Trev and I decided to explore the "other" side of town

Togane, for us as walkers, has always been the rice fields, the Soviet-style junior high, Sunpia, and the Horikawas' house. But now we have bicycles!

After a trip in the car out on the other, mountain-ey, side of town for kaiten sushi with the Horikawas, we decided to take a trip on our bikes to see if we could find the shinto shrine we could see nestled in the mountain.

Togane is built like any other semi-rural, but not suburban, town in the U. S. -- it's not ready to take up the Home Depots and Wal-Marts that will relegate it a no-character hole, so it expands itself horizontally rather than vertically, resulting in a strangely non-Western strip mall effect. So we meandered through myriad used-car sales and repair places, family-owned restaurants, hair salons, and the like -- with the odd house plunked down in the middle of it all here and there (it seems Japan has no zoning laws).

We hit the jackpot with the shrine though. We found a scrubby, neglected driveway leading to a small gateway carved between two houses. 111 high stone steps later, we were viewing the whole of Togane from a tiny, deserted shrine built in the middle of the mountain. It was very serene, and the wind was blowing softly at our backs, so Trevor and I made our prayers at this shrine for a safe trip home.

Exploring the grounds, we saw evidence that all boys are the same in every country -- porno mags hidden behind the shrine testified to its remote and private aspects.

We then hopped on our bikes and rode through the quiet streets away from the shrine's entrance. This was sheer heaven for me, because we fell upon the shitamachi, or "old town" of Togane. Here were the elusive memories of my parents' time in Japan -- sliding wooden doors open to the street, earth floors recently covered over with concrete (or not), tin sided houses, tiny shops selling everthing from tea to baby strollers -- all no flash. Actually, I don't think I saw one neon sign.

The other day, Horikawa-san asked us if we regretted not seeing Kyoto. We said no, we were actually more interested in the Hokkaido or Okinawa areas than Kyoto, because we heard Kyoto had become somewhat of a painted whore -- the old buildings were being torn down in favor of neon Pachinko parlors and concrete slabs of buildings, and the temples and shrines all had tour buses parked outside constantly while loudspeakers trumpeted all the time. Horikawa-san said that we had to see Kyoto, it was the heart and soul of Japan, and that Japanese only go to Hokkaido or Okinawa for vacation -- to ski or go to the beach. I don't think our broken Japanese convinced him of how we see these places though. I mean, what do Americans think of when they think of Japan? Fuji, Tokyo, Kyoto, right? Well, Japanese know this too, and that's why these places have become crazy tourist traps, and the heart and soul of Japan is hidden deeply away. Hokkaido and Okinawa are not on every tourist's wish list, and from what I hear, this keeps them relatively untouched. The shitamachi spirit is what is the heart and soul of old Japan, and that's what you can find in the (as yet) untouched areas.

This is not to say that Japan shouldn't modernize. But like our friends the Nakamuras, who just built a gorgeous old-style Japanese farmhouse with a pebble -- not earth -- entrance and air-conditioned tatami rooms with paper screens that lead into a state of the art kitchen, you can retain the beauty and simplicity of the soul of Japan without sacrificing comfort. And I hear it's cheaper to modify an old Japanese house than to build a new, concrete slab that is designed to last 20 years.

The flash of Japan is overwhelming and fun, but the best experiences in Japan really do come down to finding that elusive Japanese spirit. It can be frustrating to look for when you're packed on a train full of manga-reading sarariman, or seeing vending machines on Fuji, or being blown away by children's music being played by a garbage truck. But it is there if you know where to look.