Tonight I had about two of the most confusing hours of my life. I shall relate, but first there’s lots of pre-story to get up to the interesting stuff.

It all started about halfway through the workday today. This particular school is about a 25 minute bus ride away from the city. The particular bus I take actually goes all the way to Tsuchiyu-Onsen, one of the well-known onsen (hot spring) cities around here. I’ve been meaning to head up there and check it out, but it’s a good 50 minute bus ride from the station at a cost of around 1,200 yen. So today I figured that because I was pretty much already halfway there, I might as well continue on the rest of the way once I got off work.

Work finished, and I was off.

I arrived at the city to find that it was amazingly beautiful–up in the mountains, covered in snow, multiple rivers and waterfalls flowing through the city, and surrounded by rustic-looking buildings. But of course I didn’t go there just to look, I also wanted to take a bath in a nice onsen.

From what I’ve found so far, you can take a bath in a public bath onsen, which are usually about 200 yen, but towels and other amenities tend to be on a ‘bring your own’ basis. I hadn’t planned in advance, so I had nothing of my own. Anyway, ryokan (Japanese-style inns) onsen tend to be quite nicer and supply you with the toiletries you need, albeit at a higher price.

I walked around for a bit to find a ryokan that I thought would have a nice onsen, went inside and asked about it, only to find out that it was currently closed to the public. I entered in two more and got the same response. Drat. There was a public one I could have used, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Instead, I spent some time in one of the free foot onsens that was interspaced around the city. Because it was cold outside, the water was merely lukewarm, but at least it was better than nothing.

This is a good time to point out that the bus back to Fukushima only comes about every other hour, so after my soaking in the foot onsen I still had plenty of time to wait. By this time I had been walking around outside for over an hour and my hands were getting cold, so I kept them warm by buying a warm coffee from a vending machine followed by yet another warm coffee. They help to keep the hands warm.

By this time I figured it was a losing battle, so I went off to find some place I could stay in until my bus came that had some nice hot food. I didn’t see one conbini at all in the whole city, but I did eventually find some little mom’n pop shop off in some area. I saw that they had pizamans (soft doughy cooked bread with pizza stuff in the center) displayed in their window, so I had to go buy one.

To my surprise I was immediately hit with a bunch of “irashaimase”s and realized that three people were already in the store, two employees and one guy just sitting there. I quickly forgot about my quest for food and ended up talking to all three of them for a good 15 minutes or so. Within that time I told them that I was waiting for the bus and had decided to show up to Tsuchiyu after finishing up at my middle school for the day. That actually helped my position quite a bit, as the middle school I said I worked at is the school that all the kids in that city go to, so of course they knew about it and it gave me some legitimacy, but I’ll talk more about that in a later post.

Anyway, I eventually remembered my quest for food and asked the clerk for a pizaman and a nikuman (same thing but with random meat). He went off to heat them up for me, and while he did I talked to the other non-employee there. I got out of him that he was some sort of photographer and does photography for various city buildings/things. Once the clerk came back with my -mans the other guy said that he’d give me a ride. Due to the bus ride taking so long and costing so much, I figured hey, it can’t be that bad, you know, despite me just meeting the guy 15 minutes prior.

On the way to where I thought was home he pointed out a bunch of buildings he had taken pictures for. After 20 minutes or so he picks up his CB raido reciever and calls someone. She responds, and they talk for a short bit. Shortly thereafter, he surprises me by pulling into some random parking lot. To confuse me even more, so lady comes out of the store, starts talking to the guy, then they start taking equipment out of the car. It ends up this was the lady he had been talking to.

The guy then motioned for me to get out of the car, so I did, making sure to grab my backpack (which contained the laptop I’m typing this on). He then motioned me into the store. By now I was getting quite confused, but hey, this was an adventure.

Once in the store, which was a photography store, I changed into the indoor slippers. The guy then immediately motions me into another room. I walk into it to find out that it’s a…

Studio. He quickly motions me to sit down on a chair, so I comply, and he immediately starts taking pictures of me. By now I’m amazingly confused and have no idea what’s going on. I just met this random old guy who drove me to some store out in the country who then ushered me into some backroom to take pictures of me. Confused.

This is how people are kidnapped and raped.

He finished quickly, took out his memory card, went back into the first room (which had a bunch of photography developing equipment), stuck his memory card into one of the machines, booted up the computer, and set to work doing… something at the time that I didn’t really know.

He opened up one of the photos of me, stuck it on a calendar template, and asked what color I liked. I said green, so he made the background green. He then told me to type in some comments. I still has confused as hell and didn’t know what to type in, so he said to just put my name. He told me to type in a different place also, and this time put “208 American Japan”. I assumed that he really meant “2008 American in Japan”. I did so, and then I was ushered to a table near the entrance.

It was now, finally now, that I was able to eat my piza and nikumans. I was happy. It was also this time that some third guy came into the store and started talking to me. He made me a cup of black coffee and eventually left.

Soon after he left the woman came back out, but she had cooked me a little pizza and given me some apple slices.

Once I finish eating the guy comes back out with a surprise for me.

I was at a loss for words by now. This guy had printed out about 150 copies of my face on a calendar and gave them all to me. He took about four of the small ones and one of the big ones (of two) for himself.

He then put some tape on the back of the big one he took and started looking around the store for a place to hang it up. The walls were all covered in photos, so my face got the next best thing: he taped it on the door outside.

So yes, now there is that picture of me taped up outside some random photography store in some small town near Fukushima. Even better, he said that many kids from the aforementioned middle school I teach at pass by that store on the way to school. Hawt. I’ll be even more famous.

And it gets better. This guy is saving me 1,200 yen for the bus ride home (if he eventually got me home), fed me pizza, gave me all those free copies of my face on a calendar, and then he walks over to a table, picks up his wallet, and takes out a $10 bill. He hands it to me and says it’s a present.

I took it from him, once again confused as hell. I guess to him it didn’t have much worth, but for some stranger to do all of this for/with/to me and on top of it pay me for everything made me once again very, very confused.

Anyway, after all of this he suddenly says ok, it’s time to go. I grabbed my stuff, we loaded up in his car, we drove the 20 or so minutes back to my place, he dropped me off, we said goodbye, and he drove off.

But just, wow. What a night.

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