Copyright (c) 2002, Glenn Story Saturday, September 28, 1985: Kamakura I am writing this from my room in the Kaihinso Ryokon. We arrived here yesterday from Tokyo. This is the start of a month- long journey that will eventually take us back to the United States after living here in Japan for almost two years. We traveled here from Tokyo by local train; it took only a little over an hour. We took the Yokosuka line from Shimbashi Station in Tokyo to Kamakura Station and then a narrow-guage train from there, two short stops, to Uigahara. This latter train is marked as a street car on one of my maps. But since it doesn't run on the street, and since it is several cars long, I consider it to be a regular "densha" or electric train. It is smaller than the ordinary train, owing to the narrow guage. And it runs on a single pair of rails, serving both directions, unlike most Japan ese trains that use two sets of tracks for opposite directions. We have had cloudy skys continuously and rain intermittently since we got here. In some cases such weather adds a subdued and softened mood which seems very Japanese. In this case, it merely makes things gloomy. We went out yesterday afternoon to see if we are as close to the ocean as the map makes it appear. We are. After having seen so many Japanese beaches on TV that were packed to standing-room- only capacity, it seemed strange to see this large sandy beach that was almost deserted. But then it was bad weather on a weekday. More significant, it is now past the end of the beach season. It is much more rare in Japan for people to go traveling "out of season"--Japanese like to do things on schedule. The beach was peaceful and Elizabeth got to play in the sand. Today we went to see the "Dai Butsu" or "Big Buddha". It is one of the most famous attractions in Kamakura, and we were surprised to learn, it is within walking distance of our ryokan. From there we tried to follow a trail on one of our maps. But it wasn't clearly marked, and we got lost. After wandering down a long residential road that followed the floor of a small valley, we eventually ended up at a train station. This got us reoriented and we decided to take the train to Kamakura Station. From there we walked to Hachimon Shrine. There is a long road leading to the entrance to this shrine, punctuated with several large torii along the way. This road starts practically at Kamakura Station and dominates the downtown area. After we visited Hachimon Shrine we started toward some other shrines, but it began to rain so we came back to our ryokan. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn. (The name derives from "ryoko" which means travel.) Our room is eight mats in size. This is the traditional Japanese way of measuring a room. A mat refers to a tatami mat. Tatami are made from rice straw and other materials and are always of a uniform size and shape: about 1 x 2 meters. This uniformity allows the mats to be made in a shop and then brought to where they are going to be installed, predating the western concept of interchangeable parts by hundreds of years. Right now there is a low black table in the center of the room. At the moment my daughter has stacked cushions and other objects around it to make a play house. It is a house of odd proportions since she has to crawl on her belly to get in and out, and must lie prostrate while inside. Later the maid will bring the afternoon tea, which will be served at this table, as was breakfast this morning. After tea, we will change from our western clothes to a Japanese style yukata and go down the hall to take a bath. Then we will return to our room to have dinner, at that same long low table. The table dominates the room. In fact it is the only piece of furniture in the room except for the cushions and chairs-without- legs in which we sit at the table. But at night the table is easily and swiftly moved out of the way and futons--foam pads and colorful quilts--are placed on the floor. The room in a ryokan is elegant in its simplicity--like all things Japanese. It is so different from a western hotel room, and so typically Japanese. That is why we have arranged to stay in ryokans almost exclusively through our travels. Monday, September 30: Today is our last day in Kamakura. The weather has not been very good while we've been here. It rained so hard yesterday that I was afraid my camera would be damaged. For me the highlight of our visit to Kamakura was our visit, yesterday, to Engaku-ji temple, a large Zen temple in the north eastern part of Kamakura. When I say "large" I am referring mostly to the size of the grounds. We wandered for hours around through gardens, bamboo groves, and past many different styles of buildings. The Japanese have a word, "shizuka," which can be translated as "quiet" or "peaceful". It has a deeper connotation however of being a place that instills tranquility in the