Notes from Kamogawa, Chiba
Even as I pulled inward on Saturday morning, the day slowly drew me out. It helped that the bus stopped at Umi Hotaru, the famous cement fortress of a rest area (literally) in the middle of the bay between Tokyo and Chiba. Irony of ironies, the name of the place means, beautifully and liltingly, ocean fireflies. I sure saw a lot of ocean, stretched out three-hundred-sixty, but I doubt the place has ever seen fireflies.

Like I said, Umi Hotaru is a rest area. But apparently it's so scenic (and Tokyoites are so lacking in scenery) that people come there just to hang out and eat food. The 3000 yen fee to cross the rest of the bridge after the tunnel ends probably deters them from actually continuing on into nature. Umi Hotaru is so awesome, in fact, that it houses at least ten restaurants and has its own brand of omiyage, the Japanese version of souvenirs. Umi Hotaru and its omiyage shouldn't surprise me with their existence, as the Japanese really love to look at scenery rather than be involved in it and also to bring back the same cookies from wherever they go, but I was nevertheless gapingly amazed. The wrapper of the anko (red bean paste) buns I bought has a beautifully rendered picture of the freeway stretching out over ocean and Fuji-san cross-sectioned by an expressway. I'm keeping that paper as a souvenir highly and ironically characteristic of my time here.

The rain stopped and it held and cleared long enough for a hike to the beach from Waseda's seminar house. Until the rising wind pushed us back to the dorm, we sat in sand and on breakwaters, enjoying the feeling of being outside the choke of the city.

The hills have become thick with green after the rain, even my part of Tokyo, where one can find few trees. But in Kamogawa, especially along the river, the forest can best be described as impenetrable. This forest was a deep, jungle forest. A forest to house dreams and primitive fears. A forest where headhunters or totoros might live, so thick and grown together over random upthrusts of rock and soil that if one were to wander into the trees, I would question whether one would come out again.

All alongside the highway, the reflective moonpools, mostly empty except for a few bald, infant stalks of rice in scant lines, have exploded into a carpet of lush, languid green. The entire countryside, and anywhere one can find a hydroponic paddy, appears to be carpeted in moss. A soft beconing blanket with a dangerous shine at the very underneath.

I slept little and talked more, which I believe may have been a good thing. Upon revealing my age to some Waseda girls also in their 20s, I heard for the Nth time from Japanese women how "calm and ADULT" I appear. While I could be offended at the offhand implication that I'm boring, I prefer to take this as a complement from some of the most outrageously squealy girls I've ever met. I think, at the moment, it was just the thing I needed to hear.