"Go to Hell" and some updates

Four Points

Okay, so the Epic Four Points Tour of Awesomeness has been downgraded, slightly, to the Substantial Yet Notably Diminished (Due to Logistical Concerns of Space and Time) Two Point Five Points Tour of Fun. Due to the advice of some individuals with far more sense and far less unbridled optimism than I, Lindsay, Mark, Sonomi, and I have been convinced that making it all the way around the coast of Hokkaido in nine days at the standard posted speed limit of 50km/h would be less of a road trip and more of a drive-all-day marathon. As we have been repeatedly warned that being caught speeding as municipal employees is a huge no-no, and since we rather enjoy the idea of actually being able to stop and check stuff out on our road trip, we yielded and downgraded our epic adventure.

The revised, Substantial Yet Notably Blah blah blah—you get the idea—road trip is still making Japanese people gasp in wonder, though, so I figure it’s still pretty impressive. We are now going to be starting in Hakodate, like before, where we’ll pick up Sonomi from the Aomori Ferry. From there, we’ll head up the pacific coast of Hokkaido to some ruddy old temple Mark’s read about, and then it’s cross-island through Sapporo, and out to the Sea of Japan coast until Wakanai at the extreme northern end of the island. We’ll spend a day or so there, try to take in the even-more-northernly islands of Rebun and Rishi, and then it’s off down the coast of the Sea of Ohtohsk (sp?) to the termination of our mad romp at the Shiretoko Peninsula.

I’m hoping that Shiretoko will make the whole magical adventure worth it as it has been described as “the last piece of untouched wilderness in Japan." I’m expecting J-Pan Algonquin…except with more mountains and more sea, but we’ll see how it goes. Regardless, I’m sure Mark and Lindsay will be entertaining. Sonomi, too, but she can’t get the full 9 days off, so she’ll only be accompanying us as far as Wakanai.

Hell Fest

Only in Japan, the land of such auspicious celebrations as the penis festival, salmon festival, and scarecrow festival, could there be a Hell Festival. And, like any other god-fearing westerner, when I head the name of this festival, the name alone was all the convincing I needed to make attending the festival a priority.

So Mark, Lindsay, and I (sensing a pattern?) headed down to Noboribetsu last weekend for the Jigoku Matsuri! We stayed with fellow JET Steph in Muroran and trained it in to Nobo about midday Saturday.

Noboribetsu, or—to be more accurate—the village of Noboribetsu-onsen is known for being located on the rim of a still-smoking caldera: a once imposing volcanic feature that has since caved in on itself to form a steaming crater. Nobo-onsen makes its living feeding off the stinky hotsprings that flow down from the caldera. As some of this water is up around 90c when it comes flowing out of the rock, it’s the perfect stuff for powering the always popular Japanese baths or onsen.

Afformentioned Steaming Crater was given the apt name Jigokudani (Hell Valley) some years back, and now every year on the last weekend in August, the townsfolk ceremonially throw open the gates to the valley and let all of the demons out for Jigoku Matsuri. Throughout the day, the festival is pretty tame, and we took the opportunity to ride the world’s smallest chair lift up to a bear park (where we promptly decided we would rather spend the $20 entrance fee on demon swag and beer), sample the street vendors’ edible wares, and explore the area in and around the caldera. Though we never made it into an onsen in Noboribetsu {sad face}, we did get to dunk our feet in a hotspring, and it definitely convinced us of the need to go back to Nobo for the real deal.

The caldera was freaking beautiful, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather for taking it in. Once dusk fell, the festival truly began, and it was an uproarious party—the likes of which I’ve never seen on the Canadian side of the Pacific. I feel that I enjoyed it to the best of my abilities, and I’m already scheming for a return trip next year, but the following random contemplation I got into, I think, captures the whole event far better than a dry play-by-play:

In the otherworldly setting of Noboribetsu-onsen, with its surrounding tree-lined mountains and steaming caldera, the twenty-foot-tall, fiberglass red and blue demons—roadside attractions that would seem gaudy and overwrought if placed elsewhere—seem almost at home poking out from trees and commanding tourists to pose with them.

But, when the festival throws open the gates of Jigokudani, perhaps it is not physical demons that are being released but rather a demonic energy that they are meant to embody. Blame it on the nighttime setting, or the red cast of the hanging lanterns, but there does seem to be a certain playfully sinister force bouncing around at the festival.

It empowers the Taiko players to drum harder and faster, driving women and men (and even young children) alike to punish the Taiko with an infernal fury. The energy steels the vast teams that carry the ponderous demon shrines—mikoshi—careening down and then back up the slope of Noboribetsu-onsen’s main street. The energy fires the many costumed groups that turn that same main street into a rotating congo line of dancers for the Oni Odori (demon dance) competition. The energy inspires the dancers and musicians to seek more, causing them to strike up impromptu Taiko dance parties on side streets as other revelers gravitate towards them—being drawn into the dance themselves.

And that daemonic energy possesses we foreigners most of all: we Gaikokujin who have grown lazy on our poor western approximations and imitations of the true occidental festival. The energy tells us to drink. It tells us to dance, and it tells us to join. It tells us, in tones loud and clear, to cast off our oppressive western propriety and embrace the fire and the light; the rhythm and the beat.

And, before we know it, we are volunteering to help should the burden of the heaviest demon shrines, shouting RA-SHAI!* in time with our Japanese brothers. Before we realize the our possession, we are dancing the Oni Odori, flinging ourselves as high in the air as our legs will carry us as the kimonoed dancers take in our madness with wide-eyed wonder. And, before the energy can leave us, we are fighting our way through crowds, leaving our restrictive bags and coats with friends so we can make it into the writhing hearts of the dancing and drumming circles; going down on one knee in reverence as the Taiko drummers begin; springing up with renewed fervor as horns and whistles signal the rebirth of the dance.

As the very last of the energy ebbs from us, we channel the dregs of it into our Oni masks, using it to make our eyes shimmer in the dark so as to better scare the children we pass on the long trudge back down the mountain, away from Jigokudani as its gates swing to for another year.

When we awake the next morning; sweat-stained, sore-shouldered, and weary-legged, we find ourselves at a loss to explain the night before: unable to surmise how the stuff of dreams that still lingers in our minds could ever have actually come to transpire.

* I don’t know what it actually was that we were screaming. I just knew that there was screaming going on, and I had to scream something like it to keep the rhythm.

Today

In other news, today was a bloody bangarang day. I finally got some mail out to Canada (no. not to you. I don’t love you enough.), I got in a swim with half the population of my town looking on, I rolled up on Kendo practice only to find TAIKO DRUMMING!!!!!1!! going on, then I got in some kendo (staring down the blade of a hefty wooden sword at your grade four elementary student can’t be a good thing), and I finished off the night with a stop in at the local Seico Kombini for some bananas and milk.

I swear, man. Throw some chocolate-covered Pocky in there, and I think I could live on that diet for a year.

Milk. Bananas. Pocky.
Repeat.

BANGARANG! Delicious.

The Kombini in my tiny town ain’t got much, but it’s got that, and that is exactly what I was looking for to polish off today.