Bob, the kids and I have just returned from a whirlwind weekend trip to Shodoshima, an island in the Seto Inland Sea about a 3 hour ferry ride from Kobe.
We went with my Sanyo Chemical Company English Club. This trip was their annual English Club get-together and their first attempt at a weekend-long event. The trip was a win-win for Sanyo and for us--we all got a chance to visit a part of Japan we had never been to, and they got 4 native english speakers with whom to chat.
Bob and I on the ferry bound for Shodoshima. Behind us in the distance is what I've heard to be the longest suspension bridge in the world. Sort of like a very long, pale Golden Gate Bridge.
Aya looking seriously cool on deck.
Immediately upon reaching Shodoshima, I had a baffling rush of recognition--the incredible nearness of the lapping water coupled with the steamy summer air filled my head with visions of Kwajalein, where I lived so many years ago. But the towering green mountains tumbling down to the sea gave me pangs for the Northern California coasts. And all the while I was indisputably in Japan.
I'm pretty sure I was alone with my schizophrenic trifecta of memory. But that's okay. I often am.
But back to the trip....
First of all, you'd think that it would be a bit awkward and weird trying to meld the 4 of us with the 22 Sanyo Chemical Company employees. Bob and the kids, after all, had never met any of these lovely people. But I have been teaching at Sanyo since early spring, so my students were well-accustomed to my pitiful jokes and slightly warped sense of humor. They were incredibly helpful and friendly, always including Patrick and Aya in whatever we did. We, in turn, thanking our lucky stars we had been living in Japan for as long as we have, were able to do our part to also give them room to have a good time without having to "babysit" us. It was a combo that from the start that made for a great weekend.
Upon landing on Shodoshima we were greeted by Sanyo's former English teacher, Brandon, from England, and his wife, who is from Japan. They had moved earlier this year to Shodoshima and were eager to show off their new island home. Brandon had a hearty greeting and a warm handshake for each of his former students, as well as for the 4 strange Americans who tumbled off the ferry after them. Brandon and his wife were incredible hosts. That first night (Saturday night) they put on a barbecue in the picnic area of the youth hostel where Bob and the kids and I were staying. BARBECUE. All capital letters. There were 3 big half-barrel barbecue pits upon which everyone joined in to roast slices of beef, pork and chicken, freshly caught fish and squid, slices of Japanese kabocha (pumpkin), onions, okra, hunks of green onions, corn on the cob and shitake mushrooms. Brandon's wife had made row upon row of onigiri (rice balls, Aya's favorite), which people snapped up in their chopsticks to grill over the coals as well. Brandon had also arranged for the local liquor store to deliver 20 liters of beer on tap, in addition to which he had added innumerable six packs of beer, bottles of wine and liter upon liter of soda and tea. He and his wife had brought so much food that they had forgotten to bring out the yakisoba (noodles grilled with sliced cabbage, pork and onions in a tangy sauce) and the watermelon.
In the middle of all the beer-sipping, soda-chugging, food grilling and visiting, a young dog, probably part Shiba Inu, trailing a short length of rope off his collar, tiptoed to within sniffing distance of our group. One of the Sanyo guys eased over to the dog with a bit of meat. The dog was wary, but hungry, and was finally coaxed into taking the meat, after which he leaped back.
By this time several other Sanyo people had come over. The hubbub attracted Patrick, who took his bowl containing a number of slices of beef and pork, and went out to the open area where the dog hesitated. Patrick sat cross legged on the ground and held out a bit of meat. The dog immediately eased up to him and took the meat. For the next half hour Patrick gave the dog tiny bits of meat, all the while trying to get a grip on the dog's collar so he could find out where the dog was from.
It was not meant to be folks. Patrick managed to wrap his fingers around the dog's collar just one time. In retaliation, the dog wiggled, turned and peed on the leg of Patrick's pants. Which, by the way, Bob found totally hilarious.
Patrick did not.
Soon the dog walked very purposefully back up the residential street and vanished, leading us to think that perhaps it knew exactly where it's home was, and simply came down to investigate our barbecue's tantalizing smells....
