Saved Scribbles: Izu Peninsula I love you!

This past weekend I drove with three other J.E.T.s down to the Izu Peninsula for a small dose of beach camping and onsen relaxation. Leaving at 4:30 a.m. to make it down to Izu beaches before noon, Beth (my predecessor), her boyfriend Brandon, Lucy, and I piled into a small two-door car and made our way to the expressway. Toll roads in Japan are incredibly expensive, and Beth explained that the government thinks that if it makes people pay huge tolls, people will drive less and will use public transportation more. This sounds like a great idea, and I’m sure it would actually work if the government provided an affordable public transportation alternative to private commuting. In Japan, however, trains and busses are just as expensive as driving on the highway.

Some examples (all one-way tickets):

To take a 3.5 hour bus ride to Tokyo: $60
To take a 30 minute bus ride to my other school: $6
To take a 40 minute local train ride to Nagano City: $6
To take a 2 hour commuter train ride northbound: $32
To take a 2 hour ferry ride to Sado Island: $20

The expensive public transportation infuriates me. I don’t understand why a Japanese public tolerates paying exorbitantly high travel expenses for BOTH public and private transportation. I’d like to think that Americans would take to the streets the day their government tried to make them pay $45 for a 2.5 hour drive on the expressway (our toll expense each way this past weekend). I wouldn’t be as angry about the pricey transportation if there was a cheaper alternative, but there isn’t. When you pay $4.60 for a gallon of gas and then have to shell out big tolls on top it, tolls that help pay for toll collectors to stand in front of tollbooth money machines to take your money and insert it in the machine for you (yes, we saw a few of these unneeded workers on our trip), it’s easy to miss a few scenic views because you’re red in the face and looking down into your ever emptying wallet every half hour.

Traveling with Beth and Brandon, both J.E.T. experts as Beth is in her 4th year teaching in Japan and Brandon in his 3rd, I realized that I need to learn Hiragana and Katakana as quickly as possible if I want to get the most out of my time here in Japan. Learning these alphabets is crucial if I ever want to order my own food at a restaurant and avoid asking the waitress to pick a meal for me, get on and off highways at the right exits, and figure out fees to onsens and other attractions. It was so liberating going out for lunch on the first day of our trip and actually ordering and eating exactly what I was in the mood for—that day it was a sushi set plate with a tiny fish that was supposedly caught that morning, diced up, and served sliced on the bone. Beth and Brandon spoke and read Japanese all weekend to help Lucy and I understand different signs, sights, and menus, and it showed me what 30 minutes of studying a day while at work (Brandon’s seemingly skimpy study regimen) could help me achieve. They are both fluent in certain settings and situations—restaurants, hotels/hostels, karaoke and traditional bars, gas stations, asking directions, etc.—and can read most signs that cross their paths. I’m proud to say, after two days of studying while on the clock, I now know how to read Katakana characters! A small feat, but

one nonetheless. Get ready Hiragana, I’m comin for you tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and I aint stoppin till I’ve chewed you up, digested you, and spit you out into a muddy rice field!

I won’t waste time and energy explaining exactly what we did because the pictures can do all the talkin, but we had a great time. In a nutshell, we swam in the surf, watched the sunset from a seaside point, went to an onsen completely made of wood to wash off before dinner, ate a Mexican/Indian meal (do you see what Japanese beachside tourist restaurants come up with when they are left to their own devices and the constant cash flow that pours from the pockets of traveling white folks?), camped for free at the beach, had drinks under the moonlight and tried to talk over the pounding surf, went to an onsen the next day that was precariously perched on a cliff looking out over the ocean, ate more food, drove more, and paid more tolls.

More to come as life unfolds,

Andrew