Category: Short Stories

Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.

Wolfe and I took the tram to our hotel. It was in an area of town I had never been to but was still pretty centrally located. We checked-in and were ready to get an actual meal. The yakitori place next to the hotel wouldn’t be open until dinner time, so we went back to our tram stop to get back downtown.

The tram system was a little confusing. Each stop has at least two lines (for the directions the tram travels in and sometimes transfer stations). There are different prices for different lines and destinations, but all the information is consolidated in one place and written in Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, and Greek. It was odd that Greek was one of the languages, but apparently Hakodate has a notable Greek population, likely related to all the Greek architecture and churches in the city.

Wolfe and I were going back where we came from, so we weren’t too confused. The two Tawainese tourists at the same tram stop were not so lucky. I’ve never seen anyone look more confused than those two women looking at that sign. I wanted to explain it to them, but Wolfe suggested I keep the man-splaining to myself and let them figure it out. They didn’t appear to speak Japanese or English anyway.

The tram came, but instead of looking like a normal street car, this one looked like a boat out of a Miyazaki film. Everyone working on it was in a red uniform to complete that notion. The woman checking tickets seemed to speak every language. The tram ride was surreal. We tried to covertly take photos.

We arrived downtown and the morning market was still open. We walked around looking at food, but since Wolfe doesn’t like seafood, our options were limited. We mostly took pictures of each other in goofy poses and at those boards that have a face-hole cut out for pictures. Some old lady started tagging along with us and requesting that we be in photos with her. In my three years in Japan, that had never happened to me. Wolfe said it had happened to her at least five times in the month she had been there, probably because she was “pale as a damn ghost.”

“Well, it looks like everywhere around here is seafood. It doesn’t have the same reputation as the seafood, but the beef and dairy in Hokkaido are supposed to be good. I actually had the best burger of my life here,” I told her.

“Dude, let’s check it out. I’m pretty skeptical, though.”

“I know, you’re from Indiana and eat a lot more meat than I do, but I nearly wept when I ate it.”

“Nearly?” she chided.

So we went back to Hot Box. The same couple was working there. For a moment, it seemed like they remembered me, but then I remembered that Japan just has incredible customer service. Hot Box did not disappoint. Wolfe was securely on the team. We slammed some gin and tonics with our food and felt it was about time for a nap. Unfortunately, the magical boat tram didn’t take us back to the hotel, just a regular one.

We re-emerged from the hotel, refreshed, and took a regular tram back downtown.

“Do you like jazz?” I asked.

Wolfe started laughing uncontrollably. I didn’t see what was so funny.

“Wait, are you serious? Have you not seen Bee Movie?”

That was the same line that Jerry Seinfeld, playing a bee, used to break the ice with a woman in the movie.

We went to the jazz bar. The same dude was working there. He had a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, but he kept to himself and put on a record. We drank some martinis.

“I don’t know why I ever order these. It sounds good, and never is,” I told her.

Wolfe got a vodka-soda and I had straight vermouth, another questionable decision but it made me feel like I was in a Hemmingway novel. Then we went to Bar Boozer. Taeko was working and remembered me, but she had lost the warmth she had when we first met. We had the bar special, some weird, sweet, blue drink, and left. We walked by where the punk show had been. There was an event the night before, but it would be closed the days we planned to be in Hakodate. We decided to walk back to the hotel and try out that yakitori place next to the hotel.

Wolfe and I are always silly together. I don’t remember how, but on that walk to the hotel, I made her pee herself laughing a little bit. Probably just bringing up how confused those women had been earlier.

We ate some chicken and drank sake at the yakitori place. For being next to a hotel, it seemed like every other customer there came in every day. We got back to the hotel and had sex for the first time in a long time. We used to call it platonic cuddling. Wolfe isn’t a cuddler though, so we slept in separate beds.

In the morning, we got on the tram and went to Goryokaku, an old fort. On a map, you could see it was fort was designed as a six-pointed star. I had seen it on the map before but hadn’t made it over there.

It wasn’t as touristy or magical as we anticipated. It seemed like it was mostly an attraction for Japanese kids on school trips. We walked around for a while, and the only place we kept thinking about eating at was Lucky Perrot.

