Day Twenty Six: Ioujima Island

I got up that morning and went on a sort of side-trip that was provided for free by the hostel I was staying at. Me and my friend Daniel, a Sri Lankan, raised in France and living in Japan, Roppongi actually, were the only ones to go.

We were with a guy who simply referred to himself as Kazu. He was a great guy and was a father of three. He took us around to some local monuments and shrines and told us a little more about the history of Nagasaki.

After walking around with him for a good thirty minutes or so, he just looked at ther two of us and said, “How would you like to see the dark side of Nagasaki”

i gulped and then was like “heck yeah I do!”

So he took us up the side of a hill which had been turned into a bunker for the Nagasaki elite during the time of the bombings. we were able to walk inside and see the place where government officials and few others were able to hide for the days following the bombing of Hiroshima. The people hiding there had not expected to be bombed though, but they were expecting air raids of firebombs, similar to the ones that burned Tokyo.

the final room we saw was the one where the telegraphs were that sent out the message to Tokyo that Nagasaki had been bombed. The people in the shelter felt a huge rumble and loud boom and then stepped outside to see the mushroom cloud and the city burning.

We thanked Kazu for the great tour and Daniel went out to explore the same things I had seen the day before.

My next thing I went to visit was the site of the martyrdom of the 26 saints of japan. in 1597 following the ban of Christianity in japan, twenty Japanese Christians and six foreign missionaries were crucified in this spot by the Japanese government after being arrested and tried in Tokyo and Osaka.


They were canonized by pope pius IX in the mid 1800’s and now this site stands as a monument and prayer spot to pay tribute to their heroism and bravery in the fight for their faith.

my good friend derek zohner told me years ago on our mission together that martin scorsese was set to direct a movie about these christian missionaries. my dad also sent me a newspaper clipping related to it.

and as it turns out, of course derek and my father were right. martin scorsese will direct the film "silence" starring benicio del toro, and the film will focus on the persecution against christian missionaries in japan during the 17th century.

because there is harldy any of japan left without a karaoke box or a pachinko parlor, the film will be produced in new zealand, like "the last samurai" was.

which...BY THE WAY, was based all on a battle that took place in the same area where i worked as a missionary with derek.


I stood there and did some contemplating, then fell asleep on a bench for about a half hour.

from then, I was back on a boat

I had heard of an island called iwo-jima that was just off the coast of Nagasaki.

Yeah, I know what youre thinking, this must be the iwo jima made famous by clint eastwood and his marvelous films.

but no, youre wrong, this place has nothing to do with clint eastwood.

even though it has the same name as the place where that battle in the pacific too place, this is just a resort that old people and sometimes young people with nothing better to do go to spend lots of money. but since I have no money, I went on a budget.

I got a ticket for 980yen that got me a round trip boat ride ticket and a free trip to the bathhouse on the island. how could I turn down such an offer!?

so I was on a boat heading towards iwo-jima.

during the trip, I noticed there was a beach there where people could probably go swimming, so when I reached the island, I went walking towards the beach. it took me about 45 minutes and when I got there I was sorely disappointed.

regardless of the promotional shots on the boat showing all the people having fun at the beach, there wasn’t a lot of fun there. mostly it was just garbage and dead jellyfish on the shore. there were some just chilling out in the water too. I wasn’t scared of them though, I eat things like them with peanut butter on bread.

I was also the only soul on the entire beach, which made me think it might be slightly dangerous to go swimming or maybe it had just become deserted because of all the gross trash. maybe it had something to do with all them jellyfish? I thought it might be pretty dangerous and that this beach wasn’t very much fun after all.

my other mission friend john logdson is a huge promoter of creating fun in very un-fun situations. his philosophy is "if its not fun, you gotta make it fun!" so shoot, I made it fun.

I stripped down in my shorts and took a dip.

heres one for all the ladies in the room.

then I walked back in my wet shorts to where I had heard there was an onsen, a bath house. I had never been in a bathhouse before, so I was extremely excited after hearing about it for most of my life, seeing movies about it, you know the whole deal.

I got to the place and gave the lady my ticket, she guided me to the men only door and gave me two towels before I walked in. I looked around and saw a locker room full of naked guys.

I figured, when in rome right?

so I joined them in the locker room nudity before entering into the main area of the bath house. let me just tell you folks, bath houses in this country are incredible.

there were tubs in there, and spas, and saunas, and showers, and all kinds of goodies, all containing different kinds of water made out of minerals that are made to heal ailments.

as is customary, first you go to this shower area and totally clean yourself up, nobody wants to be sitting next to another guy in a tub and see all these grodags coming off of his body and floating around. so folks clean off before entering into the baths full of magic juice water.

all of those different tubs full of stuff made me feel like I was in a big naked water park. I tried all the tubs, even the ones that were sitting on balconies outside overlooking the coast, all while shooting the breeze with more totally naked Japanese guys just chillin out all around.

I would highly recommend any foreigner coming to visit look for one of these bath houses and see what its all about. anyone who has seen the movie “spirited away” might get a good idea of a magical bathhouse, but this one was even better. like I said, a naked theme park.

the womens room was on the opposite side and was separated by a big wooden wall. we could still hear all those chicks over there having a grand old time cause it was completely open at the top.

this isn’t the kind of place you take a lot of pictures, so I left the camera in the locker room. but you can read about the spa and even look at pictures here. bonus points for ya if you can read the japanese, and if you cant, there is a cool page in english here to kind of explain this place, just not as many fun pictures.

I spent about an hour in there, and made my way back towards the boat after I dried my socks off with the locker room hair dryer.

I got on the boat, made my way back to Nagasaki and boarded the shinkansen for Hiroshima. I made it there at about midnight and took a stroll through the town, past the atomic bomb dome, and to where I would spend the night at an internet café. the hiroshima lightlife was apparently pretty bouncin.

due to all trains stopping at midnight, aside from the occasional sleeping car, there are almost nothing but taxis on the roads from 12 to 5am.


and sometime between when I arrived at the train station and when I found the internet place, I lost my hat.

and you know what, I really liked that hat