My journey to Unzen, on the Shimabara Peninsula, began with a glimpse of hazy blue mountains in the train window as it sped down the coast to the city of Nagasaki. They rose enormous and faint against the deep blue of the sea, oyster poles sticking up jagged in between. I was mesmerized by their quiet, majestic silhouette against the sky, and upon returning home from Nagasaki, I immediately consulted a map along with my memory in order to identify them.
Unzen is both a group of mountains and a resort town, a long-established retreat tucked in the cool forests at high altitude. It has been used for ages by Japanese looking to escape the summer heat and bask in the hundreds of hot springs generated by the active volcano, Fugen-dake, that dominates the area; in the 1800s, it became a popular resort for foreign residents in Japan. The first golf course in Japan was built here (and is still used), as well as the first national park, established in the 1930s. Beyond the resort town, the area is famous for other reasons - the lord of Shimabara Castle, at the base of the mountains, led a Christian revolt that was ruthlessly crushed by the Tokugawa military government in the 1600s.
Recently, Fugen-dake - long thought to be dormant - erupted violently, spilling lava down the side of the mountain. What was once a green, forested peak is now naked and rocky, sticking out incongruously from the lush park surrounding it. As such, one can no longer hike up to the peak of Fugen-dake; it is, however, possible to come within about a hundred meters of it and contemplate the quiet dirt pile that doesn't seem quite capable of a volcanic explosion. The volcano, however, gives the area the hot springs for which it is famous; Unzen offers both bathing springs, or onsen , as well as jigoku , or "hells." The hells are not for soaking in, as they are sulfuric streams dribbling from the earth, spewing steam upwards in clouds. The hells serve more purposes than simply a sight for tourists, however; they are criss-crossed with pipes that take their hot water directly to the numerous hotels and bathhouses in the area, and when walking among the hells, one can witness bent old women cooking eggs in their hot steam. If you become hungry as you take in the sights, you can purchase from them a freshly-boiled snack.
After learning of this area, the allure of the beautiful mountains that I had seen became irresistable. In the heat of July, I booked a long weekend in Unzen, ready for a cool mountain escape and a soak in the famous hot springs. Anticipating a relaxing trip, I reserved a room in a ryokan, or traditional Japanese inn. Prior to this trip I had been apprehensive of staying in one of these establishments, for they are often meals-included and, it being Japan, there is little leeway in what is offered to eat. As a strict vegetarian, I worried about paying around $80 or more per night for services I couldn't use. The ryokan in Unzen, however, was more than helpful, and when I corresponded with them about the possibility of vegetarian meals they responded with a suggested menu and asked which foods were acceptable. The inn was certainly living up to the stellar recommendations that it had received from fellow travelers. With all of my accomodations taken care of, I happily awaited my journey. (By the way, if you are considering a trip to Unzen, I stayed at Kaseya Ryokan. I highly recommend it.)
Unzen can be reached by a number of routes - ferries, trains, buses. Debating between bus and ferry, I decided on the more romantic - if perhaps more lengthy - option. I took a train to Omuta, a small city in the south of Fukuoka prefecture, passing by bright green fields on the quiet but slow-moving local train. Once you get away from the major cities of Japan, bullet and express trains disappear as an option; instead, you will be subjected to a slightly more colorful ride on uncomfortable old trains along with the students, farmers, businessmen, and laborers of the area. I was nearly alone on the train, accompanied only by a handful of boys about my own age, all immersed in their comic books.
At Omuta, I expected a ferry terminal that was - well, larger. Instead, it was a tiny building that resembled the train station in a little farm town; it was not much more than a shack. The ferries, too, were a not quite what I had imagined. The one that would take us down the narrow bay to Unzen was perhaps a 50-person affair, an overgrown speedboat. Unlike the rest of the passengers, who wisely filed into the small cabin with sofas and TVs, I was too captivated by the beautiful, sunny day and the gorgeous view over the water to go inside. Instead, I perched on a bench on the deck at the back of the boat, happily enjoying the fresh warm air. As we pulled away from the dock, I realized why everyone else had gone inside: the boat moved at a remarkable speed and the wind and noise were unbelievable. Still, I stubbornly remained and stubbornly enjoyed being outside on the water.
