As requested, this is the story of the 2010 Sasayama ABC Full Marathon:
How I Almost Crapped My Pants in Sasayama, Japan.

Our story begins in November of 2009 at an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Akashi (Hyogo Prefecture).  I was randomly invited to join a friend’s team only to find out that another Tatsuno gaijin had been invited to play as well, my good buddy Dillon.  Dillon introduced me to another ‘gringo’ on the team, Clancy.  Upon our first meeting, Clancy was sporting a shaved head and a beer (come to think of it, there are very few times I can recall ever seeing his beer hand empty).  Clancy seemed a normal enough guy, married and living on Awaji Island (Hyogo Prefecture) with his three kids.  Then, the tournament started and I saw him in action.  I was soon convinced that Clancy was not only clinically insane, but that he ignored (or, possibly, surgically removed) that little voice in your head that tells you when to be tactful.  Needless to say, we became friends instantly.  We had to calm him down a few times to avoid fights with the other teams.  You gotta watch out for Frisbee players, they’re vicious.

Anyway, despite losing the tournament, we all had a great time.  I mentioned that I was looking for a new way to challenge myself after getting back in shape and Clancy suggested a full marathon.  He had run many before, even a few in his time in Japan and was amped to do another one.  I thought about it and agreed that it was just crazy enough to try.  Clancy was great.  He chose the marathon (Sasayama ABC Marathon), signed me up, arranged for an overnight stay in a guesthouse near the starting point, made the itinerary for the trip, and arranged transportation.  Good guy!  I spent the next three months training hard.  I adjusted my diet to a very strict range of intake and starting running six days a week at different distances following a training schedule developed by New Balance sponsored marathon runners.  At the peak of training, from five weeks to three weeks prior to the marathon, I had to run a 21km (half marathon) three times.  The first of these was awful.  I actually thought I was going to die.  At about 19km, I started feeling light-headed, lost my footing, and collapsed in the road.  I didn’t actually hurt myself.  It was more embarrassing than anything.  I got up, finished the rest of the run (slowly), and headed back to my place.  When I got home, I had a pleasant trip to the toilet to regurgitate breakfast and then sat down in the shower with cold water running for the next half hour.  Thankfully, that was the worst of my training.  The next two 21km runs were cake; I even got a sweet time on my third (though, I forgot what it was now).

The weekend finally came (March 6th/7th).  I had dropped down to 80 kilos and was feeling confident.  I took a train to Akashi, took the elevator to street level of the world’s largest suspension bridge (Akashi Kaikyo Bridge), and waited for Clancy to pick me up in his ride.  The drive to Sasayama through the Hyogo countryside was pleasant enough, but the weather was unusually cold and damp for early spring.  It worried me.  I kept a keen watch on the weather report with my phone.  We filled our road trip with discussions about movies, music, life in Japan (as well as complaints about Japan, this is unavoidable when two or more gaijin get together).  Sasayama looked a lot like Tatsuno.  It was exactly what I was used to in my adopted hometown.  A rural area in the basin between mountain ranges filled with traditional house and rice fields.  We drove around a bit to scout out the marathon course.  There were already booths, tables, and porta-potties set up in preparation for the following day.

We checked into our room at the guesthouse, a nice place with nice people.  All of the guests were other runners.  Unbeknownst to me, the Sasayama Marathon is relatively famous in Japan, especially in Kansai.  There was even a Japanese Olympic Alum coming for the starting ceremony and acting as a guest “runner.”  Then, we went to check in for the marathon itself.  We received our numbers and information pamphlets, a course map, a T-shirt, and some other stuff that I couldn’t read and subsequently threw away.  We also got the tracking sensor chips that you tie on to your shoe.  When you run through the start and finish gates, the officials can read your time electronically.  Pretty cool.  Clancy said he had run the Sasayama race before and suggested an Indian place for dinner (yeah, I know what you’re thinking and it WAS a bad idea, but I’ll get to that later).  I had never run a marathon before and during my training, I had been following a very strict diet, but Clancy was the veteran so I followed his lead.  We ate a mountain of curry and carbs and downed glass after glass of beer.  The food was fantastic and the beer was…well…Japanese.  What can you say about Japanese beer, really?  It was cold.

We waddled back to the guesthouse and had another few beers and turned in for the night.  I couldn’t sleep.  Our room consisted of four bunk-beds (8 beds) and two of the other guests were noisy sleepers.  One of them made such horrific noises; I was convinced he was actually trying to eat himself in his sleep or something.  The other made these high-pitched whiny sounds every so often.  These two sleep distractions were piled on top of my already mounting nervousness about the following day.  I threw on my headphones to drown out the snores of my fellow roomies and turned on some Prokofiev to calm my nerves.  It didn’t really work and in total, I probably only slept about three or four hours.  Not ideal for a marathon.

WARNING:  From here on out, this story may become a bit graphic.  If you don’t want to hear about bodily functions in the context of extreme sports, don’t read on.

