Day Thirty One: Fukuzumi

it's 7am and Marcelo knocks on my door.

my original plan was to take trains all the way to the largest city on the northern island of Japan, Sapporo. the trip would have taken around eight hours. i've become so accustomed to trains, that it wouldn't have really mattered to me. that stale beer and cigarette smell is like home now in a strange way, only because i sleep on trains, or i write.

but as always, plans change. Marcelo bought me a one way ticket to the city on an airplane. he drives me to the airport in the morning and drops me off after feeding me some curry and rice, eggs and toast.

that man is as good as gold.

he drops me off there and i'm sitting in the airport in Toyama, waiting for my plane to Sapporo. i board the plane. it probably is only holding 15% of its available capacity, so everyone changes their seats so they sit by a window.

it's an hour flight and i'm on the ground in Sapporo. it's cold and wet, but i'm not sick anymore. i make my way to the place where i will stay. Marcelo gave me money for a place to stay, so i picked a guesthouse in a southern part of the city.

as i'm on a train there, i see people wearing outfits like they're going to a huge sporting event.

i ask around and as it turns out, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and the Hiroshima Hanshin Tigers will be playing a game at 2pm in the Sapporo Dome, a huge stadium that doubles as a baseball field and football stadium.

i check into my place after a short trip on the subway. i ask the woman working there how to get to the game. she tells me, and i'm off like its springtime on the farm.

for 1500yen, i get into the game at the Sapporo Dome, but of course, just like in american baseball, nobody stays in the seats they buy tickets for, so i get into the place and kinda look around for a better place to sit. i meander around the lower bowl sections for a while and try to sneak into where the band is playing.

allow me to explain for a moment.

Japanese baseball is unlike anything i have ever seen at an American baseball game. the stadium was divided into two halves, one half rooting for the Ham Fighters and the other for the Hanshin Tigers. each section had their own band that played in the upper area of the seating, and when their team was up to bat, it was a constant, nonstop cacophony of cheers and songs. people with megaphones seated at the lower parts of the dome screamed up to everyone what they would cheer, and people held up big signs showing what the next cheer would be.

everyone was incredibly spirited and showed more enthusiasm at that game than i have ever seen at any sporting event in America.

the Japanese love their baseball. there was not an empty seat in the entire place.

except one.

i eventually found my way into one of these lower sections, past two levels of security, before sitting down and enjoying the game for five minutes before being yelled at and escorted out of the section by the stadium guards.

as i was on my way, everyone was yelling, smiling, and giving me high fives for the courage i had to at least make it that far.

they let me stay in the place, so i walked up into the upper levels, where i was really supposed to be, and was pleasantly surprised that my spot was next to the official game organist. do they still even have those in America or has everything been replaced with recordings?


i arrived at the game in the second inning, and stayed until the eleventh. i started to feel like my stomach was going to eat itself, and rather than stay and spend 1500yen on a hot dog or something, i figured it would be best to just head on home. the game was tied, and i didn't see an end in sight.

so i headed on out--i saw that it was still raining through the windows of the dome. i snapped a picture of these two spirited young Hanshin Tigers fans and wondered to myself, why would anyone want to fight a ham anyway? why would anyone name their team the Ham Fighters?

i found out later that the actual name of the team is just the Fighters, and they are owned by the company Nippon Ham. so, the full name of their team is the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.

i was happy i was able to leave without being in an all out, old-fashioned shake down with a ham.

in the end, after the twelfth inning, the teams called it a draw. if only they hadn't settled with the draw and instead gone into sudden death-- it would have involved the wrestling of a ham.

only in my dreams.

