Neo-Cons, Meet Your Japanese Counterparts, But With More Crazy

Have I ever posted a picture of the main reason I love Kagoshima so much? What if you could wake to this out your window every morning?

Last Friday saw me return from yet another trip to Kagoshima, but this one being a mere overnight affair to help out my old friend Mayumi. And I did only help her out, just to get that straight since there's been a fair amount of speculation about what her relationship has been to me.

But back to the matter at hand, we met in Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture on Thursday morning, at a point equidistant from each other's house and flung ourselves down the Kyushu Expressway at breakneck speeds, feeding on an eclectic mix of morbid conversation (by Japanese standards), prejudiced snack foods ("Men's Bikkle"!) and each other's off-center taste in music. She introduced me to Japanese funk, I blew her mind with French indie rock, international friendship rolled on like the wheels under our feet and we were in Kagoshima by 2PM.

Now, I thought I'd said pretty much everything there was to be said about Kagoshima before--big active volcano looming over the city, fairly good nightlife, fantastic weather and a chill J-hipster scene--and to be honest there was some debate going on as whether or not to even post about the trip. Kagoshima and her neighboring environs, however, surprised me yet again, but this time with bad to temper the good. All things in balance, eh?

Our first taste of Kagoshima was unfortunately bitter and reminded me that we are, in fact, in Japan and not some la-la-land where nothing can possiblay go wrong (sorry, Simpsonｓ gag). It was the simple task of finding parking for the Sakurajima ferry that got my blood boiling and my hands clutching the steering wheel at 500 psi. You see, the Kagoshima Aquarium and ferry ports both share parking areas since they're adjacent and this day was a particularly busy day for both places what with Obon festivities happening, so after being shooed away and redirected to an annexed dirt lot the city attendant insisted was "free" we thought we'd hit parking pay dirt--that stuff's never free in Japan! We arrived at the lot to discover it was free...if you get a validation card that goes along with an aquarium ticket. "But we're taking the ferry," we said to the attendant, to which he responded "Oh, then you can't park here." "But the lots are linked. The guy over there told us and there's a sign that says `Ferry and Aquarium Parking`." The two attendants here were obviously befuddled by our argument and we went around and around for five minutes, even asking about an hourly rate among other proposed compromises before Mayumi acted the good little Japanese girl part and told them we'd go to the aquarium. To cave after our good-natured attempts at reason with two little weasel-men instead of just leaving and looking for other parking was staggering to me, and while I can say it's not something I'd allow to ruin a friendship it is a memory that won't fade away in the near future. Had I been behind the wheel those jackasses would be pelted in dust and gravel from our spinning tires and they'd be lucky if I didn't run down their fold-out chairs and water bottles. Fucking Japanese inflexibility. The aquarium ticket cost 2000 J-bucks. 2000 J-bucks for an hour-and-a-half of parking. Staggering.

But Sakurajima was stunning as always, the weather was gorgeous and we came back to do some work and get some beers and that all served to push the unpleasantness out of my head for awhile. When out late dinnertime finally came Mayumi insisted on any restaurant that specializes in Kagoshima's famous "kurobuta" cuisine. Kurobuta translates as "black pig" and is the local breed of pork grazing around these southern parts. At the exorbitant cost of at least 1200 J-bucks for a mere bowl of katsudon it's simply never been within my budget to partake. That and I didn't believe the hype in it. I was very, very wrong. Kurobuta is hands down the most amazing pork I've ever had and its heavenly texture and flavor will win over anyone who's not a practicing Jew or Muslim. Or vegan. Or PETA activist. But everyone else will be enthralled.


It's so good!