I woke up.  The first thing I did was check the weather.  3 degrees (37.4 F), rain, and strong winds.  Fan-fucking-tastic!
I decided to dress for the occasion despite Clancy’s warnings that I would get too hot.  I wore winter compression tights under my shorts and two layers up top as well as a winter cap.  We went down to the McD’s in town for breakfast, again following Clancy’s lead.  Though, I think he went on my behalf as he claimed that he normally eats nothing before the big race.  I couldn’t imagine not eating anything before a run, but I guess it’s all what you’re used to.  I know other people who prefer to run on an empty stomach.  I just can’t do it.  That’s too hardcore for me.  Anyway, we downed our sandwiches and walked out to the starting point.  The wind was unbelievable.  It was strong, frigid and, worst of all, constant.  The rain started soon after we arrived at the changing tents.  Thankfully, it was just a drizzle, but it was cold.

We met Clancy’s friend at the tents, a Brit whose name escapes me now.  We’ll give him a proper Englishman’s name for the sake of this story, Nigel.  hahaha
He was a good guy.  Crazy, like Clancy, but slightly more subtle about it.  He was a cancer survivor and into trail running (those people are insane, especially in Japan).  He had even done some Fell Running races in England.  If you don’t know what this is, check it out on Wikipedia and be amazed.  He was the one with the loftiest goal among the three of us.  His goal was to break the three-minute mark (if memory serves), Clancy’s goal was to beat his last time running the Sasayama race, and my goal was just to fucking finish it.  Clancy was pessimistic, because during his training period he crashed on his bike and injured his hip and leg.  I was seriously impressed that he was still going to run.  He had a massive deep bruise covering his side.  One tough dude!

We stepped into the changing tents, which, thank science, were heated by small space heaters in the center.  Though, it was still pretty chilly.  The next step was to tape up our nipples.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Again, I was taking the advice to two veterans and I wasn’t about to argue.  If a runner does not tape his or her nipples, they chafe and become extremely painful, especially if it’s cold and rainy (I saw evidence of this later.  I’ll get to that.).  So, in true S&M fashion, we taped X’s over our nipples with tape and then covered the tape with band-aids.  We stowed our bags with the check-in desk and headed out to the starting point.  There were tents and crowds of people everywhere.  There were Yatai vendors selling octopus dumplings, fried noodles, grilled chicken, sports drinks, protein bars, and pretty much everything else you would want to stock up on before running for 42 kilometers.

As it turns out, we arrived a minute past our load-in time, which meant instead of being in the A-group (the group that starts first), we would be pushed back to the E-group.  Nigel pleaded with the guy in Japanese to let us in, because the crowds at the check-in desks had made us late and it wasn’t our fault.  The guy refused and Clancy tossed him an expletive salad.  Clancy quickly located a place for us to hop the fence and sneak into the B-group starting point.  We all hopped over and, surprisingly, avoided any accusations or negative comments from the surrounding crowd of runners.  Clancy, in true Clancy-form, pulled out a couple of Asahi tall-boys and chugged them while we waited for the gun shot (I told you he’s crazy).  The rain started to pick up a bit as we waited and, despite stretching before leaving the changing tents, I could feel by muscles tightening up.  Finally, we heard the gun shot, but nobody moved.  There were something like 15,000 runners (the exact number escapes me) and it took a long while before we actually started moving (hence the shoe mounted computer chip things).

We took off.  It felt good to move.  At first we were so tightly packed among all the other runners, we could hardly run at a normal pace or stay together.  Eventually, after the first kilometer or so, the crowd loosened up a bit.  By the time it did break up, I was a little bit behind Nigel and Clancy.  I had some catching up to do.  I carefully weaved my way in and out of the other runners as I searched for my comrades.  Eventually I saw Clancy and caught up to him.  “Where’s Nigel?” I asked.  “He’s gone man.”  He was determined to meet his goal.  I thought about chasing after him and trying to shoot for under three minutes too, but I decided, it being my first marathon and all, that I should pace myself and just focus on my personal goal…not dying.  Clancy and I stayed in pace for a while, but I think his biking injury got the better of him and he urged me to run on at my own pace.  So, despite entering the race with two friends, I ended up running alone.

It went by the numbers for the first 5km.  Despite the freezing rain and wind pelting me as I ran, I felt pretty good, confident even.  Then, I was surprised to hear my name being yelled in a Japanese female voice.  I looked around confusedly and saw my friend Shiho and my wife (fiance at the time) Yuki.  They were waving flags and cheering me on from the sidelines of the course.  The beginning of the course went through the main part of Sasayama, where all the streets had been closed off for the race.  I waved and shouted back at them.  It was the best surprise to see them there, cheering for me.  It was exactly the motivation I needed to keep going and do my best.  The course winded around a bit in town and gave the girls enough time to move farther up the course.  I saw them a second time another kilometer or so later and gave them high fives as I ran past.  I was feeling good.

After about 7km, the course headed away from the main part of town and out to the edge of the mountains.  I looked behind me several times to see if Clancy was still behind me, but I didn’t see him.  I tried out a strategy that I had read about on New Balance’s marathon website.  I marked a runner in front of me whose pace was just slightly faster than my own and stayed with him.  I was able to do this pretty well.  As we got out the edge of town, where rice fields outnumbered houses, local residents had set up tables in front of their houses offering the runners homemade food and drinks as we ran past.  The race officials had also set up watering stations every 5 or 6km.  There were also these raffle tables with random things on them, such as sports drinks, sports gels, candy, chocolate, bananas, etc.  I didn’t understand the system for these, but as we ran by, the guy behind the tables was shouting numbers in Japanese.  I later realized he was shouting the numbers we were wearing, but I wasn’t particularly interested in the raffles prizes, so I just ignored it.  The only thing I took, aside from paper cups of water or sports drink from the official race tables, was a little piece of candy from an adorable group of middle school girls who were handing them out to runners.