As we approached Unzen, I couldn't put my camera down; each moment seemed to be an even more perfect shot of those majestic mountains rising up out of the bay. On the right was the Shimabara Peninsula, but on the left - visible for only a few minutes before the boat turned - was the hazy peak of Aso-san, another active volcano located in Kumamoto, near the center of Kyushu. It is said that on a clear day, one can see Aso-san from the viewpoints atop the Unzen mountains. As I took photo after photo, a guy about my age kept coming out of the cabin to talk on his cell phone and I wondered how he could hear a word the person was saying. The noise of the boat was deafening. Japanese people are insane, I caught myself thinking again. From time to time, one has these thoughts.
As we docked in the town of Shimabara, I picked up my backpack and got ready to exit the boat. I had consulted several fairly bad maps and had a vague idea of how I could get to the bus terminal, from where I could take an hour-long bus to the town of Unzen over the mountain. Prior to catching the bus, I planned on visiting a few sights in Shimabara itself: the castle, site of the famous revolt, as well as a famous temple with interesting Buddha statues. With this on my brain, I was taken completely by surprise when the cell phone guy came up to me while the boat was still docking. He thrust me a piece of paper, carefully written on it, "MY NAME IS KOUETSU. PLEASE CALL ME."
I looked at him in total confusion. You must remember that throughout my year in Japan, the thought of dating seemed an unattainable goal. The only men interested in me were the 15-year-old boys in my classes or the old men who wanted to talk my ear off when they found me sitting somewhere. Guys my own age were generally inaccessible, too wary of foreign women to be too sociable; living in the suburbs also did not increase my chances of meeting anyone my own age. So you can imagine my surprise when, 2 weeks before I was going to leave the country, someone my age actually came up to me and asked me out, rather than the other way around.
He began asking me my name and where I was from in heavily accented English, but seeing that he wasn't getting far with his language skills, I answered in polite Japanese. He expressed surprise at my ability to speak Japanese, at my coming to Unzen alone with only a backpack. He wanted to know why I was there, where I lived, what I did. As we got off the boat, he told me that he lived in a temple and was meeting his grandmother who was giving him a ride.
"What? Why do you live in a temple?"
"My job."
"Oh." Still not quite following, I shrugged and amicably walked into the terminal with him. There, his very young grandmother was waiting and I was introduced.
"So very nice to meet you! We live in a temple, you know."
Again with the temple! Strange as it is, sometimes in Japan I found that I just had to go with it. "Oh, really. How interesting."
"Do you want a ride? You can come to our temple. We'll take you to your hotel, where is it that you're staying?" I considered it quickly. If I got a ride with this strange but friendly pair, I couldn't try to see Shimabara castle or any of the other strange things that I had hoped to visit before going up to the resort. On top of that, I was feeling overwhelmed and shy; at mid-afternoon, I'd already had a long day with several hours of traveling. Reluctantly, I declined, saying that I already had a bus ticket and was going to the castle. They wished me luck and, before we parted ways, Kouetsu once again urged me to call. "Come visit the temple!"
"All right, I will," I said, not quite sure if it would end up being an empty promise.
As I trudged down the street in the beating afternoon sun, I was beginning to regret not taking Kouetsu and his grandmother up on their offer. Typically for Japan, there was no sidewalk on the main road I took, no shade, and I was hot and tired. When I finally found the bus terminal an hour after I got off the ferry, I was ready to lie down in the shade, not walk around Shimabara. The bus didn't come for several hours, so I put my backpack in a coin locker and set off with my map to kill time.
