miscellaneous rambling

Technology is a good thing, but one must never forget that intuition and common sense is still very important in any decision process. Never give in fully to the technology.

All rental cars in Japan have GPS units at no extra charge. Our rental car was no exception. The first 2 hours using it was a nightmare. Getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road. Tiny roadways, and the GPS telling you to make turns at roads so small, you are sure that the directions are wrong ( but they weren’t ). Also, the GPS is only in Japanese, and we haven’t used it before. Don’t want to spend too much time looking at it, and not on the road.

After I got used to it, our second destination to Mt. Aso was a good drive. We got there, saw the volcano and then made it to our hotel for the night and all was fine.

The next morning we should have left early to return the car. Or at the very most, drove around for a few hours, and get back to Kumomoto at noon.

Dallas decided to rent the car for the whole day, and return it in the evening. That’s when we began to drive to Hida.

We crossed over another mountain on the way to Hida and the town is nestled in a valley on the edge of Mt. Aso national park.

It’s considered a little Kyoto for it’s Meji and Showa era old houses and streets. It was raining the whole time we were there, but we enjoyed walking around. We went to have tea at a 150 year old teahouse. Did a bit of shopping, and just strolled around.

I knew that to get back to Kumomoto we should take a longer route around the mountains. It would begin to snow in the mountains and we didn’t want to get caught in them. We entered our hotel phone number into the GPS and it began to map a route and estimate our ETA for the trip. However, it plans the most direct route which meant going through some small roads through the mountains. The GPS doesn’t take into account the geography topography of the area. It doesn’t know where there is road construction either. Something felt wrong, but I dismissed it and followed the computer. That’s when we got into trouble.

The sun began to set, and the rain turned into snow. The entire country was getting hit with an unusual amount of cold weather and precipitation and we were in the middle of it.

Around 5pm our car got stuck on an incline. We couldn’t go up or down, and the snow began to freeze. I began to get very worried and had not so nice images of us being stuck in the middle of nowhere for the night, and/or driving off a cliff if we made it out of there, and continued on a treacherous road.

Eventually I got the car out, and managed to turn it around 180 degrees on the angled, narrow, mountain road.

We drove back about 15 min. and got to a small village. I stopped and got help from a woman at a convenience store. She and I talked for about 15 min. using my poor Japanese and a tattered map and we weren’t really getting anywhere. Some people came to her shop and they knew of places to stay nearby. Thankfully the last person knew of one small Minshuku ( guesthouse) not far away. She called someone to get the number, and then called the minshuku to inform them that we were coming. We bought some provisions for the night and the next day from the shop and left.

The minshuku was run by an elderly couple in their 60’s. They are retired school teahers. We were their only guests. The place has 2 rooms which can sleep 4 people per room. They had only been open for 3 months, and we are their first foreign customers. Thankful that we had a place to stay for the night, we were still not in the clear. How will we make it down the mountain the next day? What about the car? And our hotel in Kumomoto? We had to be on a train tomorrow afternoon to meet our friend in Karatsu. Plus, how much is this night going to cost us? Do we have enough food and water in case it is too costly to eat there?

All these thoughts ran through my head. The couple were, however, very nice. They called all of the above to explain our situation in Japanese. ( they did bill us for the long distance calls later though..)

The charged us a regular guesthouse rate for the stay and breakfast. ( $100 USD)

We were tired, and stressed, and my final consideration was getting chains for the car tires. We had trouble getting them earlier, and when we finally got a hold of a place, they wanted to charge us $180USD for the chains, PLUS $650USD to come to the guesthouse and put them on.

That’s when my brain almost burst. The hotel owner was talking to me in Japanese, but my brain could no longer process anything. The whole cost of the chains would cost more than my flight over there. However, we could die on the road, ( or “just” crash ). OR we could stay holed up in the mountains. My brain was just spinning around thinking insane thoughts. The minshuku owner brought us some snacks, fruit, and beer for us all on the house. He felt bad for our situation.

It was a long long night. We woke up the next morning and lucked out. The sun was shining and the snow was expected to begin melting closer to noontime. After a great homemade breakfast, we chatted and then was clear to take off around 11am. The owner took us out on the road and led us to a main provincial road in which we were able to get our way out safely.

These are the owners of the minshuku. They are retired school teachers. They place has been opened for only 3 months, and we are their first foreign guests.