At around 12km, I started to notice that my lower stomach was feeling heavy and sloshing around a bit.  I hadn’t had that much to drink during the race.  Suddenly, I became worried about the effects of the Indian food.  I pulled off the road and took a piss to see if that would relieve a little pressure and cause my body to self-correct.  For a while, I felt okay again.  Then, the feeling came back.  I would have to endure.  I couldn’t lose my marked runner in front of me and I didn’t want to waste time waiting in line at the porta-potties, which were only set up every 6km or so.  I passed by the porta-potty and thought, “nah, I can take it!”  And, I did take it…for about another 10 minutes and then, passing up the chance became evident as a huge mistake.  My lower stomach felt bloated and running caused a slight pain just below my belly button.  There was a knocking at the gate (if you know what I mean).  Now, certainly the Indian food is partly to blame for this; as is the beer.  However, more than that, I think it was the running, the weather, and the nervousness.  And…………..the Indian food.  “Oh shit!  Damn Indian food!  What was I thinking?!”

I ran the next 5km like I had something trapped between my thighs, but I managed to stay with my mark.  The pain became more intense and the knocking became more intense.  I was certain I would crap my pants.  I had heard stories about pro marathon runners who would piss themselves or crap themselves toward the end of race so they could win.  I was not a pro, nor was I near the end of the race, nor was I in any position to win.  Finally, the porta-potties came into view.  At this point, I had lost my mark and was now running as if the knees of my compression pants were sewn together.  I felt like I was going to explode.  I made it to the porta-potty, ran past the people waiting as someone emerged from the plastic toilet, and flew inside.  These were Japanese style porta-potties, which meant, it was basically just a hole in the ground with nothing to sit on.  My pants shot down (thank science for elastic) and I let loose with a scene like the one in Dumb and Dumber, complete with the high-pitched screams of relief.  There was a veritable ocean inside my stomach and yet it took all of maybe three seconds to get rid of.  Efficient, no?

Feeling 50 pounds lighter and getting some laughs as I emerged from the john, I pressed on.  I caught up with my mark and stayed with him.  The rain continued, but let up a little around the halfway mark.  The course we took out to the 24km marker turned around and returned on the other side of the same road.  While I was running out to the 24 marker, I thought I might see Nigel running the other way ahead of me, but I never did.  That guy must be fast as hell.  I honestly don’t know, because I never saw him once during the race.  On my way back from the 24 marker, I DID see Clancy on the other side of the road.  We exchanged a brief word of encouragement and a high-five (though, maybe not.  I can’t remember the high-five.  Not important).  He was still running, despite the pain from his injury.  Impressive!

Around the 30km mark, I started to feel weak and a pain started welling up in my quads.  I looked around and started to see some horrible things.  There were guys with swollen knees lying on the sidelines, while race officials with muscle conditioning spray and elastic wraps tried to get them back up.  I saw a few people vomiting off in the fields.  I saw a young guy wearing a white shirt that was now streaked with red, the origin of the streaks being…you guessed it, his nipples (thank you Clancy for your wisdom.  That could’ve been me.).  I even saw this old guy do a complete face plant on the pavement like he just passed out in the middle of his run; he just collapsed.

These discouraging sights combined with the now burning pain in my legs and the fact that I had completely lost my mark made me consider the unthinkable, I wasn’t going to finish.  Clancy’s words echoed in my head, “When you reach the 30km marker, just think to yourself that it’s only 12 more and you can do 12k easy!”  I passed the 31km marker and became resentful of the kilometer markers.  Why did these bastards have to remind us how far we had to go?  I told myself, “it’s only 12km.  I do 12km every day.  12km is cake!”  The fact is, it was 12km, after having already done 30km.  That DOES make a difference, as you might suspect.

I was giving serious consideration to walking after I passed the 35km marker.  The pain was now burning all up and down my legs and my knees felt like they were giving out.  I thought, maybe I could just walk for a little while and then run again.  The truth is, I knew that if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to start again.  It would be over for me.  I would have to walk in to the finish line with my fiance and friend watching me do it.  That was the thought that put me back on track.  I couldn’t hobble over the finish line with my fiance watching.  How pathetic would that be?  She had taken a day from work and driven to the ass-end of Hyogo (there really is no reason to ever go to Sasayama, unless you really like black beans) to support me and be there for me.  I wasn’t going to let her down.  I stuck it out and even increased my pace a bit toward the end.

Finally, I saw the finish gate.  I wanted to sprint the last 500 meters, but as I tried to push myself into a full-on run, my knees objected and I almost bit it.  I decided that finishing running was good enough.  I didn’t have a sprint in me.  I crossed the line and tried to walk.  Even though I was walking, my legs maintained the sensation of running.  It was like they couldn’t settle down.  The pain didn’t settle down either.  I walked into the finishers area and was greeted by a girl with a race officials shirt on who put a medal around my neck and said congratulations.  I hobbled into a sectioned off area, where spectators and supporters had crowded on the other side of the low fences, waiting for friends and family members to finish.  I spotted Yuki immediately and she called me over.  She leaned over the fence, wrapped a towel around my shoulders, and gave me a bottle of water.  It was really hard to stand still in one place.  My legs were in so much pain, but they didn’t want to stop moving.  I chugged the bottle of water and realized I was freezing.  Running had been keeping me warm.  Now, I wasn’t moving and I was completely drenched.  I could barely close my fingers to hold the empty water bottle.  I sat down on the wet bench and leaned down the take the tracking chip off my shoe.  My fingers were so cold, I couldn’t keep them from shaking long enough or use enough force to untie the twists on the chip.  Thankfully, a young race volunteer came over to me and took it off for me, then helped me to my feet again.