visitor. Such are the temples of Kamakura, and especially Engaku-ji. While we were there, there was a light mist of rain falling, which added to the peacefulness of the place. We spent the rest of the morning visiting additional temples in Kita Kamakura area. Many of the temples in this area are of the Zen sect of Buddhism. (This can be determined by the more asym- metric layout of the building.) It may well be said that it is from this area of Kita Kamakura that Zen was exported to America. It was here that D. Suzuki lived. He wrote extensively about Zen in English. He in turn is quoted by Alan Watts, who popularized Zen for a wider American audience. Today we planned to visit Enoshima, a small island connected to Honshu by a short bridge. Then we planned to visit Yokohama on our way back to Tokyo. On the way to Enoshima, we stopped at Hase temple near our ryo- kan. My daughter particularly liked this temple: it had thousands (really!) of tiny figures; some of them had toys, many of them pinwheels. They were placed there by people hoping to have children or thankful for the ones they have. There was also a large impressive statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. There was a small cave under the temple that had various statues carved in stone and illuminated by candlelight. At last we made our way to Enoshima by train, followed by a short walk. Enoshima is, essentially, a small mountain peak, sticking out of the sea. We were spared the climb to the top by a series of escalators. At the top we got an excellent view of Sagami Bay; in the distance, Isu Penninsula, and, faintly, O-shima. There were several "kiddie" rides at the top, which Elizabeth enjoyed, and an observation tower. Then we walked down a narrow street, with stairs in several places, to a small shrine commemorating Yoritomo, the first sho- gun, who made his residence in Kamakura. Continuing down the narrow street, which became steeper as we went, we came down to the fairly flat rocky area just above the ocean. And here we could see the caves of Benten, which unfortu- nately are no longer open to the public. I'll have to rely on the flowery description of Lafcadio Hearn, who visited here in the late 1800s shortly after Japan was opened to the West. (I have read several of Hearn's writings; I became interested in him from watching a somewhat romanticised dramatization of his life on Japanese television.) Enoshima was more interesting than I had expected, with its combination of historical and religious sites and scenic beauty. It was also farther from our ryokan than I had thought. As a consequence it was mid afternoon by the time we got back to our ryokan. So we decided to skip Yokohama, and instead went straight back to Tokyo. As we were walking to dinner in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, I gazed at the glitter of the neon lights and I reflected on the contrast between the big-city life of Tokyo and the small-town rusticness of Kamakura. Tuesday, October 1: Today we began a five-day tour which will wander through rural Japan and end up in Kyoto. This morning we drove through farmland: grapes, apples, peaches, and of course, rice. Rice is grown almost everywhere that one finds agriculture in Japan. Not only is it the staple of the Japanese diet, but it is subsidized by the government, and therefore guaranteed to be profitable. But, even if the subsidies ended, I believe rice growing would still dominate Japanese farming. Rice growing, as much as rice eating, is inherent in the Japanese way of life. (My dictionary shows four different words for rice--and I'm sure there are others. Moreover, one of them, "gohan" is often used to mean "meal". These are indications of the importance of rice to the Japanese.) In spring and early summer, it is easy to spot the rice fields, since they are flooded with water with the young green shoots sticking out. But this time of year, the plants are mature and fill the fields with golden plants maybe a foot or two tall, and the water of the paddies is not visible. In the evening we stayed in Matsumoto. We were fortunate to be there during a festival at the local shrine. In many ways it was similar to festivals we had seen in Tokyo. There were a large number of stalls set up on the narrow streets approaching the shrine. At these stalls, men were selling toys, food, and other trinkets. It was crowded with people milling around, mostly waiting for the evening's big event, a fireworks display over the adjoining river. Friday, October 4: I am sitting on a rock in a small park while my daughter is playing. Most of our group is off looking at surrounding museums and a large beautiful Japanese garden. There is a group of Japanese kids playing here. Most of them are too shy to approach me, except one, who occasionally comes up to show me the bugs he has caught. It has been two days since I've had time to write