Obama, Japan; or, The Joys of Not Getting What You Expect

March 25th signaled the beginning of spring vacation--while the teachers will still come to school most days, there are no classes until the start of the new school year on April 7th.  I'll be staying around until March 30th because of the goodbye party for my school, and then heading down to Kyushu, the southern island.  I had very much wanted to volunteer in the Tohoku area with the tsunami victims, but after many inquiries I found they are still discouraging outside volunteers.  The last thing I'd want to would be a nuisance for people who are already working as hard as they can.

So while I will be staying around Kanazawa for the most part for the next few days, I decided to take a solo day trip to Obama, Japan.  It's relatively close to me, about 4 hours south of me on the coast via local trains (cheap!), and I'd always said I just had to go to Obama because what kind of patriot would I be to live in Japan for two years and never visit the town coincidentally named for the sitting president???  ...Probably a still ok patriot, truth be told, but I figured I could still get out of town for a day, see some funny tourist items (the town has seized on the double-naming and the mayor even proposed building an Obama statue) and see the countryside.  I did all of that, but I also happened to stumble upon a gorgeous, sleepy fishing town named 小浜 (Small Beach...or "Obama", if you want to be all English about it).

At a layover in Tsuruga, in the mountains in Fukui prefecture.

Views from the train

I got into town at about 1:30, planning to just spend three hours walking around a bit and hop back on the 4:21 train.  The next one was at 6:53, and what was I really going to do in Obama for that long?

I decided to completely forgo iPhone navigation and do what I do best: walk around, get lost, look for tourist maps, and run into something cool.

The first thing I saw was a string of shrines that were quite beautiful.  The plum blossoms at one were in full bloom, this being further south, and I was almost the only one walking around.  There seemed to be a fair amount of construction of public spaces going on in Obama, but there didn't seem to be anyone in the streets, and this was the first Saturday of the spring school vacation.  Perhaps an effect of the tsunami, or perhaps that's just how Obama is.  I was definitely the only foreigner I saw all day.

The old and the new.

The old and the new.

Walking into this one though a low side entrance was at first like stumbling on a secret place.

 A new graveyard...

And one hundreds of years old.

The new...

...and the old.  This Japanese Fanta came from an ancient vending machine that looked like it came out of the 60s and hadn't been restocked much more recently.  I got it for the bottle and quickly remembered why I hate Fanta.

After the street of shrines, I wound my way along the foot of the mountains--which were at several points only a couple hundred yards from the ocean--to a small park and the edge of the city.  There a walking path ran alongside a two-lane road that wrapped around the seaside mountains.

North is the character in the upper left here.

After the first curve I came upon a distinctly Japanese and gorgeous view.  The topography is very arresting here, the way the land can so quickly rise out of the water.  For Canoers reading this, Obama reminded me quite a bit of East Sound on Orcas, though the bay it opens on is much more expansive.

I think it's worth remembering that the reason such beauty exists in Japan (or anywhere else, really) is the same reason for all the devastation in  northeastern Honshu right now.

Off of the main path stairs descended to the sporadic beaches, which were linked at first by really cool cliffside walkways.  As I was down there, a storm began to blow in, scattering a weird rain/snow mix.

At some point something came and really did a number on the walkways.  This is where it started to feel like Myst or Riven, which made me geek out like a little kid.

Yeah, that's looking about right...

Perfect! Now if only...

YES! A mysteriously destroyed bridge across a rocky chasm! You better believe I actually vocalized my excitement outloud to myself at the time.  I did try to climb across, as I tend to be what some have recently called "reckless" in these situations, but the rocks were too slippery.

I have to assume it was a storm that did this.  Scary stuff.

Making my way back down to the Obama waterfront, I knew I had seen a hiking trail on the copious tourist maps in the city center.  I found the base of it and, though the trail diverged several times, I adhered to the rule "When in doubt, go higher" and followed it up on top of the mountains I had just been at the foot of on the beach.  The weather seemed to cooperate perfectly with my movements--stormy and windy down by the breakers, clear and sunny on top of the hills.

A uniquely beautiful lamp.  Usually these are symmetrical and carved, but the organic balance of this one was striking. 

Japanese towns often have incredibly well-developed park and walking path areas, and this was no exception.  I saw only one other hiker, and the views were breathtaking.  I laughed out loud at several points as I walked along the ridge, once walking above a circling eagle that curved up and flew right over my head.  I checked the time and saw it was 3:55.  Guess I was staying for the later train.

I finally descended and walked along the waterfront.  On the tourist maps, several shopping and fishing areas had been marked, so I made my way in their general direction.  At this point I was hoping for some quaint shops to poke my head into and a good dinner--I imagined a really authentic mom & pop hole in the wall restaurant where the jolly owner would chat with me and make me feel like I knew what I was doing as a traveler in Japan.

I walked out to the fisherman's wharf, which was largely deserted at that point in the afternoon.  Markets were closing up; perhaps I just missed the rush, but it seemed a bit like a post-industrial ghost town.  Kids out of school rode by on bikes, some of them dressed up in neon colors and sporting insane hairstyles like they were out at midnight in Shibuya; they looked hungry for some kind of at least mild excitement or opportunities for delinquency.

Most of what I wandered through seemed like a pretty typical Japanese town, though everything was smashed right up on the ocean and there were several inlets full of boats.  Even around 5 PM, all the shops seemed to be closing, so that appeared to be a no-go.  However, I was still hungry.

So I turned and saw a sign for sushi and walked into a really authentic mom & pop hole in the wall restaurant where the jolly owner chatted with me and made me feel like I knew what I was doing as a traveler in Japan.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on this life of mine, because sometimes things just seem to go a little too well.

Seeing the piece of crab sushi again is making my mouth water almost painfully.

Also, the sushi was mind-blowing.  Second-best sushi I've had next to Tsukiji market in Tokyo.  I was the only customer besides a lone businessman, and they turned out the lights soon after I left to go see if I could get a good sunset picture.

Well, the sunset wasn't what I had pictured, because it had started snowing.  Yep.  From my arrival in Obama, it was chilly, but sunny.  Then clouds blew in and there was the mini-storm and rain at the seaside.  Then it was sunny and clear, no clouds in sight.  Then a bigger storm came in and I walked through driving snow to the waterfront.  The weather patterns in Japan can be whiplash-inducing.  I stood there half-sheltered behind a light post for 5 or 10 minutes and the storm blew over.

The storm will always pass.

I made my way back to the train station, and some of the biggest shops I had seen in the afternoon were already closed.  Obama is really one of those towns where everything closes at 6 PM.  I have to wonder if this scene is repeating itself all over Japan as foreigners cancel trips and the Japanese stay more at home int he wake of the earthquake.  If so, it will be a huge blow to the economy, as the spring cherry blossom season is such a big deal here.  I recently looked around at availability and many hotels and hostels were free for same-day reservations when that would have been a joke to even ask last year.  

I was able to drop into the train station store and get some campy omiyage (travel food gifts) for my co-workers.  Those of you who've weathered the storm of this gargantuan post finally get some funny Obama kitsch!

I have no idea what "The Obama for Obama" is supposed to mean.

In the end, so little of my day in Obama was spent with the "Obama"ness of it, and I couldn't be happier.

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