People I've Met On The Road – Frikushon

Teaching In Tokyo
Sometime in the depth of a freezing winter in the early 1980's, a Liverpudlian friend and I were living in a very chilly apartment in Tokyo while making ends meet teaching English. In those days, with a degree it was possible to get work at a language school and stay there on a six-month tourist visa. My degree was a fake since I didn't have one at the time. After the six-months was up one needed to leave the country and apply for another tourist visa. This could usually be done three or four times before they said no. So my friend and I came to the end of our visas and with very little available cash, had to find the cheapest route to getting a new one. Flights were expensive. Eventually we worked out our best bet was to hitch-hike to Shimonoseki in the south-west of Japan and go by ferry to South Korea then take a bus over the mountains to Seoul.

 It was not hard to see where Ridley Scott got his ideas for Blade Runner

Truck Mechanic
We set off in the early hours. Hitch-hiking was not something the Japanese understood in the early eighties. After hours of waiting we managed to get a truck to stop by flagging him down. In pigeon-Japanese we explained where we were going. An hour later, in early dawn, we were rudely awakened by a rumbling noise and the driver pulled over. One of the rear tyres was punctured and torn half off. The driver seemed unsure how to change it for the spare. Eager to get some distance under our belts I stepped in and helped him change the huge and filthy wheel. We were rewarded with a superb breakfast before being dropped off outside Osaka.

Wedding Guests
Our next host was a man in a car en-route to his brother's wedding near Okayama. Hiro was very chatty and eager to practice his English. He bought us lunch and we became firm friends – so firm in fact, that he made a phone call and insisted on taking us with him to his brother's wedding party. Much alcohol was consumed and many more friends made before we continued on our way, stopping off at Okayama for the night. It was then I realised I had the name of the friend of a friend who worked there at the Women's University. In a moment of crazy optimism, my friend and I called the uni and asked if they had an English girl working there named Christine. Eventually they understood and found one. It was indeed her. We had never met before.

Japanese Massage
Meeting her after work, Christine took us to a pre-arranged dinner party with the Principal of her university and some other teachers. Here we were encouraged to consume too much sake and I became romantically entangled with the hotel owner's lovely daughter, who I remember wooing with a story of being in Japan to study massage. We left later under a dark cloud, but were treated as heroes by the ageing Principal, who took us drinking until he fell unconscious from his bar stool and we had to carry him home via a taxi. Here we stayed the night before being served a reviving breakfast and continuing on our journey to Shimonoseki.

Slow Bus To Seoul
The ferry crossing was rough and we had to sleep on the carpeted floor with the Koreans, who were of similarly limited means. From these kindly people we learned the scam of buying a bottle of Johnny Walker whiskey from a kiosk in Shimonoseki and selling it at a reciprocal kiosk in Pusan, on the other side. It almost paid for our trip. In Pusan we boarded a rickety old coach to Seoul. A small TV at the front blared out Korean music and showed Kung Fu films all the way along the bumpy mountain roads. It was a terrifying and exhausting experience. Finally in Seoul we found the embassy and organised our visas before staying a night in a hostel where we slept in a courtyard on the floor alongside coal fires, with rats scurrying around throughout night. It was a well known dirt-cheap establishment named Inn Daiwon, which I believe burned down several years later.

Wild Journey Home – Tokyo Punks Knew How To Party
After getting chased out of a sleazy bar by a gang of drunken US servicemen, my friend and I boarded a bus to repeat our mountainous and bumpy journey back to Pusan. Another stormy boat ride ensued, after which we found ourselves hitch-hiking in the freezing early hours in Shimonoseki. We had barely slept in two nights and were so tired we hardly knew where we were. With only enough cash for a can of warm coffee from a vending machine (in our tiredness we mistakenly pressed the cold coffee button), we waited hours with no luck until eventually in a state of sheer exhaustion we lay down to sleep on the concrete verge of the motorway.
It was probably about 6am when we felt someone shaking us. Frozen stiff, we looked up to see a skinny man in sunglasses, a leather jacket and drainpipe jeans.

"Dude, speak Engrish?" he shouted. "Where you go, fukkah... Tokyo?"

Struggling to focus we climbed to our feet and followed his instruction to get into his van. In the back we found four other pale and skinny young men along with a drum kit, guitars and amps. Too shattered to ask questions we simply climbed in and lay in the pile with the other guys. It was about an hour before we opened our eyes again and attempted any communication.

"Fuuuk you crazy boys. Samui des nih? (cold no?)"

