40 Days of Summer (in Japan) - Part Sanjuuichi

The Hikidas are our previous host family when we came to Japan two years ago and visited Hiroshima.  They're a very fun bunch of people, not what you'd expect when you hear that they're a family of Buddhist priests. Hikida-san married a well-known enka singer; his two sons Aki-san and Ren-san are both priests-in-training but they drink and make merry like any regular folk; and his daughter Yumiko-san is a lecturer at a university. Since Xim and I just happen to be nearby, we decided to make the trip to visit them, even though this was the last weekend and we had final papers due.

We decided to take an afternoon train to Hiroshima (five hours away by shinkansen) because Yumiko-oneesan said that that they would be arriving home from a trip to the UK just the day before, so we wanted to give them some time to rest before dropping in. We made the hour-long trip down to Shinagawa Station where the shinkansen would take us to Hiroshima. We had bought rail passes to alleviate the cost of travelling such a distance; we'd save about sixty dollars and be able to take JR lines around Tokyo for free.

When we get to the information counter to redeem our passes, it turns out that Xim didn't bring his passport, which was necessary for the pass redemption because only foreigners are allowed to use the pass. So, dropping all his bags with me, he makes his way back on his one-hour journey to his homestay family's house. Luckily, he remembers that he would be able to use his rail pass on another part of his trip, where he's up on the northern island of Hokkaido, and asks me to check if it's worth it to just buy a ticket to Hiroshima now. Turns out that it is, so Xim turns around and comes back to Shinagawa. We missed our targeted train, but we managed to catch the next one.

Trains rides are complex stuff.

Because of the huge frantic panic, we had to eat on the train. I purchased a good box of dip noodles at a nearby konbini and had delicious cold noodles in tonkatsu sauce.

It even had little slices of pork in it!

There's nothing like travelling on a shinkansen (bullet train). It's wonderfully luxurious, and if you're lucky you get a whole row of seats to yourself. We sat at the back so we could plug in our laptops and work on our essays while we travelled. Also, I noticed that every shinkansen stewardess is incredibly cute.

Unfortunately the sequel Snakes on a Plane II: Snakes on a Train flopped in theatres.

I was pretty much focused on my laptop screen for the most part, unless I was staring out the window in procrastination. The view of passing suburbs and rice fields, while failing to be suitable inspiration, nevertheless was pretty breathtaking.

2,375 rice fields, 2,376 rice fields, 2,377 rice fields...

It's a train passing through a train station! That's so meta!

At our transit stop I was sent out to hunt for a free wifi connection, because we needed some way to tell Yumiko-oneesan that we would be an hour late. I finally manage to connect to the free JR East wifi and shoot off a message on Facebook. We would have no idea if she received it or not, because our transfer was only twenty-five minutes, and soon we were back on another train, and off we were.

We arrived at Hiroshima Station and I was filled with nostalgia. The place wasn't much different from how I remembered it two years ago, save for a boarded-up area where they were doing some renovations. Yumiko-oneesan said she'll meet us at the station, but they were nowhere in sight. I couldn't find a free wifi to contact them; we (stupidly) didn't have their phone numbers. Luckily, Aki-oniisan and Yumiko-oneesan showed up within ten minutes, and I recognised them almost instantly, and they recognised me almost instantly as well, which was wonderful.

Aiko-san's (Their mom's) manager drove us to the Italian restaurant which she owned, where they had booked a table for us to have dinner with them. Yumiko-san apologised, saying that their parents were too tired (jetlagged) to come see us this evening, but Ren-oniisan was waiting there to greet us. We were also introduced to a girl, Risa-san, who we learned used to be Yumiko-oneesan's student at the university but was now a close friend.

Salad and meat for starters...

...with courses of pasta and sausage cannoli...

...seafood risotto...

...and a slice of chocolate rum cake.

We caught up over dinner, and again I was frustrated with my lack of Japanese. Xim did most of the talking, regaling the Hikidas with his mastery of conversational Japanese, while I mostly chewed and picked out the few words I understood to guess what the conversation was about. Risa-san was very quiet at the beginning, but she became more uninhibited as she downed her glasses of wine. Yumiko-oneesan kept getting her to practise speaking English with me, partially I guess because she noticed I was left out of conversations a lot, and partially because I think she believes that Japanese people should learn to speak more English. She said she might want to live in France in the future; she said she thought the place suited her very well when they visited.

The Hikida family reunion.

On a side note, here's why knowing Mandarin can only get you so far in Japan. Here, the kanji reads "emergency exit", but in Mandarin the characters mean "very mouth", which certainly isn't helpful when a fire breaks out.

It could also mean super mouth, which is a whole different context.

Everyone except us was tipsy or drunk by the time dinner was over. If you thought taking care of drunk people is bad, try keeping an eye on inebriated Japanese people, whom you cannot even try persuading because they don't know your language. We all walked back to their temple near midnight, and Aki-oniisan was laughing and talking loudly through the dead-quiet streets. Risa-san could barely walk in a straight line.

I assumed they would immediately show us to the guest house where we stayed the last time, but they invited us into their den, which turned out to be a small playroom just next to their recording hall. (They're very rich monks.)

The first half of my failed panorama of the whole room.

We ended up talking until 3am in the morning. Aki-oniisan showed me the magazine he appeared in for catching a large fish; apparently he took up fishing as a hobby. Yumiko-oneesan also asked us to share some of our favourite music, and I introduced them to Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, my absolute favourite Japanese song. There was a hilarious period when they kept pressing Xim for details about his girlfriend, and when they found out that he wrote her a haiku, they initially didn't believe him, but eventually (with the help of myself) persuaded him to recite it for them. Needless to say, they were very impressed.

Here's the thing about the Hikidas. I don't understand how they're so open and accepting. Xim and I, we're practically strangers to them; we've stayed in their guest house for a couple of days two years ago, and here they are welcoming us into their household with open arms, plying us with drinks and buying us a truckload of snacks. I felt so close to them, that when they kept pressing me as to why I didn't yet have a girlfriend, I almost wanted to tell them the real reason. (I didn't manage to, because Xim eventually stole all the attention, and I never got the opportunity to bring it up again.) They've accepted me into their family, and I recognise them as such. I love them all very much and I'm glad I'll always have family in a distant corner of the world.