It was back to the changing tents for warm clothes and space heaters.  It took me 30 minutes to take my shoes off, because my hands were so cold and my body was so weak.  I found Clancy and we met with Yuki and Shiho and went to get some food.  We found Nigel and some friends at a soba restaurant and joined them.  We exchanged painful moans and stories of the race over a warm meal and then headed back to the guesthouse for a bath.  I weighed myself before the bath and had literally lost 4 kilos (almost 9 pounds) during the race.

Clancy went back on his own and I caught a ride with Yuki and Shiho back to Tatsuno.  On the way home, we stopped for dinner and I ate nothing but fried food the entire meal (fried foods were cut out of my marathon training diet for the previous four months).

I felt really good with my achievement.  I had finished my first marathon with a time of 3 hours and 45 minutes, under the four-hour mark.  I was extremely pleased.  I didn’t crap my pants and I ran pretty well.

I slept well that night.

Thanks to Clancy for all of his help and encouragement.  To Yuki for all of her inspiration, motivation, and love.  Shiho for coming to support me.  And, to Nigel for being British.
hahahahaha…just kidding.  Nigel’s a great guy (I wish I could remember his name) and he gave me good tips and advice.

And that’s my story.

Does anybody else have any suggestions for stories they want to hear or topics about which they would like me to post?

Much love…

Much love,

E

I announced that I was starting up my blog again to keep in touch with everyone, posted a few blogs, and then fell off the planet again.  Sorry.  I’ve been extremely busy recently, both at work and in my life.  The truth is I don’t really know if anybody is reading this blog and if so, what do you all want to hear about?  My life is not nearly as exciting as it was when I was living the bachelor life with the sweet job in Tatsuno.  Plus I don’t have people like Spencer around to talk me into participating in insane Japanese festivals and spur-of-moment road trips.  Now that we’re living in Kobe, I don’t really have a close circle of friends anymore.  All of my good friends are still living out in Tatsuno, Himeji, Sayo, basically in the Harima region.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Kobe.  And this is not a post to whine about my life.  I’m not unhappy at all, but without my good friends around, I don’t get into as much trouble.  Thus, my blog isn’t really much to write home about (pun intended).  My closest friends in Kobe are my bandmates.  They’re great and we get along really well, but it’s rare that we all have time in our schedules to hang out outside of practice.  I’m getting sidetracked again.

Here’s the deal.  I want to be better about updating this blog if people are actually reading it.  I will update once a week.  Now, I can get on here and go on about my band, my marriage, my job (though, probably not, because I’m a teacher and it’s such a meaningless profession), things I love about Japan, things I can’t stand about Japan, and reports on my hiking trips.  However, that all sounds pretty egocentric and really boring to me.  I doubt anyone wants to read that.  I’ll include updates on important developments from time to time, of course, but I want to know what you people want to hear about?  Is there anything you want to know about me?  About Japan?  About being a foreign resident here?  About Yuki?  Etc.  Etc.

Anyway, it seems like a waste for me to just get on here and ramble about all of my little pet projects and whatnot.  I hope you guys will respond and give me some ideas about what I should write.  I’m happy to answer all kinds of questions.  No question is too ridiculous.  Curious about Japanese toilets?  Ask away.  Want to know what it was like to wrestle in frigid weather with 10,000 naked Japanese men?  Go ahead.

Now, just a quick update on something that was special for me.
I went skiing last weekend for the first time in……………9 years!!!
It was hard for me to believe it had been that long, but I did the math and that’s how it turned out.
Last Saturday night, Yuki, Mori, Kayoko, Shiho, and I all piled into Karibu’s giant van and we headed out for Dynaland.  Dynaland is a large ski resort in Gifu Prefecture, which is three prefectures East of us.  We left at about midnight and arrived in Gifu at about 3:30AM.  We parked in front of the resort and slept in the car until about 6.  Got up, got dressed (man it was cold), and hit the slopes.  The snow was perfect.  I mean, absolutely perfect.  Plus, it snowed all day, so we had fresh powder on every run.  My technique was sloppy, which was to be expected, but by midday I was feeling pretty confident again.  If you didn’t know me in my youth, then you probably don’t know that I’ve been skiing every year all winter since I was 5 years old.  The result of which is that I was a very confident and technically savvy skier (sorry for the boasting, but it’s true).  So, I felt pretty happy to get a little of that skill back.  I even did a few mogul runs.  Now, I thought that having been Marathon training for the last 3 years that I would not get tired or sore at all from skiing.  Holy shit!  I was wrong.  Apparently, the muscles you use to ski and the muscles you use to run are totally different.  I could barely walk the next morning.  On the way home, Gifu got hit with a huge blizzard.  Big fat snowflakes fell in a torrent all the way home.  It was unbelievable.  Traffic was backed up everywhere and the 3 and a half hour trip turned into a 7 hour trip.  Anyway, it was a fantastic experience and Yuki is one hell of snowboarder.  I could hardly keep up with her.  We’ll definitely go again before the snow melts.