anything. On Wednesday we stayed in a particularly nice ryokan in the small town of Takayama, which means "high mountain", an appropriate name, since it is surrounded by mountains. Last night we stayed in Kanagawa, a larger and more modern city. But even here there is a much more evident Japanese look to the city--a greater number of traditional-style buildings. These past two days have been spent traveling through rural Japan; through mountains and farms. I feel I'm seeing a traditional part of Japan I've never seen before. I'm tempted to say "the real Japan", but not only is that a cliche, but it somehow denies the reality of Tokyo. It is however true that the part of Japan we have been traveling through has retained more of the traditional ways of the old Japan. That is because it is a rural farming area, and such areas seem to change more slowly than do the big cities. There is also more of the traditional Japanese architecture here. We have seen a section of Takayama that has been carefully maintained to look the same as it did during the Edo period, a hundred or more years ago. We have also visited an even older village where all the buildings have thatched roofs. All of these, of course, have been deliberately preserved for historical purposes. But many of the ordinary buildings have a more tradi- tional look, with unpainted wood, darkened with age, and tile roofs. The reason so many of these buildings exist here and not in Tokyo, we are told, is that these smaller farming towns were not bombed during World War II. But an additional reason is that many older buildings in Tokyo are being torn down to make way for high-rise chrome-and-glass buildings. We've seen this in the neighborhood we lived in, where a charming little neighborhood of narrow winding roads and family-run fish shops, vegetable stores and laundries was torn down to make way for the "ARK Hills" development: towering hotels and office buildings. When Lafcadio Hearn wrote about Japan at the end of the 19th Century, he de- cried the westernization and modernization of Japan. Well, it's still going on today. But traditional Japan continues to exist in rural areas such as those we are visiting, and also in the hearts of the people in both the country and the city. Saturday, October 5: Today was the last day of the group tour we have been participating in. Today we only made one stop. But for me, it was the highlight of the tour: the Eiheijii Zen monastery. The buildings of this monastery had a kind of grace and power that only Buddhist temples can have. But this place was so large with so many buildings all interconnected! It is situated in a beautiful forested mountain area which must more than compensate for the strict, plain regimen that the shaved- headed, black-robed young monks must follow. It was raining while we were there. There are many places that a rainy day can spoil. There are a few places that the rain seems to be a natural part of. Eiheijii is one of the latter. The rain seemed to add to the tranquility of the place, and seemed to make the buildings blend more with the natural setting in which they are located. I am writing this from our ryokan, the Fujita, in Kyoto. From where I sit I can look out my window and see the Kamo River flow by. This ryokan is located on my favorite street in Kyoto, Kyomachi, a lovely little lane, lined with willow trees with small inns and shops on one side and a small canal on the other. Now I must stop writing since the maid has just come into our room with dinner. Sunday, October 6: We spent the morning today walking around that portion of Kyoto near our ryokan. We began by crossing the Kamo River. Then we entered the Gion section which was once the geisha quarter. This area, more than any other section of Kyoto retains the quaint flavor of old Japan. The buildings are almost all of unpainted wood construction with sliding doors and a small inner entry area. Every time I come to Kyoto I fall in love with it again. There is a feeling of peacefulness here that is hard to describe. Both in the narrow back streets and in shrines and temples. And there are shrines and temples everywhere. We must have seen a dozen on our walk this morning. We visited several, each with a different character. We were looking for a particular restaurant for lunch. All we knew about it was the name and that it is near a particular temple. We also had a photograph. The advertisement said they served yakitori (chicken and other meat and vegetables cooked over a smoking wood fire on small skewers). We had some difficulty finding the temple, but then it was quite easy to find the restaurant. The young women who greeted us looked rather uncomfortable to be confronting gaijin (foreigners) and seemed visibly relieved when I spoke to them in Japanese. It turned out they didn't have the time to prepare yakitori for us today. We had a vegetarian