Unplanned Japan - Spontaneity at its finest in Akita

Those who understand me well know why I had to go to Japan last August.

We are not talking about travel book Japan here, with skyscrapers, bullet trains and 711s and Family Marts at every corner or 50 meters apart from each other, whichever is closer. We’re talking about rural Japan, at the northern part of Honshu, a sneeze away from Hokkaido, where rice fields envelop the country side an emerald green and every high school has an agriculture club that literally grows tomatoes and zucchinis in the school yard and sells them to the teachers for a song.

We are talking about the Tohoku region, and to be more specific, Akita. Well, technically, the destination was supposed to be Hanamaki, Iwate, but twists of fate led the dart to land on the biggest city in Tohoku; Akita City.

The events leading to that trip went by so fast, it was a blur. My sole purpose in going to Japan was to visit Ninon, whom I haven’t seen in a year and whose emails arrive with as much frequency as a solar eclipse. It was summer vacation in Japan, and since Ninon was teaching there, I figured she wouldn’t mind a visit from the “Little Philippina”. So I sent her a mail asking when I could come visit. A couple of hours later, I received a reply:

“Tomorrow would be good.”

Damn! Luckily, I had my visa done and out of the way. I stalked our admin for my travel authority, re-scheduled my leave, got my tickets issued, emailed Karen if I could bunk with her in Tokyo on the day of my arrival and pulled my hair when I realized I had a measly amount of cash at my disposal. But what the heck, bahala na si Batman.

So, I said, “Cool, I’ll fly tomorrow.”

More mails were sent, miraculously replied to, sent again and the contents became this awful logistical mess that we couldn’t iron out, since a friend of hers, Sophie (the one from French Guyana, not the Parisian one) was coming to visit as well and they were not planning to stick it out in just one place. I had to join up with them somewhere along their transit from Tokyo (where Sophie’s flight was gonna come in) to Akita, and finding a common time to meet up was just hellish so I told them, I’ll just see them in Akita.

So that night, I packed faster than a Tazmanian devil, throwing whatever I had that was decently clean and wrinkle-proof , lamented the fact that I was going without a camera since I left it at my parents’, and shook my head at the absurdity of my poor attempts at preparation. Nevertheless, the next day, I flew to Tokyo, took 3 hours on the local trains from Narita to Yokohama (due to the fact that my budget was slimmer than Gandhi), met up with Karen, met her lovely family (I am in love with her daughter Leigh, she is the sweetest thing ever!) and had a nice dinner at the nearby kaiten sushi place. The next day, Karen took me to the YCAT (Yokohama Central Air Terminal) and I bussed to Haneda airport.

I got dropped off at the Southern Wing of Haneda airport. I went straight to the departure board to check the flight to Akita. I stared long and hard and panicked when I couldn’t find the flight.

What the hell!

From Apr 23, 2011

The North Wing of Haneda Airport

After a couple of minutes of staring, I realized that all the destinations were in the south of Tokyo and the terminal was called SOUTHERN wing, so I headed to the northern wing, thinking that if Akita wasn’t flying from there I was gonna raise hell or something like it. Sure enough, the flight showed on the North Wing’s departure board. I checked in, got my boarding pass and flew out.

From Apr 23, 2011

Flying to Akita Ken from Tokyo

Staring out the window, as the plane started to land, I thought about the watercolor palette I had when I was in high school. Back then, I couldn’t help but marvel at the immense amount of shades of green, I probably had six of them in my palette of 36. I had true green, forest green, apple green, moss green etc etc. I didn’t know what painters did with them, I figured you couldn’t use that much green in a single picture anyway. But at that moment, as I watched the rice fields marry with the forests of pine and evergreens, I realized I was wrong. That much green can exist in a single picture. I kept my eyes on the view below as the plane went lower and lower. I saw each shadow of each leaf throw out a shade barely discernible to the next, a range of color told apart from each other by a drop of black or a drop of white, mixed in.

Up to this day, when someone would ask me to describe Akita, I always say “Green.”

From Apr 23, 2011

The Green surrounding Akita Airport

In Akita airport, I bought my ticket for the bus bound for Akita City train station, it cost me roughly 900 yen. I arrived in the train station and practically ran since I only had about 20 minutes to catch the train I was supposed to be on. I went to the Akita JR Lines corporate office by mistake, got shooed away and cursed myself for being a rambling idiot and finally got to the ticket office.