Okay, that’s all for now.  If you guys tell me what you want to hear about, I promise I’ll update once a week from now on.

PS.  Yuki and I will be in Indianapolis for a visit from March 4 through March 12.  If you’d like to hang out, drop me a line.

Given these restrictions, my research has turned up very little helpful information.  With the hiking trip planned, I finally had the opportunity to go to the source, as well as enjoy a beautiful hike and one of the most unusual temples in all of Japan.

The group met at Demachiyanagi station, a small hub station in the northeast of Kyoto City.  We were soon on our way after waiting for some stragglers and boarded the tiny two-car diesel train.  The train ride was mostly spent talking with friends about various subjects: living and working as a foreigner in Japan, new iPhone applications, future plans, etc.  We disembarked at Ninose, a tiny station with a boarding platform barely 60 feet in length and where one must literally walk on the tracks in front of the train to exit.  The station is built on the mountainside overlooking the tiny valley village of Ninose.  We caught up with the club’s leader in the valley gathering Ginnan (Ginko nuts).  Suffice it to say, everyone kept their distance from him after that (FYI: Ginko nuts smell terrible.  They absolutely reek like rotten cheese.)  The hike began as all hikes in Japan begin, going almost straight up for at least the first 40 minutes or so.  I was unusually quiet for the most of the ascent.  I was operating on very little sleep and was in a bit of funk.  I was fourth or fifth in line on the way up and was hiking below my usual pace.  After we reached a short plateau and took a short break to regroup (the group always spreads out a lot on the first bit of the ascent), I happily took the lead and continued on at my normal pace.  Soon the conversations and tramping steps faded behind me and I could hear only a single hiker behind me.  We decided to stop and wait for the others to catch up.  My companion was the 14-year-old son of one of the club’s organizers, delightful young man who loves his basketball and with whom I conversed on several topics.  The hike continued uneventfully.  We hiked through a dense forest of evergreens and cedars.  The air was cool and laden with a heavy sweet smell that I couldn’t identify.  There was snow still scattered on the ground in patches from the previous week.  All in all, it was a pleasant hike.

We had lunch, my customary peanut butter & jelly, and tried to keep from freezing on the top of the mountain.  Then came the descent.  The descent on this particular mountain takes you down a steep ravine formed by the melting snow.  In fact, it’s so steep and washed out in places that ropes and chains have been anchored into the rock to provide an element of safety on the way down (Though, they’re not as helpful as they might appear.  Case and point: the last time I made this descent, I literally caught the hiker in front of my by the loop on her backpack as she slipped from the edge over what would have been a nearly 30 foot drop.).  We made it down without injury, thankfully.  I was much more talkative at this point, having been sobered slightly by the freezing cold and the threat of death.  I think I even cried for my “mommy” a few times during the descent, evoking laughter from some of the English-speaking hikers in front of me.

We descended into the town of Kurama, a lovely little village that stretches along the river that winds along its main (and only) road.  We briefly visited two shrines in the town.  The first is a small shrine dedicated to sailors (which is odd, because it’s miles from the ocean).  The legend says that there is a boat buried behind the main structure of the shrine, though no one has bothered to try to dig it up.  The second shrine in the town is the more significant of the two.  Up until the Meiji period, Kyoto was the capital of Japan and the seat of the Imperial household.  It is said the Emperor himself came to the small shrine in Kurama to sacrifice a horse for the continuation of Kyoto’s main water supply, the river that runs through the village.  There are statues of horses in front of the main shrine to pay homage to this legacy.  Some of the girls in the hiking group said that the shrine is famous for fortunes regarding love and proceeded to buy a kind of o-mikuji (fortune) that one must float on a pool of water for the ink to be revealed.  It was pretty cool actually, though I couldn’t read any of the fortunes.  I wasn’t particularly interested, having already been fortunate in love (^_^).

We continued through the small village and passed small bed & breakfast style inns and restaurants and little souvenir shops.  In the summer, wooden planks are laid across the river and lanterns are lit in the evening.  Meals are brought to customers so they can eat over the river and enjoy the view.  I think I’ll go back with the Mrs. next summer and give it try.  Our next challenge was the climb over the mountain that descended into the Kurama-dera Temple.  Several of us devised a cunning and dangerous plan to sneak past the ancient-looking old lady who sits in a booth and collects 200 yen from anyone who wants to climb the mountain.  The plan succumbed to the voice of reason and we paid our fees (200 yen is around 2 dollars).  Unfortunately, the path on this mountain was constructed with stairs all the way up.  This might sound like a good idea on paper, but stairs are so hard on your knees after climbing for 30 minutes straight.  With much tongue-in-cheek complaining from the hikers in front of me, we made it to the first stopping point, having been passed by our Australian friend who suddenly announced, “this is something I have to do alone.”  3/4 of the way up, the rest of the group took a break and I went ahead alone to give the monks at Kurama-dera a good shake-down.  At the top of the mountain, I caught up with our resident Aussie and he joined me on the descent into the temple grounds.

