A Regular Post

Hello,

As I now have access to a computer with a decent keyboard, which doesn`t cost me anything, I decided that I could follow up yesterday`s picture-post with another post. This time, text interspersed with pictures.

First of all, I`m going to follow up on that cliffhanger a few posts back. After Asahidake, we went to Wakkanai, and from there to the rather small island of Rebun-to. A really nice place, with many different kinds of flowers covering the hills. We took some photos as can be seen to the right. We walked from the ferry-terminal to the southern edge of the island, then backtracked a bit, and went to the west side, where our hostel was. And it`s the hostel that was something of an oddity. We`d called them directly from the ferry, and after a while they picked up our backpacks and gave us maps of the island. Our hike ended, as said, at the hostel, where there was nothing else than said hostel, and the ocean. Really secluded and nice. The people working there, well, they were undoubtedly nice, but somewhat... special. To say the least. All the men working there had really hoarse voices, which we didn`t understand at first. Then we understood. Every now and then, they would shout, at the top of their lungs, into microphones or just out loud, with different messages concerning the events at the hostel. Like when it was time for food and such. And I really mean shout, as loud as humanly possible, all day long. And if you took the popular 8-hour hike from the top of the island back to the hostel, they stood outside the hostel waving you goodbye for maybe 15 minutes, dancing, singing, and of course, shouting. When you got back, they stood on the roof waving a japanese war-flag and shouting "Irasshaimase!" (welcome back!), and more singing. And in the evening, they had a kind of "theater", I guess you can call it. They also informed about different hikes and stuff about the island. It went on for almost 2 hours, with loads of singing, dancing, shouting and other, weird stuff. One guy, called `Mannequin`, dressed up as Doraemon (a famous japanese comic about a robotic cat from space) for example. I videotaped some of it with my digitalcamera, so I`ll try and upload it here for your viewing pleasures. It`s not long though, the memory was full.

And it doesn`t end there, no. After the theatre, everyone went to bed in their bunks (the place was an old fishermans`s house, really cool) and they turned of the lights at 10. Then you had to sleep. And oh yeah, they had their own time. All their clocks were set half an hour before actual time, for some reason. That made it easy to understand when the ferry left next morning.

Anyhoo, the wake-up call was, of course, nothing you experience every day. At precisely six `o clock, they turned on some old japenese song with a woman singing at an extreme soundlevel. It felt like being waked up by a bomb. And the song was long.. They were also (surprise surprise) shouting in the microphone "Ohayo!" (good morning). Nothing for us sleepyheads exactly.

Then, it was cleaning time for the ones who stayed behind and didn`t go on the 8-hour hike (that included us, yes). They made it into a weird contest/game where there was no price except clean rooms.

The whole experience was something we won`t forget for a while, we can easily say.

One last thing; when they drove us to the ferry in the morning, they stayed behind on the port and waved flags, and sang (shouted) goodbye songs while dancing. Quite extraordinary.

The picture below is of the hostel.

Well, enough about that. I mentioned before that we were going to Osorezan, the Mountain of Dread. Now we`ve been there, and it was rather cool. The sun was shining brighly so it didn`t feel so ominous; except for all the coins on the ground left by people praying, and the many, many spinwheels left by parents for their deceased children. I took some photos there, which you can view below. The first is of the temple there, the second is a sulphurous vent full of coins.

Now, let`s focus more on the present, instead of the past. We are now in Sendai, the largest city in Tohoku (Northern Honshu), with over one million inhabitants. We`ll be here two nights in total, so tomorrow we`re heading some place else as we`ve already been here one night. Haven`t really decided where yet. We`re thinking Matsushima. Anyway, Sendai is quite nice, it`s called "The City of Trees", and I understand why. Parks everywhere and trees line the roads.

The main-reason we travelled here was to visit Zuiho-den; the mausoleum of the great feudal lord, Date Masmune. For Final Fantasy afficionados like myself, his name is quite famous, as the strongest sword in the different games (the former more than the latter) was often called Masamune. That is also the case in Chrono Trigger, the best game for the Super Nintendo in my opinion. Well, less with the nerd, more with the pictures.

The first two are of us with the city of Sendai as a backdrop (duh), the third is a statue of Date Masamune, then a picture of his mausoleum and last is a replication of him, with his distinctive armor. Enjoy!