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Watch Your Step
The famed twin vine bridges in Iya Dani. Some people were literally crawling to cross it. They had the fear. There are two distinctive types of hikers to be found in Japan; the ridiculous and the absurd.
The first type of hiker is the gear buff. They aren’t hard to spot. They are outfitted from head to toe in the latest European and American outdoor gear, their hiking boots are so fresh that they may as well have just been pumped out from the factory mold, their hats are securely attached to the collars of their high performance sports shirts, their breathable hiking pants are stowed into their super fashionable gators, and ultra small carbon-kevlar kaleidoscopic poles are firmly attached to lightweight daypacks. They are only then ready to descend from the air-conditioned interiors of their tour buses and be whisked more than halfway up the mountain on music filled gondolas before making the final push for the summit. This is the ridiculous.
The second type of hiker is the more fashion conscious. The girls balance on 3 inch stiletto heals as they slowly make their way up the precarious mountain paths and a perfectly manicured hand remains firmly on the back of their mini skirts to protect from the unexpected gust of wind. The men struggle to maintain
their balance in pointy white leather shoes that extend to about twice the necessary length as they follow their girlfriends and try to catch a peak of their bare derrieres. And, amazingly enough, not a strand of dyed hair is out of place on either of their carefully coiffed heads. This is the absurd.
Or maybe I was quite the sight to them?
I wandered amongst these high-tech mountain warriors and wilderness beauty queens with a weeks worth of red and brown stubble protruding from my chin, a pair of Adidas sneakers that have undoubtedly seen better days, and a t-shirt that was so filthy that I had to discard it in the nearest trash bin as soon as I made it to the city.
It baffles me to think that I have to be worried about my appearance, even in the wilderness! There is no escape in fashion conscious Japan.
I had traveled to Japan’s remote Iya Valley in Tokushima to see if it lived up to it’s name, the Tibet of Japan. What I found there was definitely no Tibet but it sure was Japan. This once fabled area of Shikoku that was prized
Super Stylin'
losing it while sitting on the bus in a literal cavalcade of traffic jams for its remoteness and beauty has been made over in the same way that is already so common throughout Japan. The beautiful turquoise water that once flowed freely down the valley’s rivers is now confronted by an absurd amount of dams, hundreds of eager tyro fly fishers line the river banks in hope of landing one of the few remaining river trout and buses, bikers and cars line the winding roads bumper to bumper creating a traffic jam that wouldn’t be out of place on the streets of Bangkok. It truly is a paradise lost and the Iya Valley that is laid out on the pages of Alex Kerr’s novel “Lost Japan” can now truly live up to that title.
I doubt Iya Valley is always like this and I have heard many good things about it from a number of my friends. I think the crowds and traffic was mainly due to bad timing on my part. I went there in the midst of Japan’s Golden Week, the treasured couple of days that workers across Japan are able to escape their offices and see their countries great outdoors. They swarm across these mountain valleys in hordes, making it
A Dot of Blue
a little color is always good into every nook and cranny and leaving little peace to be found for people like me. The first night I was so pressed to find a place to pitch my tent that I followed a store keeper’s advice and set up next to the local train tracks. It turned out not to be that bad but just the idea of having to camp next to train tracks when I had traveled all the way into the mountains killed the vibe of things.
The best part about that occurrence was that I finally had a much awaited encounter with a rather large tanuki. I’m still not quite sure what they are. The Japanese like to call them raccoon dogs but they look more like some sort of badger. They are famed throughout Japan for there mischievous ways and their absurdly proportioned and magical testicles. There are statues of these little guys all over Japan and I’ve been literally obsessed with them since watching Miyazaki’s movie, “Pom Poko”. It was pretty cool to finally see one. Many Japanese have never even had the chance and it just appeared by my tent one night. It will be a story to go down
in the books, that’s for sure. And I am beginning to believe that there may actually be some truth behind the magic of these guys. Only a week after seeing one something really really nice has happened to me and the connection with tanuki’s played a big part. I can't remember the last time I've felt this happy! I wonder if it was just a coincidence??? Mmmmmm… taaaaan taaaaaan nuki.
After escaping the tour bus madness in Iya Valley I made my way into Matsuyama. It was strange but the city almost felt calmer than the valley. It seemed like everyone had packed up and shipped out to get amongst it in the woods. It’s strange but it was almost nicer to be in the city, which is something that I can rarely say. However, while there I had another choice encounter, just this time it wasn’t something that I can exactly say I was looking forward to.
The idea of taking a bath, in the nude, with a yakuza is not a highly sought after experience. It is best avoided to say the least. However, on that slightly hung over and rainy afternoon I had the pleasure
It's Made of Vine and it's a Bridge = Fame
Old samurai clans used to keep these up so that they could easily cut down the bridge and run to safety on the other side of the valley. I was contemplating a similar course of action to escape the tour bus hordes. of doing so.
It is quite the sight to see an old Japanese man wandering around with full arm and back tattoos, in the buff. There is something in the back of your mind reminding you not to look but you can’t help yourself from doing otherwise. The super colorful and highly detailed tattoos spread all over his upper body and added to his staunch presence. Other bathers backed away, showing him their respect and giving him the space that he commanded. The atmosphere of the usually euphoric onsen room also took on a sudden change.
The yakuza are Japan’s gangsters. They run the underworld of this otherwise safe and clean cut society and they aren’t to be messed with. They tend to be super nationalistic and aren’t that fond of non-Japanese.
So there I was. A little blond hair, blue eyed American without a single tattoo on my body trying to avoid eye contact with him. Images from Beat Takeshi’s movies kept on flashing to mind as I tried to keep my eyes on the floor and towel over the privates. I couldn’t have been more out of my element; a single white boy, surrounded by
Japanese and wandering about stark naked in an onsen, and an onsen with a yakuza.
Luckily, nothing happened. I walked out of the baths a little perplexed but with all of my fingers in tact and another story to tell.
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Jennie T
Jennie Terman
duuuude
Yeah, it sounds like iya valley was golden week hell for you. I went there in late Autumn last year, and there was almost no one around. And there were certainly no tour buses, as I had to take a local school bus to make it out to Mt. Tsurugi. I was the only guest at the minshuku I stayed at. But you are sooo right about the absurdity of hikers in Japan! Oh, and don't you have a ton of tanuki on uoshima? Maybe they never made it out to your island, but there's always a few running around at dusk outside of my apartment. I can't believe you took a bath with a yakuza!!!!!! AHHHH!!