Archive for December, 2008

First Century

Published by Bob Sanchez on December 25, 2008 in Bike. 2 Comments

This website is for my family and friends. I am sitting in my parents’ house, with my family moving about and text messages from friends sitting unanswered in my phone, working on an entry for this site. Isn’t that lame?

I will write again when I return to Kochi. But first:

I awoke on Saturday and decided to ride my bicycle to the end of the world. That point, relatively speaking, is Cape Muroto, 53 miles southeast of Kochi City.

I had only been to Cape Muroto once, and that was a trip by car last year during my first month in Kochi. The 300-degree views of nothing but ocean and sky stayed fresh in my mind the whole time, and those images will remain as long as I have a memory.

The ride itself is flat with just a few undulating hills, and the sun was out for most of the ride down, so it wasn’t too cold. One aggravating thing that I had forgotten about was that you can’t actually see the cape from the two-lane highway until you get around a bunch of smaller capes. I kept looking in the distance and thinking, “that’s my goal,” and being disappointed when I found that I still had farther to go.

The scenery at the point was as beautiful as ever, and I particularly enjoyed listening to the waves beat against the huge rocks and wash up to the small stones on the shore. I didn’t do much to try and capture it on film, although the new banner on this website comes from the cape.

The clouds took over the sky for the return trip, and it was a little too long and too cold for my liking. I love to let my mind wander as my legs pump and the wheels spin, but the ride was so long that I ran out of things to think about. I doubt that I will ever do Muroto again unless I am camping somewhere out that way and returning home another day.

I happened upon this fellow fishing from a rock and decided that I really like that idea. I had seen several fishermen on rocky islands on the ride home from Kubokawa last month, but I like the Muroto scene better because of the way the sun’s rays seem to bless that man’s patch of ocean above all others.

There were a lot of signs reminding drivers not to nod off while driving and to search within themselves for the courage to pull over (literal translation of one of the signs). I don’t know how anybody could fall asleep at the wheel with this large guy watching over them.

I arrived home with just enough time to hose off and head out to the smaller version of my school’s year-end party. I dreamed about the all-you-can-eat pasta and pizza for most of the ride home and was not disappointed.

So, all in all, a good ride, but nothing outstanding. It marked the first time I passed the century mark in miles, and that seems to be a reasonable limit for round-trip riding. 100 miles is more than enough to get off Shikoku Island in any other direction, so now I have a better estimate of how far I can go on Day One of a long trip.

A friend has graciously agreed to let me borrow his road bike while I am in Garden Grove, and I packed my helmet and shoes, so maybe some stories will come out of it!

Now, for some long-awaited egg nog!

And Boy, Are My Arms Tired

Published by Bob Sanchez on December 18, 2008 in Baseball. 1 Comment

With mere days remaining between now and a visit home for Christmas and New Year’s, I can safely say that it’s time to shut things down for baseball in 2008.

In truth, I never stopped working. There were always people to call, videos to watch and edit, news items to keep up with, and reports to write. I will continue to do those things from my family’s living room if need be.

The line between in-season and off-season is drawn by the traveling, I suppose. It began with a trip to Kagoshima Prefecture in late February to see Junichi Tazawa face off against professionals in “spring” training and ended last month at Osaka Dome with an industrial league tournament, featuring – who else? – Tazawa.

Getting to any baseball event outside of Shikoku Island is a chore and a challenge, but I chose to live in Kochi and am glad that I did.

A mistake on my part led to my placement in Kochi Prefecture. I received a phone call from the teaching company while I was scouting and enjoying (but mostly enjoying) the 2007 College World Series in Omaha. The voice on the other end of the phone offered up “Kochi” as my assignment, and I thought for a few seconds.

I knew Kochi to be one of the four prefectures on the island of Shikoku, just across the Seto Inland Sea from Osaka and Kobe. I knew that its southwestern location would give me a relatively warmer and easier winter than the rest of Japan.

Images of palm trees and clear skies jumped into my mind thanks to the 1970s Japanese baseball cartoon Dokaben, which featured a rival team from Kochi.

I should have stopped there, because incorporating Dokaben into my decision was where I welcomed fiction into the equation. The players from Kochi trained with a fighting bulldog and walked, in their metal cleats, from Kochi to the Koshien Tournament in Kobe, which would have necessitated a ferry ride in those days.

“H’mmm, if those kids could have walked from Kochi to Osaka, it certainly can’t be that far. I’ll bet it’s right across the sea, on the near side of Shikoku.” I am not kidding, this is what went through my mind when I accepted the job in Kochi. I drew upon memories of a cartoon to help me choose a place to live.

I felt more than a bit stupid after getting home to California and checking an atlas – Kochi is on the south side of Shikoku Island, separated from the rest of the world. It’s the Eastern Australia of Japan.

I learned so much during the first season and a half of scouting from Kochi:

It is possible to start the day outside of Shikoku Island and make it to school on time for first period. However, it’s best to plan ahead for that situation.