Despite finding the tiny "rivers" full of bright koi, set about 2 feet deep into the sides of a few cobblestone streets in a quaint old corner of Shimabara, my afternoon seemed to drag on forever without respite. I spent most of my energy trying to get to the castle; despite being enormous and on a hill, not to mention a famous sight, it seemed that every road I took curved away at the last minute and led everywhere but the castle. When I finally did reach the entrance, I was so tired and frustrated that I simply gazed at it for a moment and headed back to the bus station.
The ride up to Unzen was full of middle school students heading home; I had forgotten, that afternoon, that Shimabara was not just a tourist sight but filled with normal people going about their daily lives. After passing through the more populated stops near the base of the mountains, the bus turned to climb to the high peak where the town of Unzen rested. We dove into cool, dark forests filled with cedar and pine, and as we rounded a curve, the hundred-year-old golf course suddenly appeared. It was wet, lush, and quiet. Somehow the bus's automated voice announcement, "next, stop, golf course" did not quite fit in with the picturesque scene that did seem like something straight out of the 19th century British Empire. Finally, we pulled into the quaint town of Unzen itself.
I had no idea what to expect of Unzen: quaint inns nestled in the mountains, hot springs, resorts. My image of the town turned out to be mostly accurate, but it had a distinctly German flavor to it that I hadn't anticipated. The bus terminal, town buildings, and the Beer Hall full of local microbrews were all white with pointed red rooves, like tiny castles. They fit in strangely with the rest of the town, which was indeed full of small old shops and inns lining the narrow streets. The steam of the hells rose up behind the buildings in clouds.
The cool, moist air and the quiet town refreshed me, and before dinner I walked over to the hells. They were easy to find, as the clouds of foul-smelling steam poured over the hotels and into the road. Picking my way through, I walked carefully over the planks that marked the safe path through the hells and breathed in the smell of sulphur. Somehow, I hadn't expected the mineral hot springs to smell quite so much like a polluted well, but it was certainly atmospheric. I sat at an empty gazebo to look out at the strange scene before me: bare dirt with hissing streams of water flowing into rusty pipes, eggs and tea kettles nestled in the sand, the occasional explosion of steam bubbling up through the water and spraying moisture and dirt along with it.
As I sat and thought of my strange day up to that point, I heard faint mewing. Without realizing it, I was surrounded by cats - small, young cats, rubbing against my legs, mewing, looking for for a snack and some attention. One, the friendliest and smallest of the bunch, audaciously jumped up on the bench next to me, mewing and pushing on my hand. When I relented and petted it carefully, it immediately climbed into my lap and commenced purring loudly enough that I could feel it in my toes. There I sat until dark, me and the cat and the hissing clouds of steam.
After a large and delicious dinner in the common room back at the inn, I once again contemplated the note that had been passed to me at the ferry. I was nervous about calling, but my newly adventurous side was scolding me to just take a chance on it. Finally, I got up the courage to go downstairs after a long soak in the inn's hot spring bath and, clutching the number in one hand, asked them if they had a phone I could use.
I pushed about three dollars into the phone's coin slot, as Kouetsu's number was a cell phone and they're more expensive to call than long distance. I picked up the receiver, dialed, and - nothing. The phone wasn't making the call. I looked around for a coin return, but there was nothing. No one was left downstairs and I had just wasted my three dollars and my courage. Annoyed, I went up to bed early.
I woke early in the morning, determined to catch an early bus up to the mountains. After a refreshing and very traditional Japanese breakfast - rice, miso soup, cold tofu, pickles, seaweed, tea - I caught the first bus, the only traveler. As we wound our way up the mountain road, I reviewed my goals for the day.
I am an outdoor vacationer, and as such, my primary goal for the weekend (beyond relaxing) was to climb the volcanic peaks above the town of Unzen. There were several mountains there, including Myoken overlooking the town, Kunimi (literally, "seeing the nation"), and the taller Fugen next to it. The national park, Unzen, stretches over the mountains and protects the ancient forest and its unique flora and fauna from development. With Fugen as my ultimate goal for the day, I plotted a route through the mountains that would take me to Myoken, and then through the forest and finally to the volcanic crater.
