CouchSurfing in Nagano.

From my hotel suite at Hotel Sunroute Nagano, I managed to contact Erika Henry, a CouchSurfer studying in Nagano, and made last minute arrangements to spend a night over at her place. Though we were in communication for about a month in advance about my planned trip to Nagano, the details of my arrival and the possibility of spending an extra day after the wedding wasn't clear until the day before.

Despite the great inconvenience I must have caused by my hasty arrangements, Erika welcomed me into her home and scheduled her own plans around me to ensure that my stay with her would be enjoyable. And was it ever!





Sunday arrived with warm and radiating rays of light and the bluest of blue skies I haven't seen since departing from Vancouver. Erika and I met up at the Nagano train station across from my hotel and begun our journey together by sitting down for a koto recital which just so happened to be performing at the station.



We were on our way up to see the Zenkoji Temple just twenty minutes away by foot when we came across a sleeping dragon in the middle of the street. Seeing as there were many men dressed in traditional kimos and sporting tabis, something was definitely up, so we decided to stick around. Not a moment too soon, the dragon awoke and was swaying its heavy head from side to side to the beat of taiko drums and flutes, towing a chariot of geishas and musicians. A crowd of curious on-lookers started forming along both sides of the street.



Further along the main street, there were more festivities, dances, and other dragons with geishas in tow. What was out of place though, was a huge inflatable dog witched measured about two storeys high where young children bounced up and down inside his transparent stomach.







To coincide with the festivities of the day, Shin-etsu Broadcasting Co. (SBC), Nagano's local television station, had a grand-opening of its newly built studios with a JumboTron in the courtyard displaying a montage of programs on its channel. The live band performing in the courtyard had its speakers cranked a little too loud for our liking, so Erika and I checked into the building to see what was inside. Interestingly enough, we came across a chef rolling dough with a pin and preparing to make soba noodles behind a huge class window. Nagano is famous for soba, afterall, so we stood there in awe. A little boy holding a helium balloon beside us was in turn looking at US in awe. From the moment Erika and I first met, we instantly realised that we shared the same dirty humour not commonly found in normal beings. As it was (and still is!) with Jennifer and I back home, sexual innuendoes and perversions of of the likes were dolled out and chuckled at with ease. Having said that, when we walked into the SBC gift shop for a browse through SBC branded merchandise, Erika found a small face-cloth with the words "I (heart) Honey Coming" on it in big letters which also depicted a silhouette image of two females standing almost back to back. I was so overwhelmed with laughter, I had to crouch down and nurse my stomach pain. Japanese innocence/ignorance at its best. After buying one for each of us (how could we not?), Erika thought about sending it to her husband back home in Seattle along with some kind words in reference to "I'm thinking of you! Please use this cloth to clean up whatever mess you may have made as a result of reading this."




Back out onto the streets, we watched a troop of old ladies wearing orange shirts which had the word HAPPY on it in English and katakana. Happily dancing arm in arms with one another, there was a single token old guy in the mix. How odd. We weren't quite sure what this was all about as it really didn't fit in with the more traditional activities in their vicinity, but one thing was for sure, they were having a gay ol' time. ;) Further along the street, a school of young elementary school kids were performing some traditional and non-traditional forms of line dancing, which was cute. Lil' buggers!

As Erika and I were walking even further up the street, approaching the Zenkoji temple at a glacial speed, we were somewhat rudely made to stand back and clear the path for some fat guy in a clown suit making his way down the sidewalk. From all the oohs and aaahs and by the look of excitement worn on the faces of people around us, not to mention the camera crew and the reporter as his entourage, we figured he was someone famous, and perhaps, someone to be reckoned with. In Japan, anyway. Perhaps he was a Super Clown, putting all the clowns I used to work with at Crown Dental to shame.


Continuing our trek up to Zenkoji, we passed by the small stadium where gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded to outstanding athletes during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games. I almost didn't notice the significance of this stadium as the plot of land in front of it had been sadly turned into a parking lot. The five faded rings, the rusty torch stand, the rotting first, second, and third place podiums, and the flaking billboard sized photographs of the athletes hanging on the dilapidated stadium walls was all that was left of the place where determination and perseverance was recognised and awarded in front of a large audience and televised internationally. I disobeyed the "Do Not Enter" sign and walked up the stairs to stand on the first place podium. As I stood there with my arms extended in a victorious gesture, I had imagined looking out to the sea of people before me applauding and cheering, flash bulbs popping at every corner, and confetti falling from above. Snapping back to reality from the sun which was in my eyes, I saw only Erika with my camera and a matrix of automobiles behind her.






Describing the Zenkoji temple as "magnificent" is akin to describing Mt. Fuji as a mole hill. Superlatives are inadequate here, but in its place, the silence that befell me as I took everything in with my six senses said it all. Still standing after 1400 years since it was built, the Zenkoji temple continues to be the home of the hibutsu, rumoured to be the first Buddha brought to Japan from Korea, and is kept mostly hidden from the public eye.





Just outside one of the many smaller buildings adjacent to the temple was a pond of turtles and koi fishes. Though they seemed to co-habitate in harmony swimming together in the same pond, it was pretty obvious that the koi's had a leading advantage over the turtles when it came to eating all the bread crumbs which visitors to the temple threw over to feed. The school of koi's just puckered their "lips" and sucked one bread crumb after another, leaving the poor turtles with poor eye-sight and mobility as slow as, well, turtles, with nothing. A greater number of turtles were on an elevated section of wooden planks basking in the warmth of the sun, some climbing on top of another, for dry surface space was a premium.

After doing a little grocery shopping at a store that played the theme song to Sazae-san, but in muzak style, we had arrived at Erika's quiet apartment. Dinner was already pre-arranged the night before when I called her from my hotel suite. She wanted to clear out large quantities of frozen meat she bought from Costco (yes, I was surprised to hear that there's a Costco in Japan) so Vienna sausage with macaroni was the "dîner du jour". It was long, thick, and succulent, just the way I like it! The curve reminded me of Kyle... I don't know why! ;)

Misa, a friend of Erika's from Tokyo, popped over for dinner shortly after we got in. She spoke an impressively good amount of English and was a delight to talk to. Without a care for appropriateness, we talked about the (significance of "I (heart) Honey Coming" as we deep-throated, er, devoured our wieners. The voice inside my head said: "Ed, let's keep this PG, mmmkay?") For desert, we had some exotic black currant berry juice and sweet yokan. Mmm mmm good!




Erika didn't actually have a couch for me to sleep on, which she made note of in her CS profile. Instead, I slept on a futon directly over the tatami with the shoji closed. I really love Japanese design.





Being the token foreigner, Erika had to go to a Hallowe'en party put on by a school the next morning. After grabbing a drink from Starbucks, we made a split. Thanks so much for hosting me, Erika. It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope to run into you again, perhaps when we're much closer to home in Vancouver/Seattle.