It is not a good idea to wait until the last minute to reserve hotel rooms, especially during Golden Week or any other three-day weekend featuring mass travel by three-quarters of the entire Japanese population.

It is a good idea to bring sunscreen and a hat to every game, and an umbrella and a jacket to any game happening before July or after August. The umbrella still comes with in July and August.

It is a bad idea to watch a high school game at the beginning of a multi-day, multi-city trip – nobody will watch your luggage for you at the municipal stadium and there will most definitely not be any coin lockers big enough at the podunk, one-train-an-hour train station.

It is a bad idea to try and see a pro game in another city after a high school tournament game as the tourney will certainly run late. It is an even worse idea to try and do this with luggage at the beginning of a multi-city, multi-day trip.

It is a good idea to bring a jacket to Sapporo even though all of the games will take place in a dome. The weather will differ by about 15 degrees any time of year and you will get sick. There was definitely room in your luggage at the beginning of a multi-city, multi-day trip.

It is a great idea to eat a decent meal before going to the ballpark. There will not be anything acceptable inside any venue and it is not necessary to try the greasy junk food and subpar bento boxes before making that decision.

It is a fantastic idea to reserve a seat on the Bullet Train equipped with an outlet for a weak computer battery.

It is even better to reserve a seat in the car closest to the escalator to the platform – nothing is worse than sprinting (with luggage at the beginning of a multi-city, multi-day trip) to Car 14 only to find that your seat is in Car 4, nearly a quarter-mile away. Have fun elbowing your way through ten cars’ worth of cranky passengers and three smoking cars.

Okay, most of the lessons came on one horrid, nightmarish trip in July. Shoot me, why don’tcha?

It is all worth it for the five or six hours I get to spend at the ballpark, doing my job. Everything else melts away once the visiting club wheels out the batting cage and begins to warm up. When I am at the game, I am where I am supposed to be.

——————————

I am at a very early stage in my professional baseball career. My organization invests money and time in me and, I gather, is honestly concerned with my development. There are times when I feel like a player.

My bosses, let’s call them coaches, check my progress through reports and by watching games together with me. I meet other scouts in the organization and learn about what they do; the club shows me a possible future. I get to work out with the Big Club in Spring Training.

I am praised for a job well done and encouraged when I make mistakes. There are nights when I go out there and know that I was at my best – I nailed every player that set foot on the field and wrote succinct, smooth, entertaining reports. I pitched eight innings, struck out five, walked none, and got a couple of hits at the dish.

Other times, I showed up as the first pitch was being thrown, I completely missed an important free agent, or I froze up on a chance to meet a new, valuable contact. I didn’t get out of the second inning, walked six guys, balked in a run, missed an important bunt, broke my hand punching the water cooler, and flipped over the postgame buffet spread, ruining dinner for everyone.

I had an amazing stretch in mid-summer, seeing thirty games in 35 days and cementing my knowledge of this season’s parade of professional players. I was untouchable and unstoppable coming out of the All-Star Break, leading my team to first place by hitting over .400 and smashing four home runs per week.

However, I also over-covered a few Central League teams and was not very effective with my last few pro trips in September, including one with my boss sitting right next to me. I ran out of gas in the dog days of August, complaining of a sore arm and losing my spot in the lineup. I was limited to pinch-hitting duties and kept off the postseason roster.

I may be a little hard on myself with that last assessment, but I didn’t pace myself very well this season. In 2009, I will be smarter about luggage and trip planning, but I don’t want to cut back on the work. Let’s say that now I know just how long the season is and will continue strongly into September and October.

Still, I don’t think that comparing myself to a prospect is all that far off. There are days when I have it, when the boss and I can see the future and what I could be to the organization. And there are days when I just plain stink at what I do because I’m not experienced enough yet.

I love the way my club treats and teaches me and hope that I am in its long-term plans as much as I feel like I am.

———————–

Let’s close 2008 with the final numbers:

Trips to Hiroshima: 5
Trips to Nagoya: 3
Trips to Osaka: 9
Trips to Tokyo: 2
Miles Traveled: About 25,000
Most consecutive weekends spent outside of Kochi: 9 (July-September)
Most consecutive weekends spent in Kochi, May-September: 1
Rainouts: 2
Domed Games: 28
Plastic Giveaway Fans Received: 17
Plastic Giveaway Fans Used: 1 (Kenta Kurihara, Hiroshima Carp)
Trains Missed: 1
Teaching Days Missed: 0
Autographs Given: 3
Viagra Pills Received: 1
Sushi Dinners: 5 (?)
Mexican Dinners: 3
Highest Gun Reading: 99 MPH (Marc Kroon, RHP Yomiuri Giants)
Lowest Gun Reading: 56 MPH (Shunsuke Watanabe, RHP Chiba Lotte Marines)
Fastest Time to First Base by a Well-Known Player: 3.53 seconds (drag bunt by Tsuyoshi Nishioka, SS Chiba Lotte Marines)
Fastest Time to First Base by a Player Whom I Pray is Unknown and Unnoticed: 3.40 seconds (drag bunt)
Slowest Time to First Base, Non-Home Run: 6.07 (Jose Fernandez, 1B Rakuten Eagles)
Highest Grade Given on 20-80 Scale: 90 (Mr. 3.4′s range in center field!!! Off the charts!!!)