From Apr 23, 2011

The Vending Machine at Akita airport where you can purchase the tickets to the bus going to Akita City

Before flying to Akita, Ninon gave me the plan of the day. I was to fly to Akita, take the bus to the train station and get to Fukura station at 4:35 in the afternoon. It sounded pretty simple to me at the time, so while standing in front of the automated ticket machine, I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find Fukura anywhere on the destination options. Time was quickly running out and I was starting to freak, so I called on one of the JR people standing around to help me. The nice guy went to the machine, purchased my ticket for me (I paid of course) and told me to make a run for my platform. So, run I did.

I got into the train and went straight for the driver. I found him at the first car of the train, showed him my ticket and asked if the train was going to Fukura. He threw this slew of Japanese at me, the only words of which I got was “Ni, mae (two, front)”. I all but grabbed his sleeve and yelled “My good man! I cannot understand a word out of your bloody mouth!”

Finally, he nodded “Hai, hai”, went out behind the wheel and walked with me towards the back of the train, we walked through 2 cars before he pointed on the floor and said “Koko” (here). I thanked him, looked at the people sitting, shrugged, and sat me and my big backpack down. What? Did they have a caste system with the trains here? You foreigners and people with uneven side burns sit at the back, or something?

Anyway, I was too tired and couldn’t care less. So I settled down, jammed my head phones on and stared unseeing out the window. A couple of hours and countless stops later, we stopped in one station and an announcement reverberated through the train, I had no idea what it was so I didn’t listen. A few minutes later, this team of JR Lines employees arrived and started dismantling the train. They pulled, screwed and tore away the first 2 cars from the one I was in. Outside, several high school students were recording the whole thing on their digicams, with an intensity that can rival a National Geographic videographer. When the two cars were properly severed, they closed the door, locked everything, stepped out of the train, formed a line along the platform and gave a low bow. They remained that way, propped at a right angle, until our train pulled away.

Finally, it all made sense to me.

The train was a bloody “Wanman”, taken from the English “One man”, literally because only one man operated the whole thing. We were going into the rural parts of the prefecture where only one to five passengers embark and disembark at any one station, thus minimum manpower was highly advised. The driver served as the driver, the conductor, the ticket seller, the PA system, and probably in Christmas time, the Santa Claus mascot.

From Apr 23, 2011

A typical One-man (Wanman) Train

I started feeling trepidation about this station Ninon and I were meeting in. Mingled with the trepidation was the excitement of arriving in my destination and meeting Ninon. I imagined she and Sophie would be waiting for me and when I arrive, I’ll be greeted with hugs and kisses and we’ll just start talking and chatting like crazy.

Finally, the train pulled into Fukura station in Yamagata Prefecture, the driver went out and motioned for me to get out, he took my ticket, thanked me, walked back into the train and pulled away. I stared at the station building. It was a hut. There was nobody in the station, no ticket machine and not a soul in sight. I walked out of the station into the “driveway” and looked around. No car, no Ninon.

I was getting confused, I checked my watch, it said 4:36, exactly the time I was supposed to be there, I checked the station name, “Fukura” it said, but no friends. I figured they were gonna be a few minutes late, so caput went the plans for the grand entrance, I sat down at the nearby bench and waited.

From Apr 23, 2011

Fukura Station. The blue bench was where I spent much of my time biting my nails down to stumps

30 minutes passed and still no Ninon, I would walk down to the main road once in a while and look at the passing cars, wondering where the hell Ninon was. She didn’t have a celphone and there was no way for me to contact her. When an hour passed and still no sign of her, I started to panic. I looked at the schedule of the train going back to Akita, there was one at 6 pm and I figured if Ninon doesn’t show up by then, I would go back to Akita city, stay in a hostel and go back to Tokyo the next day. I didn’t know why Ninon wasn’t picking me up. She wasn’t pissed at me, and even if she were, she wouldn’t leave me in the middle of bloody nowhere. The only possibilities in my mind were A. She and Sophie fell asleep on the beach and forgot to pick me up, B. They got into an accident on the freeway and C. They got eaten by sharks.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, our only mode of communication was e-mail and I figured if she had anything to say to me, she would mail me about it. So at 5:30, I walked down to the main road and looked at all the buildings. It was the countryside, I knew there wouldn’t be any internet or manga café around, but I figured it was Japan, the houses would at least have an internet connection, and if they would just let me in to check my mail, it would help me a lot.

