I am going deep into the jello shot addled parts of my brain for this story. When I think about my time in Fukuoka in 1989 I can’t help but laugh at myself. The entire trip was filled with misjudgments and misery. There were some good times interspersed throughout, but I was a broken man by the end of the trip.
So, a little background here. I was still in college at this time and was an exchange student. I was attending Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, Hokkaido, which had an agreement with my college, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon.
It was winter break and the plan was to head to Okinawa with another student, Deane. She had relatives in Okinawa and I had asked if I could travel with her while she visited with them. I didn’t think I would get another opportunity to visit Okinawa in my life so I was really excited about the prospect.
For those of you who are geographically challenge, Sapporo and Okinawa are pretty far apart.
Several things to know here. These days, the shinkansen runs from Kagoshima, which is on the Southern tip of Kyushu, to Hakodate which is on the southern tip of Hokkaido. When I was in Japan in 1989, the Shinkansen ran only as far South as Fukuoka and only as far North as Morioka.
Complicating matters, at that time, the Shinkansen did not run through Tokyo itself. Shinkansen running South of Tokyo started at Tokyo Station. Shinkansen running North of Tokyo ran through Ueno Station. You had to connect between the 2 stations via a local line or bus. These days of course, the shinkansen runs through both stations which makes life considerably easier. Oh did I forget to mention that the line that connects the 2 stations is the Yamanote Line, one the busiest lines in Tokyo?????
Luckily, by 1989, the Japanese had just finished building the Seikan Tunnel, which ran from Northern Honshu to Southern Hokkaido. Previous to that, a ferry was required, which would have made the journey even more arduous to say the least
So here was the basic plan. It was about 12 hours to Tokyo in those days via train (these days that time is about half). We would overnight on the train, which sounds great, right? Go to sleep in Hokkaido and wake up in Tokyo. No problem. Seeing as that we were relatively poor students we chose not to pay extra for the direct train to Tokyo that had a sleeping car.
Instead we needed to change trains in Aomori…at some ridiculous hour like around 2 or 3 in the morning. I have vague memories of doing this. It was snowing heavily at the train station and I stumbled out of the train, climbed the stairs to get to the next platform, and boarded the next train to Morioka. I don’t even remember anything again until Tokyo.
Via shinkansen, Morioka itself is only about 2 and a half hours to Tokyo, so the vast majority of that 12 hours was spent just trying to get to Morioka. These days it’s about 3 hours to Hakodate from Tokyo via Shinkansen and then another 3 hours to Sapporo. FYI, the plans are to extend the shinkansen to Sapporo by 2030.
Deanne and I were actually traveling with another person, Doris. For whatever reason I remember that she was a chemistry major. However, that’s all I can remember about her besides here appearance. It’s weird what you remember sometimes. The only reason I know her name is because I texted a couple of people from the trip I am still in contact with to ask. A mutual acquaintance, a Japanese student from Lewis and Clark, Chiyo(?) had invited us to spend the night at her family home in Chiba, which is near Tokyo.
Deane and I would continue on to Okinawa the next day while Doris would stay on and spend her time in Tokyo with Chiyo. I hadn’t mentioned this before, but we were travelling during the winter holiday towards the end of December. We were in Tokyo either on the 23rd or 24th of December.
Houses on Honshu are notoriously cold. The houses were built to beat the heat of the summer rather than the cold of the winter. It’s the opposite where I was in Sapporo. The summers are generally very mild (it’s a popular time to visit Hokkaido) as opposed to the rest of Japan, which the word, “oppressive,” is often used to describe dummers. Winters in Tokyo are generally mild as opposed to Sapporo, which can be freezing.
Mild winters are great...if the mildness of the winter stays outside the house while the warmness of central heating stays in the house. Chiyo’s house did not have central heating. They relied mainly on kotatsu to stay warm. A kotatsu is basically a floor table with a blanket draping the sides. In modern times there is a electric heating coil under the table, which means if you are not sitting with your legs under the table, you are not getting heated!!!
Although there may have been a difference between the outside temperature and inside temperature at Chiyo’s house, it wasn’t discernible to me. I was cold outside the house and cold inside the house. Getting out of the shower was torture.
We did have an interesting event planned for that one night at Chiyo’s house. Chiyo’s family was having a “クリスマス パーテイー／Kurisumasu Paatii/Christmas Party” so at least I had something to distract me from freezing my ass off.
At this time, Christmas was still relatively new to Japan. People were vaguely familiar with it. Christianity has been openly practiced in Japan since around the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Moreover, I am sure the American Military had a heavy influence in the areas around their bases, but still I think most people were relatively clueless about. I didn’t know what Kwanzaa was until about 10 years ago, but it’s been around since 1966 so there is that.