Thanks to Patrick at www.npbtracker.com for the article on Tazawa.

Ninety Skirts, No Parties

Published by Bob Sanchez on December 13, 2008 in Observations. 0 Comments

The fair name of our beloved vocational school got dragged through the mud this week in several newspapers and on television.

A 39-year-old science teacher in our ranks was arrested last week for taking voyeuristic pictures and video of high school girls at a local mall. The ensuing investigation revealed that he had collected ninety such upskirt shots and had begun to sell them on the Internet.

Perhaps the most embarrassing part of it all was that he was caught during working hours; it was after school at around 4:30, but the teachers’ contracts stipulate that they are to be at school until 5:15.

It was kept out of the press until he was arraigned yesterday, one week after being caught, and then it appeared on the evening news and the following day’s newspapers. He had already been fired from his post at school.

The effects of this “scandal,” as it is being called, are far-reaching. Starting with the offender, he may have jail time ahead of him, but at the very least his career as an educator or any kind of public employee is finished. He will be required by law to detail his termination on his resume and will likely get passed over everywhere he attempts to find work.

His family will suffer for years both economically and emotionally. The neighbors will whisper, point, and tsk-tsk. His young children will grow up and face bullying and taunting as offspring of the guy who peeped at high school girls. The teachers will not do much about it because naka is all up to the students.

I can see all of this, minus the naka part, happening in the United States. Teaching involves trust. Betray that trust, and endure castigation and ostracization. Lose your job. Hurt your family.

Here is where it started to get Japanese.

The timing of the press release interested me. The incident occurred on a Thursday and we teachers knew about it on Friday. The principal called an emergency staff meeting, which was easy because students had finished final exams and returned home at midday. We got who, where, when, and a little what, but not much else.

We were instructed to sit on this information and await the press release. I wondered when that would be; a teacher caught doing something naughty with a sexual flavor to it certainly makes the evening news that very night in the States. You might even expect to see some handcuffs, grim expressions, and flashbulbs.

In Japan, however, people seem much more worried about what others think about them and the entities to which they belong, and they take exhaustive measures to protect and project positive images. Our school’s reputation was going to take a dive, and I think that the media threw us a bone by waiting for the arraignment.

The story ran in the local paper and cracked the back pages of a couple of West Japan regional papers. No headlines or subheads contained the name of our school, and the articles seemed carefully crafted to minimize the damage to the school, mentioning the name in the second paragraph well after the meat of the story was uncovered in a long lead.

A generic pronoun for “that school” followed rather than an abbreviation of the school name, however that is a fairly common practice in Japanese newspaper writing.

The principal called an emergency assembly first thing in the morning of publication, and all 800 students gathered in the second-floor gym. I took my usual place at the very back of the gym and immediately noticed some differences from the normal procedure.

As always, a low, ornately-carved table sat on the distant stage, a microphone protruding from its center. This day, however, there were no lights on the table or anywhere else on the stage.

The principal, vice principals, department heads, and various others who give long-winded speeches at frequent assemblies do so from behind that table on the stage. It appeared from the outset that that would not happen on this day.

The principal appeared and shuffled wearily to the front of the gym, shoulders stooped and head bowed. The warm air hung above our heads and seemed to choke us with our own expectations, and indeed the air had an unseasonably moist, heavy feel to it.

He paused at the stairs leading up to the stage, and very conspicuously chose to continue walking along the floor, on the same level as the seated students. The students stood rigidly and bowed in unison to the principal, as is custom at every assembly.

Out came the grisly details, and an excited buzz zipped across the crowd at the first mention of the word “skirt.” The student body, about 80% boys, was obviously not as solemn as the principal and teachers.

Then, the principal apologized to the students and faculty, bowing deeply at the waist and holding his head down for a full second before rising up slowly. I could see an American principal apologizing to students for the grief and stress of such a situation, but our principal’s apology carried with it a sense of his personal responsibility.

In the break room after the assembly, the art teacher and I sifted through the day’s newspapers. I was about to ask her about the principal’s choice to deliver the message from the floor when he himself walked into the room. I decided to ask him directly.

I phrased the question to him as respectfully as I could, yet casual speech still tumbled from my mouth. I quickly fixed the mistake but saw that there was some damage done.

The principal took a long look at me, sighed deeply, and explained that it wouldn’t be right to report such news from under the lights and behind the grand table. This was a disgraceful event in the history of our school and he could not bring himself to talk about it in the same place from which he handed out awards and diplomas.

The art teacher shot a sideways glance at me and mentioned right then and there that I should not have asked the principal such a brazen question. I began to play the foreigner card, saying that I merely wanted to confirm what I had guessed about the symbolism, but I gave up halfway through the lame explanation.

