12 Kobe and Osaka

We had to stay one day longer in Hiroshima than we expected because a typhoon was sweeping through the city. It was again a good day for catching up with ourselves, we cuddled up and stayed indoors. Before I started traveling I couldn't imagine that not having a home, a routine and a bed, meeting new people everyday and constantly adjusting to new environments would be so demanding. To have an extra day somewhere, empty of plans and meetings, blessed by some personal space and private time is a real treat. In other words, we didn't mind the typhoon at all.

We finally set out on a still rainy but way less windy Sunday morning and decided (we were becoming more and more experienced hitchhikers) that the best would be to take a short train ride out of the city and start waving our cardboard signs outside of city traffic. It proved to be a good plan. Two young girls picked us up after about 15 minutes of waiting. They were going to a nearby city for a weekend drive and were excited to hear our travel stories. We even gave them a short concert from the backseat, Hunor playing his jaw harp and me playing my sanshin. We had fun in the car but it was less fun to get out and start to look for another ride in the pouring rain. 

We were still 300km from our final destination. Who would want to pick up two soaking foreigners?… We were still smiling - although I have to admit it was not the most honest smile out there under the thunderbolt and the weight of my still too big backpack. After about twenty minutes even our cardboard sign melted in the heavy rain, so we gave up and looked for shelter by the closest convenience store. I thought I could give a chance to ask around and the miracle stuck like lightning after all the thunderbolt endured: the first person I asked was going in the right direction and was willing to take us. A middle-aged man driving home from Sunday golf. I asked him if it's OK to play golf in a thunderstorm and he said OK but apparently he wasn't very talkative, so even though I really wanted to know HOW, i stopped myself from asking. He dropped us off in a big parking lot with food stalls, toilets, covered shelters and a lot of people. Perfect for hitchhiking, good for escaping the rain and bearable to stay overnight if we couldn't get a ride. It was not easy. Kobe, our final destination was still about 150 km and although I kept on asking around maintaining my "hey, we are the best travel companions for sure" smile, either they were really not heading there, or they said they weren't because that was the easiest way to get rid of me. We met a lovely tour guide with a bus of elderly tourists, who offered us to give us a 100km ride on their tour bus. It was a surprisingly generous offer, but we liked the spot where we were, so we decided we were going all the way or nowhere. And our efforts were fruitful at the end. A man in his sixties picked us up and gave us a ride straight to Kobe. A retired businessman, speaking very good English. He told us he was traveling in the US in his 20s. "Then you have the kids, and you settle down. When you see the world, and move around, you extend yourself, you take a journey turning mostly to the outside. When you have kids, you learn about yourself and your parents, you re-live and face your own childhood. It is also a journey but you are turning inwards." 

I write so much in detail about our hitchhiking because it is an exciting experience indeed. Leaving the house in the morning, having just a vague plan of where and how you will end up that evening. Meeting people, hearing their stories, learning about their life, having fun, good conversation, or a nap. Riding all kinds of cars. Preparing cardboard signs. Trusting people. Letting people help you and give smiles, share dreams, laughs and positive energy in exchange. I feel this experience is reshaping my personality.

We arrived to our couch surfing host's place around 9 in the evening, had a good conversation with her and then we slept like babies dry and warm after a wet but adventurous day. 

The next morning it was raining just for a change. First we decided to explore the area around, and we soon realized we are in the funniest part of town - at least for foreigners. It is the Ijinkan district in Kitanocho. Kobe was one of the first open ports for western, especially European ships, and that turned it into a rather international port. The Ijinkan district was the district where the stylish villas of foreigners were built together with embassies and offices (or maybe the villas were later turned into embassies, I am not sure). Elegant, classy and green, on the steep hillside with a nice view on the port and the ocean. Today it is very popular among Japanese tourists, because the centenarian houses have been renovated, and they are open to the public as small museums, cafes and gift shops. Each house has a European country for a theme, there is the Belgian, the Austrian, the Dutch house and so on… And of course you can find all the cliches (and maybe more behind the scenes, we don't know, because we didn't feel the urge of paying the 1000yen entry fee to see Europe through the Japanese eye in Kobe…) So you have Belgian chocolate, Mozartkugels and wooden shoes in the respective houses. On the one hand, it is interesting to find such a mixed area in Japan, where usually the only choice as a foreigner is to adapt to the local rules and lifestyle - especially in architectural terms, since there are so many people, there is no space for extravaganza. On the other hand, as a European it was like looking at my culture with a double twist, an experience both interesting and comical. It felt like the artifical image a country creates for itself to attract tourism came to life here. I have to admit, it was a bit scary. They have a public toilet with huge mirrors and with a spacious and lavishly decorated room - for changing clothes, I found out later. Many ladies come here and change into clothes that fit these houses in their imagination (I would say European fashion 50 years ago) and then go for a photo shoot in this imaginary land. Watching them and their enthusiasm was like having dropped into a middle of a fairytale that I don't believe in. 

artistic installation at the public toilet in Ijinkan district

the changing room at the public toilet of Ijinkan district

In the afternoon we took a stroll in the harbor of Kobe, we learned about the great hanshin earthquake that stuck the region in 1995. They left a small part of the harbor untouched to give an idea of the devastation of the earthquake that hit in the early morning and demanded the life of more than 6000 people.　

I was in a gloomy mood, had enough of rain in the last few days, but Hunor was keeping up his good spirits, taking amazing photographs in the reflections of the puddles. This gave me a new perspective and a way to enjoy a city so alien on a rainy day. 

Kobe tower

just because i found it funny...

The next morning we (unusually)took a train to Osaka city, the biggest metropolis we have been in a long time. Endless lines of people and colorful signs for different trains were almost overwhelming. 

Billiken, the little guy who is supposed to bring luck to the Osakans

The only reason we were here was to meet Naoki and Kumi, our friends from Ishikawa who were here for business and were giving us a ride to Komatsu (about 300km north), our next destination, the home of our Tahitian dance and drum teacher. Surprisingly enough, as we arrived to the agreed train station and came up from the underground maze, we ran into Naoki on the street, so it wasn't hard to find them after all. We spent a day with them, visiting the colorful and spicy-smelling Korean district of Kobe and then going to work with them.

Naoki's brother has a beauty salon in town so we headed there. While Kumi was working on a patient, my hair got a generous special treatment from Naoki's brother. As he was trying to comb my hair (it's embarrassing to admit, but) to his astonishment he found a dreadlock hidden in the back of my hair... Naoki told him briefly our story of how we travel without having a home, but having screenings and concerts sometimes on the way, so he invented a new term for us: HOMELESS CELEB. He told me once he was ready with my hair, I will be fancy enough to hitchhike but turn down lousy cars and go only with those who beg me. 

Well, this day never came, but the homeless celeb expression sticked with us. We didn't even know that a chain of performances are waiting for us in Komatsu, and one day we will be stars on the stage, the next again on the road. It is like being your own guinea pig for an experiment in human behavior - you are the same, but people look at you different as soon as the circumstances change.