Tumbleweeds: onsen

Weeeell this is a long overdue update to our glorious adventure through southern Japan. We are now in Kyoto, on the backward curve of our journey, heading back north in the vague direction of Tokyo (although I have no real desire to wind up back there). So far we have had 14 rides, hitched the whole way, spent christmas playing music in a pub, not been in any way attacked or uncomfortable (except for one mildly unsettling toothless trucker), and now have a good friend who is a 40 year old trucker with a strong Hiroshima accent (which I can't understand), loves pachinko, and who now contacts us every day with updates on good places to pick up trucks. He is a lovely man, and we gave him a cake. We've couchsurfed, stayed with the auntie of a friend, a hostel, and are now spending the night in a manga kisa with unlimited yummy drinks that will probably keep me up running to the bathroom all night. Matcha ole! We've had various other entertaining experiences, mostly to do with bathing, which include having to cram two of us in a tiny shower, going to sento (public bath) and getting accosted by a women who we believe was in a cult, and going to an onsen/sento and getting into a bath with electric currents running through it (yikes!) and a bright purple one that smelled like blueberries.
Also, Hiroshima is amazing! We went out to Miyajima and discovered Kuukai's temple, went hiking and got nibbled on by deer, ate dango and took photos of the big tori gate at sunset. What an unbelievable place. Also, there is a lovely bar there called Mac which plays the best music, and we made friends with one of the bartenders, she came to our gig at the Irish pub as well.
We are now spending the night in a manga cafe, reading comics and watching movies and working out our plan to get to Gifu tomorrow, then back to Tokyo the next day! I will update with the whole story of all of our crazy rides when we get the pictures uploaded, because it's much more entertaining that way!

Well, here, finally, are the photos from my bizarre last minute adventure across the island, from Tokyo to Niigata. The story goes a bit like this: One hot summer day, two girls named Maria and Corinne got together to go to the beach, but when they checked the weather, it seemed the coast was due for rain. By this time, it was getting on in the afternoon, so they decided going to the beach maybe wasn't the best idea. But they knew they had to get out of Tokyo, or suffer a slow death by suffication from dirty humid air. So, in a stroke of genious, they piled their money together, bought the biggest box of donuts the world had ever seen, and rented a car. Then, with no particular destination in mind, nothing but two ears of corn, a box of donuts, a lighter, 4 beers, a roll of toilet paper, and still in their swimsuits, they started heading west, through the countryside of Gunma, where they saw fireworks from the side of the highway. They then stopped for a shenanigan or two at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, to have the best coffee ever spewed forth from a vending machine, and play the guitar to seedy looking folk in the parking lot. They then journeyed forth out of Gunma, into the mountains of Niigata, where it seemed like a good idea to find the deserted spot in the middle of the mountains where Fuji Rock had been held a few weeks before, and camp in the car there. Well, after an interesting escapade down a gravel "road", a nice spot was found next to a river, and the two girls decided it would be fun to light a fire. After an hour and a half, a roll of toilet paper, most of the lighter fluid, a pile of driftwood, and half a notebooks worth of paper, a small fire was finally crackling merrily. Then the stargazing and beer drinking and corn roasting ensued. By fantastic cosmic coincidence, there was a beautiful meteor shower just at this moment. After the magicalness, the girls climbed into the car to try and get some rest, so they could awake by sunrise (4am) the next morning and make the most of their day of true freedom. After a chilly night where they realised that they had no clothes but their swimsuits and pullover dresses, and two light blankets, they awoke the next morning to find that they had been surrounded by monkeys in the night. Dozens and dozens of monkeys. Ah yes, and there was a hornet that managed to follow them through most of the day, since Maria was deathly allergic to hornets. After washing in the stream and escaping the horde of monkeys, the two girls got back in the car, and wandered through the mountains, went to a muddy foot-onsen on the side of the road, and meandered back to Gunma, where they found a bright green, apparently cursed lake (according to the locals, who told us "sure, its safe to swim in, just kind of deep. Oh, but we don't ever swim in it, because its cursed." Thanks, guys.) saw lots of poisonous snakes and signs warning them about the poisonous snakes which they couldn't read, stood in a waterfall, ate breakfast at a diner where a pimp with a really tacky visor and his hoe and her whole family and two random schoolgirls were all eating together in the booth across from them, finally got their swim when they jumped half naked in this beautiful clear river out the back of an onsen, realised they could see naked men walking around on their little porch area out the back of the onsen, and the men could see them!, got stared at by the naked men, then covered their tattoos not very discreetly and went into the onsen, had a lovely bath, visited the local jinja in Corinne's old hometown in Oniishi (towns in Gunma have supremely weird names), and then ate some soba noodles at a tiny local noodle house, then hauled ass back to Tokyo just in time to fill the car's tank and return it 3 MINUTES before the deadline. Then we woke up. The end. Photos:

Corn.