The principal’s body language told me that he agreed with the art teacher. She was right. It was an easy question, and I believe in asking the easy questions, but I had not considered that answering that question would dig up the humiliating feelings for the principal.

However tactless my inquiry, I got an answer and learned more about just how much I have to consider what others think and feel in Japan. It’s never a bad thing to empathize or think about the person across from you, but the rules are stricter in this country.

What stands out to me is that Japanese people are so mindful of what others think about their actions and appearance. There are many ways to describe the “others” whose opinions and perceptions shame a person into behaving a certain way. Ideally for them, if a person is thinking about doing X, then it is all about what X looks like to those around that person.

The case continues with our annual end of the year party. Japanese companies, schools, and clubs hold parties in December, and a direct translation of the name of these parties is “forget-the-year gathering.”

We were all ready for a rootin’ tootin’ good time, a real shindig, a big blowout. On the Monday following the upskirt incident, we found envelopes in our desks containing the money we had put down on the party.

I hung around teachers all week trying to hear opinions about the cancellation, and gathered that we, as teachers of this disgraced school, cannot be seen whooping it up in large numbers so close to the scandal. Heavens no, those mysterious “others” would not have it.

“What are those teachers thinking about?” the “others” would scold. “They should show more remorse.”

Japan is a society that apologizes for everything. You apologize for knocking someone off their feet, for surprising them, for bothering them even though it is their job to serve you, for receiving something from them no matter how piffling, for things that you don’t think are your fault, and for things that are most definitely not your fault.

Things like a co-worker spying on young girls at the mall.

What that has to do with the rest of us having a good time and celebrating our work in 2008, I do not know. It certainly sends a strong message that one person’s actions drastically affect those around him. It is foreign to me because we operate more on personal guilt in the United States while shame is at work in Japan.

Either way, one man’s actions have destroyed a career; ruined life for a family of four; deprived a school of a science teacher, field hockey coach, and school newspaper advisor; caused harm to that school’s good name in the community; caused undue grief to fellow staff members at that school; compromised the privacy of at least ninety high school girls; and caused a loss of thousands of dollars to a local banquet hall.

Other opportunities have sprouted from the ashes of this calamity. A part-time long-term substitute teacher is getting work and getting paid, and a local Italian restaurant is getting some much needed business from the remnants of a nameless school’s forget-the-year party courtesy of string-pulling by a nameless English teacher.

Perhaps there are more developments in the making. I am certainly taking advantage of this bizarre situation to learn as much as I can about the society in which I live and work.

Bob Sanchez Gets Punked, Part II

Published by Bob Sanchez on December 10, 2008 in Bike. 1 Comment

On a remote mountain road, the scruffy dog with grimy, matted fur leered at me as I frantically tried to change a bike tire before my fingers froze and broke off.

“Shut up!” I yelled at it, mostly to get my blood circulating again so that I could continue replacing the wheel. I planned to kick it or box it if it came any closer, but that tire simply had to go on before I froze to death in what was basically fancy underwear and a helmet.

The impolite old man returned to the scene before I was finished pumping the tire up all the way, and I pointed out the dog, which had skittered up the hill on the other side of the narrow road. He scooped up the dog, chained him up with the other three, and peeled out toward an unknown destination with nary a word said.

He was as icy as the wind. I was very close to seriously needing help escaping the bitter cold, and I am so glad that it didn’t come down to asking him for a ride. He may have refused.

I had little choice but to turn around and go back the way I had come. I was about 20 miles out of Kochi and well over the second set of mountains, but continuing would have guaranteed the need for a ride home.

I shivered and sniffled my way back up the mountain, and tears seemed forthcoming but I doubt that they could have squeezed their way out of my frozen eyeballs.

It was at the top of the pass that I realized that it was not pollen blowing around in the air, but snow. I had seen snow fall from the sky but three times in my life prior to that, and this snow was hardly doing what I would call falling. It floated in the air, moving to and fro, and when the flakes made contact with my clothing, they just stuck there without melting.

My feet were bricks of ice, but luckily their work was done. It was 16 miles downhill to the city, and I exhaled a huge white cloud of relief. It didn’t take long for it to dawn on me that 16 miles downhill in that weather would mean fiercer wind and less body movement, therefore less warmth.

The frigid air sliced through my two week-old beard and burned my face. I never doubted that I would find a way home, but the prospect of getting home healthy was vanishing quickly.

Then I passed the Kawamura Farm. I didn’t know it was the Kawamura Farm until I looked up and saw a middle-aged couple throwing twigs and small branches onto a bonfire in front of a dilapidated shed and ramshackle farmhouse.

There was no better time for some good old Kochi hospitality. I pried my feet loose from the pedals and walked gingerly up to the pair, asking them as politely as possible if I could partake in their pleasant pyre.

“M-m-may I please b-b-b-borrow s-some of your f-f-fire?” I murmured, finding it difficult to manage moving my mouth much.

