1. Roppo Road(Miyazaki prefecture): This road was worth the hour and a half it took me to get there. It had everything. The drive started with a steep and windy climb, nothing especially spectacular as it climbed to the ridge of the mountains. Then as it started to traverse, the left side fell away in a steep drop. The white guardrails were badly mangled in places, and in other areas completely lacking. I would not be surprised to look over the edges and see twisted wreckage hundreds of meters down. The drive had plenty of gentle and not so gentle ridges, sharp turns, spectacular views, picnic areas, maps, wildlife, and obstacles. There were landslides and boulders on the road, which were fun to slalom around and reminded me of the Initial D episode in which Takumi successfully beats the "panda" Trueno on the guy's home course. Also, there was very very little traffic on this stretch by shooting the narrowed course right alongside. I must've only seen three trucks and three cars, and I never got stuck behind any slow drivers. I only got to drive this awesome road for an hour because I only had half a day off, and so I need to come back to fully experience it. Also, I found out where I can go snowboaring in Miyazaki, but most likely won't.

2. The Milk Road (North Aso Prefecture). This road is my favorite, but sits in the no. 2 spot because it gets too much traffic during the summer and fall. Tempermental, dangerous, and oftentimes solitary, this road never fails to surprise me. I know the turns very well, and so I can push my car to the limit, slingshotting out of the tight curves and getting from here to there in a breeze, if the traffic is light. It can be very dangerous because people like to park behind blind corners and stick out far into the narrow road, sheets of rain coming down so fast that windshield wipers have little effects and the resulting deep rivers flowing across the road causing you to hydroplane, the road freezes and is periodically covered with snow and ice, racers like to practice up there, some truck drivers like to drive the maximum limit and beyond, clouds drag across the ridge resulting in a thick fast moving fog that can cut visibility to 5 feet and can be very disorienting after several minutes, and the wealth of animals that like to dart out in front of your car including tanuki, rabbit, weasel, fox, and even dogs and cats.

3. The continuation of the Milk Road into Kikuchi Gorge (Kikuchi-Gun). Mountainous, running parallel, high above the river, and filled with dense folliage. Kikuchi Gorge is one of the most beautiful areas throughout Kyushu, and so the nature park draws bigtime traffic during holidays and weekends. Still a nice drive, especially in Fall when the leaves show their most vibrant colors.

4. The Kagoshima Expressway. Fast, straight, few cops and cameras: narcotic. After being deprived of speed, driving on the Kago Xpress can be dangerous.

5. The Ibusuki Skyline. Like the Aso Skyline (Milk Road), the Ibusuki Skyline offers a badass view of some stunning scenery and has some great twists and turns. Unlike Aso, it is well paved, used by many during the whole year, and costs money to drive. Still, it is worth the trip and the 800 or so yen. Seeing Kaimondake silouhetted against a red sky melts away any pent-up stress.

6. Nameless Road leading to Ubuyama's "Dream Bridge" (North Aso). This road is
a. new
b. wide
c. curvy
d. uphill, downhill, and level in places
e. unused
and
f. has "Danger: Cows" signs posted
It is a short drive, but is really really fun.

These are the Top 5 for now, but I will continue to post as I remember old favorites or discover new ones.

I woke up this morning, short on time. Slapped some gel in the 'fro, pulled on a shirt and some slacks, and ran to school with the imprint of my pillow case's hem stitching running the entire length of my face. Ah, 8:00, Safe!
What's that?
No one is here, save Sakae Sensei? Lets look at today's schedule...
Hmmmm... yasumi (free day)? It happened again... "Um, do we have work today?"
"No, its a free day. Oh, didn't someone tell you?"

Wow, a free day. It didn't matter that no one told me about it, as I have become used to being out of the loop, and even expect it. Luckily this time it was a good surprise, other than the "Oh, by the way, we need you to work this Saturday, even though you told us of your snowboarding trip a month in advance" type.

So I hopped in the Civic, popped in the Underworld, and drove South into Miyazaki. There I found the best driving road I have yet driven in Japan.
I also found a cool temple, learned about Miyazaki's history, and happened upon an unspoiled waterfall. I dunno why but the every local waterfall that I know of has been tampered with to some degree, whether it be constructing a manmade reservoir below it, building a viewing platform right in front, or adding some other items that take away from the natural beauty of it. THis waterfall could only be viewed from a distance, a very very far distance, from the top of a cliff.

Miyazaki city boasts a beautiful beach that was constructed indoors, with a bright blue cloud dotted sky painted inside the dome, pristine white sand, and a wave machine that provides perfect curls for only their staff of pros to ride. Everything looks so realistic, which is really stupid because there is a perfect beach complete with waves, sand, and a perfect climate 5 minutes away from the indoor one, which charges about 4000 yen (bout 40 bucks) for admission. More amazing, people actually go to this place even when the weather is great outside.

Shanghai was a great place, but the smog was thick, thicker than that of L.A., reminiscent of the muddy contents of the erlenmeyer flask that my high school chemistry teacher used to demonstrate how particles stay suspended in colloids (like jello or anything that you add to an agar/water mixture). Anyhow, this pic was snapped from the D251 from the window of our aging Boeing 737, despite the soul-less warnings of the multilingual flight attendants. You can actually see the inversion layer (the clear blue part) smashing down all of that CO, CO2, NOX, ozone, hydrocarbons, and all of that other shit onto the city. There is one cool thing about thick dense brown smog in the cityscape- it filters the light, creating bad-ass blood-red sunsets, like the stylized umeboshi depicted on the Japanese flag.
Speaking of which, why do Japanese people think of the Sun as being either red or orange in color, and the moon as yellow? When you look at the sun, it is a burning brightness that is best described most of the time as white or yellow. The moon, is clearly white! I think this is a good example of a cultural nam-shub of Japan.

