Japan: Nayoro, Hokkaido
A little late, but better than never: Our time in Nayoro, Hokkaido.
We got to Hokkaido hitch-hiking, which took about three days. The first day we made it from Fuji-Kawaguchiko to Nagano, the second day to Kitakami (near Akitsu) in one go, because a nice lady took us along for eight hours (after we had changed our destination sign to the nearest city on the map because we thought farer cities would scare away potential drivers). We slept in a public bath, which was an interesting experience. The next day we experienced some difficulties and still made it to Aomori in time to take a ferry to Hakodate, where we slept in yet another internet café.
From Hakodate, a single mother with three young sons took us to Sapporo, where we stayed a couple of days, one of which at their place. Eventually we took the bus to Nayoro to meet our new hosts and find out why everyone looked so unbelieving when we told them where we were going.
We found out. It’s because Nayoro is so insignificant it might not even exist. If we saw three cars a day we suspected an invasion. There are a lot of golf yards, though. And all the roofs have weird shapes, as do the street lamps and it makes no sense. I felt like being stranded on a different planet sometimes.
Our hosts were very friendly, but also a little on the strange side. They were vegetarians, which is generally fine by me, but their food consisted mostly of pumpkin and pickles, both of which I hate. The alternative was slimy noodles. Yum.
We cooked our own dinner with ingredients they gave us, but that was mostly… well, rice. Sometimes some vegetables: potatoes and pitiful, small carrots and corn, but no spice except salt; not even oil. Needless to say it was a little bland. Mostly we bought our own ingredients from the supermarket that was about 20 minutes away - after one of the bikes got repaired. Before that, it were 45 minutes.
WWOOFing is not supposed to work like that.
Apart from the treats we bought for ourselves, we lived off rice and kimchi for a month. I’ve come to love the freaking stuff.
The work was generally okay. Much of it was farm work: weeding, collecting beans etc. We did some stuff for the shop, like filling bags or labelling them. It was generally not too hard. Sometimes we did some overtime, but other days we had half the day off because there was nothing for us to do, so it was fine, all in all. The only thing I did not like was Bifuka. Bifuka is the city where the other house we sometimes worked at is located, and I hated it - because due to the way there and back we always left early and got back late, but most of all because of the toilet.
The house we stayed in in Nayoro had a compost toilet, which was bad enough. The one in Bifuka had a compost toilet too, but this one stank so badly you usually could smell it when you opened the front door. If you had to go there you had to pull a cloth over your mouth and hold your breath. The fact that someone actually lives in that house still astonishes me.
Bifuka, by the way, apparently means “many stones” in the language of the Ainu. Not kidding, too. Whenever we did farm work there we were hindered by stones and pepples - which we used to create a parking space.
There were two other WWOOFers at the place when we arrived, and they told us that they’d actually lived in the Bifuka house for a week. That possibility was like a shadow hanging over me the whole time. The lack of internet I could have dealt with, but the smell would have killed me.
When the girls from France were gone, my friend and I were asked to choose which one of us was to help in the café the next day. I volunteered, assuming we’d get to switch. We didn’t. It actually makes sense, because that’s a lot of explaining and learning-by-experience you don’t do twice if you don’t have to, but it meant I was stuck with the job for about three weeks. And it was terrible.
Well, actually it wasn’t terribly terrible - though I was mortified the first time I had to serve customers, and even more so the one time I had to take orders. Generally it was okay, even though the explanation usually came after the mistake. (I get send out to do something for the first time. When I get back, I get told how I should have done it. Planning ahead wasn’t a big concern there, in general.) Sometimes we had two customers a day (I got other tasks then), sometimes it was so stressful that I got no lunch break and no time to breathe for seven hours. The only really terrible thing was the cleaning, though. Every morning I had to clean the café, and that was terrible because the equipment I got were a very short broom that made my back hurt and a cloth. Not even a mob, which are a couple of yen a dozen, but a cloth. So every morning I spend an hour cleaning the damn floor on my freaking knees.
That’s what you get for a degree in Japanology. Pure gold.
One day we had a “German Night”, which was announced in the papers and all. During that, the customers got German food (which we cooked (my friend, mainly) with ingredients send from Germany, got pictures from Germany and a bit of explanation, and German music. In fact, I was teaching them a German song. Everyone actually sang along - I was quite proud. And relieved, to say the least.
Damn my friend, whose inability to hold a tune left me all alone with that one!
Also, they would have gotten German songs as background music, but the playlist we created wasn’t of our host’s liking, who thought it was too harsh and fast and new, even though we’d looked for slow, old songs. So we looked for even slower and older songs, finding some creepy ones from the sixties that probably were supposed to be romantic but only make you want to make sure your door is locked, and went as far back as the Comedian Harmonists. Took us ages. During the event in question, a friend of our host showed up with his guitar, and after half a song from our list he shut it down and tinkled away on his guitar. So much for that.
Another high point was the day I had to do overtime like hell in the café and my friend had to do even more overtime in Bifuka. Since Bifuka has no mobile reception and our hosts never thought of announcing stuff beforehand even if they knew it was going to be late or there would be a random trip to a beautiful location we would never have pictures of because of course we didn’t bring a camera to a random work day, I sat alone at home wondering if they’d all died in a freak accident. Being used to their slight airheadedness I didn’t worry too much, but it was beginning to make me nervous after a few hours. Night had fallen, it was pitch-black inside the house, and I was just deciding to shut down my laptop and go for a walk looking for car wrecks when I heard something moving in the other room.
Now, the other room was pretty much the same room, divided by some sliding doors that were open. Corn, rice, garlic and other stuff was stored there. Since the lights were out and I was blinded by the laptop screen, I didn’t see a damn thing, and you can imagine how happy I was when I realised that there was something in the room with me. Something big, by the sound of it.
It fled when I yelled at it, leaving a bit of destruction in its wake. Fortunately the front door was open, so it wasn’t trapped with me. By the time my friend and the others returned, every light in the house was turned on and I was still clinging to my broom.
The had been smashing pumpkins all day.
Altogether it was a good time, because the people were nice, even though I suspect that sometimes they were also quite stoned. I don’t miss it though - because of the food, and the fact that it gets freaking cold in a container-like house once the temperature drops near freezing at night, but also because of the environment. It was beautiful, but something about it felt off to me. I never really felt well there.
How off it felt both of us only realised when we returned to Honshu and immediately felt better than in ages. (And promptly fell sick. Such is life.)
After leaving our hosts we went to Wakkanai for two days, the most north city of Japan. We saw Russia from our backyard, stayed in an upper class private room while paying for a dorm because we were the only guests at the hostel and there was some mix-up. We made a trip to Noshappu-misaki (Because it’s called Noshappu. Seriously, how can you not go there?), then we returned to Sapporo where we stayed with our friend with the three boys again for two days. Then they drove us to Tomakomai, from where the ferry to Tsuruga (rather close to Kyoto) was leaving. We opted for this one because it costs as much as the one that only takes 20 hours but needs 34 hours instead - that’s one day we didn’t have to pay for accommodations.
On the down side, it took two days for the world around us to stop shaking.