Mr. Kawamura laughed and beckoned me closer to the blaze. I struggled to strip off my gloves and finally defrost the fingers that had worked so hard on the shady side of the mountain.

I gazed up at the lazily falling snow and tried to follow it to the ground, but I lost sight of it in the white ash of the fire pit. Sap sizzled and spat from one of the pieces of bark in the pit, and dozens of tiny ants scurried and hurried in vain to try to escape their fiery fate.

The Kawamuras and I engaged in conversation, and I learned that Mr. Kawamura had spent the first ten years of his life in that very farmhouse, walking three miles each way to school every day. His parents and he moved away to Kochi City, leaving his elderly grandparents on the mountain alone, where they would live out the rest of their lives.

Mr. Kawamura returns to the farmhouse and small plot of land a few times each fall and winter. The roof was about ready to collapse, and it sagged precariously over one side of the building. The shed, too, was on its last legs. Nobody has lived on that land for twenty years, and Mr. Kawamura just gathers twigs and fallen branches and burns them to keep the plot relatively clear.

The Kawamuras were just sitting in front of a bonfire all day, and I began to think that they might have been bored before I came along. I changed my mind when a postal worker zipped by on a little red scooter, nodding to us before disappearing down a side road to deliver some mail.

I heard the man’s voice shout, “Good afternoon!” but there was no reply. The scooter popped back into view, and the postal worker eyed the fire with the same wistful look that I had probably had on my face when I passed by. His deep, coal-black eyes watered over the scarf that covered the rest of his face.

He slowly unwound the scarf and stammered out the same question that I had asked, and Mr. Kawamura bellowed in his booming baritone, “Come on over, there’s plenty of room for you!”

We talked about the postman’s lonely route all the way from the distant town hall to the top of the mountain. He knew how many houses were on his route (214) and regaled us with stories of delivering through rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Contrary to what I believed, there are indeed days when even the postal service can’t get through.

Mr. Kawamura asked after certain people on the route, and both he and the postman knew them all. It was amazing to me not only that he could remember people after forty years, but that they would still be around to talk about. A lot is said about Japanese longevity, and legend has it that many of the centenarians we hear of live in rural mountain towns like that one.

It was very educational for me to be a part of that conversation, if a small one. It reminded me again how easy it is to fall into the trap of talking about my hometown and how long I’ve been studying Japanese, which I will invariably have to speak about every day that I choose to be in this country.

The postman eventually had to get back to work, and it was late enough in the afternoon that it wasn’t getting any warmer. I would have to face the cold sooner or later, so I dragged myself away from the inviting flames after getting the Kawamuras’ contact information.

I narrowed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and let my cheeks flap in the wind as I raced down the face of the mountain. I was going as fast as I could both to end the experience more quickly and to keep my body moving. Thirty long minutes later, I was in the city, where I saw that the high temperature had been 46 degrees. It was most certainly below freezing in the mountains.

I stopped at the Bike Shop to ask about the gaping hole in my tire, and Mr. Bike Shop took a look at it, shook his head, and said, “Hurts, don’t it?”

“What hurts?” I strained to say. My mouth still wasn’t working very well.

“The 35 bucks you spent on a tire that’s no longer useable,” he said plainly, pursing his lips.

I think that he is not-so-secretly counting down the amount of money he would’ve gotten from me had I bought an expensive new bike from the Bike Shop. I’ve bought every new part for the used bike from him, but I think he’s going to wait until he’s recovered the entire “balance” before he starts being friendly again.

I bought another tire and looked forward to getting more practice and more pumping. Whooppee!!!

All in all, it would have been a fantastic ride on a hot summer day, and I will definitely remember the spot, but the mountains are closed until March as far as I am concerned. The hour I spent in the shower and hot bath undid all of the pain, and I awoke Monday morning fresh and as ready to go as ever.

Wouldn’t you know it, it warms up again and there isn’t a hint of white in the mountains. I look out the window at school, at the beautiful reds and yellows of the trees up in the hills, and think, “Maybe one more weekend . . . “

Bob Sanchez Gets Punked, Part I

Published by Bob Sanchez on December 8, 2008 in Bike. 2 Comments

Kochi mountain roads are starting to freeze up overnight, making them both undesirable and unsafe for cycling. With this in mind, I made one last attempt Sunday at navigating them before the spring.

Kochi takes up the south half of Shikoku Island, stretching from the west coast to the east coast. The other three prefectures (Ehime, Kagawa, and Tokushima) face the big cities of Hiroshima, Kobe, and Osaka respectively; they have a definite connection to the rest of Japan. All they have to do is look across the Seto Inland Sea to see the rest of the mother land, and there is a bridge leading from each prefecture to the main island.

Kochi is isolated by a large mountain range that runs the length of Shikoku, so it feels very much like a different world. Looking at it from Kochi City, there are actually three mountain ranges that run like ribs, east-west dividers between us and the rest of the world.