Another Subtle and Insignificant Announcement

we can now officially call 60c60d 60c60d again!

thats right.

we may even be able to be called something even bigger, like 60c65d or something

the adventure goes on with unexpected twists every day, and the latest plot twist goes something like this:

the day my rail pass finally runs out, i will be taking the last train to the city of nara, where i previously stayed with bob and mayumi at their guest house, the nara tree. it was a wonderful and peaceful place and i really enjoyed my time there.

they have given me the opportunity to live there at their guest house, watching over the place and doing other little jobs, and in return they are offering me lodging there.

during that time, i will be working on some of the projects i have previously mentioned i was planning on returning to america to complete.

i have found a great sense of solitude and peace here in this country as i have been on my trip and especially in nara, so it will be a pleasure for me to live there for the last 25 or so days of my journey.

so i will take up there on the evening of june 4th and head back to america through narita in tokyo on july 2nd, finally ending my journey of seeing 60 cities in 60 days and having the adventure of a lifetime.

i will still be making blog updates occasionally letting everyone know what is going on as i spend my days in nara, living as simply as i can for the remainder of my stay in japan.

and im sure it will be good.

youll just have to wait and see.

Day Thirty: Kanazawa and Toyama

still feeling sick, even after my great experiences with the toilet, i slept til about noon and left marcelos to go on another adventure.

takaoka is located between to larger cities Kanazawa and Toyama, so i walked from his home to the station. it took about an hour. it was only raining a little bit.

i got off at the train stations and walked around parks in the area. looked at trees, streams, and of course the inevitable shrine and castle. it was good to get out and get some fresh air that day.

its good to get out and look for the small things. i have mentioned before about finding meaning in life by the small and often fleeting moments of happiness. we often have to fall back on those things to get us through the most difficult moments of life.

for me, today was a day of looking for beauty in small things. as i have been going along, i realized i have come halfway through my journey and had a lifetime of significant and special experiences. i have been running out of gas as of late and am looking for some time to rest and simply sit back, relax, and enjoy the simple things of this world.

the leaves on the trees, the rain, the wind, the love of a parent for a child and the feeling of love in general.

the animals, the insects, the rocks and the sky.

the japanese are very nature oriented, it comes with the territory of being a japanese person i guess. its rooted in the religions of so many generations past, and even if some dont necessarily follow those beliefs down to the same details, they still live to honor and uphold those same ideals of their ancestors.

many of the names and places of the country are named for things in nature, which i reckon might be the same as people in america. names like brooks or field or stone, we have mel brooks, sally field and stone cold steve austin.

so as much as i would have loved to have a truly adventurous day, this one was less than what i have been able to tell of previously. this was more of a day to refuel and begin the next part of my trip, the final half, which may come as a more difficult ordeal than i had expected.

we never really know.

Day Twenty Nine: Takaoka

A lot of the day was spent with me sleeping.

Marcelo went to work and left me all alone at his house, something that people dont usually do that know me too well. For all he knew, he could have come home and i might have turned everything upside down and created my own backwards world within his home. sometimes when youre sick, things like that have a way of just happening

but i didnt do that

i didnt really do much of anything until he came home from work, aside from sleeping and occasionally eating. i was like being back at byu all over again.

when he came back at about 6 that evening, he was kind enough to drive me around the town for a little bit. i get kinda crazy these days if i stay in one place for too long, so the opportunity to get out and do something was a real gem.

that evening, i saw something that i rarely see, but apparently its catching on in the country, and i dont know why.

you may or may not be familiar with the japanese bidet style toilets.

these are magical toilets that, prior to doing your business on the toilet, send a straight stream of warm water towards your nether-regions, giving a first-timer the most awkward feeling of their life.

now that i have become used to it, its no big deal, but let me give you a quick run down of one of our more basic models.

here is our toilet. its pretty normal, looks mostly like a toilet, not at all like a robot, except it does have an arm and a big pad behind it like you might see on the wall in gym class.

but when you sit on it, you notice something...the seat...its already warm. this cant be right, nobody has sat on this seat for the last three hours!? but its true, first of all, there is an automatic warming feature that keeps the seat at a warm temperature at any hour of the day.

so after you sit down, you notice some buttons on the panel to your right. what do they mean?


well anyone may know that the one on the far left means stop because of the little square and the word "stop" written in not just one but two languages, so it will stop the stream of water in its tracks. the next one over...hmmmm.

it looks like a curvy W with a dotten Y underneath, but that is only to the untrained eye. this image is actually a bottom with a stream of water being sprayed towards its cheeks. press this button with caution.

