A Hot Day

There's hot, and then there's Kochi hot: 1:30 in the afternoon, stuck in the sun, 37 degrees C, humidity in the ridiculous numbers. But of course, there's a story in that, and, like many stories, it begins before the fun.

A lot of my faithful readers will already be familiar with so-called "wasei-eigo," or Engrish, particularly those forms of the art having to do with t-shirts or the spontaneous poetry that adorns drink containers and candy boxes. So it will come as no surprise that at least one of my friends requested a t-shirt with such on it as omiyage. Easily done, I thought, but I was wrong, see, because I failed to take into account that truly fashionable young Japanese folks would much rather have authentic t-shirts from America than designs from J-corporations trying to cash in on a trend. As a result, the anti-fashion fashionable street of Kochi is a mecca of recycled t-shirts from the States. Ever wonder where your Junior High School softball team's excess shirts ended up? Try CHAOS, a veritable storehouse of yesteryear's promotional t-shirts. Want an authentic Red Hot Chili Peppers or Harley Davidson t-shirt? Can't swing a dead hipster on Obi-san Road without hitting at least one store stocked to the brim.

This in the same town where I once saw, prominently displayed in place of pride in a store's window, a t-shirt that read, "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?" You can now truly appreciate my surprise.

Despairing, I turned to a friend (over sake and cigars whose origins I'm not at liberty to disclose) and asked, where's a man to find his ridiculous misuses of English these days? He nodded sagely and told me to get me hence to Aoyama, a men's fashion boutique (and chain store) out on the Tosa Doro (a kind of main artery for traffic avoiding downtown).

And so, on Friday, I set off on a borrowed mama-chari (a grandma-style bicycle with a basket on the front) for Aoyama on Tosa Doro. Along the way, it being hotter than I really care to repeat, I stopped in at a supermarket to buy a bottle of water. Turns out they were selling cases of the stuff (six bottles to a case) as a bargain, so I put six liters of water in the basket and rode my way down the road. I was over a bridge and coming down on Tosa Doro rather quickly when I realized that my back tire was flat. Well, now, Aoyama was just around the corner, so I pushed the bicycle on.

Thing is, I couldn't see an Aoyama. I did, however, see a store called Ookii Size (Big Size); it seemed a promising substitute, so I went in. Turns out, it really is a store for the plus-sized Japanese man, which means that nothing there is smaller than the equivalent of an American XL (in Japanese: 3L). As a seven-footer with a 40-inch waist, I assure you, if this store had been around when I was in Kochi, I'd've bought everything there. As it was, I saw some great "wasei-eigo" samples, but the person I was shopping for is, at best, an L, not a 3L. No luck.

Back out into the heat. Apart from being a place of questionable fashions, the other distinguishing characteristic of Japan is that you usually can't spit without hitting a bicycle repair shop. This is understandable, since the lowly bicycle is the single most popular form of mechanical transport in Japan. And so I had great hopes that I'd be a mere five minutes in the sun before finding somewhere to fill my tire and move on. Within three, I found a scooter shop, that oddball cousin of the bicycle shop. The propietor had a hand pump he was more than happy to lend me, but he pointed out that the entire tire was old, cracked, and probably not suitable for its original intended use any further. He also helpfully pointed out that there was a bicycle shop a kilometer down the road.

And so I pushed that bicycle, and the still-heavy six liters of water, down the road, around the corner, and always, always under the beating, merciless sun. I paused to get a bottle of Pocarri Sweat (look, this isn't the time to ask), and you may be able to appreciate that I had to take pictures of the following to make sure I wasn't hallucinating:





Back in the sun, I pushed on, until I came to the entrance to a temple. Hot, sweaty, tired, I told myself I'd be back to take pictures, but excuses like that don't sit well when you're honest with yourself, and I knew then that if I didn't go in, I'd not come back. So I parked the useless bicycle on the side of the road, the box of bottles of water still in the basket, and I went on in. I didn't even bother to lock the bicycle; no need, and no real point.




I left the temple grounds much cooler and much more centered, and my bicycle was just where I left it. I pushed on a little more, and sure enough, there was the bicycle repair shop. I negotiated a fee for replacing the tire entirely, then sat down with my box of water bottles by the edge of the river, in the shade, and watched the parade of life ride by, including this fellow:



Will you forgive me, dear readers, for humming the theme from CHiPs as he went by?