I've noticed that winter is over. Now will come everything that good weather brings with it.
I take a long breath, one that will last an entire month, and step into my favorite role—Mary Poppins on a bicycle, E-bike edition, in the Land of the Rising Sun. This time, I'm returning to Japan carrying a creation that was born almost entirely out of Japanese inspiration.
The road to Japan passes through Ramello, our old house in the Italian village whose walls received the first scribbled sketches of the book ״On To the Puddle״. Here, among peeling plaster and exposed layers of paint, a quiet dialogue began and continued—between places, time and longing, between Israel, Italy and Japan.
I travel together with the little figures from the wall, toward the landscapes he once breathed, so they may look back at him—even if through narrow slanted eyes. And to meet once again the people who embraced and wrapped us in their generosity during our previous visit.
And also—
I want to take care of myself, of basic needs. To be in a place where silence remains unbroken, to eat fresh and healthy food, to curl up beneath a soft duvet on a tatami floor and awaken sleeping skin pores and forgotten memories inside the steam of the onsen.
Speaking of forgotten memories.
Lately, small and marginal memories have been rising to the surface. As though the ״Little Match Girl״ is sitting in one corner of my mind, lighting a random match every now and then. Memories that are almost unnecessary, seemingly devoid of character or importance.
I wonder what to do with them. Sometimes I give in and pull one out, examine it, mark it, and try to understand why it chose to wake from among the cobwebs of the brain, and how it connects to me—to who I am now.
Does this happen to you too? or has my mind finally gone astray?
Our flight goes through Taipei, with an airline that feels like from another era, complete with a generous meal and flight attendants who tiptoe through the aisles like a troupe of fireflies, giant lotus pins adorning their hair.
Danny, our collector friend, who lives somewhere on the line between Givatayim and the flea market, was delighted to equip us with a rare Beatles poster designed by Israeli graphic artists in the 1960s in psychedelic style. A gift for Bebe, owner of the Izakaya on Ojika Island, who dreams John Lennon and is it merely coincidence that his partner's name is Yoko?
Ojika is a small island in the Goto archipelago we visited about a year and a half ago. We will return there, and you will get to know it too, if you surrender and hold on long enough, at least as long as I do.
I love islands. Just saying.
And now—Japan.
Meetup in Fukuoka
First stop Fukuoka, the largest city in Kyushu and Japan's southern gateway. We settle into Gion, a small historic district not far from Uniqlo.
At seven-thirty this evening we are due to meet at Higashi Park for a Meetup event that Dror-san signed us up for. I have no idea what is about to happen, but then again, I'm jet-lagged and upside down, and when I'm upside down—I surrender. Meetup is an app that allows people to meet new people in a foreign city through a shared hobby or common interest.
The gathering is run by Maruf, a Bengali professor at Fukuoka University who has been living in Japan for thirty years. The Bengali has initiated a weekly “Walk & Talk” gathering consisting of four laps around the park—roughly two hours plus a healthy serving of jet lag.
The participants—Foreigners wishing to improve their Japanese, and conversely, Japanese wishing to improve their English.
A Tinder for languages.
The rules—Each lap you switch partner, walk on the left side to unblock the path. At the end of the laps everyone climbs, somewhat laboriously, to Japanese monument for concluding remarks. We part at exactly nine-thirty. Not a minute earlier. Thus spoke the Bengali.
Maruf is excited. Seven participants have arrived, most of them are new. A young Portuguese anime and manga enthusiast looking for a legal way to work from Japan. A retiree from Los Angeles with distinctly imperial manners who travels around. I didn't particularly like him. And two ageless Japanese women—an accountant and a tax consultant—regular members of the group who are trying, with a shyness I personally find somewhat excessive, to improve their English.
I am shy too. Just not quite that shy, and I even manage to earn a small round of applause when I complete an entire sentence in Japanese without making a mistake. Excited by this gathering of scattered worlds and the intimacy it creates, we exchange Instagram, WhatsApp and email, and briefly long for world peace.
As jet lag defeats us, we begin our morning at noon, replacing coffee and pastries with miso soup and a full Set-meal. A composition of small surfaces of color arranged across a tray, for barely twenty shekels—including conversion fees. How delicious. How inexpensive.