We agreed, we were as cold as a man can be. We explained where we had been and where we were going. The other bodies, roused from sleep by our story, began laughing uproariously.

"All okay now fukaas!" said the man with the sunglasses. "We are Frikushon. Punk music, yeah? We go Kagoshima play punk music. Too much crazy fukaah distance! Now go home Tokyo. You sleep more, no problem."

But we were awake now. A punk band we thought? now that was interesting. We asked them if they knew The Clash. The Damned? The Jam? They certainly did. The man with the sunglasses grabbed a guitar and began a familiar riff. From deep down in the pile of bodies around us a sound began to resonate. It was a sound somewhere between the howl of a wounded animal and singing:

"In a city one a thousan' thing I wanna say to you...!!"

Punk Friction
For hours we sang together... screamed and groaned. The drummer banged his hands and even his head against the metal side of the van. Cymbals crashed. A drum was broken over someone's head. The long journey seemed to pass in no time. It was an utterly wild experience and by the time they dropped us in our area of south-west Tokyo we had sung ourselves hoarse. I couldn't teach for a day after we got back. I was mute. Yes those Tokyo punks knew how to party. Fukaas!

Friction on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwHDD2DRZo4

If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, you can find this along with his two collections of short stories on Amazon, Smashwords etc. 

In the UK his books can also be found in all Waterstones Bookstores.

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People I've Met On The Road – Peter

Given the amount of time I spend long-distance cycling, it is hardly surprising that I meet so many interesting people on the road. This is the third in a series of blogs about the more remarkable of those individuals. Enter your e-mail in the 'Subscribe' box on the right and you will be notified of each new blog post.

Tokyo 1984

In 1984, at the age of 26, I travelled to Tokyo, eager to discover what I had heard was a beautiful country and a fascinating culture. I knew it was expensive and that I would need to find work in order to stay. Nearly all the money I had, had been spent on the airfare. I got off the plane at Narita airport with around a hundred pounds and discovered that half of that was needed to take the coach into the city. Fortunately I had an address for a cheap working-men's hostel. When I arrived there I had £40 after currency exchange commission. A dormitory bed in the hostel cost around £8 a night. I felt sure, however, that something would turn up. 

Okubo House

The friendliness of the elderly hostel staff was an immediate boost to my natural sense of optimism. The hostel used to cater for Japanese workmen but more recently had started to take advantage of the foreign backpacker market. I understood very little Japanese and they very little English. The manager, who was affectionately known to western residents as Mosquito San, knew one or two phrases in English. The most memorable of these being "Mosquito drive away!" uttered with cruel intent as he roamed the dormitories in the evenings with a pump-up spray bottle. He was weird, but by no means the strangest person living in Okubo House. Within a day I had encountered quite a motley selection of long-termers who furnished me with invaluable information:

A US Vietnam Vet who told far-fetched stories of living underground and in trees in the Vietnam jungle and who ranted in his sleep. Israeli draft dodgers who knew all the best ways to live on minimal income in Tokyo and how to find temporary work such as in model agencies or film studios. A Russian shot-putter who hid men (or women) in her bed when they climbed in through her window evading curfew, and a timid New Zealand Irish alcoholic who ranted and raved around the house when he got drunk and was eventually barred. But there was one man to beat them all. 

Okubo House - Traditional Japanese Hostel (taken in 1998, now demolished)

Okubo House ran on military order. Mosquito San had clearly served time in the service of his country. There were posters around the place about cleanliness. The fact that these posters were in (comical) English (Rule 1. Never sleep the kwilt no pyjama), indicated that they were aimed at foreigners (since the Japanese are obsessively clean themselves). One was required to attend the communal bath every evening. Mosquito San kept a check. However, he was aided in this task (unsolicited) by a very odd young German. Peter would appear by surprise through a doorway and ask in a most accusing Orwellian voice "Are you clean?" This happened numerous times on a daily basis. New residents were petrified by the experience. Mosquito San and the other staff could never understand what the resulting hilarity was all about. 

Peter Sausage

Myself and a few of my newfound friends were fascinated by Peter. He was a little strange. We had each tried to engage him in conversation at various times and were left with the sense that he was mad. One evening we heard him in the foyer (this was a traditional Japanese building made of a wood frame with paper walls) having received a call on the house phone. 

"Jah, jah this is Peter Wurst."

Peter spoke English but it was not good English and he had a very strong German accent.