From there Mayumi and I hit some bars and I found out she's the quiet, introverted kind of drunk when she shut down almost entirely and stared into her glass or space while her face took on a shade I'd previously only associated with extreme sunburn victims. Our final stop for the night wasn't in the Tenmonkan entertainment district where one would expect to find Kagoshima's young and aimless, but instead several stops down the southern reach of the city's streetcar line, in a little neighborhood called Kishaba. I'd read an article or two about this place before embarking on our little trip and spending what remained of the night in Kishaba taught me that I really don't know jack about Kagoshima outside its city center. According to the locals, Kishaba is where undergrad intellectuals from Kagoshima University come to unwind after their exit essays on new management processes and thinking outside the box get trampled to bits by the Japanese Old Guard in favor of the old ways (no, nobody actually said that, but knowing Japan...). Unlike Tenmonkan, Miyako-machi, Nakasu and all the other "official" entertainment districts there are no glaring strip club signs, titty bar barkers or gaudy shot bars. In their place are either small, hyper-chill, dimly lit lounges and restaurants or well-lit, hole-in-the-wall, Mom and Pop homestyle cooking places. Some of them literally have mud n' straw walls and Hobbit doors to get inside. Any one of these places would make a fortune if they opened up shop in SF on Valencia St. or Hayes and Mayumi and I chose what I think was the king daddy of them all, a second-floor bar/restaurant with a glass facade that looked down over a dark intersection. We were full still, but the food at other tables looked so fantastic we had to order something and weren't disappointed at the shrimp platter or vegetarian stir fry. This place must mug every tenth customer or something to subsidize their food costs because the price was ridiculously low, just over 3000 J-bucks for four drinks and two dishes. Kishaba, I love you.


I can't run as fast or jump as high as all the college undergrad young'uns around me, but I can kick their butts in wistful glances out a bar window.

Friday brought on the weirdness in one big tidal wave that I'm still formulating a lot of "what if" scenarios about. More than Kagoshima City itself and all those charms, what Mayumi most wanted to see was the mountain town of Chiran that lies south of the city. This was convenient for me as it would offer me a long overdue look at nearby Ibusuki, another hotspot in the prefecture for hot springs after Kirishima. Entering Chiran one has many opportunities to see the tea plantations and intact samurai houses it's famous for, but before all that Mayumi wanted to take a peek at the peace park on the edge of town, the largest such park in Kyushu south of Nagasaki. Mayumi, the bubblehead, knew her mistake the instant we went through the gates.

Last Friday was August 15. Hmm...what happened August 15, 1945. Oh, that's right, VJ Day! And who in Japan loves to flood the peace parks on VJ Day and the Emperor's b-day but the "uyoku dantai"--right wing militant activists. There were too many to count, we were blown away. Mayumi's lived in Japan her whole life and I've been to Tokyo's war dead shrine, Yasukuni Jinja, and neither of us have ever seen so many in one place. Well, there's a method to that particular bit of madness. Chiran's peace park is a particularly special place for these nutjobs because it's built on what was the main Southern Kyushu air base for kamikaze pilots. They have four reconstructed kamikaze planes on exhibit an extremely in-depth museum. But back to merely entering the grounds, there were parades going on and everyone was garbed in some kind of paramilitary uniform that was either Mussolini olive drab, jackbooted thug black or simply old school fatigue pattern (none of that newfangled pixelized print stuff). I was spotted at some point and shit just STOPPED. Dead. And people stared with hate-filled little eyes at The Enemy sitting next to a fairly good looking Japanese woman and hopefully drawing all the wrong conclusions about us. The thought was making me very happy. Mayumi, for her part, was freaking the hell out. "Don't stop, don't laugh, don't look at them, don't take pictures, just go go go!" was essentially the tone of her message to me. I would have liked to follow her directions, but these guys were just too goofy. We had to stop. Inside the museum was another legion of the little bastards and their families. The walls are plastered with the pictures and names of every kamikaze pilot that ever lived and died, their letters and effects, all displayed in chronological order of death. As the war rolls on the pilots get younger and younger until they can't even bother putting the boys in military uniforms for photos and just shoot them in their high school attire. People were balling their eyes out left and right at the patriotic display. Surly and weaselly men followed me around, random dudes bumped into my shoulder purposefully and the older folks glared from their walkers.

From here the rest of the trip was almost entirely uneventful. The Ibusuki scenery was breathtaking and I met a cyclist on a brand new US$8000 DeRosa all-carbon frame that I wanted to get naked with instantly. The bike, not the cyclist, perv. We got back to my car in Aso around 10PM and parted ways with subdued hug, emailed each other as soon as we safely arrived home and I haven't heard from her since. Well, if for whatever twisted reason we never speak again I can say she left me with a lot of memories and a weak nicotine craving from secondhand smoke.

--Matt