lunch, the main course of which was tofu (fer- mented soybean curd), boiled in a small iron pot at our table with a few vegetables for seasoning. Normally I don't care for vegetarian fare, and I don't particularly like the bland taste of tofu. But this was quite good, due primarily to the tasty shoyu (soy-sauce) based seasoning. In the early afternoon my daughter and I went to the Kyoto Zoo while my wife went shopping in the local department store. Neither were particularly Japanese, but my daughter enjoyed the zoo, as all children do. I've been writing this from the small veranda in our room, overlooking the river. It is typical for ryokan rooms to have a small veranda next to the window. This usually has a small table and one or two western-style chairs (which is why I'm here instead of in the adjoining tatami room where I would have to sit on the floor.) Actually when I started, the veranda and tatami room were effectively one continuous space. But now my wife has closed the shoji screens to transform the space into two separate rooms, a typical feature of Japanese architecture. Now I'm going to take a bath before dinner--the appropriate time for bathing by Japanese standards. (The first time I came to Kyoto, the maid lectured me for not bathing until after dinner.) Many ryokans have a public bath, but this one is too small, so I will bathe in our room. But it will still be in the Japanese style--soaping down and rinsing outside the tub, and then getting in the hot water to soak and relax. How can I continue writing with such delights awaiting me!? Monday, October 7: Today was our last day in Kyoto. In the morning we visited two gardens: one was at the Ginkakuji, or silver pavilion--a Buddhist temple. The other was at Heien Shrine. In Kyoto, Shinto shrines are far outnumbered by Buddhist temples. But Heien Shrine in particular is especially large and well-known. I had visited the shrine on my first trip to Kyoto, but the garden there is both larger and more beautiful than I realized. It contains several very large ponds filled with lily pads and koi (carp). I'm very conscious of sounds on this trip, since I'm using a new video camera which records sound as well as pictures. I found the sounds in the gardens of Heien Shrine to be very incongruous. Visually the gardens are very peaceful and tranquil, whereas the sound is dominated by the noise of city traffic, particularly trucks, buses, and motorcycles. For the Heien Shrine is located in central downtown Kyoto and surrounded by busy major streets. (The same is not true for the first garden we visited at Ginkaku- ji, since the latter is on the edge of town, in the foothills. This fact also gives it a more natural feel since it is sur- rounded by natural woods.) In the afternoon we took our second (and last) organized tour on our itinerary. This was a half-day trip, the purpose of which was to travel down the rapids of the Hozu River. To get to the starting point we traveled by train from Kyoto Station to the town of Kameoka. The train was diesel powered-- the first non-electric train I've ridden in Japan. The train ride itself was interesting--travelling through the same scenic mountain area we would later travel by boat. I'm sure anyone who has done white-water rafting on California rivers would consider today's ride rather tame, but it had some exciting moments--and the scenery was beautiful: first farm land, then bamboo--the densest, tallest growth I have seen; then through a steep valley lined with trees, so deep that I'm sure it only gets direct sunlight for two or three hours a day. As we reached the end, my daughter began to complain that she was hungry (a not uncommon complaint). I pointed out that we were in the middle of the woods and there were no stores about. Before long, to everyone's surprise, another boat appeared, pulled along side and attached itself to our boat, and began to sell hot sake (rice wine), roast ika (squid), tako (octapus) and other Japanese snacks, as well as a few western snacks, such as potato chips. I was too impressed with the ingeniousness of their enterprise to be offended by the commercialism of a natural area. I was also amused by the subtle "kick-back" given to the operators of our boat. Our boat was propelled by one man rowing and another polling. The boat carrying snacks used an outboard motor. Once the two boats were secured together, our boatmen could take a break (and join in the sake drinking). Tuesday, October 8: We are now in Takamatsu ("tall pine"), the principal city on the island of Shikoku. Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands that make up Japan (the others being Hokkaido, Honshu, and Kyushu). We have been living on Honshu, and so far on this trip we have been traveling on that island. On previous trips we visited the northern island of Hokkaido and the southern island of Kyushu. But this is our first visit to Shikoku. So far it is somewhat of a disappointment. But that is probably inevitable after Kyoto. I suppose it would be a little like visiting Baltimore after spending time in Washington D.C. The trip from Kyoto to Takamatsu was interesting. We first went from Kyoto to Okayama by shinkansen (bullet train). From there we went by local train to Uno, and from there by ferry through the Inland Sea--the waters that separate Shikoku from Honshu. Actually we were supposed to take a hovercraft, but we took the regular ferry instead. When we reached Takamatsu the JNR (Japan ese National Railway), which runs both boats, refunded the difference in fare. Thursday, October 10: It is now early morning. We got back rather late yesterday, so I didn't have any time to work on this journal. We went by train to Kotohira. The first thing we saw there was the Kanamaruza, the oldest still-existent kabuki thea- ter in Japan, built in 1836. We had some difficulty finding it. We weren't sure we had found it even when we arrived since we couldn't see any kanji (Japanese writing) that matched what was on our map. And besides it looked deserted, with a chain across the entrance to the yard. But then a man came out and when I asked, he said it was the right place. It turned out he was the proprietor/tour-guide/ticket-taker. He charged us 300 yen for the three of us and took us on a tour of the theater. His enthusiastic descriptions were given in Japanese, so I only understood part of what he said. But I am quite interested in kabuki and am therefore familiar with the layout of modern kabuki theaters such as Kabukiza or the National Theater in Tokyo. The most obvious difference here is the lack of electricity. Modern kabuki theaters use stage lighting which is basically the same as in western theaters. This theater now also uses elec- tricity, but in such a way as to mimic the candles and lamps originally employed. The other important use of electricity in modern kabuki theaters has no analog in conventional western theater: there is a lift on the stage used to raise and lower actors, and even pieces of scenery. There is a smaller lift for similar purpose on the hanamichi (the stage extension on stage right that runs to he back of the house). Moreover there is a large revolving portion of the stage. All of these are present in the Kanamaruza, but they are all muscle-powered. Our guide let us rotate the circu lar part of the stage. We went back-stage and through the dressing rooms. It was very exciting to me to see such a detailed view of a kabuki theater, and especially such an old one. There was one feature which may be missing from modern theaters: a Japanese bath, heated by lighting a wood fire directly under the tub. After we left Kanamaruza, we went to Kotohiragu, a Shinto shrine built on the hill above the town of Kotohira. We climbed an amazing number of steps--over 800, according to the brochure. And we were rewarded with a wonderful view. We didn't know how high we had climbed until we reached the top. The first part of the climb, before one reaches the gate marking the outer precincts of the shrine--365 steps up--the climb is surrounded by shops selling religious objects, toys, and other souvenirs. (Such shops are commonly found leading to shrines and temples.) After the gate the steps leading up (and up) to the main shrine and other buildings is surrounded by trees. The panorama from the top was impressive, but much more impressive was the shrine itself--the size and artistic quality of the buildings of the shrine, and the beautiful way they fit in with the natural beauty around it. In the afternoon we went by a different train to Zentsuji, where we visited the temple of the same name. It was nice but nothing special. Friday, October 11: I am writing this from the waiting room of the Takamatsu airport. Once again I have gotten behind in my writing. Yesterday we went by boat to Shodoshima--one of the small islands near Shikoku. There we were at the mercy of the local bus company for transportation. It was described in our brochure as "very good" but we found the service to be infrequent (usually two hours between buses) and often long waits at trans- fer points. Nevertheless we saw a beautiful gorge through which we traveled by ropeway (overhead cable car). And we visited a monkey park--an area with over 700 wild monkeys. They may be wild but they aren't timid, and we were soon surrounded by hun dreds of them. Saturday, October 12: We have now arrived in Okinawa, after an absence of fifteen years. (We had lived in Okinawa for a year while I was in the army.) We got here via two airplanes: a twin-engine turbo-prop from Takamatsu to Osaka, and then a big 747 from there to Naha, Okinawa. When we arrived I was very excited to be seeing our old home again after such a long absence. Of course lots of things have changed, but so far nothing too unexpected. When