Fukuoka provides everything one might ask of a city, without hysteria and without queues. I love this city, especially its residents, who somehow seem even more welcoming, warmer, and modest. Dror-san and I split up and reunite as we wander through the city. Each of us is looking for our own Japanese experience.
Japan has many layers.
Even on my fourth visit, I make no claims. I simply observe.
The men in black who spend their days rushing to provide service and their evenings swaying slowly with drunkenness.
The little Lego-like workers in uniforms, directing pedestrians with white gloves and offering slight bows, as though movement itself were a ritual.
The women dressed modestly in monochrome shades of black and soft cream muslin.
A group of teenagers crossing a street without a traffic light and, as one body, bowing deeply to the driver who stopped for them.
Even the simplest dish feels as though someone lingered over it for one moment longer. The meal tray resembles a painting in a frame, the ingredients, arrangement and variety of the food are aesthetic, colorful and harmonious like a spring garment, transforming every simple ingredient into an occasion—and me into a poet of vegetables.
There seems to be no connection between the simplicity of the product and the luxury of its wrapping which makes me want to spend eternity opening the package.
Our route is only partially planned. A few days in Fukuoka. A train to Sasebo. A ferry to Ojika, a magical bead in the pearl necklace of the Goto Islands. And after that—we'll see. Depending on mood and momentum.
Yanagawa – The Venice of Kyushu
In Yanagawa, known as the ״Venice of Kyushu״ thanks to its extensive network of historic canals originally built for irrigation, we join a sleepy little tourist interlude. It includes a traditional straw hat and a boat ride among weeping willows (Yanagi), bridges and wooden houses. The boat is steered by a Japanese Venetian who handles a long bamboo pole and breaks into folk song whenever we pass beneath a low bridge, letting the structure echo his voice back to him.
The cruise is pleasant, though perhaps a little boring. Most of the time we were occupied with trying to determine the genealogical relationship of the tourists seated beside us. Was she the daughter or the mother? and who, exactly, was married to whom?
It is hot in Venice.
At the sight of tiny beads of sweat dotting our foreheads, Dror-san's senses spring into action and lead us straight to a cold beer in a hidden second-floor bar overlooking the main street, where people continue to pour out of the train station toward the local Venice.
We are alone here. Which feels like an excellent opportunity to take a decorative guitar off the shelf, strum a few lazy chords, and chat with the friendly bartender in broken Japanese. We learn that the word ״Otsumami״ means the snacks served alongside beer.
We also discover that the bar—and the bartender's rugged neck included—served as a filming location several years ago for the romantic movie ״Love in Yanagawa״. While we admire the laminated photographs from the film and produce exaggerated Japanese sounds of appreciation, a couple enters the bar. The ״konnichiwa״ gives them away. And us as well. Israelis.
A former CEO of ZIM in China, now retired and living in Hong Kong, and his wife. It is a rare, surprising and heartwarming thing to find yourself slipping into a conversation that flows naturally from one table to another. A Meetup at the bar.
Ojika – Before the End of the World
The Goto archipelago, southwest of Nagasaki, was born from geological upheavals and volcanic activity, stretching across a chain of islands that extends for nearly one hundred kilometers. Ojika is a small island at the end of that chain. Home to approximately 2,300 residents. And this week—2,302.
We return here to see once again the warm people who believed us when we said we would come back.
To the tiny women who seem to have stepped straight out of a ״Mrs. Pepperpot story״, hurrying about all day in aprons with oversized pockets and pressing seasonal fruit into our hands.
To the fishermen unloading fresh fish in rubber boots with practiced diligence. The fish we will eat tonight. And to marvel at the giant octopuses twisting slowly inside their nets. Those, fortunately, we will not be eating tonight.
To the evenings at ״Yokochō״, Bebe's pleasure-filled izakaya, which shines like a lighthouse over both the pier and the heart. The place that embraced Dror and his guitar night after night with bows, gestures, and calls of "Masta! Masta!"—their Japanese-accented version of "Master! Master!"
There are sights and human encounters that cannot truly be told. Only lived.