KCTC usually plays around between the first and second ranges, and I have been over the second set of mountains myself on a couple of occasions. I don’t know how long it will take me to try getting over all three. The most direct route from Kochi City is to climb 1,000 feet, drop 700, climb 2,500, and fall 1,500. Then you’re staring at some 5,000-6,000 foot monsters.

On Sunday’s menu was Motoyama, a river town between the second and third mountain ranges that I had visited once before by bicycle. Judging by the buildings, which look like log cabins and lodges, they get quite a lot of snow. The Japanese names of schools and townships also invoke feelings of cold, so I knew that the window of opportunity to bike to Motoyama once more was closing quickly.

The target was Sameura Dam and an annual winter carnival held beneath the enormous structure. The water held behind the dam continues on to serve most of northern Kochi and almost all of Kagawa Prefecture. It rains A LOT in Kochi, but the other three prefectures are in a rain shadow and need that water, so we give them almost all of what falls between the second and third mountain ranges.

My previous visit to Motoyama and Sameura Dam had been in September to see the historically low level of water due to a two-year drought in that part of the prefecture. Only one typhoon has come through Kochi since I arrived last summer, and while we got plenty of rainfall in the city, the mountains and other prefectures suffered considerably.

I read in a newspaper article that Sameura Dam had a level below “zero,” or the minimum level required to make it to the following spring. The receding water level had revealed the top of an old city hall building from the town that engineers destroyed in order to make the dam. Sights like that have my name written all over them, so I packed up (on the old, heavy bike) and rode out to see the spectacle.

I made it up and over Stonemade Mountain (the 2,800-footer), and, less a lot of sweat and a little sanity, arrived at the face of the dam. I followed the dam bed north in search of the protruding building, and I never found it. I did find scenes of desolation and austerity, and in terms of enjoying nature it was one of the worst bike rides I’d ever taken.

Motoyama eventually got its rain, and while not a particularly comforting level, there seems to be a good chance that Kagawa will get water through the spring. I prepared to see better sights and enjoy a carnival at the foot of the dam, but I didn’t feel like taking the same route.

My trusty map said that if I went a bit east of Stonemade Mountain that there was a lower pass with a more gradual slope. I could take that road all the way to the end of the dam bed and sneak into Motoyama from the back.

The ride up was uneventful, and, true to the map, gradual and easy. The challenge was outlasting the frigid conditions, especially on the north side of the pass, the shady side. The wind howled and pollen from the last of the remaining susuki blew around in the air above my head. I was certain that the temperature was below freezing at the top of the mountain.

I was about three miles into the leg that would take me to the beginning of the dam bed when I leaned into a curve to the right and upon hitting a rock heard a small explosion, followed by a fast, angry hiss. I had suffered my very first blowout.

Ride a bike long enough and you get familiar with flat tires, but I had never had one just go out on me in a split-second. I was surprised that it wasn’t more dramatic; I didn’t fall, swerve, or even lose control of the bike. I felt like Goofy when he says, “Aww, there goes m’tire!” in the old cartoons.

One fun thing about flats is talking about them in Japanese. They Japanize the word “puncture,” but trim off the last half of it so that it’s just “punk.” And since anyone would know that it’s the tire that got punctured, they leave out the subject of the sentence, so it just becomes, “got punked.”

Larry: Mac, what happened up in Motoyama?
Mac: Got punked.
Larry: Damn, homie.

Fortunately, I had had much training on fixing flats during the previous week. I fixed made a fair mess of fixing a flat on the old bike, and I bought new tires for the road bike, so that was virtually changing two more tubes. I damaged one of the tubes, so after wrestling with it for half an hour failing to see the problem, I got to change it again! Whooppee!

As mentioned before, I can be counted on to break things, put them on backwards or upside down, or otherwise muck up simple repair tasks, so I am not a fix-it-yourself guy. Add that to fingers that don’t work very well in the cold and you have a very frustrated Mac.

I was in a pickle. This punk was gigantic. The rock tore a gash in the brand-new tire, and there was nothing to do but change the tube right then and there, in the freezing cold with susuki fluff blowing around in the harsh wind.

The feeling left my fingers within a minute of taking my gloves off, and were useless, frostbitten masses fumbling around with the valve cap, washer, and tire wrenches. Once I got the tube out, I went to replace it with the tube in my little emergency kit, but I remembered that my spare tube was the damaged one from earlier in the week. Either way, I would have to repair a tube.

These things are no big deal to the seasoned pro, but I am a beginner and a hopeless boob on top of that. Did I mention that it was frickin’ freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth?

The hole in the tube was obviously large enough to cause a blowout, but I couldn’t find it. I tried to listen for the air leaking out, but I couldn’t hear it over the wind and the sound of my little hand-pump. I pumped furiously, trying to get enough air in there to make a hissing noise, but couldn’t get my ear down to the tube quickly enough to hear it. I probably pumped that stupid hand-pump ten thousand times this week.