we lived here, Okinawa was under American administration, which meant, among other things, that cars drove on the right. Now, under Japanese rule, they drive on the left. (This is my first experience at driving on the left: I never drove in Tokyo or other parts of Japan before, but here he have rented a car. There are several fairly remote places I want to visit.) The other change here is the growth: new buildings, etc., spurred not only by the passage of time, but also by the world's fair (Expo '75) that was held here ten years ago. We are staying in a hotel that was probably built for the Expo '75. Our room is a mix between western style with twin beds, and tatami with futons. The hotel has its own private beach, and in general is quite nice. ..Read down to here for overly long sentences Sunday, October 13: Yesterday we went to visit the site of the Expo '75. In the intervening years it has gone to seed--flower seeds that is. The whole area is filled with an amazing variety of brightly colored flowers. Only Okinawa's warm damp climate could sustain such a fantastic array of flowers. I'm sure the site is much more beautiful now than at the time of the Expo. After we left the Expo site we drove up to the north end of the island, and then around and down the east coast. I had tried unsuccessfully to make this trip when I was living here but the road at that time was too bad and too poorly marked. After get- ting my car stuck in the mud and ruts several times I gave up. Now the road is all paved, and an easy drive. Sunday, October 14: Today we went back to visit the area where we used to live. It looked the same, yet different. The army base where I used to work is now a marine camp. We even ate lunch at the A&W root beer drive-in where we used to eat. Then we visited a restored village demonstrating what life was like "in the old days". .pa Tuesday, October 16: Yesterday we returned from Okinawa to Tokyo. Today we left Japan. It's hard to believe that after two years, we have finally left it behind. We are now on our way to Truk, with intermediate stops in Saipan and Guam. Our travels in Japan were for sight-seeing. Our travels in Truk and Pohnipei (our next stop) are mostly for lie-on-the-beach vacation, or in my case for scuba diving. Evening: We have now arrived in Truk. The airport, and the island in general are more primitive than I imagined. For example they just backed a pickup truck to a long low table and unloaded baggage--no revolving conveyers. The terminal building is so small I had trouble spotting it when we got off the plane. Mind you, I'm not complaining: I find it fascinating to visit places like this. Anyway, the hotel is fairly nice: we have an air-conditioned room and the restaurant seems decent. [After staying at the Village in Pohnipei, the hotel and restaurant in Truk won't seem so great.] It would appear that almost everyone here is here to dive. But there is no obvious way to set up diving trips. So I asked at the front desk and he called someone on the phone, and after talking with him for a few minutes in the local language, he passed the phone to me. I set up for his "boy" (probably the owner's son) to meet me at the hotel tomorrow at "8 or 8:30"-- time doesn't seem terribly important here. It is so dark here that I cannot tell any details of what surrounds our hotel. All I an make out are some palm trees around us. (We saw coconut palms and banana trees on the road from the airport.) Wednesday, October 16: Today I went diving. I ended up going with a group of Americans from Guam. I found out when I got to the dock that they don't supply lunch, as I had thought, so I ended up with no lunch. In the morning we dived down to the wreck of the Shinkoku Maru, a Japanese tanker sunk by an American air raid in 1944. Truk used to be the largest Japanese naval base in the Pacific, protected from both the weather and sea attack by the 40-mile diameter coral atoll that surrounds it. But the atoll is no defense against air attack, and the Americans, in a wave of air raids, turned the Japanese naval base into an undersea junkyard, with some 60 ships on the bottom. For the marine life here, these ships have been a real boon. Coral, and many other kinds of marine life cannot grow in sand such as what is found on the floor of lagoons like Truk. Now, the sunk ships and airplanes form a substrate upon which coral and other marine life can grow. Thus, diving here among these wrecks presents two equally fasci- nating subjects for divers to observe and photograph: the remains of the sunken ships and the amazingly abundant life that is now growing on them. In the afternoon we dove on the Heien Maru. This ship is lying on its side. The side of the hull which now faces up is free of coral but there are a few strange growths here and there. How- ever it is clear enough that I could easily see the name of the ship on the