“If we go back downtown and to the boardwalk, we can go to the original one. They have this clown shit all over the place,” I explained. The ones we had seen looked like regular restaurants.

We were taking the tram back at the same time that all the high school kids were heading home, so it was packed. Everyone kept looking at Wolfe, trying to catch a glimpse of the exotic foreigner and giggling.

The same woman with the high pitch, absurdly silly voice was working at Lucky Perrot. I thought her voice was funny the first time, but Wolfe couldn’t get over how silly it was. Especially the handful of English words she had said. We wept at our table.

We continued walking around and eventually came up Hakodate Brewing. First, we just went in for drinks, but we got some appetizers and a bottle of shochu to go. We were getting hammered. Night fell and I suggested we ride the ropeway up the mountain.

The atmosphere was far too romantic. Even when we were dating, we hadn’t done anything that made me feel like we were engaged. In a way, we were engaged, though. We had agreed that we’d marry when we were 40 if we were still single. It’s hard to buy food for one and use everything, you know?

We got back to the hotel and decided to keep the romantic theme. We took a bath together. The hotel had given us some scented bath salts. We bathed Japanese style–we took little showers outside the tub and then got in just to soak. We polished off the bottle of shochu and I shared some cigarettes with her. Nothing like chain-smoking and hotboxing cigarettes in the tub. A naked woman really improves the atmosphere of any room.

The following morning, we had enough time for lunch before our train to Sapporo. We went to Hot Box one last time. I’ve still never had another burger come close to as good. And I never have fallen in love with another city since.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

Read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

Two years passed.

My friend, Wolfe, told me she would be coming to visit Japan for a month. She would spend the first half sightseeing with some people we knew from college but wanted to see me, too. We made plans to go to Hokkaido together because my place in Iwate would be on the way. She was mostly interested in going to Sapporo, but I told her I would only go if we could spend a few days in Hakodate. She obliged.

Wolfe showed up a few days before we’d leave. She knew a few of the other Americans living in my town, and they were able to get off work to spend some time with her. She met me in my office building to get the key to my apartment.

I hadn’t seen her in years. She had blue hair, more tattoos than I recall, and was showing a lot of skin for Japan.

We had tried dating for a little while in college but decided we worked better as friends. Then we started sleeping together now and then. It was simpler to just not worry about what our label should be. She would be staying with me, but I wasn’t really sure if we’d be sleeping together. This all rushed through my mind when I saw her waiting in the lobby.

“I probably shouldn’t come up, right? I’m too fucking sweaty and white and apparently scandalous for this country.”

She was right. The people at work already thought I was wild enough for going to all the underground punk shows and for wearing my orange Doctor Heming Grand’Pa baseball cap with a suit every day.

The next day, we went to a punk show, spent the next day being hungover and watching Master of None, and then it was time to go to Hokkaido.

Things would be different this time around. For one thing, I lived in the suburbs south of the city instead of in the countryside to the north. They had also completed the bullet train to Hakodate, so we would be arriving in style. Wolfe, as a visitor, was able to get a rail pass for tourism, and she had already been using it like crazy. I had to pay normal-style.

On the way to the local train station, it was hot as blazes. I had the longest beard I had ever grown at the time, and I had never trimmed it. I had my mirror-like sunglasses on.

“You look like, 80% more African American right now,” she said, laughing.

Spending time with her made me realize that other than the punks I knew, I really didn’t like any of my friends in Japan. We had known each other for about five years. We were in the same tour group when I visited the college we ended up at.

It’s hard to say what we were talking about. Just pure silliness. We got on my local train and had some time to kill before our bullet train ride. We stopped at a coffee shop in the station. When I worked on Saturdays, I would always eat breakfast there. It wasn’t particularly good, but it was cheap. And that’s what you want when you’re killing time.

I spent most of the meal trying to tell her a joke, but thinking about it was making me laugh so hard I was weeping. She took a picture of me crying in the coffee shop.

We picked up some lunch boxes and booze for the train ride. Wolfe didn’t like beer, so she got chu-hai.

“You know, Sapporo is famous for beer,” I said, opening a Sapporo on the train.

“Fuck you, dude,” she said.

Then I read Norwegian Wood until we arrived at the bullet train station. They called it Hakodate Station, but we had about an hour on local trains before we were at the real Hakodate Station.