I tried to feel for the hole with my hands, but I couldn’t feel anything at all, so that didn’t work. I did the last thing I could think of, which was to pinch various places on the tube and try to pump it up. It took forever, but I located the hole.

By that time I was desperate, shivering in the cold and beginning to think about survival. As I waited for the glue to dry on the tire patch, an old man rattled up in a pickup truck and rolled down his window.

“Dog? Dog? Seen a dog?” he said in rapid-fire succession.

I was confused. The rhythm of his words suggested a sales pitch; I really thought he was trying to sell me a dog. I glanced back at the bed of his truck, and sure enough, three dogs cowered in crude cages with ropes tied around their necks.

“Dog?Dog?Seenadog?” he tried again in the same sing-song tone.

“Sorry, I don’t think a dog is going to help here,” I said as politely as I could.

“Buddy, I’m lookin’ for a dog. Jumped out the bed, y’know,” he growled in a thick mountain accent.

“Oh. No,” I said, and before my mouth was closed, he sped off in search of the wayward hound. Not a word about the bike, or the cold, or even a how-do-you-do.

I wish I could remember incidents like this when people rave about how polite Japanese people are. There are inconsiderate people in every corner of the planet, and there certainly aren’t many in this country, but they do exist.

Back to the tire I went, and the repair job was shoddy, but would have to do. As I went to reattach it to the wheel, I heard a low, animal-like moan and looked over my left shoudler. A mangy mutt had lowered its shoulders and was growling with its eyes fixed on me . . .

A Hop, A Skip, and A Landslide

Published by Bob Sanchez on December 4, 2008 in Bike. 1 Comment

I got all excited about buying the mad, new machine that would catapult me to the front of the group on KCTC rides, and promptly spent four weeks away from the club.

Consecutive weekends took me away from Kochi on baseball and other business, and one Sunday featured a silly meeting at the English school that contracted me to my high school. Pair that with a curiously sudden and heavy workload at school, and you have a guy who is itching to sleep in instead of hopping on the hobby horse.

Last weekend, it came time to break away, to disappear from everyone’s radar and just ride. I have a map of Kochi Prefecture on the wall in my room, and I’ve traced my routes with a thin marker so that I can blur my focus and see what my radius looks like.

Saturday, I set out to expand it and chose Kubokawa Town, a small river village halfway between Kochi City and the mouth of the famous Shimanto River in Nakamura City. Kubokawa Town is only five miles away from the Pacific Ocean, yet sits aside the same river. The “River of 40,000 tributaries” carves out a very interesting and meandering path.

The national highway that leads out of Kochi City goes right through Kubokawa Town and on to Nakamura City, but it is a two-lane road most of the way and is jammed with freight trucks up through steep passes and tunnels. No thanks, said I.

I decided instead to follow the numbered prefectural roads, which usually offer hours of intimacy and solitude to the bike rider. I sneaked around the national highway and up into the mountains, and the road that I chose spat me out close to the main source of the Shimanto River.

I had just made it over the tallest pass and to the downhill run when I got stuck behind a logging truck for about 5 miles. The truck was as wide as the road and hung out over the white lines on both sides of the road for most of the time. I saw the outer wheels leave the road twice, and the driver had to slow down to avoid clipping trees and mailboxes on many occasions.

I drummed my fingers on the comfortable, curved handlebars and waited impatiently for the road to widen considerably so that I could get by safely. I imagined the shock of seeing a beast like this behind me and decided that it was better off in front of me after all. “Objects in mirror” and all.

That episode passed along with the rest of the ever-shortening afternoon, and I arrived in Kubokawa Town right at sunset. I sought refuge at Iwamoto Temple, the 37th stop on the journey of 88 temples that takes enlightenment-seeking pilgrims around Shikoku Island.

It is very common to see these pilgrims daily around Kochi, as there are several of the 88 temples within city limits. They are usually dressed in white, wear rice hats, and carry big backpacks and walking sticks. I think part of Kochi folks’ open-hearted spirit comes from helping so many complete strangers pass through.

I’m no pilgrim, but two buddies from east of Kochi City had arrived before me and arranged for the three of us to share an extra room at the inn next to the Iwamoto Temple. We ate a prepared meal at a long, low table with a bunch of pilgrims, and bathed with them as well.

I was asked many times over if I was a pilgrim, and a number of people do indeed elect to complete the trek by bicycle. The ultra-modern, sedentary lifestyle-types do it in tour buses. The man who ate next to me was doing it in pieces around his job; he had been at it for a year and managed to get 37 temples in.

We turned in early, as the 38th temple is quite a haul and many pilgrims can’t get there in one day. Meditation and the incantations were set for 6:00 a.m. sharp.

We arose before six, shuddering at the cold, late autumn wind that whistled through the temple grounds. The monks floated around in their mustard-yellow and brown robes, lighting candles and incense and preparing the temple for the service.