The mountaintop proved to be much cooler than the town, and I was relieved that I brought a sweatshirt along on a whim. I hugged it around me, the wind whipping thick clouds by my face, as I began my ascent along stairs up the side of the first slope to reach the winding forest path.
I was the only hiker so early in the morning, and the quiet of the day surrounded me. Soon, however, the birds and animals became used to my presence, and chirping and singing erupted in the forest around me as I paused to examine the flowers growing along the path. Between the trees, the flowers, and the birds, so much was new to me; indeed, the guidebooks that oriented me to the area claimed that many of the species found in the park are native to Kyushu and now found only in this untouched area. I breathed in the scent of the fresh greenery and continued up, passing through a stone torii stretching across the path before finally finding myself at Myoken's peak.
At 1330 meters, I should have been treated to a spectacular view; on this day, however, clouds whipped by the mountains and the scene below me was completely obscured in mist. The weather conditions were not all bad, though - I was treated to the amazing sight of peering down from the side of the mountain to see small clouds being tossed through the grass by the wind, flowing by like water. After a futile attempt at catching the effect on video with my digital camera, I continued on toward Fugen.
The path wound back down the other side of Myoken, dipping deep down into the forest in the valley that joined the peaks. I found myself among more flowers, different from the others I'd seen; they were like overgrown Queen Anne's lace, and they were filled with enormous red bees. Skirting them, I hurried toward the forest ahead, to be greeted this time with more of the lacy flowers and bushes full of light blue, leafy flowers. The growth here was even more lush than that in the first section of the hike, the old trees covered in vines and moss. After passing a sign that pointed to Fugen and Kunimi, the path suddenly became much steeper and rocky, filled with huge broken boulders. I scrambled over them and, at one point, found a rope on a hook that had been driven into the rocky path. Here it was so steep that one needed the rope for assistance while climbing up to the next ridge; it was not tall enough to be dangerous, but I realized that this hike was certainly not for the casual tourist.
As I climbed up the rope, I was surprised by voices ahead of me. There, perhaps two hours into my hike that I had begun in the early morning, were a middle-aged couple who had already scaled the mountain and were returning! I was amazed; how did they get here so early and complete the hike so fast? Yet, I found that in Japan the toughest, fastest, and most persistent hikers were always older couples - these middle-aged tourists were actually on the young side compared to most other people I met on the trails. They greeted me with an energetic "Good morning!" and I answered with the staple phrase of the hike (and of all of Japan) - "You must be tired!" They smiled. I asked how much farther the peak was, and they told me not more than twenty minutes - "But be careful, it's difficult! Watch out! You must be tired." Admonishments duly noted, I continued on my way.
They were correct: Fugen's crater lay under a half hour away, after an ardurous climb over boulders, with an occasional tempting view from either side of the path. Finally, I reached the summit and was greeted with what seemed to be an enormous dirt pile. Disappointed, I lay my backpack down as I stopped to rest and survey the sight. Somehow, I had been expecting a rocky crater, some steam, even a few rocks; Fugen, however, looked like an abandoned construction site. Several meters away from the crater, safely behind the "don't go beyond this point!" fence, was a strange monument. I couldn't get close enough to it through the undergrowth to read the inscription, but the tall, narrow stone structure stood guarding the peak. Perhaps it was a testament to the people who died in the surprise eruption in the early 1990s?
