Mountains, II and III

Arrived Narita too late to catch my scheduled flight to Hiroshima. Airline comped me hotel, meals, limos to and from airport, limo to Haneda airport 90 minutes south. Then up in the air again. And more mountains. This time they were black, again line after line of mountain peaks, wholly undeveloped, with thin, very thin long valleys in light green with occasional buildings in between each line of peaks. The Japan Alps. Really lovely. The black turned out to be the blackgreen of trees. No snow. And then flatter land, as we reached the plains of the Kansai. Kyoto and all that. At the airport I was picked up by my assistant principal. Picked up a stray incoming marine, as well. Hour drive south to Iwakuni, Marine Corps Air Station. Turns out assistant principal and I both were field artillery. War stories.

Everywhere hills. Or are they mountains? They aren't developed. The Japanese seem to live here along the borders of the sea. And off to the east, the misty islands of the Inland Sea.

I was dropped at my TLF (temporary lodging). Exhausted. But wanted to walk upon the seawall which someone mentioned. Okay, I don't want to say much about MCAS Iwakuni itself, but just its setting. It's pressed against the sea by the middling town of Iwakuni, and surrounded by a bowl of hill-mountains, dark green, rocky rather than rolling, three sides hills, one side sea. But in the sea, too, are hills---the islands of the Inland Sea---which you can see from the seawall. The seawall is actually part riverwall. The base is on a triangular island, formed by the delta of the River Nishiki which runs by on both sides into the sea. The seawall runs down one branch of the river, around the sea, and back up the other branch of the river. So you can walk for hours on the water. And the sea wind blows. Though I hear sailors call it the land wind. The breeze helps some to mitigate the appalling heat, even at evening. The sun seems more baleful here, it beats down on you as if it's picked you out personally for punishment. I walked out that evening after sunset toward the bend where river becomes sea. Down the sea to the south you could see the end of the peninsula, nearly the southern tip of Honshu, and everywhere smaller islands, one behind the other, in different shades of mist, and somewhere behind them all, Shikoku. I reached the bend. But for some time the most dark thunderstorm had been moving toward the base along the coast from the north, fat long thunderbolts of lightning remaining in the sky as if making statements of puissance. And behind me in the mountains other thunderstorms thundered and struck. Gorgeous dark skies. The temperature dropped. But I didn't want to get zapped my first night here, I felt naked out there alone, I turned for home, two miles away. In the end the thunderstorms didn't hit the base. The one system passed down the sea to the south. The others remained in the mountains. Night came on.

My TLF is the expensive one. $90 a night. I get reimbursed for it. The Nishiki Lodge. It has two rooms connected by a walkthrough kitchen and a bath. Evidently originally meant for two lodgers, but now one room's been converted into a living room. Plenty of space. Furnished. My meeter-greeter left me goodies! In the bedroom are a double bed and a twin bed and in the living room a sofa bed. Whole familes live in these quarters for months. I'm a whole family. The furniture is dark. Two TV's. Air-conditioning AND ceiling fans. Really big closets.

Johanys in his old digs

Mountains

Leaving for Japan for two years! The plane was delayed taking off from Dulles because they didn't have a captain. He was being flown into National for some reason and then he was on his way by limo. One hour late. Informed us that he hadn't overslept. I bought a first class upgrade for not really cheap. I had decided to carry my mini and new 20" screen in my luggage. Guess what? Luggage overweight ten pounds. I pulled out books and three pint bottles of shampoo etc. and stuffed illegally into my carry-on. Made my connection in O'Hare only to sit on the plane for 1.5 hours sans air conditioning till all ordered to get off. New plane. At gate one mile away. Got there. Gate changed again. Plane leaves in 2.5 hours. Finally! My seat the last (42H) row in back of plane. Spent most of the time in the galley shooting the breeze with German-origin steward and twentysomething American kid businessmann from Tokyo. German from Stuttgart area; I'd been stationed in the Army there. War stories.

The glory of the trip: thousands of miles of mountain ranges, one after another, going on forever, starting in British Columbia, and stretching across southern Alaska, rivers of glaciers flowing between them. Not a speck of civilization. A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful sight.

Upon arrival at Narita, kids, all headed for a year living with a Japanese family: "That one steward (the German)? Boy was he mean!" "He was mean to me too." I had thought him ironic. Sample comment to me (I'm sitting near Germans and Japanese): "Johanys, you're sitting in the Axis section!" I replied, "It's all one world now."

While waiting in O'Hare, talking to a young Japanese woman, returning home after visiting her American boyfriend in Ohio. From Osaka. Later I said o-SA-ka. She looked at me without understanding. I said it again twice. Same look. Then dawn of understanding. Ah, she said, OH-sa-ka. Accent on first syllable. Much more beautiful.