I went inside a soba restaurant next to the station. It was a family enterprise, considering it was annexed to a house. Like the entire town, the restaurant was deserted. I called out “Sumimasen!” and a nice old lady answered me and went down to the restaurant from the kitchen or somewhere and asked me what she could do for me. I asked her if there was an internet café around (I had to segue from somewhere, I couldn’t immediately ask out if I could use their internet), sure enough, she said no. I started to tell her my story, how I flew from the Philippines the day before, how I just arrived from Tokyo, how my friend was supposed to be there, how she wasn’t there, how she didn’t have a phone and how the internet was my only redemption.

She told me she wasn’t connected, her son was, but he’s at work and he’ll be back around 6. I imagine I looked really pitiful, because she looked so troubled and stepped out of the restaurant, called out to her neighbors and asked if they had internet on their computers. The neighbors walked out and started asking what was wrong, and the lady told them my predicament, and I was standing there, in an orange sundress with a huge back pack on, shuffling my feet, and wondering what the hell I was gonna do. The lady was so nice, when she didn’t meet success with her neighbors, she started flagging cars down, asking the people in if they had internet connection in their homes. I was so amazed, I didn’t even feel embarrassed. Man, I think I hit the jackpot with that lady, she was probably the mayor or something, seeing as she knew the whole town.

I felt like a sensation. I was pretty sure I would be in the township’s newsletter the next day. They would probably hold a town meeting for my case: “Foreign travelers stranded in town and what to do with them”, would probably be the topic of the meeting.

From Apr 23, 2011

The practically deserted "main road" of Fukura in Yamagata Ken

Unfortunately, none of them had any internet connection and I was considering my options, in 20 minutes the train bound for Akita will come and I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, the lady’s daughter in law and grandchildren arrived. She told them about me and they held a caucus on how to help me. The daughter-in-law told me her husband will be home by 6 and I can use their internet then, but I told her, by that time the train to Akita will come and I have to leave. She mulled over what to do while her two children stared at me and complimented my watch, my earrings and marveled at my general presence. Finally, she made a phone call, and told me her husband agreed to let me use their computer.

I was practically in tears. I went into their room, logged onto my mail, and sure enough there was a mail from Ninon, which said succinctly “We’ll be late 1 ½ hours, call JB (JB’s number)”. I almost imploded on myself.

There’s a phone number?! Why the bloody hell wasn’t I told this earlier?

The nice family lent me their phone, I called JB (whoever he was), left a message on his voicemail to the effect that I just got their mail, I’ve been waiting for more than 1 hour and I was contemplating heading back to Akita city, but since I got word from them, I’ll wait for a bit more.

I thanked the family profusely and almost broke my back bowing in gratitude.

I went back to the station and waited. 10 minutes later, a red minicar, reminiscent of Marissa Tomei’s Italian mini in the movie “Only You”, pulled up into the station driveway. Through the windshield, I could see Ninon’s wicked grin on the drivers side, a white boy sitting on the passenger side and at the back I could make out one white girl and a Japanese girl cramped with several backpacks.

I shook my head and laughed at the absurdity of it all. I yelled out at Ninon and said “You’re late!”

The bloody woman laughed at me, asked if I waited long and I said, Yuh! And as punishment for her heinous crime, I took one pack of the dried mangoes meant for her, marched towards the house of the nice family, gave it to them, told them my friends arrived and commenced with the bowing again.

It was a pretty fun experience. We spent a couple of minutes in front of the station, I was introduced to the inhabitants of the red mini; Sophie (from French Guyana) was the white girl at the back, the white boy in the front was JB (or Jean Baptiste as it turned out) based in Tokyo and the Japanese girl was Yoko, his girl friend who spoke French in bullets. We said our hellos, I told them my ridiculous story and we smoked while Jean Baptiste, Ninon and Yoko figured out where we were gonna sleep for that night.

Unplanned vacations, seriously, you gotta love them.

P.S. Because I didn't have a camera on me at this time, all the pictures on this post were taken from different public websites on the internet. Thank you very much.