily started looking for my first night's digs.

Like I said, I was on a budget, and few things break a bank like lodgings. What's the cheapest lodging then? None, of course. Quite simply, Japan's vagrancy laws differ from America's significantly in ways I don't comprehend except I'm positive that one can camp virtually anywhere on public property. Good evidence of this can be seen in the parks of major cities such as Tennoji Koen in Osaka where a good portion of the park has become a homeless encampment. Imagine a large section of GG Park's Panhandle being annexed by homeless and you have an idea of the scale. But I'm not here to rail on about Japan's virtual ignorance of their most destitute population, what I did was steer myself towards Miyazaki's largest public park, find a nice out-of-the-way place to park, unload my bike and set off in search of dinner and drinks.

The first thing I noticed about Miyazaki is the weather: it's 9PM and I'm sweating in a t-shirt and shorts. In Kusu I'd have jeans and a long-sleeve on and be nominal, at best. One of the people I met at a bar called Tam Tam told me that it did snow one day last winter, five whole centimeters of the stuff, and the town was in a panic. Downtown Miyazaki is a pleasant enough place to be with plenty of small parks, a little riverfront, two Tully's and a new Starbucks behind the station. Oh, and a Trandor. Miyazaki can join the club of real cities in my book. My night in the park, while I've had worse rests, wasn't as good a choice as I'd hoped. The street adjacent to the park's border was horrendously busy at all hours, and in the morning students, walkers and joggers kept passing me by. A change of venue was an order for the next night.

Though Miyazaki is one of the island's major seaside cities it has no natural harbor, just one long, pristine, relatively deserted beach. I should have done this the previous night...I move my car to the marina and set off again on bike. I was out on the town the night before for only a few hours, didn't see a single foreigner and thought it was just a fluke. As I went about my day in and beyond the city I noticed it again. Most discomforting of all were the stares of people with their mouths agape, but that was followed closely by the ear-to-ear amused smiles of staff and others who couldn't believe that I was ordering food and asking questions in Japanese. Even people in Kusu don't give two glances at me anymore, and there are only three non-Asian foreigners in town. While I was having breakfast in Tully's a man could/would not take his eyes off me and they were burning such a hole in my head I moved outside.

I rode south out of the city towards the town of Aoshima and its namesake natural monument. On the way I was looking for an onsen to wash up at, but couldn't find anything using the crappy fold-out maps I had and Super Mapple was back in the car. I did finally find an old school place that was more sento than onsen, the difference being that the former is a more utilitarian place of bathing that does not derive its water from natural springs. But less surprising than the fading aquamarine tiles or the mere tall wall that separated the men's and women's bathing areas had to be the spring water that was rich in phosphates, making you feel like no matter how much you scrub the soap will never come off. Slimy water is weird.

Also on the way to Aoshima I found Miyazaki University and decided to pay a visit to Oita University's southern counterpart. Now, I can't be positive, but I'm thinking there are physically no foreign students at Miyazaki U. as I was getting more stares than even while in the city. Now it was downright disturbing. I've never really craved fame or attention much, so now that I'm getting it I don't know what to do under its glare. Anyways, the campus's facilities are exactly like Oita's--concrete, uninspiring, undecorated and just positively dull. I sat down to have lunch in the central plaza and some guy followed me, sat at a facing bench and pretended to read, but "secretly" stared at me the whole time. I moved on to Aoshima quickly.

The town of Aoshima is interesting for two reasons: first, its home to some spectacular natural geological formations, namely the island of Aoshima itself and the surrounding "Devil's Washboard" area; second, it's a place where some investors some time ago banked big on the town becoming a major seaside resort. Those dreams seemingly never materialized. Some spectacular hotels and other facilities have been completely abandoned and left to Mother Nature's whims, which, in Southern Kyushu means a quick reabsorption into the Earth. I mean, all of Japan fights a battle with Ma Earth to keep her floral hordes at bay during the warm months, but in nearly subtropical Miyazaki and Kagoshima the battle rages every day, the human combatants clad in high boots and dungarees clutching ever-hungry weed whackers. But yeah, Aoshima. I found a crappy page of photos of this quite beautiful and peaceful island, but it doesn't begin to convey the feeling one will get of being transported to some South Seas tropical paradise upon stepping on the island, especially the central shrine. The hotel complex you can see in the background of photo 12 is entirely abandoned and slowly crumbling.

I tried to head further south along the coast, but ended up lost after less than ten kilometers. Oh well, I had to meet my friend Guy (from the biking trip) in a couple hours for tea and dinner anyways. We met up, talked shop about bikes, had some tea, watch videos of his mixed martial arts-practicing roomy beat the living hell out of some Japanese guys and said our goodbyes. I rode back to the marina to find my car the only one in the parking lot still left and the gates to the place locked. A little bit of panic, but then I realized it's Japan--what the worst that can happen? Famous last words, those are typically, but not tonight or the next day. I fell asleep on the sands of Miyazaki City while fishing boats and ferries puttered by and the waves broke gently in the darkness.

Now, you may be wondering why there are no pictures displayed here. No, there's nothing wrong with your browser or connection, nor did I forget my camera. Before I hardly even left Oita Prefecture my camera crapped out. Something is jammed in the focus apparatus and the thing is stuck in the open position and unable to, well, focus. This thing is so far out of date it's not worth repairing, but I'll have to wait until the 15th and my paycheck to buy a new one. And that, ladies and gents, is a damn Greek tragedy, because my camera missed some heavy stuff this trip. Heavy...and far out, man.

--Matt