bow, written in both Roman characters and kanji. When I swam down the now nearly-vertical top deck, I saw a profusion of life: hard and soft corals, tube sponges, and myriads of fish feeding on the coral. At one point I spotted a shark about five feet long swimming around thirty feet away. A more pervasive, although minor, danger are jellyfish. I saw hundreds of them while snorkeling between dives. They are a lovely shade of pink, and so graceful as they undulate through the water, but they sting when their tendrils touch you. (Our guide got stung on one of the dives: he wasn't wearing any covering on his arms, and brushed up against one while we were on the surface preparing to descend; he cursed, rubbed his arm and went back to work--so the sting isn't too bad. Another danger I'm told is here, although I haven't seen any, are poisonous lion fish. We came back early from our second dive in order to be ready for a night dive. But the wind came up and the sea became rough, so the boat operator doesn't want to go out. There are some shallow places which could be treacherous to boats on rough seas at night. Friday, October 18: Yesterday we made two more wreck dives, to the Rippo Maru in the morning and the Fujikawa Maru in the afternoon. There were just three of us: myself, one other American, and the native guide. I liked this much more than going with the group--I could follow the guide around and he showed us lots of interesting things on the sunken ships: old sake bottles, a Japanese-style bathroom, and even some human bones. This morning I made one more dive with the guy I dived with yesterday. (I found out he lives only a few miles from where I live in California, so we exchanged addresses. He has an underwater camera, and took several pictures of me, which he said he would give me--I can hardly wait to see them!) After the one dive we went back to the hotel to let the other guy off, and pick up two new people. It was too soon for me to make a second dive, so I stayed on the boat while the other two made a dive. We then went to the island of Deblon (one of the islands in the Truk lagoon). Deblon seemed more primitive than the island we're staying on (which is called Moen). We saw only dirt roads, and no electricity. Children run around naked under the coconut trees, and every family seems to own a few chickens, a pig, and a dog. (We asked our diving guide if he owned a pig, and he said "of course" as if to add, "doesn't everyone?") After lunch we went to the Hencho Maru. Saturday, October 19: We are now sitting in what passes for the Truk airport. It consists of one check-in counter, which is in a small shed. The "waiting room" is outside with a few concrete benches and a wooden roof. The roof keeps the sun off and the lack of walls lets the sea breeze through. It looks strange to our "civilized" eyes--but it makes sense in this hot tropical climate. In about an hour the plane will be here to take us to Pohnipei. Someone is playing the local radio station--a Christian station. The schools on the island are also run by various churches. I saw Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Thus, the missionaries are still here in Micronesia. (So far as I know, none of them has been eaten lately.) Evening: We are now in the Village Hotel in Pohnipei. Truk was your typical pacific island, with coconut palms and banana trees. Pohnipei, is your typical jungle, with dense undergrowth, vines on most trees, plants with huge leaves, etc. I understand it rains 400 inches a year on some parts of Pohnipei, which certainly qualifies it as a rain forest. The airport is similar to that in Truk: small, primitive, mostly outdoors. We were met by someone from the hotel and began the drive on a good asphalt road. The buildings along the way looked less primitive than those in Truk. The gas station, for example, actually has pumps. (The gas station in Truk, in contrast, was a tin-roofed shack, indistinguishable from the other shacks around it, except for a hand-lettered sign: "Gas Sta. -- No Smoking".) After a while we left the paved road and continued up a poor dirt road. Then we reached a narrow one-lane dirt road marked with a sign, "Village Hotel". After a short climb we arrived. It looks for all the world like its namesake: what we saw was a series of grass huts. We are now staying in one of those huts. Outside, the walls are made of wood and the windows have no glass, only screens. Inside, there is a comfortable rattan couch and chair, a modern bathroom with hot and cold running water, and two double beds--waterbeds no less! The main building is reached by walking down a path through the jungle. That building is longer than ours of course, and also more open. There one finds the check-in desk, a bar and restau- rant. These are covered by a wooden roof, but are open to the breezes. One can eat dinner while being cooled by the tropical winds