The final leg of the local train ride was the same line I had taken camping years before. Things looked pretty much the same. I started wondering if I would actually leave Hakodate this time around.

Read Part VI.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

Read Part I, Part II, and Part III.

 I still had two hours to burn until I could check-in to my hotel, so I decided to go to the ropeway up to the peak of Mount Hakodate. I was already at the bus stop in front of the train station, and the free tourist bus arrived shortly after I made my decision.

Approaching this mountain now for the second time, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already done this. The mountain was beautiful and it was peak cherry blossom season in Hokkaido.

The ropeway was in an area with strong Greek influences in architecture and a Greek Orthodox church. Just outside the ropeway, there was a mural on a wall of some people that made me feel like I was in Greece two thousand years ago. That sensation passed, I saw the ropeway wouldn’t be open for another half an hour, and started to roam around. I soon found myself in a park at the base of the mountain, filled with cherry blossoms and an old fountain covered in verdigris. I took about 30 photos and a short stop motion sequence of the fountain and started wishing I hadn’t got a hotel so that I could sleep in this park. I also found a vending machine with the most enchanting orange soda I’ve ever had. I generally don’t drink many sweet drinks, but that soda was the nectar of the gods.

After a while, I went back to the ropeway and bought a ticket. I couldn’t help but notice that all the brochures and photographs of the view showed it at night time. I also noticed I was the only one going up alone. I didn’t care, I was fascinated by the view.

At the top, I figured I would go through the gift shop first and was happy to stumble upon a few real marimo moss balls. The ones I had bought for my friends were fake, but these were real and I figured I should get a few and keep them forever. They were tiny. The information on the package said they should grow about one millimeter a year. I started thinking about how large they could be by the time I am old, and how they could bring me back to this place. That was enough incentive to buy a set of two.

The outdoor observatory was windy as hell, but it was a beautiful sunny day. The mountain is at one of the tips of the island of Hokkaido, so looking in most directions, there was only the sea. I thought it was incredible. But the observatory was set up to mostly have a good view looking inland at the city. Seeing the shape of the land was cool, and I could tell from the pictures that this would be the case at night, but with lights from buildings forming the coastline. I saw there was an access road up the mountain and wished I hadn’t bought a round trip ticket so I could use it to walk down. I thought it was strange there was a one-way ticket up the mountain option before.

I was on a mission to get the most out of my ticket up the mountain, and after a while, I noticed that no one from my ropeway car was still on the mountain. The view going back to the foot of the mountain was just as incredible, and I made a short stop motion sequence of it.

It was late enough to check-in to my hotel, and this time I remembered that bikes were available to rent at the hotel. But the advertising was a bit misleading–there were literally three bikes, so none were available. In the hotel room, knowing I would either need to walk or take public transportation, I checked a map and thought about how far away the unexplored areas of town were. There didn’t seem to be much on it or nearby, but I couldn’t stop thinking about a place marked Midori no Shima—Green Island. 

I made my way there. It was, indeed, just a grass-covered island. I walked around the area for a while, but it seemed like I was suddenly in the suburbs and started walking back towards where I had spent the past few days. It was growing dark and I didn’t know where the day had gone. I stopped in what I thought was a coffee shop for a snack, but it was actually an Italian restaurant and I had a proper meal. I wasn’t ready to go to bed but had no appetite for alcohol and wasn’t sure how to pass the time. I felt like I had taken in all I could. I got back to the hotel and figured I would go back out later, but I took a bath and went to bed instead.

In the morning, I took a quick bike ride around the ropeway area to look at the buildings and cherry blossoms. At checkout time, I felt like I had spent enough time in Hakodate and checked out of my third and final hotel room for the trip.

I still had my notes about the ferry from the other day, so I got on a bus outside of Hakodate station. A few blocks from the stop, I seemed to be in a warehouse district. It was, without question, the least touristy part of town I had seen. The ferry was a few blocks away, the sea was hidden until it was right upon you. Other than the smell.

The ferry place wasn’t really a ferry place, they just used one of their cargo ships as a ferry across the strait once every few days. The notes I had were relevant for that day specifically. 