After most of the food had been devoured there were fireworks. Brandon had bought huge packs of sparklers and fizzing sticks for Patrick and Aya, and one of the Sanyo employees had brought roughly 1000 more smaller zipping and popping fireworks. And aside from me managing to get a hole burnt into my shirt from a flying ember and several beers being toppled over, a great time was had by everyone.
The next day we were up at dawn to eat the early morning youth hostel breakfast, and then off for a day of sightseeing.
Dawn over the water, just outside our youth hostel room.
We climbed abord the small bus that Sanyo had rented for both days we were on Shodoshima (a bus, which I might add, that was beautifully air conditioned) and headed up, up, up into the misty mountains to a small temple carved right into a cave in the rock face. The entrance to the temple, startlingly enough, had loudspeakers and blinking lights that automatically sound when a motion sensor is triggered--a system intended to scare away overly curious local resident monkeys, of which there are MANY.
The map of the temple grounds. There really is a massive, faint hand (of Buddha) carved into the rock face above the temple.
Inside the cool, dampness of the cave temple, a small older woman was standing behind a table with good luck charms, bead bracelets and temple memorabilia. One by one the Sanyo employees tossed coins in the offering box, clapped twice and offered a brief prayer at the shrine. Meanwhile, I perused the table of mementos.
I finally chose a bracelet made of polished dark stone beads and what I thought were carved flowers on frosted glass beads. Something about it delighted me, and since it wasn't incredibly expensive, I bought it. I was delighted later to discover that the glass beads were actually each meticulously engraved with tiny dragons--my brother's Chinese zodiac animal. I had been wanting to find a piece of jewelry involving dragons for several years now to wear as a sort of Dennis memento. It seems the jewelry found me.
Ya-hoo for the twists of fate.
We went next to the top of another mountain and boarded a sky tram that took us up to one of the peaks, on top of which were incredible vista points, a souvenir shop, a plant stand, a snack bar and a restaurant. (Trivia for you: it also had an impressively swanky public bathroom that cost a reported $10 million to build. And while the bathroom WAS incredible--gleaming, row upon row of western toilets with all the requisite jets and singing chimes, as well as skylights and growing plants festooned everywhere--$10 million DOES seem like a lot for a bathroom.)
After some wandering and picture taking, we all met again at the restaurant and had a kaiseki lunch. "Kaiseki" is a traditional Japanese style of dining where the food is served in individual portions, each of which features a seasonal speciality of the area. We enjoyed both regular and green olive oil somen, salmon sashimi, marinated raw thinly sliced ika (squid), clams sauteed in sake, shrimp, tofu, sliced lotus root with flying fish eggs, and rice cooked with mushrooms in a dashi sauce.
After that I bought a baby olive tree (of course) and we all boarded the bus again.
We were on our way to our last scenic view point when we were set upon by:
MONKEYS! Dozens of monkeys! They spied our bus from their leafy hiding places and lumbered right up. The bus driver stopped the bus and we found ourselves surrounded by monkeys of all sizes and ages--older monkeys who would just sit in the street and stare at us, all the way down to dainty, tiny baby monkeys clinging to their mother's fur. After a suffering a brief vision of a "Planet of the Apes" scenario befalling us all, the driver eased the bus back into the street and the monkeys, looking totally blase and unsurprised, wandered back into the forest.
Our last stop was a spectacular viewpoint on top of a mountain above us where we could actually see 360 degrees around. Bob had good fun playing with his new iphone toy, a 360 degree panorama picture taking gizmo:
And I managed to convince an exhausted Aya to pose for one photo as we perched high above the harbor below:
After that we swirled back down the switchbacks and down to the waterfront where we bid our goodbyes to Brandon, his wife, and the island of Shodoshima--a bit too soon in my opinion--to retrace our steps from ferry to train, to train, to subway to home, where our 3 cats were waiting for us.
But Brandon has invited us to visit anytime....and I have a sneaky suspicion we are going to try to go back.
Until next time...
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