"Jah, I am English of course. My parents are English und now I am come here to living in Japan. I am liking to work as English teacher in one school like you language school. Jah, jah, I am having university certificate, naturally. When can I begin?" 

There followed numerous other calls involving laboured conversations of a similar nature. Although most people running these language schools were Japanese, most spoke good enough English to spot that all was not correct with Mr Wurst's English.

"My accent," I heard him say once, "jah, my accent is English of course, but maybe because mein father is von Scotland."

Peter told us he was an honest man seeking to earn an honest day's wage. Clearly his idea of the truth was somewhat different to most and it irked us that he might teach Japanese people to speak English like him. I was even suspicious about Peter's surname. Peter Wurst (Sausage) seemed a little too obvious for a man who told us he had been in Tokyo for two years working as what he termed a "Stick-man." 

"If you want earn big money in Tokyo my friend," he told us, "you need to find work as stick-man. Are you a good stick-man my friend?"

Peter's hand gesture left us in no doubt about what the job of stick-man entailed.

"There are much old women here who like the young western man for boom boom, jah? If you are good stick-man you can make much money. I do this for two years but now I am tired. I can give you phone number for agency, jah?"

He went into great detail about the type of clients one could expect and the nature of their usual requirements. In the interest of international relations and common decency I shall not relate the lurid details here, but suffice it to say that his descriptions were hilarious.

Mad times in Tokyo 1984

Helped by advice from the Israelis, I managed to survive on noodles and All You Can Eat Shakey's Pizza for two weeks until I found a teaching job. But Peter didn't forget about my interest in his previous work. On his nightly visits around the hostel enquiring about personal cleanliness, he would always ask me "did you find some stick-man work my friend?"  

If you would like to read short stories by Mark Swain you can find these on Amazon, Smashwords etc.

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A Constant Craving

A Childhood Obsession
As I have said in a previous blog post, I caught the cycling bug early. At around three years old I managed to persuade my grandmother to buy me a clattering contraption called a 'Mobo-bike'. It was covered in metal panels to make it look like a motorbike / Lambretta. The fact that it used to rattle like hell drove my parents to distraction, but not as much as the fact that I saw it as a means of escape from Fort Swain. It really was a case of 'the wind in my hair' (I had some back then). Once I had managed to drag the bike under the garden hedge (circumventing the tall, locked gate) I would hurtle down the pavement towards who knows where - my destiny I think I thought. All through childhood it was the same. So long as I had access to a working bicycle I knew I could up and go if things got too much for me. I found the rule-bound confines of an English childhood intolerable (much of it spent in Malaysia, Singapore and Germany, but the uptight system was pure expat English).

The Mobo-bike. I think it was a blue version of the top one.

Proof that my constant yearning for travel was my father's fault

Adult Escapism
I think, like many adult cyclists, I rediscovered cycling when I had children. As a teenager a motorcycle had seemed infinitely preferable. Inevitably a car appeared on the scene along with our first child, although I have never given up motorcycling. But it was the traffic congestion that first made me take to a bicycle again. My daughter needed dropping at playschool each morning and collecting in the afternoon. It was about three miles away. A little too far to walk and the roads were always busy, so I bought a new bike and put a child seat on the back. It was a revelation. Not only was it far quicker and cheaper, but both my daughter and I looked forward to those daily journeys. And it kept me fit. It was only a matter of a week or two before I began going off on short tours along the coast and around nearby Kent villages. Kent is known as The Garden Of England, and I discovered how much more pleasurable it was to experience it from the saddle of a bicycle.

Small children love cycling with their parents. 

Image courtesy of www.fancycar.com

Family Excursions On Wheels
My wife never much enjoyed cycling, although thankfully this has changed in recent times since a short holiday with friends, cycling along the superb Danube Cycle Path (Donauradweg). My son was the one who shared my love of cycling and still does, although my eldest daughter has become a recent convert - initially for ecological reasons. So family cycle outings have become an infrequent possibility. If you have read other posts on this blog, you will know that it became something more than that for my teenage son when we rode 10,000 miles from Ireland to Japan in 2008. My youngest daughter stubbornly still claims to loathe cycling after being forced to accompany us on a camping holiday along the Danube. I say it will be different when she has a boyfriend who cycles.