The guys at the ferry place seemed more confused that the situation wasn’t due to a language barrier than anything else. They called me a taxi and had them take me to a fulltime ferry. The guy in the taxi refused to believe that I could speak Japanese and had to call into HQ to make sure the destination I kept saying was correct. It was. He brought me there and I was just in time to catch the next ferry.

Onboard, I picked up some snacks and beer from a vending machine and found a place on the floor to sit where I could see outside. I wasn’t expecting the seating to be on the floor, but there were cushions. There were a couple of Chinese women on the ship with us and they shared my excitement for what felt like an adventurous way to travel. I took advantage of the fact that I was in Japan and left my valuables completely unguarded while I walked around to take pictures with the other two tourists. By the time I came back, all the other passengers were asleep and we hadn’t even left.

I sat down and drank a beer and ate some dried squid. The boat started moving eventually. Looking out into the sea was exciting at first, but after about an hour I had finished all my beer and snacks and fell asleep. I woke up hoping to get a glimpse of the shore before we arrived, but found that we had already docked and would be disembarking soon. We arrived in what looked like a parking lot and I was lucky enough for there to be a taxi left without a passenger. I put my bag in the backseat of the car and took one last look at the sea. I turned around and was shocked by the deep green of the great pine trees in the distance.

Read Part V and Part VI.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

Read Part I and Part II.

They invited me to join them for the after-party after the show. The owner would cook Hakodate style yakisoba. He assured me that I wouldn’t be able to find this in a restaurant–anyone who wanted it would just go to their mom’s house.

Someone showed up with two paper bags full of liquor.

As we drank and ate, I found out the owner was a Zen Buddhist and an old punk. I hadn’t met anyone into either of those things since I moved to Japan. I felt at home. Towards the end of the night, we played some music together and then I walked back to my hotel. I blacked out the moment I set foot inside and woke up with the lights on, my shoes on, and an open yet full beer on the table.

I didn’t have time to do much of anything, so I drank as much water as I could and checked out of my room without a moment to spare. Walking towards Hakodate Station, I was filled with regret that I was leaving. I had had such a great time in the city. I went into the station and over to the information center. After looking over some brochures, I decided to just ask the desk clerk about the ferry schedule.

She spoke English very well. She told me my options and offer to call me a taxi or explain the bus route to me. She assured me the bus would be simple because I could speak Japanese.

I went out to the bus stop in front of the station and caught a glimpse of the sea. I looked around and saw there was a hotel around the corner. I got out my phone and booked a room, then walked over. I didn’t need to be back at work for a week.

I wouldn’t be able to check-in for a  few hours, but they let me store my stuff there. I wouldn’t be able to borrow one of their bikes until I checked-in, but I felt light as a feather relieved of all my camping equipment anyway.

I made for the old warehouse district. There was a clown-themed burger place I had heard was another must-see place to eat, and another burger sounded good. I rationalized that it was still a local specialty as the chain was only in Hakodate, and I’d be going to the original Lucky Perriot with vibrant clown and circus imagery all over the place. I’d also get a nice walk down the boardwalk and see the old red brick warehouses shopping district in the daylight.

I decided I may as well see what was for sale in the old buildings. For the most part, it was nothing special. But it was love at first sight when I saw Dr. Heming Grand’Pa.

Dr. Heming Grand’Pa was a cartoon character loosely based on Ernest Hemmingway made by a local artist, sporting a baseball cap, big glasses, and bushy white beard. It was the silliest thing I had ever seen. I controlled myself and just bought a hat with the logo on it rather than purchasing everything else in the store, picked up a few marimo moss ball souvenir keychains for some friends, and made my way down the boardwalk to Lucky Perriot.

I walked in just as some Australian people were, so the lady at the counter, who had the silliest high pitched voice, figured I was with them and I nearly needed to step in to cross the linguistic barrier to rectify the situation, but she figured it out in context before I needed to say anything (the Australians did not appear to speak Japanese).

I ordered their classic burger that came with some mysterious sauce, and I got a clown-themed soda of indistinguishable, yet sweet, flavor. It wasn’t a bad meal, but it was far more touristy and underwhelming compared to Hot Box. No burger would ever really amount to much compared to Hot Box, though.