As I rested, I was surprised once again by a fellow traveler - this time, a very old man. I wondered how he managed to get all the way up to this point alone, and at the same time, hoped that I would still be so full of energy at that age. True to form, he immediately chastised me for having improper shoes and then didn't say another word. The Japanese are very committed to always having the right gear for every situation, and all of the other hikers I'd met that day had on the hiking uniform: button-down khaki or denim shirt, tucked into cargo pants, and the pants then tucked into their socks. The whole outfit is topped off with hiking boots or sneakers in perfect condition, a knapsack, a towel, and a floppy brimmed hat. This particular man also had a walking stick. Obviously, I was not quite living up to Japanese standards in my breezy linen pants, sandals (hey, they have taken me up quite a few mountains!), t-shirt and sweatshirt. I didn't even have a hat! Still, only in Japan would I find it not out of the orindary that I scaled two mountains and came to rest next to the crater of an active volcano - only to be scolded by a 70 year old man for having improper hiking attire.
The next hour and a half found me climbing back the way I came, for the walk back turned out to be of equal difficulty as on the way there. As I reached the bus area below Myoken, the clouds had finally cleared a little and I was treated to a tantalizing glimpse of tiny islands dotting the bay, although no spectacular view of the neighboring province of Kumamoto and its Aso. I spent a few minutes trying to get pictures of the tiny view in vain, before giving up and going to eat some lunch (snack mix purchased at the souvenir shop) and catching the bus back down the mountain.
My afternoon stretched lazily before me: it was only one o'clock, and I'd already hiked a volcano and come back. What to do now?
I decided to spend some time exploring the town; I hadn't had much time before dark the night before. Unzen is full of hot spring resorts - each hotel has a hot spring bath, or onsen, and there are also bathhouses that are just bathing. They are of varying levels of luxury - utilitarian (like the one in my inn) to ostentatious. Some offer massage, or sand baths (really, they appear to just bury you in hot sand for 15 minutes and charge for it), or they have art galleries and souvenir shops attached. I chose an old, mid-range onsen that the guidebook said had a wide variety of baths. Declining the sand bath that was offered, I headed straight for the baths. This place had shampoo and soap that boasted of their volcanic rock ingredients - minerals for your skin and hair - and the bath area was quiet and luxurious. Huge ferny plants stood in decorative clay vases and the floor and baths were lined with fake marble, the main bath large enough to pass as an inground swimming pool. There were only a handful of other people there, so I was left to try each bath as long as I wanted - the large, main pool; smaller scented tubs; a cypress wood bath, with water scented by the very wood that the bath is made from; whirlpool and jet stream baths that massage your back and legs. The outdoor bath, or rotenburo, was located down a long set of steps outside - a little awkward when you're naked but for a hand towel - and ringed with lawn chairs to sit and cool down on. A good thing, too - the outdoor bath was so hot that I could hardly stand to sit in it for longer than five minutes. Given that I had been bathing as a serious hobby all year, I had built up quite a tolerance; I wondered if the hells' water cooled at all on their short journey through the pipes to my bath?
After I had spent at least an hour in the onsen - time moves differently when you're limp and warm and relaxed, after all - I had begun to have enough of the little town. While I brainstormed in the onsen about what I could do for the remaining hours until I left the following morning. Once one has seen the hells, hiked the volcano, and had their fill of the onsen, there is really nothing to do in Unzen but relax some more. The entire town can be traversed in less than 20 minutes, and the only businesses are inns and onsen. With this empty afternoon and feeling like I should not have come all the way to beautiful Unzen to read my book, my thoughts returned to the paper from the day before. There was a pay phone near the onsen, and I could easily call up Kouetsu and take him up on his offer of seeing his grandmother's temple. Faced with that or being bored, it was not a difficult choice.
Screwing up my courage once again, I called his number. "Hi, it's me from the boat yesterday. Remember? American? Yeah." A few minutes of awkward conversation later (I'm never good on the phone, especially not in Japanese), I had obtained directions from the bus and checked the schedules. I could be at Ikehira, the stop for his temple, at about 4:30 and return on the last bus to Unzen at 6:15 - perfect, as it left enough time to amuse myself but not too much time in case it became awkward. Apprehensively, I shopped for souvenirs and postcards until it was time for the bus. (Incidentally, I got a box of cookies made to look just like the hells' eggs - white with a yellow center - and passed over some of the stranger egg-themed gifts.)