Well, everyone is fine- no one got the bends or nitrogen narcosis or even stung by a jellyfish. There wasn't really any opportunity to get hurt, and you really didn't need to even be in good shape to participate. I shoulda known that the dive would be a joke, but it just didn't occur to me.
Can you believe that I spent three days in Okinawa and NEVER got to go to the beach. I saw it from a distance a couple of times, emerald green waters with coral breaking the calm surface. The weather was perfect, with beautiful clouds and a gentle breeze. Nah, instead I spent my time shopping for omiyage, drinking, and eating Japanese food.
Don't get me wrong, I am very greatful that I got to hang out with the firemen of Ubuyama, but it wasn't what I expected.
So diving was like this: We had 3 hours dedicated on the schedule. The first hour was a crash super-simplified course in the dangers of touching stonefish, sea snakes, sea urchins, jellyfish, and other marine animals. Next was an easy explanation of the regulator and the mask (talk about tanks, BCs, wetsuits, depth and pressure meter, and other equipment was completely omitted). All of this took about an hour. Next we went to the dive spot. We were seperated into 3 groups of 4, and my group went last.
I knew the spot that we hit up (Manza Beach) was a great place because I had a long talk with a local Marine and an Okinawan girl who had just come back from a dive. We talked at length (as the others were getting basic training, which took up about 45 minutes) about diving, marine invertibrates, and Okinawan culture. This turned out to be the highlight of the dive, as I got educated about feeding habits of predatory sea snails, good and bad dive spots, Yoneguni, and spearfishing on the islands (the local fishermen hate it when they see you doing it) and other cool places (such as hunting for stripers in the Colorado River)..
So I finally got in the water with my group, and it took everyone about 10 minutes to put on fins and masks. They practiced breathing under water with the respirator, clearing the mask of water, and clearing the respirator of water, and swimming which took another 30 minutes. Then we got to follow behind the instructor for another 10. We only swam at most 30 meters in no more than 20 feet of water at the very deepest.
During this whole time I was itching to go explore and find a real sea snake but had to stay with the group. Still, I was astounded by the level of biodiversity in the small pocket of water which we were confined to. I saw more species of fish, snails, and coral in ten minutes of exploration than I have in snorkeling around Oita, Amakusa, Ashikita, Saga, Kagoshima, Awaji-shima, and other various spots around Honshu cumulatively.
So now that I have a taste of Okinawa, I need to go back to actually experience it the real way. Next time I will pig out on American food, get a bitchin' tan while relaxing on the beach, and go diving for real! I will not go to snack bars or spend more than 30 minutes shopping for omiyage.

Ah, to be on an all expenses paid vacation (excluding ichi mon for something and incidentals, but hey its pretty darn cheap) with the men of the Ubuyama Shobodan (Fire Brigade, or as we Americans say Fire Department).
Right now we are in Naha, and as you can probably guess, I am in an internet cafe. Just before this we went out for a phat teppanyaki dinner complete with some excellent grilled shrimp (shrimp stew, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp sandwitch, barbecued shrimp, shrimp ice-cream, shrimp jello...), rare steak (I thought they only knew how to do well done in this country), vegetables, dessert, and beer. Okinawa is famous for a bitter melon know as Goya- it is bitter as hell, and only tastes O.K. with other food (like eggs and bacon) to mask it.

Rare tenderloin- bloody steak tastes like heaven after all you've had for the past six months has been well done kwakisurpiniku. Oops...What I meant to say was well done kwakisurpipiku.

This is the head of the giant shrimp. The teppan chick used two steel spatulas to squish it criss-cross style, and then used what looked like a concrete spreading tool to mash it into a "cracker" (read, well done shrimp brains, eyes, antannae, carapace, and other parts of the head which I now do not come to mind). It was actually pretty good if you were not thinking about brains while you ate it, but was still good even though I was indeed thinking about them.
This was followed up with pig intestine soup (hormone miso shiru) and sweet beans soaked in black sugar syrup topped with shaved ice.
Honestly, the whole dinner kicked major ass, and the 5000 yen tab was picked up for me! Makes the intestine soup that much more memorable.

Anyhow, after dinner, the guys (all married with kids) decided to go out to a snack bar (basically a place where you pay for young girls to talk to you. The good ones are pros at feigning interest in whatever you say and laughing at jokes that are not at all funny. What a shitty job!). I was offered the option of paying 4000 yen for all you can drink for 50 minutes with the girls, but graciously declined. Why should I pay money to have a conversation with someone who sees it as work? Why do people pay money to have one sided conversations? What do they get out of it? Many of them opt for "special treatment" later on, so why not just cut to the chase and save the pillow talk with someone who isn't really listening? I am really curious, but I don't think that I will ask anyone these questions on this particular trip.

The other reason why I didn't go just to drink and to hang with the boys is because we are diving tomorrow. Now, I'm not a professional, but diving is a very demanding and dangerous sport. These guys live in the mountains and are not really good at swimming or marine sports. Most of them are in relatively good shape from farming, but daikon picking skillz do not carry over to functioning under water. I am worried that these guys who have been drinking since 8 O'clock this morning are gonna be dehydrated tomorrow. Physical exertion and a hangover might prove to be a problem. Hopefully the dive master will be experienced and competent.

Anyhow, I am snapping away with the digicam and hopefully I will have some good ones to show when I return. Wish me luck.