I slept pretty well, though I did require ear plugs against the snoring. Luckily most hostels in Japan offer them for free at the front desk along with an assortment of items travelers often find themselves lacking; brushes, toothbrush and paste, towels, hand sanitizer, the works. The earplugs were all I ever need or take, though I have tried the others and always feel bad using single use items which are barely past perfectly new before hitting a trash heap.
I met Spike in the morning, the other American from California whose travelling with Ryan whom I met and talked God with last night. We agreed to meet in town and hike the top-rated mountain on the island. They had their own rental car, which was filled to the gills with their luggage, which was enormous compared to my own, so I took the bus instead.
I found a coop store which had lots to offer and filled up on snacks and drank a full liter of juice and felt so good I was giggen with myself and the birds who I was singing with and enjoying myself fully. The boys showed up in their car, much less stuff now, and we drove up the mountain to the trail parking lot, chose to go barefoot the whole way and charged up the mountain together. It was a little slow at first but once we got past the first gravel portion and metal grated bridges to the thick, old growth soil and mud in the woods we were free to run.
My companions told me of themselves, of how they were both in the UFC and had come to Japan to fight in their own league, one that is similar to the UFC but is entirely owned by the Japanese and is a much different organization in practice, plus they can be paid in cash. They also told me their plans for God in the world, starting their own churches, one with martial arts as the main theme, and another more traditional in form. These men were 23 and 27 years old, but built like tanks. They thought I was their age, but I was older than both by 11 to 15 years.
It was a marvelous experience for more reasons than it being a recharging hike in the woods, that much was certainly true, especially doing it barefooted, but the fact that we were three men, mostly strangers, meeting in a strange land in a stranger island known for its connection to the gods, and all of it wrapped in a level of religious observance I have not experienced since 2001 when I last considered myself part of the church.
Now when you see UFC fighters beat their opponents into pulp and come to the microphone afterward to thank God, I almost always dismissed it as part of their persona, and surely it is, but what I experienced with Spike and Ryan showed me this is a real thing, it isn’t fake for everyone, for we prayed and read the bible, talked about passages and conversed with each other about their meanings, about whether or not we were really damned for some things and not for others, such as being homosexual. My stance was that it isn’t evil, it just doesn’t lead to the most profound life we are all meant to have, with a family of our own.
As much as I have come to abhor religion and everything about it in my youth, I found something there with those men, huddled together in prayer, that I know only exists in such a framework, and feeds the humans desire for meaning and comfort, community and guidance. It’s why religion has survived this long and why it will continue on until the time humanity has grown up and no longer needs it.
While we were ascending up the mountain a Japanese hiking with a woman man offered us Cannabis, the UFC fighters looked at the man, then at me, alarm bells ringing in my mind. The fact that 1/10th of a gram will land you seven years in a Japanese cell, combined with the fact that the man looked every inch a policeman, made me react casually if not well practiced at diffusing very serious situations.
“We don’t smoke.” I said, and charged past the man.
“You think he was a cop?” Spike asked
“I smelled it on him.” I said.
“Not worth it anyway.” Ryan said. We all nodded.
We ran into our previous hostel guests near the top, they had come from the other end of the mountain earlier that day, and we all rushed down the hill even as night descended fully and we could barely see a thing. Spike jumped in the river naked and got out in time to not be seen by our pursuers. We left the mountain in our car, not sure if the park had been closed and we would not be able to leave, this was a warning given to us by the group we met, but it turned out to be a misunderstanding. The place was closed, but the road was open. We took it to the coast and found a restaurant nearby.
Now I’m no stranger to big meals, but not at places like the one we went, which although nice and all, it was a no chairs, sit on your cushion type deal, but the bill all told with me not having ordered anything was 47,000 yen, roughly $300 US. Those boys could eat and drink! We left the place with a moment of indecision on whether or not I should drive, as I had not drank and they were clearly under the influence. But as I had no license and the campground was close by Ryan drove.
We got into the tents and fell asleep, but not before Spike kept making gay jokes about looking at him naked since he never sleeps with clothes on. Ryan and I just shook our heads.
“Ain’t nobody interested.” Ryan said.
“Nobody.” I agreed, and we all went to sleep.
The next morning we had coffee, read the bible, went skinny dipping in the ocean, my first time being fully submerged in the Japanese sea. It was very cool, but not cold, and the morning light was warm. We blessed our journeys and they dropped my off at the dock where I would be taking a ferry back to Kagoshima, and from there to Nagasaki, the place where the US Military dropped the second sun on Japan...