Kouetsu had said I would never miss the temple when I got off the bus, and he said he'd hang around near the entrance so I would have no chance of getting lost. As I exited the bus, however, there was no one to be found - just quiet farmhouses by the roadside, buzzing cicadas, the hot sun overhead. There was a temple there indeed - an enormous complex constructed of light, untreated wood, so freshly cut that I could still smell sawdust. The grounds were smooth, clean gravel and a huge wooden dragon guarded the entrance. It was soundless and breathless, no wind and no life in sight. Apprehensively, I went in; what other temple could he have been talking about?
I poked around the buildings, still looking for him. I was nearly ready to give up when I saw another guy about my age cleaning something in the yard, and cautiously, I went over to him. "Do you know Kouetsu? I'm looking for him?"
The guy looked at me dumbly for a moment, as if I'd grown a second head. Then he seemed to make the connection. "Ah. Oh, him. Probably in that building over there." He pointed to the main temple building and made no move to go over there with me. Shrugging, I thanked him and went over to poke my head in the building.
"Hello-o-o?" I called out cautiously. For some reason, I have always been shy and fearful about going into shrines and temples (they are Shinto and Buddhist establishments, respectively) in Japan. I feel like I am not supposed to be there, not allowed, because I am ignorant and not a part of what goes on. Despite the fact that they are very public buildings, and in fact many of them are open 24 hours a day to anyone who'd like to sit in the grounds and contemplate life, I always feel like I am intruding on something I shouldn't. The prospect of having to barge in to this temple building in order to look for someone I met on the ferry was really awful.
I was saved from this, however, when Kouetsu's grandmother came bustling out. "Oh, hi. He's over here." And with this, I was led barefoot through the main temple building, through another hall, and then to the attached house - it looked like any other religious building but really contained the interior of a typical Japanese home. She showed me in to their house and to the room where Kouetsu was staying at the temple, hanging out drinking iced tea and sitting in front of a fan.
We had a quick and strange conversation; he told me that he is a DJ as well as a Buddhist priest-in-training, the one who will take over the temple when his father dies. He handed me his business card with a color picture of his temple - not this one, but one in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. Apparently, Kouetsu divided his time between the temple in Saitama, another in Nara, and this one belonging to his grandmother; somewhere, he also fit in his occasional gigs as a DJ in Tokyo and Osaka.
After sitting awkwardly for a few minutes, Kouetsu suggested that we have a tour of the temple. He brought me to the main hall first, and immediately became even more gregarious than before, telling me about each and every object and painting that adorned the hall. Laughing at my hesitation to go behind the shrine itself and into the back of the room, he motioned for me to follow him. "Ii yo. Haitte ii yo. It's okay, you're allowed back here." Behind the shrine, there was a shelf for photos - or paintings, if they were old enough - of each head priest in the history of the temple. I looked at them in awe as he continued to tell me about the lineage of the temple, and despite getting lost after a while, I was so amazed by the sights there that I didn't particularly care.
Outside, Kouetsu motioned for me to sit on the hand-washing station - blasphemy? I wouldn't have had the courage to do that on my own - and he continued to tell me about the temple. As I write this nearly a year after the fact, it's difficult for me to remember the exact details - especially since the original conversation was in slang-and-Buddhist-terms-ridden Japanese. But he told me that his grandmother and his father no longer spoke to each other, and that he was the only one in his family who came to the temple to visit. Some time ago, he had lived for a while with her, and they were still quite close. Then he began to tell me about the temple that he is in now - how he will take over for his father once he is dead, and his children will do the same for him. The line is unbroken in both directions in time, he was saying, with it stretching back to his ancestors and forward to his descendants. He is a part of something bigger than himself, a continuity that he fits into. Then he looked at me and said "hm, probably difficult to understand Japanese," and it was because I didn't know most of the words he was using - but somehow I understood exactly what he was saying.