A reluctant cyclist following The Danube - now a convert (It's a Giant Halfway)

The delights of the Danube Cycle Path

The Power Of Nostalgia – A Constant Craving
So powerful is the memory of my 9 month cycle trip with my son in 2008-9 that the sight of a touring cyclist passing by still has my heart racing. For the last ten days I have been back in Tokyo – the destination of my 10,000 mile journey with my then teenage son. I have enjoyed my stay immensely. As the end approaches, I find myself regretting the fact that I have a plane ticket home. Planes are no way to enjoy a journey. You're lucky if you see anything. Your experience along the way is limited to a predictable menu of mainstream movies. I keep passing Tokyo cycle shops and I find myself examining bicycles, asking myself which one I would choose if I had to buy a bike to ride home to England. It may sound a crazy idea but of course I know it can be done without too much fuss or luggage. I have been lying awake at night, fantasising about a phone call to my wife and another to my business partner, telling them I will be delayed about six-months or so getting back. I in no way see this as any kind of sickness – far from it. This is how I know I am still healthy.

You can read about the 10,000mile cycle trip with my son Sam in our book, Long Road, Hard Lessons. See other links in right margin.

 Munar, Kerala, India - Yellapatty Tea Plantations. Very hilly.

Capadocia, Turkey. Sam, lovin' it.

Tokyo Cycle Trends

Metropolitan Cycling

I am currently back in Tokyo, visiting an old friend with whom I shared a house here in the mid-eighties. That was when we were wild young men. Back in those days Tokyo astounded me with its size and traffic. Few people in Tokyo had their own cars and most people got around by metro, taxi or by bicycle. There were millions of bicycles in fact. This is still the case. Most of them in those days were small-wheeled shopper type bikes as they tend not to cycle very far. Tokyo is a huge city - the world's biggest in fact. Go up any tall building and you will find that you can rarely see as far as the outskirts. It's about sixty or seventy miles diameter in general.

View from Tokyo Metropolitan Building (Shinjuku)

Night views of Tokyo conjure up thoughts of film 'Bladerunner'

Most Tokyo cyclists use their bikes to pop down to the supermarket (many open all night in this 'Bladerunneresque' world) or to ride to the nearest metro station for work. The multi-storey cycle storage parks outside stations these days are quite fascinating. I visit my friends here every three or four years and notice each time how there has usually been a change of bicycle fashion during my absence. Over the years I have seen this trend-conscious city pass through a fashion for grown-up tricycles, another for tiny folding bikes, then another for traditional Dutch-style bikes. This time I notice a trend for a kind of small wheeled racing bike. This is not a type of bike I have seen in England or anywhere else although it could be said to vaguely resemble those very rare and expensive modern Moulton bikes. So every time I see one, I photograph it and hope that the owner might arrive and engage me in conversation, or even offer me a ride – the Japanese are very hospitable.

 Latest Cycle Fashion - Nakano, Tokyo 2013/14

A Cautionary Tale About Drunk Cycling

Back in the eighties I got involved in some drunken youthful antics involving an attempt at getting to a late night party on a 'borrowed' bicycle with flat tyres, after leaving some sleazy downtown bar. Such behaviour in the early hours tends to stand out in Japan, especially when the rider is a westerner, and I was soon apprehended by a cycling policeman with a long truncheon, who easily outpaced me. I only narrowly escaped deportation after being interrogated and locked up for the night. Releasing me the next day they told me I had fitted the description of an American assassin they were hunting, after an international war between two drug gangs. They had phoned my elderly landlady in the early hours, who had eventually convinced them I was only an adventurous English teacher with a love of strong sake. Fortunately they still allow me back.


Many Ways To Arrive In Tokyo

In 2009 my teenage son and I arrived in Tokyo by bicycle after riding nearly 10,000 miles from Dingle in the west of Ireland. Cycling into Tokyo and down the main streets of a city I had been so familiar with in the past was a surreal experience for me. It proved so for others too. People struggled to get their heads around it. As I have said, many people in Tokyo cycle, but rarely further than one or two miles at the most. We stayed in Tokyo for a month at the end of our long expedition and often got around the city by bike. It can be a hard city to find one's way around and we frequently found ourselves stopping to ask for directions. Ironically, we found that a request to be shown the correct route to take in order to get to Takao, Kamakura or even Shibuya (not far from the centre) was usually met with a look of incredulity:
"No no, you can't possibly get there by bike sir, it's more than ten kilometres away!"

 Sam in Nam Ban Oon, Laos - March 2009

 Near the Turkey-Iran border - Sept 2008

Arriving back home in Canterbury - June 2009

You can read more about our Ireland to Japan father and son expedition, along with specific details about cycling in Japan, in our book Long Road, Hard Lessons:

Book on Amazon UK
Book on Amazon.com
Book via Smashwords