The ferry back to Kagoshima was different than the one to Yakushima, it’s such a funny thing going the same route in reverse and while on a different vessel, making it almost entirely unique in flavor. The more journeys I make the more this dynamic strikes me. The whole, “you never enter the same river twice,” saying is a mantra for me now. Unlike the first journey days before, there was no movie I recognized playing, but this time I was far more engulfed in playing my Anbernic and reflecting on what had happened to me on the island. I’ve never ridden so far on a bike before, nor have I ever circumnavigated an entire island in a single day, on a bike or even in a car. There’s more to the story though, much more.
I was 13 the last time I truly worshiped God or participated in religion worthy of the name, if you discount the last two decades of shamanic work I’ve done with native tribes across the world from California to Peru that is, which are spiritual as opposed to dogmatic, thus belonging to very different worlds. The last two days have brought up a lot of memories and feelings from 25 years ago which I had not expected to find. It isn’t that I missed the religion, or even felt a sort of nostalgia for it, instead I feel a cruel mix of longing and regret for a different way.
I left the church at 13 because it was impossible to ignore the hypocrisy and institutional blindness which have either corrupted the church, or was its primary operating system since the start. That doesn’t mean that there is nothing to take away from the church, it simply means that the theological clothes which once suited us no longer do, and its time to grow into finer fabrics which both predate christianity and will exist long after its gone.
Back in Kagoshima I got another hotel room in the same place, tried to find one of two vegan options in the whole city, found it, but it was closed, 7/11 to the rescue once again! I booked a Shinkansen ticket to Nagasaki and got some good sleep. The next morning, I got on the train and was soon in the second city of rebirth from nuclear holocaust. On the way I called my former girlfriend Zoe, a fiery Taiwanese woman who could have been the one, if only I wasn’t out of my damn mind and allergic to long term commitments in my misbegotten youth. 15 minutes later, I had a plan to meet her in Taiwan during a once in a lifetime journey, an army of people marching for days without end for the pain and the glory of the fishing goddess.
The rest of the train ride was rather plain compared to my talk with Zoe, but exiting the doors I found Nagasaki to be a very beautiful place surrounded by tall rounded mountains much like those in Hao long bay, Vietnam. Unlike Hiroshima it has an inlet straight into the main portion of the city and the Japanese navy has a large presence there with some of the newest fully automated warships which are able to take on entire fleets without human crew to guide it.
The hostel I checked into was pretty cool, it had a great kitchen setup and I bought udon noodles, natto, okra and spices from 7/11, cooked them up together and was impressed by the outcome. I met many people there, and even talked with them about seeing some of the city, but as always, my lone wonderer nature took hold and I jetted across the city at random, locking on to the Glover compound, one of the most famous Westerner families in Japanese history, as they had helped modernize it back in the 1800’s. Their house was clearly very expensive for the time it was built, and given all the photos of their interactions with the Japanese at that time they seemed very much out of place.
I went into some shops outside the compound and found a Japanese flag patch which I bought and the owner said I would return one day. Always nice to have that said to you, even if it is within a financial interaction. I tried and failed to find a single vegan restaurant and went home with some rice balls and apples instead, always a winning combo and available everywhere.
I slept fine and in the morning I took the trolly to the Nagasaki bomb museum, now this place was far different than the Hiroshima museum, smaller, underground, and creepy. You had to descend a spiral staircase beneath a large skylight and as soon as you entered the main doors you were subsumed by the sound of an old clock ticking loudly. Tick tok, tick tok! And as you walked you saw images of Nagasaki frozen in time the moment after the blast, a hellscape kept preserved forever beneath the place it happened all those decades ago.
I left that museum feeling terrible, just as in Hiroshima, only this time the ticking of its clock frozen in time beneath the earth remained within me too. I hear it even now, and perhaps that is best, for in our time the threat of nuclear war is more likely every day. Coming up from that spiral staircase was like being reborn, and perhaps I was, time will tell...