The temple is made up of many buildings scattered across the steep mountainside.  The main hall, built in the 1970′s, is a reconstruction of the original one, built 1300 years ago, which was destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt many times in its long history.  It’s a beautiful building of white walls and vermillion columns covered by a steeply pitched gabled roof constructed in the traditional Japanese style using ceramic tiles.  The three sets of main doors are massive and propped open so one can see the interior of the temple.  Inside, there is a huge Buddhist altar decorated with deep reds and golds and polished lacquer blacks.  The altar is covered in deity figures, religious symbols, candles, offerings, flowers, urns, and statues.  The amount of gold is astounding.  Unlike most temples in Japan, visitors to Kurama are allowed access to the cellar beneath the main temple floor.  In the cellar, the walls, floor, and low ceiling are all concrete.  Small golden lanterns hang from the ceiling in rows, but are little more than decorative and provide almost no light at all.  The entire basement is almost pitch black.  The whole level is labyrinth of wooden shelves that form narrow alleys and twist in every direction.  Lining the shelves in neat rows are small ceramic urns labeled with names in Japanese.  Some are old and dilapidated, some are new and ornately decorated, and some even bear the names of foreigners.  If you follow the course of the maze, it leads you to a small open room with a large rectangular pedestal in the center.  On top of the pedestal stand three Buddhist deities that represent a trinity of manifestations for a single entity known as Sonten, a central figure in Kurama-kokyo Buddhism.  The statues are the only things that are well-lit in the room, giving the area a very eerie atmosphere.  The basement is dotted with the orange light of candles painted in Chinese characters and permeated by the strong smell of incense.  The hundreds of urns that line the walls of the labyrinth are not filled with human ashes as you might expect.  Rather, they are filled with human hair cut from the heads of the living.

I have received two different explanations for the urns of hair, which are not mutually exclusive.  The first is that in ancient Japan, hair was viewed as a representation of the self, which is why both men and women grew their hair very long.  Long hair was a sign of affluence and was considered very beautiful.  Hair that extended all the way to the floor was common among the aristocracy.  To cut one’s hair was to cut a piece of one’s self, not in the sense that we think of the hair as a part of our bodies, but in the sense of the severed hair represents our soul or spirit.  Since the centers of Buddhist healing were often located on the tops of distant mountains or other hard to access places, many people cut their hair and had it taken by proxy to the temples in special urns.  As the hair represented the person as equally as if the person had gone in the flesh, the monks at the temple could pray over the urn and the person would receive healing indirectly.  Thus, avoiding a long and potentially dangerous journey.

The second theory I’ve heard is that there is a natural energy that emanates from underneath Kurama Mountain.  This energy enters visitors’ bodies through the feet and resides in the hair.  The hair is then cut and placed in special urns to remain at the temple for the same reason as the above explanation.

Anyway, I questioned several monks in the main hall about the origins of the Kurama-kokyo sect and specific rules and customs contained therein.  They timidly answered a few of my questions, but were rather standoffish.  I finally talked to a woman behind the souvenir counter that recommended some helpful reading.  I have yet to visit the library and follow up on it, but I plan to do so during my winter break when I have some time to dedicate to hard research.

This was my second trip to Kurama and it was just as mystifying and interesting and beautiful as the first.  Kurama is definitely one of my favorite places in Japan.  There is a wealth of history and legend surrounding the temple and the mountain, most of which I didn’t mention at all in this blog.  I’m over 80,000 words in my novel, but I’m beginning to lose confidence in my writing, worrying that it has become unfocused and drawn out.  I’m not sure how to regain my sense of direction, but for the time being, I’ll just focus on research and keep writing in spite of my uncertainty.