and while enjoying a breathtaking view looking down onto the sea some distance below; beyond that, other islands, and beyond that, the sun setting through the towering cumulous clouds one finds around Pacific islands. The food was superb. I had sashimi made from locally caught fish, and sweet and sour chicken. Delicious! Now we're back in our room. It has started raining very hard; the sound is so loud on our grass roof that I can't hear the conversation a few feet away between my wife and daughter. Tomorrow, I am told, there will be no diving--it's Sunday. So I plan to explore the many paths leading in various directions. Monday, October 21: Yesterday we explored around the hotel, and otherwise did nothing. It was great. Today I went diving--in the rain. We went out to the reef. The coral was spectacular and there were lots of colorful fish. Between dives, we went to one of the small outlying islands. We found a World War II Japanese seaplane base. The hanger had been hit by two U.S. bombs, and all that remains today is the twisted wreckage of the frame. It is almost completely hidden by the growth of vegetation. After lunch we made another reef dive, this time on a channel opening in the reef. The boat went to the outside of the opening and let us off. We then floated on the current caused by the incoming tide. It was like riding on one of those moving sidewalks they have at airports, only three dimensional. When the current stopped we looked up, and there was our boat, anchored and waiting for us at the inner end of the channel. If we weren't wet already, the pouring rain would have drenched us coming in. The rain really doesn't spoil the diving--out on the reef there is no mud to run off and lower visibility. The cloudiness cuts down on the colors (although that's hard to believe, considering how colorful the marine life was today)! But it also keeps us from being "cooked" by the sun while in the boat. If the weather is poor again tomorrow, I plan to go diving again. However, if it's sunny, I plan to go on a tour of the island. Tuesday, October 22: We did indeed take the boat tour today. First we went to a small islet in the lagoon. I went snorkeling and my daughter swam around with me. Then we anchored our boat on the main island and hiked inland to a spectacular waterfall where we swam and ate lunch. Then back to the boat which took us to the ruins of Nan Madol, an ancient city of unknown origin, constructed of immense stones and containing a number of canals. Between poking around the ruins and hiking through the jungle to the waterfall we felt like real explorers. Thursday, October 24: We are now on our way from Pohnipei to Honolulu. Since we will only spend on a day there (to break up the flight), our trip is now all but over. Yesterday at breakfast we were told that the Pohnipein Cultural Center would be putting on one of their irregularly scheduled shows. So I ended up going to that instead of diving. The show consisted of native singing and dancing (yes! naked native danc- ing girls!) and sampling the local recreational drug, called sakao: it looks like mucus and tastes like mud; it makes your lips tingle. They also demonstrated how they can make fire without matches. Originally they wanted to charge me $100 to video tape the show, since the only video equipment they had seen before was professional equipment from Japanese television sta- tions. The guy from the hotel argued first in English and then in Japanese and talked them out of it. I never figured out why "It's home video" didn't convince them, but "Home video desu" did. Anyway, they finally said "daijobu". (Japanese fluency is very common here, since this island was under Japanese control for several years from World War I through the end of World War II.) Since I missed going diving in the daytime. I arranged to go night diving. It was spectacular. And it was amazing how the guide could navigate through shallow water of the lagoon at night, using only a diving light for illumination. Today I couldn't go diving because I'm flying tonight. So my daughter and I went out snorkeling. In the morning we joined a couple from Hong Kong who were taking the same tour we had taken two days ago. The hotel loaned my daughter a child's swim mask and she and I swam around the boat looking down at all the fish and coral. She was thrilled. In the afternoon they dropped us on a small island and took the other couple off to the rest of the tour. Meanwhile we waded out into a small sandy bay. The water was even warmer than usual--downright hot. At first we didn't see much life underwater, except an incredible number of sea slugs. When we got out to deeper water (about 10 feet) I saw several large manta rays. There was one who appeared to be asleep on the bottom that was about 8 feet long. So now we're enroute to Honolulu--the end of one of the most exciting trips I have ever made.