It was late enough to be able to check-in to my hotel, but I decided to stop at the department store on my way back. I picked up a shirt I could wear for work, a green t-shirt, and a pair of gray jeans (after mistaking another customer for an employee several times before he informed me that he didn’t work there).

At the hotel, I asked if they could bring me up some shaving cream and a shipping box. I went ahead and plugged my phone in and tore the tags off my new clothes while I waited. The shaving cream and the box came, I shaved, took a shower, and put my new clothes and hat on. I packed a good bit of my camping supplies and asked the people at the desk to send it to my apartment. Out of my camping clothes and crust-beard, I felt more like a regular member of society. After pondering the options on my phone for a bit, I decided to walk around town and look for good looking places to eat and drink.

I found a nice looking place, but the meal wasn’t particularly memorable. Then, I stopped at a bar and had a mojito while I consulted a map. There were two big parts of town I hadn’t been to yet, but both were rather far away and the past few days of near-constant walking were making the respective treks sound like a bit much. So I decided to go back to the jazz bar from the night before.

Much like the first night, no one else was around. I had vermouth and left. I went back to Bar Boozer after that, but Taeko wasn’t working. I had a drink anyway and found myself suddenly feeling fairly drunk just after leaving. I decided to call it an early night.

The following morning was a repeat of the one before: outside the train station, I decided I wanted to see more of the city and booked a third hotel room.

Read Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

Read Part I

I arrived in Hakodate feeling like a wildman. I had never camped in a city. It would only be my second time camping alone, with the first being the night before. I looked at a map and decided I’d spend the day walking around, checking out the greener bits of the map. My phone battery was low, so I continued to keep my phone off whenever I wasn’t using it. I knew it would be a chore to navigate like that, but it was more important to find lodgings before sundown than to find a place to chore my phone. I had bought a battery-powered phone charger, but I neglected to test it before I left and it didn’t work. I figured I would buy a charger and find a place to charge it after I found a place to camp.

I was uncontrollably pulled south, towards Mount Hakodate. I was from a featureless bit of midwestern America, so mountains were endlessly fascinating. 

Looking out the window of the streetcar, seeing Mount Hakodate rise before me, seeing the entire face of the earth slope towards it as we got closer, I was already sure I had made the right decision to spend some time in Hakodate. To think that before I had been planning on just having a meal in town on the way to and on the way back from camping.

The first green part of the map was incredibly disappointing. It was a tiny square of grass in the middle of what appeared to be a low-income neighborhood. No shelter from the street, no trees.

The second wasn’t much different.

After reaching the third location like that, I started to think about getting a hotel room. I looked at some on my phone but noticed there was a hostel a few blocks away.

Like a scene out of a corny movie, I compared the photo of the front from their website to the reality and was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to stay there. Nonetheless, I went inside. After dropping a few “hellos,” with no reply, I decided it was best to head back downtown where almost all the other hotels were.

I walked into the nearest hotel. The front desk attendant was surprised that I hadn’t booked in advance. And perhaps by my camping supplies. And that I was speaking Japanese to him. I gladly took their only vacant room and considered getting a cigar since it was a smoking room.

I put my stuff down in the room and promptly went across the street to the convenience store to buy a phone charger, a beer, and some dried squid.

Back in the room, I plugged my phone in, put my beer in the mini-fridge, and took a shower. I looked at some nearby restaurants on my phone after I got out. A lot of places would be closed for a few hours until they started serving dinner.

I didn’t eat much meat at the time, but in Japan, I tried to eat whatever the local specialty was and after a certain point, I ate meat on and off but never cooked any. Still, all the cattle in Hokkaido and my incredible appetite made the burger place a few blocks down the road sound like a good option. It had good reviews online, and the name reminded me of my weed smoking glory days back in America. It was called Hot Box.

It was easily the best burger I had had in my life and was one of the greatest restaurant experiences that I could have asked for. It was small, only big enough for about 3 small tables, a small bar by the counter, and another 4-person bar by the window. The music was incredibly funky. A man and a woman were the only ones working, and I later found out they were married. He was covered in tattoos and did all the grilling while she did whatever else needed doing. No one else was really around because it was about 2 pm, so my food came out promptly. I had a cheeseburger with a fried egg and avocado, polished off with a gin and tonic. I took one of their business cards, assuming I’d frame it if I came to own a house with a mantle, and the guy recommended a night club that his friend would be playing equally funky or funkier music that his place at night at a place called Bar Gomez.