Until next time.
Much love…

The Tale of Mrityunjay

In the time of the 16 Great Kingdoms of India, there lived a man named Mrityunjay.  He was born to and subsequently abandoned by a prostitute in the kingdom of Matsya.  A fisherman named Sujan found the baby swaddling in dirty rags on the banks of the Sarasvatî River.  He took the boy home and raised him as his own.  Naturally the boy became a fisherman and he worked the river with his adopted father.  The young man was quite skilled with his hands and could repair nets with great speed.  Sujan was always honest with Mrityunjay and never claimed to be his real father.  He had raised the boy and loved him as a father, but he was not his own.  The other sons of fishermen teased and terrorized the young Mrityunjay daily, calling him a “bastard” and saying he belonged to no one.  Sujan consoled his adopted son, telling him that the others were only jealous of his heart and skills as a fisherman.
“My heart?”
“Yes.  They are all born to legitimate families and their parents must
love them out of obligation.  But you, Mrityunjay…you were chosen.  You ensnared the affections of a perfect stranger and I chose to love you as my own.”
As he got older, Mrityunjay became curious about his origin.  However, the search for his true parents ended fruitlessly and curiosity became resentment.  He wanted to know why he was so easily tossed aside, why he was inferior, what was wrong with him.  His resentment turned inward and he felt diseased inside.  He became overwhelmed with anger and lashed out at the people around him.  He cursed the gods aloud.  His short temper and callousness became well known to the people in the village and they all avoided him for fear of one of his legendary outbursts.  Sujan tried and tried to extinguish the rage that burned inside of his adopted son’s heart with words, but nothing changed him.  Eventually, Sujan gave up and lost the ability to speak.  They conducted their affairs in complete silence, cooking meals, fishing, washing, repairing the nets, eating, and bathing; they never spoke a word to each other.
One day, he met a young woman who was not intimidated by him.  He was as cold and malicious to her as he was to everyone, but she repaid his cruelty with gentle kindness.  Every day, she would go out of her way to greet him and speak with him and every day he was cruel and indignant toward her.  Eventually, she stopped seeking him out and lost the ability to love.  She could not feel happy or sad or angry or excited.  Without love, she could feel nothing at all and she became ill and bedridden.
The girl’s father was infuriated by Mrityunjay’s indifference and confronted and beat him savagely, demanding an apology.  Mrityunjay did not apologize and every time the girl’s father saw him, he was beaten, brutally, again and again.  Still, Mrityunjay did not apologize.  Eventually the girl’s father gave up and his body became weak and useless.  Out of fear of reprisal, he avoided Mrityunjay completely, fleeing when he saw him.
Mrityunjay grew weary of the villagers and one day he left without a word.  He traveled alone for many weeks, crossing through forests and over rivers, climbing mountains, and passing through cities.  On the banks of the Cohpes River, he met an ascetic who was meditating under the shade of a palm.  The old man greeted Mrityunjay with a smile and an offer of tea.  He cursed the old man for his intrustion and the ascetic became fascinated with him.  He questioned and prodded the angry young man, but was given nothing but condemnation.  He set himself to the task of helping Mrityunjay find happiness.  The old ascetic followed him wherever he went, never speaking a word or asking for anything.  He found his own food, cooked his own meals, slept on his own bedroll, and made his own tea.  He hoped that Mrityunjay would eventually open up to him.  Despite his resolve, nothing changed, and near the border of the Solasa Mahãjanapadas, the old ascetic became overwhelmed with great shame in his failure.  He did not follow Mrityunjay the following morning.  Rather, he returned to his home in Kuru and turned his back on his faith, cursing the gods as Mrityunjay had once done.
Mrityunjay found a small village in the mountains and ceased his travels.  He worked for a smith in exchange for apprenticeship.  The smith endured his impertinence and Mrityunjay learned to work iron.  In spite of his heartless nature, the smith pitied him.  He thought a woman’s companionship would settle his rage and introduced the young man to one of his mistresses.  With the smith’s blessing, Mrityunjay bedded the young mistress.  She too came to feel pity for him and continued to lay with him again and again, taking great pleasure in her trade.  Mrityunjay’s rage did not settle and, even in the midst of their couplings, he abused the mistress with malicious words.  She had heard them all before, but never from the mouths of her patrons.  She was humiliated over and over and her pleasure became guilt.  She became immune to pleasure and lost the ability to delight in even the smallest joys in her life.  She was so consumed by her guilt that she marred herself with a tanning blade.  Outraged, the smith cast her from his house.
When Mrityunjay discovered the smith had expelled his mistress, he cursed him and beat him with iron hammer.  In his fury, he crushed the smith’s skull and left him for dead.  He fled the mountain town, but was pursued by Gandhãri soldiers.  He was captured and imprisoned in Takshashila.  Trapped in his cell, the jailer spoke with him daily, asking him if he felt remorse for what he had done.  Every day, Mrityunjay gave the same answer.
“I do not weep for the setting of the sun, nor the changing of the seasons.”
Day in and day out, the jailer continued to speak to him about the sanctity of law and justice.  He hoped to turn Mrityunjay’s heart with his conviction.  He spoke of his love for their great king Pushkarasakti who was just and righteous and wise.  He spoke of order and logic and the philosophies of the sages.  And at the end of the day, he would again ask Mrityunjay if he felt remorse for his wrongdoing and again he would answer, “I do not weep for the setting of the sun, nor the changing of the seasons.”
Soon, it was announced that Mrityunjay had been sentenced to death for his crime.  He was to be hanged in three days time.  Again, the jailer spoke with him.  This time, he spoke of the gods and the scriptures.  He begged Mrityunjay to repent for his sins so might be spared misery in his next life.  And again, at the end of the day, he asked Mrityunjay if he regretted what he had done.  With a voice as cold as winter soil, he gave the same callous response, “I do not weep for the setting for the sun, nor the changing of the seasons.”
The day before Mrityunjay’s execution, the jailer did not speak a word.  He had lost his faith in the law and in justice and in the gods.  He refused to carry out Mrityunjay’s sentence and was punished for his disobedience.  He was tortured and branded and stripped of his rank.  He walked among the people as an outcast, bearing the mark of a traitor on his cheek.  Mrityunjay smiled when he heard this news from the new jailer.  Upon seeing his reaction, the new jailer rescheduled Mrityunjay’s execution to take place the following morning, eager to rid the world of such a devil.
In the night, a Persian army invaded Takshashila.  The battle lasted seven days, but the foreigners emerged victorious and seized control of the city.  Mrityunjay was released from his prison cell only to become a slave to the new Persian magistrate.  The magistrate found Mrityunjay’s impertinence amusing and appointed him to be his official collector.  Mrityunjay took great pleasure in his duties and terrorized the people of the city with his threats and malice.  He became the most hated man in Takshashila and was labeled a traitor.  His infamy fueled his love of cruelty.  Mrityunjay’s diligence made the magistrate as wealthy as the emperor himself and soon, he came to fear nothing more than losing that wealth.  He became obsessed with his riches and barricaded himself inside his fortress.  Many years passed and the magistrate never left his stronghold.  He fell ill and feared for his wealth.  He demanded that his treasures be buried with him, but he did not die.  His illness worsened and his body was ravaged with pain, but still he did not die.  The Persian priests prayed for his release, but it didn’t come.  Desperate, he called for the Gandhãri sages.  They told him that his obsession with material wealth had tethered him to this world and that he could not pass naturally into the next.  He ordered his personal guard to release him, but they all refused, falling to their knees and begging for forgiveness.  The magistrate called for Mrityunjay and he came.  He told Mrityunjay that a man who loved cruelty as much as he did could take life easily and ordered him to take his.  Mrityunjay took the dagger from his master’s hands and raised it above his head, ready to plunge it into his chest.  Mrityunjay smiled and dropped the knife.  The magistrate threatened him with death if he did not obey, to which Mrityunjay responded, “those who give way to great anger are like the dead…”
The magistrate ordered his guards to let Mrityunjay go, knowing that he had nothing with which to threaten him.  He left the city and traveled back to his home on the Sarasvatî River.  When he returned, he found that Sujan had died.  The villagers told him that Sujan didn’t speak a single word in all the years that he was gone and that he died alone on the banks of the river.  Upon hearing this, Mrityunjay fell to his knees and wept.  He had abandoned Sujan just the way he had been abandoned by his mother at birth.  He had taken his voice away and left him alone with his grief.  This realization had come too late.  For the first time in his life, he felt regret.  He was paralyzed by it and did not move for days.  He didn’t eat or drink or sleep.  He remained on his knees on the banks of the river where Sujan had died.  He experienced guilt, shame, fear, grief, betrayal, illusion, and attachment and with each, he wept.  He was overwhelmed by a lifetime’s worth of emotions, which had been kept at bay all his years by anger.  His feet sank into the Earth and his tears watered the soil.  Mrityunjay became a mango tree on the bank of the river where his father had died. [1]
News of the miracle spread quickly throughout the village and the young woman who had tried to change Mrityunjay’s heart with kindness also heard the story.  Still weakened by her illness, she was carried to the tree by her neighbors.  She sat in the shade of the beautiful tree and touched its bark.  It wasn’t cold and coarse like she had expected.  It was warm and smooth.  She sensed a change in him.  She ate a mango from the tree and felt love well up in her heart again.  She soon recovered from her illness and regained her strength.  She picked a mango and took it to her father whose body was now too weak to even stand.  He ate the fruit and felt the power return to his limbs.  He was no longer paralyzed by fear.  He went back to work and found a suitor for his daughter.  She married and had seven children.
The story of the tree spread far throughout the 16 kingdoms, even the Persian-occupied Gandhãra.  People traveled from all corners of the land to pray in the shade of the tree and eat its fruit.  Among those who made the pilgrimage were the old ascetic who had lost his faith, the mistress who could not feel pleasure, the branded Gandhãri jailer, and an emissary of the ailing Persian magistrate in Takshashila.  They ate the fruit from Mrityunjay’s tree and became whole again.  The old ascetic found his faith again and took to the forests.  The mistress’s scars healed and she could again take pleasure in her trade.  The jailer’s belief in law and order was restored and the mark on his cheek faded.  The Persian magistrate let go of his obsession and died peacefully in his sleep.
One by one, Mrityunjay returned what he had taken.  Though the tree remained, after the Persian magistrate died, it stopped bearing fruit.  The sages believed that Mrityunjay had achieved Moksha and been released from his Earthly vessel.