next button over, now this one is a doozy. it is a picture of a female with a stream of water sprayed towards her bottom, but no, this stream of water is aimed just a little bit further forward. what happens from there is left for you to piece together, but google "bidet" if you must, just dont include an image search.

this may be decent for females to use, but i would strongly not recommend it for males

all of these spray options have the thing underneath to change the amount of pressure exerted.

now the final button, which is the one i dont understand that seems to be catching on, even though it is popular already. it is the button you push that makes the sound of a toilet flushing, complete with a toggle underneath to decrease or increase the volume of the toilet flushing sound. if anyone knows the purpose behind the toilet flishing sound button, please tell me so one of the greatest mysteries and conflicts of my life can see some closure.

the toilet is armed with a sensor so it knows when someone is actually sitting on it, so when you sit down, all of the sudden all these gadgets and gizmos start going and you feel like youre using the toilet of the millenium falcon. unless the sensor is being triggered by someone sitting on the toilet, it wont squirt a single drop. its just smart like that.

now i may not be the most clever person in the whole world, but with my mischievious mind, i realized if you just cover the sensor with your hand...and touch the squirt button...water still comes out...

just please dont do this, expecially in the handicapped bathroom, or the old woman going in the bathroom after you will think you urinated all over the wall in front of the toilet and she will press the bathroom alarm button and have you arrested.


luckily nobody has this problem because of this sign above the toilet explaning how girls and boys have different parts, and therefore should conduct themselves differently when using the toilet.

Day Twenty Eight: Hiro-o

after the things i have felt and seen in the last three days, i was feeling it was time for a break

it’s the morning that I am set to go to the temple in hiro-o, and im really not feeling so hot

maybe its because its 7am and my body doesnt like this? normal brandon wake up time happens normally between when the sun is up and when it is down when i am taking classes at college.

but luckily for me, the sun rises at about 5am in this country

BUT...

that is not why they call it the land of the rising sun.

but back to my original point, i was up and i was feeling under the weather.

as a matter of fact, there hadn’t been a moment of the entire trip when I felt so fatigued. but it really wasn’t so big of a deal, cause I joined Marcelo to the temple in Tokyo anyways.

for any member of the church of jesus Christ of latter day saints, it is a great privilege to be able to go to the temple. for me, it was an even greater privilege not only to be able to go into the temple, but to be able to go into the temple in the center of Tokyo.

the funny thing about the Tokyo temple is that it is located one subway stop down from roppongi, the ward in Tokyo I spoke about before that I found so incredibly disgusting. when I asked Marcelo where his favorite spot in Tokyo was, he said roppongi, but apparently there are actually places that aren’t all that bad.

as a matter of fact, there may even be places there that aren’t that bad at all. after all, when you walk just a while down from the streets of roppongi, you are able to stand not only by the mormon temple, but also at the main offices for the church in japan.

it took u about 3 or 4 hours to make it there by train. it was raining outside so it wasn’t the best day to be riding in a car.

so me and Marcelo hang out at the temple for a while, we do a session there and are on our way out. as were walking back to the station, I remember that this is also the place where my second mission president lives. His name is Gary Stevenson, and for the members of the church out there that were able to watch the last general conference, President Stevenson, now a member of the first quorum of the seventy, spoke on temples during the final session on sunday afternoon.


so me and Marcelo went on a hunt looking for him. we searched far and wide the areas around hiro-o, until we finally tracked him and his wife down at the offices of the church. his receptionist called him down and I was able to have a great talk with him and his wife both about how their lives have been now that he has been given one of the highest callings in the church, and also about my life as a vagabond traveler.


all in all it was a great day. we walked back in the rain towards the train station and got back on the trains for the 4 hour trip back to takaoka. during the trip, Marcelo said I was looking sicker than I had in the morning and that I should take a good respite for the next couple of days and explore the areas of takaoka.

I was feeling sick, very sick, and knew that it might be best to follow his advice.

so when I got back to his home, I passed out on the bed in the guest room.

after the things i have felt and seen in the last four days, i was feeling it was time for a break