The chanting and praying were by far the most foreign things I have ever done. The monks kneeled on pillows, facing away from the pilgrims, and led them in the swiftly-moving, monotonous chant. One monk tapped rhythmically on a small, deep-toned bell next to him and kept the crowd on pace.

I didn’t say very many of the words, as I was too busy observing the monks and pilgrims and soaking up the scene. Most of the chants were done in classical Japanese, which even normal Japanese people can have trouble understanding.

I was able to grasp the meaning of the characters on the page in front of me, but the readings were rather odd, and there were definitely some parts that weren’t Japanese at all. I caught a few boddhisatvas and Amida Buddhas in there.

The monks fed us breakfast, and then I suited up and struck out in the direction of Kochi City. The plan on Sunday was to follow the coast as much as possible, still avoiding the national highway.

The temperature hovered in the low forties, but I was properly equipped and didn’t feel much as long as I kept moving. I expected to have to climb a bit to get out of the basin in which Kubokawa Town sits, but to my surprise I found a steep, twisty road down into Shiwa, a small fishing hamlet on the coast.

It so happened that Sunday was Shiwa’s day to shine – they were holding their annual Konbu Seaweed Festival. The villagers bustled about, preparing huge pots to make konbu soup and setting up tables and chairs for their expected visitors. One old man was running around with a portable blowtorch on full blast, and I didn’t see him light anything with it, but nobody was freaking out so perhaps I met Shiwa’s village idiot. I watched him for a good minute and there appeared to be no reason to have the torch going.

I declined to stay for the festivities and turned toward the lone road leading north out of Shiwa. The pavement was gritty and the street shot straight up the face of a rocky cliff, and I would see similar geography all the way back home. Challenging slopes followed by screaming downhill stretches, a fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning.

At nine o’clock, I phoned Mr. Bike Shop, who was just about to hold court with KCTC and decide the day’s route, to beg the bikers and him to head west and meet me somewhere in the middle. They went east.

Shortly after hanging up, I encountered a strange-looking roadblock in front of a shaded hillside graveyard. Three cones stretched across half of the road, but there was no signage and plenty of room for a bicycle to pass by, so I proceeded with care.

Not far beyond the cones, a lone car was parked off to one side, and I could see the driver and his passenger burning some leaves up on one of the plots of land that stuck out from the hill. The road was littered with twigs and leaves and looked like it hadn’t been traversed in years, but curiosity got the better of me and I continued climbing.

I got my answer at the relative peak, where a rockslide blocked off most of the road. There was plenty of room for a person (or a biker) to step over the ropes and onto the other side, but it was impassable by car. I tiptoed through the rubble and plopped the bike down on the opposite side.

It was a little scary, and I debated whether or not I should continue. Around the next bend, however, was an old man sitting on the pavement, smoking a cigarette in front of his pickup truck. He was startled to see me coming from the direction of the landslide; this abandoned road appeared to be his secret space, his escape.

I asked him if it was safe, and he nodded, but quickly shook his head from side to side, expressing his surprise at seeing someone emerge from the rock pile. At the bottom of the road, a similar half-roadblock stood next to a sign that described the landslide that had forced closure of the road in March. No plans existed to fix the road, and there was no need because of a brand new tunnel through the shaky mountain.

On I pedaled, up and down, over and over, past magnificent rock formations and wonderful, craggy islands in the ocean near the coast. I spied some fishermen standing out on some of the rocks. I stopped to enjoy a banana and some mikan and, as I do nearly every day, thought myself lucky to be in Kochi at that very moment.

Finally, I reached the Yokonami Peninsula, which is basically a small mountain range separating a narrow bay from the ocean. The hellish, badly-paved road rises and falls and tests riders of all levels, but it offers some absolutely breathtaking views.

There is a road on the backside of the bay that I usually take, and I had a choice to make. I had sworn off the Yokonami Skyline because of the impossibility of the slopes and the coarse conditions, but I was feeling feisty and decided to give it a shot for the first time on my new ride.

It was nothing! Oh, I love this bike!

I coasted home, cleaned the bike, showered, bathed, and set out for an all-you-can-eat cake and pasta deal at a restaurant down the street. I had been looking forward to stuffing my face with spaghetti and strawberry shortcake all morning and afternoon, but when I arrived at the restaurant, I was met with the totally lame X-mark explaining that the restaurant was full.

Bummed, I exited the place, right into a gaggle of college-age girls wearing matching hats and holding trash bags. I asked them what the get up was all about, and they explained that they were picking up trash around the area for the next hour. I put on a hat and joined them. Didn’t take long for that situation to turn around!

Later that night at the supermarket, I bumped into a young woman who works at one of my favorite restaurants. The last time I had seen her, I had made a badly-timed, badly-delivered joke that ended up sounding very rude. The restaurant had gotten quiet at just that moment, so everyone, including the shop owner, had heard it, and I was sure that I was banished from the restaurant for life.

Finally given the chance to apologize (after kicking the idea around and not doing it of my own volition), I did, and she brushed it off and said that I was still welcome at the restaurant.

What a weekend!