With no other real plans for the day, I figured I may as well have a drink somewhere. I had beat my sunset deadline by a large margin. I had heard of a few craft beer breweries in town, and one had a taproom that was about a mile away. It wouldn’t be open for a few more hours, so I just started walking around. I went past a jazz bar that was closed, and another promising looking bar called Bar Boozer that was also closed. Soon, I was back at Hakodate station. I decided to head towards the water. Walking down the road behind the station, I could hear someone practicing the trombone. Soon, I could see them practicing, looking out into the Port of Hakodate.

I saw some monuments and an anchor on the dock and went to get a closer look. It was some sort of museum, and it was closed. I continued down the coastline, fascinated by the view of Mount Hakodate ahead, trying to stop taking mental notes of places that looked like I could spend the night at.

I worked my way through the old brick warehouse district and found myself at one of the local breweries. I had the beer sampler and some local seafood appetizers and decided I would head back to the jazz bar on the other side of town. I took a different road back, but it was much less interesting than the seaside and the old brick buildings.

The jazz bar was just opening when I arrived. It was dark, filled with instruments and records, and cozy. No one else was there. They put on an old record and I had a martini.

We made small talk. He told me about an upcoming jazz event near where I lived in Iwate, and then he told me about some good hiking and camping spots in the area. I didn’t really have the heart to tell him I wouldn’t be around long enough to take advantage of his advice, and left after my first drink. Then had to see Bar Boozer. With a name like that, I had high expectations.

It was small, with just a bar and a single table. The bar was relatively long, so I was able to get a seat and still not sit next to anyone. There was a particularly cute bartender working. We made small talk. She was really into records, particularly American rap, like NWA. She also mentioned Bar Gomez but didn’t think it would be open.

There was a trashed old man at the end of the bar who would occasionally interrupt us. I couldn’t understand a word he said. Taeko, the bartender, explained that it was a mixture of local dialect and drunken old man nonsense. I was going to leave after one drink, but the old man left, and the other two customers left, and I liked the idea of being alone with her, so I ordered a second drink. We were starting to talk about seeing each other after she finished work for the night, but some other customers came in and she had to attend to them. I finished my drink, and she walked me out the door. Outside, she gave me her business card (because that is a thing in a Japan) and told me she wouldn’t be available until around 4 am, so she understood if I wouldn’t be able to stay awake, especially since I’d be catching a ferry in the morning. I told her I’d be able to sleep on the ferry.

At this point in the night, I was drunk as all get-out and did the only thing that was natural–I had some Hokkaido-style ramen at the nearest place that had a very old man working behind the counter. That’s how you know a ramen place is good: someone there had apparently dedicated their life to the craft.

I figured I should have another beer with the ramen, but the ones they served in the restaurant were so small that it just left me wanting to go to another bar. and then I thought about how I had no plans of any kind. I went by Bar Gomez and saw that it would still be closed for several hours–it was only about 9 pm. So I started wandering around town, looking for something, unsure of what. I thought about asking the palm-reader and she seemed to know. She gave me a bit of free advice: “You know what to do.”

Down an alley, I caught the unmistakable sound of live drums. I took a left deeper into the alley system, passed karaoke places and massage parlors, all but elbowing street women out of my way, following my ears to a venue. Outside, it sounded like Nirvana was playing, but it was definitely a live band. I found the door and went upstairs. The man at the door met me with incredible enthusiasm. I could barely hear him over the Nirvana cover band.

It was a convincing band. I got in for half price because the show was half over. I still got the normal two drink tickets, though. I sat down to watch the band and noticed there were about fifteen other people around, all of them at least fifteen years older than me, and nearly all men.

They played one more song before there was a break for the next band to set up, and the guy from the door came around to introduce me to everyone.

They were all thunderstruck that I could speak Japanese and also that I had just wandered in off the street. After some small talk, I went and cashed in a drink ticket for a beer. To my surprise, it wasn’t a Sapporo, but a Heartland. The big bottles, no less. I went back to my seat and watched a local punk band with relish. They were wearing leather jackets and had pompadours and everything. The vocalist had a The Stalin shirt on, too. In between songs, I asked the guy from the door if it was the The Stalin that I thought it was, and he looked at me as if I had fulfilled some prophecy.

