On a Slow Boat

They look like slimy, translucent palm dates. A mixture of light brown and amber-colored ovoid. They are plump and bloated their thin skin stretched taut revealing the fluid inside. One end forms a cap that looks like an acorn cap, coarse and stubbled.

We’ve been walking around the market for half an hour and I keep seeing these strange-looking pupae soaked in a styrofoam box lined with blue trash bag. I assume they’re some kind of sea plant since I always see them in the fish stall, next to the sea cucumbers, and the eels, and the piles of fish, and buckets of buckets full of octopuses trying to escape their unfortunate fate. I decide to take a picture of the strange sea dates when the young man who owns the fish stall say hello and smile.

“Only in Korea!” I assume he’s talking about the thing.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Name?”

“Yes. Name!” I nod vigorously, hoping he would say something that I recognize.

“Mi. Do. Do.” He enunciates each syllable in such clear diction that my old choirmaster would’ve recruited him on the spot.

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We had unknowingly come to Japan during their special ‘Golden Week’ to celebrate Emperor Akihito’s stepping down and handing over the reign to his son, Naruhito. Instead of the usual 5-day public holiday, the whole country enjoyed an extended 10-day holiday. It was unprecedented and created a massive rush of people traveling all over the country and abroad. The stock market was even jittery leading up to this holiday, uncertain what to expect from the shutdown. In addition, this holiday coincided with Labor Day holiday in China, where people traditionally take that whole week (and the weekend before as well as the weekend after) to travel; Japan being one of the more popular destinations for these Chinese tourists. If you would imagine, everywhere we go, we were completely mobbed from all sides by the crowd, not to mention prices for accommodation and transport (bus, train, and plane) soared through the roof. A bed in a hostel that normally cost $20-$30 rose five-fold during Golden Week.

Even without the Golden Week + Labor Day madness, Japanese cities are already a heaping mass of humanity. One thing that surprised me each time I traveled east is the scale of these megacities – Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta. Do you know that Tokyo (and its surrounding neighborhoods) is the most populous metropolitan area in the world? 38 million people (equal to the population of Canada) crammed into 850 square miles.

New York may be dense, but until you experience Tokyo subway during rush hour, you haven’t really experienced what a megalopolis feels like. People are packed into the subway like sardines.

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I vaguely remembered reading about Kumano Kodo in a guidebook that was on Juan Antonio (Gabriel’s brother) and Natanya’s coffee table in Los Alamos. I didn’t know where in Japan it was except that it’s a network of routes that connects different temples. I didn’t think much about it because, at that time, we didn’t even know if Japan was going to be on the itinerary.

One serendipitous decision led to another, and we ended up in Tokyo to meet Gabriel’s aunt and uncle and cousins. Over a delicious home-cooked dinner, Chema and Maria (Gabriel’s cousins who live in Tokyo) mentioned a hike near Osaka – an ancient pilgrimage walk. “The companion walk to Camino de Santiago,” I remembered Chema saying.

That’s the pilgrimage walk in Spain we are planning to do with Gabriel’s mom in September!

And we are going to be in Osaka after Tokyo!

We should do it!

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