Kyuu Shuu - Journey to Aso-san 火口
The land on the way to Aso-san, a live volcano, is old, harshly used, and dry. Perhaps it was once forested -- there are a few trees -- but now it's empty, sere, brown grassland, heavily eroded and badly overgrazed. Cow country. Here be Japan's cowboys. Here people eat meat, heavy sauces intriguingly influenced by Italian cooking, corn (you can even buy a can of corn juice in the everpresent coin machines), and few of the greens I've become accustomed to farther north.
Ads everywhere prove John Wayne movies are still popular here; he almost seems to be a local hero. I see a poster for Rio Bravo, one of my favorites when I was 13 and a Ricky Nelson fan.
Even the friendly bus driver is a wannabe cowboy. He tells me he has studied kendo and rides horses, as his white-gloved hands turn the wheel and we swing around Aso's steep curves with authority. I'm a cowboy, he says with a grin; the word, in Japanese, is "cowboy."
It's his last trip, and I'm his only passenger, having been forced to leave, with hundreds of others, on my first visit earlier today. [Just as I approached the crater, the winds changed, setting red lights flashing and klaxons beeping. Efficient, white-gloved guards guided us, quickly, back to the parking lots, saying "Gas." Half a dozen tour buses and thirty or so cars headed out. I began to hike down the trail with those who had walked up, but the couple who had given me a ride up the mountain stopped to pick me up before I'd even considered hitching again.]
Now I'm back, wanting to see Aso so I can leave in the morning.
My driver pulls in at the commercial area before the final trip to the top. Seven minutes, he tell me. Do I have a camera? He grabs it and assertively guides me to the railing. He takes two pictures of me with a gorgeous, dry mountain and clear sky behind me. I turn the tables and pressure him into letting me take his picture as well. Some Japanese workers are viewing the interchange with smiles and nods; I grin at them.
We climb back into the bus, the two of us, in a companionable mood. At the top he says he's the last bus and will leave at five; I tell him I understand and will go down with him.
Walking up to the crater, easily identified by a large white plume of steam, you are struck by the looming presence of half a dozen round concrete bunkers. If Aso suddenly spewed lava and ash, would we be directed to hide in those bunkers? Surely, if the mountain really began to go off again, everyone would rather flee down the mountain in terror than wait to be buried at the top in a concrete grave. I walk past the bunkers, noting the benches inside, inadequate even for this early spring crowd, and look over the wooden rail.
At the bottom of the crater is gray-brown mud, color-coordinated with much of the land around us. Not surprisingly, since Aso created this land. The earthy, pastel tones of the dusty walls remind me of Death Valley's subtle, austere beauty.
A small altar's flowers and bedecked Buddha provide a bright contrast to the muted volcanic colors.
Below the crater, a large concrete building houses a mountain of trinkets awaiting sale to summer tourists, but the tables are covered now and the building nearly empty. I prefer to await my bus in the cold evening wind outside. I huddle against the building, admiring another, more formal Buddha and small temple nearby. Looking at this second Buddha against the volcano's rising smoke, I enjoy the contradiction: Buddha's peace against the background of an unpredictable, sometimes violent mountain.
***
That night I watch a TV show about Yagyu with the women who run the hostel. I am mesmerized by the samurai on the large screen. It's riveting, fabulous, high quality, the fight scenes clearly influenced by Kurosawa's films fifty years ago. I don't need to understand the Japanese (though obaasan wants to tell me) as I watch the close-ups of the actors faces; Yagyu and his old sword teacher, talking about the political situation. I want Japanese TV, badly. NHK Channel 9, every Friday night, the adventures of Yagyu. I ask, and am told the Shinsengumi series was Monday nights, but it is over. I'll try to find videotapes in Tokyo.
I share an overheated dorm room with women from France, Germany, and Australia, and fall asleep to the hum of electrical wires outside.
I rise early, pack, and slip away to walk down to town. Nearby I find a small, lovely cemetery, carved stone columns freshly decorated with flowers even though it's early on a Sunday morning. Families have already been here to honor their dead, but I only see one woman now. It's a beautiful sight, these small monuments of stone covered with flowers, but I feel uncomfortable about intruding on the peace by taking out my camera. I simply walk by, breathing the fresh morning air, enjoying the moment.