Read Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.

All I really knew about Hakodate was that it was in Hokkaido, an old sea-side town, and I’d be able to find a place to camp not too far from the city. That was all I needed to know.

I was dying to go camping. I went with one of my childhood friends right before moving to Japan, but it had almost been a year and the spring was fast approaching. I couldn’t bear another day indoors.

I bought some relatively nice supplies, as it would be my first solo-camp and I would be heading into Hokkaido. I wanted to be prepared for a lingering winter if it came down to it.

I ended up getting a very warm sleeping bag, an ultra-light single-person tent, a tiny inflatable pad to sleep and sit on, some rope, a utility knife, and a hiking backpack to put it all in.

A few weeks later, my students were on spring break and my paid time off kicked in. I got on an express train to Aomori, which was then the same train set to travel under the Strait of Hokkaido, resurfacing outside of Hakodate.

Everywhere I had been in Japan had impressed me, but there was something different about Hokkaido and it was palpable the moment the train was back on the surface world and I could see the mountains.

I had enough time to walk around Hakodate and eat some lunch before my train off to the mountains. It was Saturday, so the morning market was out.

One of the greatest things about Japan is how everywhere has their own little special thing. Especially food. Hakodate was no different. After a solid walk around, I walked into a random place that had rice bowls with squid, squid being one of the “must-eat” things in Hakodate, according to the Internet.

It was incredible. I even took photos. Then, I stopped by a convenience store, picked up some bread, beer, nuts, two apples, and a bag of carrots and went to the train station. I got some local sake, wine, brie, and some trinkets I figured I could give to some friends eventually. I made a point to load up on marimo keychains. Marimo are little algae balls and the most beautiful word in the Japanese language.

Then I had to get to my train platform.

I was heading to Higashionuma Camping Ground, a tiny place a few kilometers away from Choshiniguchi Station, a train station literally in the middle of nowhere. The further the train got from Hakodate, especially after changing trains in the mountain town of Onuma, the more people really started to seem surprised to see a foreigner around.

I was in my element.

I got to the campsite and was happy to find that it was in the middle of the woods and right next to Lake Onuma, but disappointed to find how bitterly cold and fierce the wind was. I also found out that I was not allowed to build a fire at my campsite.

It was April 25, a Friday, opening day for the campsite, and the weekend before Golden Week. The boat rental was closed. I assumed the same building was the camp store based on the big plastic ice cream cone out front. I wasn’t sure about the bike rental, but I rode a bike around the mountains in my day-to-day life, so that didn’t seem like much of a treat anyway. Still, it was beautiful. I set up camp so I had a view looking across the lake straight at Mt. Koma-ga-take, it’s sharp peak coated in snow. While my back was turned setting up my tent, crows made for my bag of provisions. I scared them off once when they got close and assumed I had scared them good. But they played me for a fool and came right back and ate quite a bit of bread before I noticed them again.

I was unwilling to eat the same bread they had put their nasty beaks in, so I found myself with a bit of a shortage of food. Granted, I did anyway. I hadn’t counted on the camp store being closed for the season until Monday/the end of my planned stay.

I laid down in my tent, ate some cheese and drank some wine for a little while, then went on a walk. There wasn’t much hiking to be done in the area. It started getting dark, so I went back to the campsite, washed my face, grabbed my produce and beer and sat on a bench looking out at the lake until the sunset. The wind was getting fiercer and fiercer. I noticed how all the other campers had brought firepits them. They all looked so warm and cozy. No one else was there alone. No one else was a foreigner.

I laid back down in my tent, put my headlamp on and read some Dharma Bums. After a while, I got sick of reading with the headlamp but still wasn’t ready to sleep. So I put on an extra layer of clothes, grabbed my wine and cheese and went back out to the bench to look at the stars. I saved myself one last apple and a bit of cheese for breakfast. I still had about half a bottle of wine when I started getting cold and sleepy. I found that I was most comfortable keeping all my clothes on while inside my sleeping bag. The wind was constantly blowing, and my ultralight tent was not keeping in any of the warmth I was radiating. I curled up in my sleeping bag and woke up with the sunrise, brittle from the cold.

