I don't know if i've said much about driving on the wrong side of the road - but it's pretty weird. All your instincts are backwards, and to help you out, the lights are bizarre and sometimes quite confusing. You can approach a red light, but underneath it will be a green arrow pointing straight forward - and you are allowed to go. It feels so wrong!!!
Anyway, it's compounded when you're driving someone else's car, and you're driving automatic (I usually drive standard, so driving automatic always throws me a bit...I do things like go for the clutch that isn't there whenever I need to brake, or forget to put the car in park and then panic when it won't start). Add the left/right flip to all that and you really have to concentrate. As with anything though, it's the little things that get to you.
The stalks are switched as well, so you operate the turn signal with your right hand...and the wipers with your left. It only took about 4 days of driving around Okinawa to figure that one out. Everyone must've been howling laughing at the foreigner flyin' around corners with his wipers on in the brilliant sunshine.
The other weird thing is getting into the passenger seat, 'cause it's on the "drivers" side. So you feel like it's up to you to operate stuff. I'll tell you, so many times I got into the passenger seat, and reached for the parking brake...only to not find the pedal with my foot...and remember what country I was in. Very odd adjustment.
The big adjustment between driving in Okinawa and driving here in Kanazawa, is English on signs. It became a game of flashcards, holding up directions and trying to match up the Kanji with the Kanji we saw on the signs. Once we'd memorized the Kanji for Haku-san, it wasn't so bad. For Haku-san it's quite easy: 白山.
We drove out past the town limits and into the countryside, where we began driving...up. Up and up and up. Haku-san is 1400 metres tall, and it's not at all a straight line up there. Not to mention all the little things like waterfalls, tiny bridges, and huge gaping valleys that there are to gawk at on the way up.
Height is easily the hardest thing to establish in a photograph. Depth is easy, distance, even size are all no problem. But trying to show how high up you are is next to impossible. I must've taken 200 photos on Haku-san, because I know how difficult it is and I'm always trying to learn how I can do it better, but please, for the sake of realism...when you look at these photos, imagine that you are extremely high up. Way higher than it looks. Please. Trust me when I say that this mountain was massive.
There was also snow! Not very much, mind you - but some! In spite of it being 35 degrees before the humidex, the snow endured! We weren't even at the summit yet! Mountains defy logic in so many ways.
After the top, there's a small village nestled in the crook of Haku-san on the opposite side we'd come up. People live there...it can't be more than 300 or so people, and apparently because of their isolation, they're still extremely traditional. We didn't have time to check it out unfortunately, because we were cutting it very close to missing our train to Kochi. So after stopping at the summit, and checking out a dam halfway down the mountain, we decided to head back to drop off Kathy's car.
We raced into Kanazawa to check the train schedule and book ourselves seats. We'd missed one train, but we knew there were others. Unfortunately, we found out that although we could get seats from Kanazawa to Okayama, Okayama to Shin-Osaka, and from Shin-Osaka to Maibara...there were no seats from Maibara to Kochi. We blew it.
Kathy was nice enough to let us stay another night in the glorious apartment, so we returned her car full of gas, ate delicious sushi, and headed to bed. As I was checking my e-mail, I heard some weird noises, and noticed out the window that there were two fireworks displays going off! In Matto! This tiny little town had just happened to have all of its big events in the few moments we were there. I stood on the balcony and watched the fireworks for a bit, before heading to bed. The racing about for train tickets and the driving up and down Haku-san had totally worn me out. Luckily, we had 6 hours of trains to get some good rest on in the morning. We'd booked ourselves on the first train out of Kanazawa - so it was an early morning ahead.
Zzz
-Jeff
No comments:
Post a Comment