Dispatch from Elsewhere: Unexpected Adventure
Day 11 + 12: Izumisano -> Macau
Hi friends, I don’t have a lot to report. It’s almost 6 am as I’m writing and I woke up feeling pretty depressed about a lot of things in the way this trip has gone. A lot of things did not go according to plan, and I wish I could say that resulted in fun little adventures. I won’t go too much into detail here, but it is a lot to realize the extent in which my family is unable to care for/recognize care for each other.
That aside, Izumisano is a nice little town by the Kansai Airport. We spent the day here yesterday walking around. The surrounding area of our hotel is catered to tourists, but there were some nice views.
Some parts look like an American outlet and that was a little disconcerting, but I liked the beach.
I am writing now at around 7 am. Having moped around for a few minutes earlier, I decided to do something for myself and go find a shrine. For many reasons, I hadn’t seen a single shrine in the seven days I’ve been in Japan, so I head out on a solo adventure while everyone is still sleeping.
At around 6:15, it’s already warm outside. Even so, it’s a pleasant walk on empty roads, so I pop my headphones in and leave the tourist district.
Between the immaculately paved and seemingly freshly painted main roads is a walking path lined with trees that I wished provided more shade. A few minutes on it and I start hearing the cicadas through my headphones. They’re as loud as they feel in animes I’ve seen and it feels so quintessentially summer—it evokes the kind of nostalgia that isn’t yours but has been so crammed into your consciousness that it feels like all you’ve ever known, much like turkey during Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I continue down the path, and my maps app decides to veer me off into a small street. The green path is elevated off the main road, so I jump off and into the road, feeling like a rascal kid running away from school.
I end up in a neighbourhood far unlike all the tourist traps I’ve been in.
The roads are narrow and windy, shared with cars, bikes, and pedestrians alike, and I think it would be easy to get lost in here.
The buildings are juxtaposed between new, symmetrical-looking two to sixish-storey apartments and wooden homes with sloping, shingled roofing that look straight out of the Kusakabe home in Totoro.
I pass a small, blue garbage truck picking up tied translucent yellow bags of trash left outside doors, and an obasan running after the truck with a bag in hand to toss into the truck.
There is some spilled garbage on the immaculately clean streets that birds must’ve gotten into, but I’m excited as I’m already walking along the perimeter of the small shrine.
I think about cutting through the grass from the parking lot, but there is a man walking a small dog, and I didn’t want to seem disrespectful, so I loop around to approach the tori gate from the front.
It’s a little intimidating, walking between these statues and under the gate of this small, neighbourhood shrine. On my map, this is called the Hagurazakiebisu Shrine (羽倉崎夷神社), and it is so quiet and lovely. I take out my earbuds and snap a few pictures, listening to the sound of sparrows.
I so wish I could read what any of the signs said, but the Kanji doesn’t correspond to much Chinese that I know. It all feels kind of ancient.
The tori gate directly faces a shrine with a locked gate. I think about what it would be like to be isekai’d in a place like this. It sure seemed like somewhere you’d get spirited away.
By the time I leave, the sun is blaring down. It’s hot as hell, and as I pass by the school, the cicadas are louder than ever. I take the green path as far as I could, listening to the birds and the bugs. I pause when I come across a bird call I don’t recognize and turn to admire a pack of white-cheeked starlings hopping about (they’re also called gray starlings, but my search engine keeps trying to show me Victorian heroine, Grace Darling, every time I type that in).
The starlings and their calls are do cute, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a starling that isn’t the invasive European starling, but their behaviour felt so similar that I thought they must be related. I am pretty proud that I identified them!
At this point, it’s getting hot-hot. I duck into a 7/11 on the way and buy a bottle of jasmine tea from a disgruntled ojisan with the last few coins I have.
As I retrace my steps back to the hotel, I pass by a cloud of yellow dragonflies, and I thought they were so pretty in the sunlight.
Then, before I knew it, I was back at the hotel and thus concludes my mini adventure today :)
We have arrived back at Kansai airport, and it looks like the flight is on schedule. Because we had to catch the hotel’s free shuttle, it’s a few hours before check in starts. I spend some time listening to Allison Russell’s new album to regulate, and it’s amazing. I’d been listening to “No Springtime” on repeat for a while now, a beautiful track with Joy Oladokun, but did not fully expect a new album to drop. Every track features a collaboration with another artist, most of them femme, Black, powerhouse vocalists, and I’m excited to explore new artists for my playlist.
The trip to Macau goes super smoothly. I listen to Epic the Musical for the 37357235th time and admire the new harmonies I’m able to hear on my new headphones.
My mom’s taxi guy picks us up from the airport and takes us back to our place. I’m hyper aware that this is the last time we’ll be here, but the place feels gutted already from all the moving my mom has already done. My sister doesn’t remember much of this apartment, just specific memories in specific corners. We end up chatting about the nostalgia and the grief, and the inheritance of both, whether it is real to our own lived experiences or not. I want to take my sister around to all the corners that brought me joy, the places worth exploring not because they were significant to me personally, but to our family and our extended connections to create a web of relationships to the land. She moved so young that I know there is a little void there at not being able to call this place home. I do it anyway because parts of my heart feels right here, but I know that’s not the same for her.
We spend a few minutes settling in, then we head to Chok Chi Sam for dinner. My parents are tired and my sister is sad, but I am nearly vibrating with excitement. I’m so damn happy I can’t even feel bad about the only one being so happy. I know I just spent a week in Japan, but this is my favourite meal of the trip.
They serve the old fire soup first—it’s lotus root and pork and it’s just about the most perfect soup in the world to me in that moment. It has a sweetness only Chinese soups can achieve, and though we describe it with the same word in Cantonese, I wish there was a more exact word for the flavour profile. It has the texture of broth, but I think “broth” always dilutes the complexity of old fire soup.
I get a pork chop macaroni in soup and a red bean ice, and I’ve been thinking about this exact meal since October. There is just nothing else like it. I revel in these creature comforts for my old soul, especially after a weary few weeks.
Tomorrow, Auntie A is taking us to a different cha chaan teng. She promised old-school with black and white tiled flooring and plastic chairs and I hope that specific set of green utensils. I will report back.
I’m just so grateful we made it back. There are only five days left here, but hopefully I’ll be able to make it back more frequently despite no longer having a home here.
That’s it for now! Flor, out!