Thoughts from the End of the Pier
I've grown accustomed to waking to the burbling of water between the boats and the ghostly flight of black kites above the lagoon. To walking toward the pier through strips of torn fog hovering above rooftops, narrow streets and bridges. And to surrendering myself to the limited movement contained within the borders the sea draw around the island.
On the side roads descending toward the shore, the landscape opens slowly. Long, symmetrical rice fields, clustered like rows of artificial eyelashes dipped in water, reflect flashes of clouds and light.
Rice fields are a beautiful sight.
My breathing expands. My legs grow stronger. My eyes become accustomed to this endless blue that appears from every direction. We swim in turquoise waters along white and red beaches surrounded by volcanic rocks rising from the sea and collecting debris from shipwrecks, fishing nets and faded buoys bleached by the sun.
Nozaki Island – What Remains of Life
We take a short ferry to Nozaki Island, an island that was gradually abandoned by its residents until the final inhabitant left in 2001. The last resident was a Shinto priest who had cared for the island's shrine.
Wandering through Nozaki feels surreal. Like a stage set left standing long after the play has ended. Over time, nature crept inward through balconies and windows, slowly covering the traces of human life and reclaiming the place for itself. Herds of deer roam freely along the paths. They peek out from among the trees and fix visitors with alert stares before disappearing again into the landscape. The bare branches lean toward the blue of the sea. So much blue.
A Rashomon of Tides
Bebe mentions that he will turn sixty in April 2027. He adds that in Japan, sixty is considered a significant milestone called ״Kanreki"—a return to the original cycle. When a person reaches sixty, the astrological cycle into which they were born resets, as though life begins again. A rebirth. A combination of the twelve zodiac animals and the five elements. Twelve times five equals sixty—by astrological arithmetic.
Bebe plans to record and produce one hundred songs he has written and composed before his own rebirth arrives and asks Dror, the Master, for advice.
And I find myself thinking: Damn. How did I miss my own rebirth? Apparently all that's left is to wait for one hundred and twenty - Not fair.
Fifty residents of the island passed away last year. Only ten babies were born. Come to think of it, I haven't seen the persimmon seller who used to sit in the corner of the fish market. May her memory be a blessing.
Amazon delivers to the island.
Only nine days each year are designated for collecting shellfish. Nine full-moon days, when the tide retreats farther than at any other time and exposes the seabed. People purchase a permit from the local fishing office. In return they receive a small onsen towel. The towel is worn around the neck as proof that one has earned permission to gather shellfish.
In neighboring Oshima Island, only a single child remains in the elementary school. Five part-time staff members are responsible for his education. Only after he completes his studies will the school close.
Enthusiastic participation in karaoke nights at Melody Bar—run by a Japanese woman with the mannerisms of a geisha-house madam—managed to increase my Instagram following by a single-digit number. I am completely Big in Japan. It is difficult to know whether they are genuinely enthusiastic, like the long, drawn-out “Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" they release while their lips contract to approximately sushi diameter, or whether this is simply what Japanese kawaii culture looks like in action.
Weigh anchor.
We part, quite literally, in tears, collapse into one another in sumo-sized embraces and wave wildly as the ferry sounds the final chord of this chapter.
Yoko spent the entire night sewing gifts for us from kimono fabric. At a level of craftsmanship bordering on haute couture—A pencil case embroidered with my name in Japanese—Shigarito and a small pouch for Dror's guitar picks. How delicate. Afterward, she read a blessing she had written and memorized in Hebrew, transcribed into Japanese phonetics. She delivered it in a careful, moving accent.
The owner of the little shop that sells absolutely everything slipped a tube of ״Made in Japan״ hand cream into my hands, as though it were a travel charm, or perhaps a promise that we would return.
Even Lilly and Yowie, who were hurrying to their traditional wedding ceremony at the church, made a point of coming down to the pier to say goodbye and to give us a gift: African percussion instruments, which Yowie plays with remarkable talent.
Like a pair of Japanese cranes who choose each other for life - We promise to return. We still have another two and a half weeks packed into our backpacks. What a joy to realize that it isn't over yet.
״Mata ne״ - See you again.
Thank you for reading.
If the spirit moves me, I'll continue writing.
Sigalit (Shigarito-san)