All the way down to town, daffodils are pushing up through the grass at the side of the road, their cheerful yellow flowers just beginning to bloom.
Ads everywhere prove John Wayne movies are still popular here; he almost seems to be a local hero. I see a poster for Rio Bravo, one of my favorites when I was 13 and a Ricky Nelson fan.
Even the friendly bus driver is a wannabe cowboy. He tells me he has studied kendo and rides horses, as his white-gloved hands turn the wheel and we swing around Aso's steep curves with authority. I'm a cowboy, he says with a grin; the word, in Japanese, is "cowboy."
It's his last trip, and I'm his only passenger, having been forced to leave, with hundreds of others, on my first visit earlier today. [Just as I approached the crater, the winds changed, setting red lights flashing and klaxons beeping. Efficient, white-gloved guards guided us, quickly, back to the parking lots, saying "Gas." Half a dozen tour buses and thirty or so cars headed out. I began to hike down the trail with those who had walked up, but the couple who had given me a ride up the mountain stopped to pick me up before I'd even considered hitching again.]
Now I'm back, wanting to see Aso so I can leave in the morning.
My driver pulls in at the commercial area before the final trip to the top. Seven minutes, he tell me. Do I have a camera? He grabs it and assertively guides me to the railing. He takes two pictures of me with a gorgeous, dry mountain and clear sky behind me. I turn the tables and pressure him into letting me take his picture as well. Some Japanese workers are viewing the interchange with smiles and nods; I grin at them.
We climb back into the bus, the two of us, in a companionable mood. At the top he says he's the last bus and will leave at five; I tell him I understand and will go down with him.
Walking up to the crater, easily identified by a large white plume of steam, you are struck by the looming presence of half a dozen round concrete bunkers. If Aso suddenly spewed lava and ash, would we be directed to hide in those bunkers? Surely, if the mountain really began to go off again, everyone would rather flee down the mountain in terror than wait to be buried at the top in a concrete grave. I walk past the bunkers, noting the benches inside, inadequate even for this early spring crowd, and look over the wooden rail.
At the bottom of the crater is gray-brown mud, color-coordinated with much of the land around us. Not surprisingly, since Aso created this land. The earthy, pastel tones of the dusty walls remind me of Death Valley's subtle, austere beauty.
A small altar's flowers and bedecked Buddha provide a bright contrast to the muted volcanic colors.
Below the crater, a large concrete building houses a mountain of trinkets awaiting sale to summer tourists, but the tables are covered now and the building nearly empty. I prefer to await my bus in the cold evening wind outside. I huddle against the building, admiring another, more formal Buddha and small temple nearby. Looking at this second Buddha against the volcano's rising smoke, I enjoy the contradiction: Buddha's peace against the background of an unpredictable, sometimes violent mountain.
***
That night I watch a TV show about Yagyu with the women who run the hostel. I am mesmerized by the samurai on the large screen. It's riveting, fabulous, high quality, the fight scenes clearly influenced by Kurosawa's films fifty years ago. I don't need to understand the Japanese (though obaasan wants to tell me) as I watch the close-ups of the actors faces; Yagyu and his old sword teacher, talking about the political situation. I want Japanese TV, badly. NHK Channel 9, every Friday night, the adventures of Yagyu. I ask, and am told the Shinsengumi series was Monday nights, but it is over. I'll try to find videotapes in Tokyo.
I share an overheated dorm room with women from France, Germany, and Australia, and fall asleep to the hum of electrical wires outside.
I rise early, pack, and slip away to walk down to town. Nearby I find a small, lovely cemetery, carved stone columns freshly decorated with flowers even though it's early on a Sunday morning. Families have already been here to honor their dead, but I only see one woman now. It's a beautiful sight, these small monuments of stone covered with flowers, but I feel uncomfortable about intruding on the peace by taking out my camera. I simply walk by, breathing the fresh morning air, enjoying the moment.
All the way down to town, daffodils are pushing up through the grass at the side of the road, their cheerful yellow flowers just beginning to bloom.