I ate what was left of my provisions (I had a sip of wine, but I was saving the sake for when I got home for no particular reason) and then made for what I had thought was the camp store the day before. It was more like a boat rental and restaurant that was indeed closed for the weekend, and would not have stocked general provisions like I had hoped anyway.

I got out a map on my phone to confirm that I was in a predicament. The mountain town I had changed trains in was the closest place I’d reliably be able to buy food. The next train was at noon. Five hours seemed like a long time to wait for a train that I would only ride for seven kilometers. And so I saw the opportunity for adventure.

I was staying at a free campground, so I figured I could just bring all my stuff and see if I could find a better place to camp on my journey to town to get food. Worst came to worst, I’d just come back.

So I packed up my campsite and made south down the road, walking alongside the lake. It was a nice walk. I kept finding nice little places to hang out, but none seemed like a good place to camp. Smoking weed in Japan was across the board pretty much not chill at the time, so I found myself struggling to think of a reason to linger anywhere more than a few minutes.

Soon, I was coming up on the next station south from where I started. The name had “hot spring” in the title, but it was closed for the season. I figured that meant the resort and not the train station and I could go confirm that in person, but then I noticed how the road did not lead to the train station. I would have to turn around to get to the turn to the proper entrance. Through the bush, I could see the train platform. I got out my phone and made sure no trains were due to come from the other direction anytime soon. Then I took a few looks around, ran across the street, jumped over the guardrail and ran down into the little patch of forest dividing the road from the railroad and felt alive for the first time in years. I cross the little forest and tossed my bag up on the platform and climbed up. The platform was a huge cement block overlooking what appeared to be a farm. I sat on the concrete for a moment, exhausted. I had far too much stuff with me and had it all on my back. I decided I may as well have a few sips of wine. Then I went to explore the farm. I’d only need to burn about an hour if I wanted to catch the train.

I could see horses from the platform off in the distance. I couldn’t really tell if they were fenced in. Near the train platform, there was a building in the shape of an ice cream cone. The sign in the window read “Close.” Shops in Japan were always either open or just close.

There was what I can only describe as a rabbit coop next to the great ice cream cone. They all froze as I approached. They were beautiful little creatures and I wanted to watch them for a while, but I felt bad for scaring them so continued down the little dirt road.

The further down the dirt road I got, the more it felt like I shouldn’t be there. I got to a gravel road and saw that if I continued straight, there was an enormous luxury hot spring resort ahead, accompanied by a construction team and their corresponding equipment. There was a smaller scale, but similar scene to the right. So I went left, toward what appeared to lead to nowhere. But it lead me to a view of the field that the horses were in.

I started to walk towards the now visible fence but got the feeling I was being watched and turned around. There was some old man riding a bicycle down the gravel road. I decided I had done enough exploring and started walking back to the train platform. As I walked, I got out my phone and confirmed that the way I had been going would have just brought me back where I had come from, but on a road instead of through the bush.

“Hello!” the old man shouted, moseying near on his bicycle. He looked like he was about 60, meaning he was probably about 100 years old. Generally speaking, Japanese people age like elves.

He was wearing one of those Hawaiian shirts that old Japanese men tend to wear. It was unbuttoned, exposing his tank top underneath. He had a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket.

We started talking. It was just small talk, “where are you from,” etc, etc. But as we spoke, I realized I hadn’t had an actual conversation with someone in a few days, so it was actually kind of refreshing. Sometimes I forget that humans are social creatures.

He was from Osaka and could kind of speak English, but he quickly switched to Japanese when he saw me reading the time table for the train in Japanese.

“Well, I better get back to my wife,” he said after a while and left me at the train platform after he confirmed I had read the time table correctly.

I sat on the ground, got out my wine and Dharma bums, but was much too distracted by the sound of birds and the lake in the distance to pay much attention to reading, and gave up to look at the clouds. My train came about twenty minutes later.

As I approached Onuma, I started wondering if I really wanted to just eat bread in the cold by a lake when sleeping in public, and thus urban-camping, is legal in Japan. So I decided to ride back into Hakodate and see what I could see.



Read Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.