[1]  Many Buddhists and Hindu followers believe that the tree still exists today on the banks of the Ghaggar River near the town of Hanumangarh in northern Rajasthan state, India.  It has become an important site of pilgrimage for many religious devotees, though the story itself varies among the different faiths.  The tree is referred to as Mrtyumjayacûta and is often associated with the worship of the Hindu goddess Saraswati.

- I visited Indy for X-mas and saw all of my favorite people.
- I joined and became a regular member of an hiking group in Kansai.
- Yuki and I traveled to Okinawa, which was both fun and eye-opening.
- I proposed to Yuki.
- Andy unexpectedly quit the band.
- I resigned from Immanuel Education Center.
- Got married in Kobe and had a wonderful party with all of our friends in Aioi.
- Moved to Kobe.
- Found a job in Osaka.
- Decided I was working for idiots and found a better job at a medical college in Sanda.
- The band found a new drummer, the adorable K.
- After a lot of consideration, Yuki and I decided she should quit her current position and find something less stressful.
- Passed the 70,000-words mark on my novel.
- The band started recording a demo.
- Started planning a wedding ceremony to take place in Indy in 2011.
- Yuki quit smoking.

There’s probably a lot more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment. Since my life has settled down quite a bit compared with the previous few years, this blog will probably not be as interesting as it was before. However, I will try to make it as interesting as I can. Its purpose is three-fold:

1. To keep my friends and family and all the people I care about connected to the goings-on in my life.
2. To write down my thoughts and feelings, for better or for worse, about anything and everything. It’s quite therapeutic to just write everything down and get it out; even the negative stuff (ESPECIALLY the negative stuff).
3. To keep up my writing so as to keep me from getting bogged down on the novel without distracting me too much.

So, there it is. To all of my friends and family back home…I miss you and love you all. To sum up: Kobe is a beautiful city, married life kicks ass, and teaching knowledge-hungry college students is much more satisfying than teaching lonely Japanese housewives!

More coming soon…

*beep* *beep* *beep*

…I’m back. Stay tuned…