But Kouetsu's interest in music added a twist to the line of Buddhist priest ancestors. His dream, he told me, was to combine music with a Buddhist festival and create a huge dance party full of positive energy. "So many people that come to the temple come with heavy hearts, full of anxiety and worry and negative energy. They all have so many problems and it is my job to help them work through their problems and to become happier." He dreamt of combining this role with his love of dancing and drums, and dreamt of helping all of those worried people forget their problems and make themselves happy for one night.
It was a beautiful thought, and I was amazed at the deep turn that our convesation had taken. I felt that anything I had to say about my experiences in Japan or my teaching or my students would not be so interesting compared with healing the hearts of the temple patrons, but Kouetsu kept prompting me to tell him about my life in Fukuoka. I talked most about my students, about their energy and their sense of humor and their sense of fun, and how much I enjoyed being with them. "Even if they don't want to learn English," I said, "I love to talk with them and learn about them." He nodded and I got the impression that he would have been one of those students when he was in high school. "High school students don't want to learn anything anyway," I speculated, "so they are not all that different from American students either. 16-year-old kids don't want to learn." That made him burst out laughing and concede that I was probably right.
Despite all of the deep thoughts and talk about the temple, Kouetsu reminded me so much of some of my students - talkative, friendly, a little naive, and kind of a troublemaker in a way. For after all of our conversation, we ended up talking of so many things my students did - What music do you like? What rappers do you listen to? Do you like X or Y food? A fair amount of 15-year-old boy style teasing. His grandmother came out to give us some watermelon that she'd cut up, and we snacked on it while sitting on the hand washing podium. We took photos with his cell phone and his grandmother came out again. She told me that the view from their temple of Fugen-dake had won a national newspaper's photo contest two years in a row, and we all marveled at the wonderful view.
Soon enough, it was nearing time for the bus and I had to go. As we sat on the old bench by the bus stop waiting, he continued to joke with me about my students, and told me that when he first saw me on the ferry he didn't know what to think. He was very curious. "I thought the only reason a foreign girl would be here is maybe for a homestay in Shimabara. But then you only had your backpack with you, and then I talked to you and you can speak Japanese. So I was like, what?!" I gave him my email and he exhorted me to message him on his phone, and then the bus came and I had to leave.
It's a pity, I reflected on the way back, that for a whole year in Japan I hadn't had much of anything resembling a date. I'm not sure if eating watermelon with someone's grandmother in their Buddhist temple counts as a date, but it was too bad that I'd at least found an interesting friendship with a Japanese person my own age just before I was to leave Japan. Especially, I thought, since I was able to keep up a conversation for two hours straight in Japanese without breaking a sweat; I hadn't realized that my language skills had reached that point, or else perhaps we both just wanted to understand each other.
The remainder of my time in Unzen went by quickly; I ate dinner, which was inexplicably brought to my room, and could barely finish the many courses I was given. I drank a beer from the vending machine in the hall and read until I fell asleep, and woke early the next morning to begin my journey home. In the morning light, I didn't expect anyone to be outside, but I couldn't help but peer into the temple grounts as we passed Ikehira on the way down to Shimabara. Only the wooden dragon smiled back at me, sun shining off its freshly-painted head.
Afterward: I did keep in touch with Kouetsu after my journey to Unzen. He messaged me the next day with a picture that he took of us at the temple and said "Please keep in touch!" However, with only the message space of a cell phone and little daily life in common, our messages are generally confined to - "Hi! Are you well?" However, I did get added to his mailing list of DJ events that he sends out and occasional "life updates." Lately, he's moved permanently to Saitama and is continuing to work energetically (as he put it) at the temple there and in Unzen.
Unzen still ranks as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, and is definitely my favorite place I have ever traveled. It even beats Hawai'i! I hope to return again someday - though hopefully with another person, as it does get dull alone. I highly recommend traveling there, and I would be more than happy to share names and details regarding any of the places I visited while there if you contact me.