I can really only remember 2 things from the Christmas party besides being cold. The first is that Doris had brought her Violin with her and played for us at the party. The second is that Chiyo’s brother in-law (?) had purchased a minidisc of this TV commercial song, “Japanese Businessman.” I have no idea why I remember this.
Christmas in Japan, which I didn’t know at the time, is strongly associated with Kentucky Fried Chicken of all things. I am trying to remember if there was KFC chicken at this party, but I can’t remember. I dug this up if you are interested in this phenomenon. One of my Japanese friends in Sapporo was surprised that we didn’t eat KFC at Christmas in the United States.
We got up the next day and made our way to Tokyo Station. I am assuming that nothing else happened because I have no memory of anything happening until we hit Kagoshima. At this time, as I said before, the shinkansen only ran as far south as Hakata Station in Fukuoka. That in itself is still 5-6 hours on the shinkansen. Once we got to we got on limited express trains which took another 6-7 hours to get to Kagoshima.
I don’t remember much of Kagoshima as I was probably in a fatigued fueled haze from sitting on the train for 12-13 hours. From Kagoshima we would take an overnight ferry to Naha. I know we had a few hours to kill in Kagoshima, but I can’t really recall. I don’t even remember seeing Sakurajima, the active volcano across the bay from Kagoshima City, I must have seen it because it just looms over the city.
And I know from my most recent visit to the city a couple of years ago that it is clearly visible from the ferry station.
I do remember the one thing that we did do. Before getting on the ferry we went to a bakery and bought a Christmas cake. What’s that you say? A Christmas cake? Along with KFC at Christmas, this is another “western tradition” the Japanese adopted from…nobody. i won’t go into much detail, but I found this video on Youtube, which generally matches up to what I have read elsewhere.
Deane and I didn’t have any other way to celebrate Christmas. This was either December 24th or 25th (probably the 24th). We were not great friends, but if you can’t be with one you love, have Christmas cake with the one you’re with.
We had gotten separate berths on the ship. Again the details are sketchy for me as I really don’t remember much. We planned to go to our berths, freshen up, shower, nap, etc and then meet for dinner where we would have our Christmas cake. That was the plan at least.
Turned out that Deane used to get (and maybe still does) motion-sickness. As such, she took a dose of dramamine as soon as we boarded the ship. Whilst I went to my berth, took a nap (presumably. I can’t really remember) and freshened up, Deane tooka nap which extended well into the next day.
I came back at the allotted hour to have our Christmas cake and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. I waited quite a while and then decided I should investigate. I mean there was cake to be eaten after all.
I found my way to her room to find her sleeping. I woke her up to make sure everything was okay. I can’t remember what she said but if I had to guess, the fatigue from our 2 days of travel plus the dramamine had caught up with her. Basically, she told me to have the cake myself and that she would see me the next day. Awesome.
So in light of spending Christmas ostensibly alone, I did what any other normal 20 year old would do. I ate the cake, then went to the bar, got drunk, and then sang karaoke on a stage, which I found to be more difficult than I had imagined due to the pitching and rolling of the ship combined with inebriation. So yeah, not my finest moment as a human being.
At some point I must have made it back to my room. Again, I have no memory of the events of that night except for drinking and almost falling off the karaoke stage. At some other point I must have woken up because my next memory is that of eating breakfast with Deane in the cafeteria and having a conversation with a fighter pilot.
This guy was an American fighter pilot at Kadena Airbase. I noticed that he had been quite chatty with the cafeteria workers. He noticed us. Probably because he heard us speaking in English. He was quite chatty telling us how he was trying to learn Japanese and questioning us about our schooling. He got into an explanation about flying at one point and I asked him some questions. He became quite animated when talking about flying
Later, Deane asked me how I was able to converse with him about flying. She said she knew nothing about it so how did I know enough to talk with him? The only thing I knew about flying was from watching Top Gun and Iron Eagle. However, it’s funny how a few bits of knowledge and some well-placed questions will make you sound like you know what you are talking about, or at least be able to hold a conversation.
And with that our journey to Okinawa was over. I find it strange that I hardly remember anything about traveling around Okinawa itself. I have bits and pieces and some disparate memories, but not enough to really write anything. I do however, have very distinct memories of getting to Okinawa and back to Sapporo and things that happened along the way.
And here for your entertainment is a picture of Deane and I with a python taken in Okinawa.
Peregrinations in the Land of the Rising Sun 
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