Photos From Fukue.... With Love

I am terrified of planes and dying in an airplane crash. Last weekend I rode the smallest plane I've ever rode in my life. I did this voluntarily.

Last Saturday morning I woke at 4:00am in order to throw on some clothes, braid my hair and brush my teeth before my friend, Yayoui, came to get me in her little, blue, two-door K-car.

(It took me forever to figure out how to say her name. The 'u' is essentially silent, but I still find myself mispronouncing her handle when I'm faced with the situation of introducing her to other friends or acquaintances. I don't know why I crumble under pressure in that eccentric way.)

We were off for a weekend to Fukue, the most South/West island in the Goto Retto chain. Neither of us had been before, and we wanted to see what the last Goto frontier had to behold. (Among the more interesting sights we rolled our eyeballs over a volcano, a lighthouse, a small water fall, Ishida Castle and miles and miles of beautiful coast line.)

This is me at Onidake, the volcano. Yayoui told me that it's historically been on a three year eruption cycle. Last year it took a time out. Apparently we were there, probing it's crater, on borrowed time.

We rented a car in order to sightsee at our own pace and circle the entire island. Coming from a drop of land that takes less than an hour and a half to cruise around on a bike, we were imagining a great and long journey around Fukue -- one in which we would be forced to stop to fill up our gasping gas tank several times, and to stretch our atrophied muscles so we'd be able to walk again once we got back to Ojika.

In reality, we spent six hours with our square, white chariot and stopped for extended periods along the way. With this time, we saw everything we wanted to see. One of our longest stops was at the lighthouse. There was a twenty minute walk from the parking lot to the cliff where the tall seafarers' alert stood.

Before hiking to the lighthouse, we stopped for lunch at a cafe along the road. There, a few cars, piled down with their hungry passengers, trickled in and trickled out of the same restaurant. One man, in particular, came in and started performing calisthenics close to our table. (Obviously, he was worried about his body atrophying as well.) After about five minutes of huffs and puffs and muttering, he asked me where I was from. Because he directed his question solely to me, I answered with "Colorado State," knowing that he meant my place of birth, not where I presently hail. But, because I am very proud of my home in Ojika and I was with Yayoui, an Ojikan, I added that we from Ojika. He then, on the return from a squat-thrust, asked us where Ojika was. We were dumbfounded! How could we be on an island in the Gotos and meet someone who didn't know where Ojika was? I mean, we know Ojika's small, but that was a first. We (and when I say "we" I mean Yayoui and her beautiful Japanese) explained to him where Ojika was and we finished our lunch. Later we decided he was a tourist as well. Possibly he came over from the hustle and bustle of Nagasaki for a weekend of fishing. Or, maybe his traveling companion had a penchant for lighthouses.

It was Yayoui's strong desire to see the lighthouse. It was my strong desire to see dondonbuchi, the waterfall. We drove our little rental car along the first unpaved road I've seen in Japan (excluding in the fields, of course) and parked near a dinky sign directing us to the falls. We could hear the water running from where we parked, but there were signs sprouting up in the forrest to tell us which way to go.

It was smaller than I had expected, but the atmosphere was beautiful. Some of Japan's nature really reminds me of hiking around Colorado.

We rambled about for a few minutes, took some pictures and turned around to go back to our getaway car. Just then, a tall foreign guy came weaving through the trees, which surprised us just a tad because we weren't expecting to see anyone else, but what made this so astonishing was that I actually knew him! Dave (known to me only as Fukue Dave) and I said hello and spoke briefly about the falls and Fukue. I had only met Dave once before at a gathering on Kamigoto so our greeting could have easily been construed as a encounter between two strangers. After bidding Dave a good day I told Yayoui I knew him. She was as surprised by that as I was running into him there, at that exact time on a random Saturday afternoon. He had said that in all his years of living on Fukue, he hadn't been to dondonbuchi until that day.

Because it was raining furiously that evening, we decided to go to dinner early. We hunted down a recommended yaki niku place and stuffed our faces with Fukue beef. Because I don't eat red meat all that often in Japan, I'd forgotten just how delicious cow is -- well, some parts of cow. I couldn't stomach the tripe Yayoui was so hot and bothered about. (Oh, I'm so punny!) After three hours of grilling our own grub and guzzling down super-human sized beers, we paid our bill and took a walk back to our hotel in the rain.

Sunday morning we went to Ishida Castle, right there in the heart of Goto City, the capital of Fukue. One of the many beautiful things about Japan is it's ability to blend ancient structures in with modern day conveniences. Right outside the gate leading into the castle and the beautiful garden inside was a main thoroughfare and a convenience store. The main building of the castle was mainly rebuilt and was being used as a library. It was the garden that took my breath away.

This garden was supposed to be shaped in the form of a Japanese character which means mind, heart, or spirit, but we couldn't see it. However, all of those things were defiantly in the atmosphere.

The weather on Sunday was on the heavy side of overcast, but the light side of foggy. This of course, was worrisome as we were about a five hour trip away from Ojika on an afternoon before needing to be back for that four-letter word, work. It was especially worrisome as Yayoui had taken advantage of me in a moment of adventure-seeking and convinced me to fly a part of the way home! We weren't sure if the weather was going to let us get up in the air and because ferries had already been canceled, we weren't sure we were going to get back at all that day.

Actually, the way this whole weekend came to fruition was during a conversation Yayoui and I had during one of our pottery evenings. Up until last month, Yayoui had worked at Ojika's airport which ran an 8 person plane from the island to Nagasaki airport. (The money just wasn't there, so the town shut it down.) It was a thirty minute trip and many of my co-workers took advantage of the tiny thing when going home for a weekend. I had heard from the gregarious JHS music teacher that no matter where you sat in the plane, you could look right over the pilot's shoulder and out the cockpit window. Not something I ever what to be able to do when on an airplane.

It was earlier in the day, before molding our clay, that Yayoui had been taken up and flown around Ojika as a thank you for her hard work at the airport. (Her boyfriend also happens to be the pilot.) We were talking about the ride and I had explained to her again, shaking my head, how crazy I thought she was to get in something like that. She said that she thought it was too bad that I would never be able to ride Ojika's plane and that I missed out on an adventure. I kind of felt like I had missed out on an adventure too and told her so. She then suggested that we ride the 40-seat plane that flew out of Fukue and I agreed. I wasn't feeling so adventuresome last Sunday morning when it was threatening to rain and my palms were sweating from panic.

Here's me looking not so happy right before getting on the plane situated over my right shoulder. There's only been one other time in my life I think I've ever had to walk on the tarmac at an airport, and that was in Cote d'Ivoire. This was the first time I'd ever (I think) been on a propeller plane.

It turned out that the weather was good enough to OK our takeoff, so were were up in the air and above the clouds with only few minor bumps. One of the little boys in the last row (directly behind us) actually shouted the equivalent of "Wheeeee! This is fun!" during our little turbulence. It was a great help sitting next to Yayoui. She's so comfortable in planes that her assuredness rubbed off on me as well and I actually got to feel that high of adventure that I so desperately crave.

I've been trying desperately ever since to dig up some ill-begotten amazement of my bravery from friends. So far, no one's been all that impressed with my description of the ten-rowed plane and the fact that the flight attendant had to remain seated and strapped in for the whole flight. Apparently, every one I know has been in much more perilous situations at 10,000 feet and they could care less about my adventure. Everyone keeps telling me that my smallest plane ride ever was actually rather big.

Fukue was fun. I feel bad saying it, but often I feel I'm way more productive in my freetime in Japan than I am during work.