Hokkaido Highway Blues

making disdainful snorting sighs through my nose.
    A while later, still groggy, I arranged a rent-a-bike at the hostel and set out to circumnavigate Shōdo Island. The bicycle had a choice of one gear (slow) and two seat positions (low and very low). It was like one of those clown bicycles, but not as dignified. With my knees repeatedly blocking my view, I wobbled toward Uchinomi Town. Along the way, the bikers from the hostel came roaring back in tight formation, bobbing and weaving as they zoomed past at Mach II.
    By the time I reached the town, I wasn’t pedaling at all, but kind of scooting myself along with my feet and coasting. I had already managed to get lost in the streets of Uchinomi, when a white pickup truck, not much larger than a Dinky Toy, came lurching around the corner. A silver-haired man rolled down his window.
    “So there you are,” he said in carefully enunciated English. “I was told of your presence by a certain shopkeeper. May I ask where you are going?”
    “Um, I was going to bike around the island.” I looked up at the ominous green backdrop of mountains behind the town. “But now I think I’ll just go back to the youth hostel.”
    “If I may presume, are you a Mormon? That is, are you of the Mormon faith?” I was flattered. My disguise was working. “No, I’m not a Mormon. I’m a hitchhiker.”
    “Ah, yes.” He nodded as though it confirmed a pet theory of his. ‘As a Japanese, I am naturally a follower of Buddhism. In this case, Shingon. Are you informed about a certain Kōbō Daishi?”
    When I showed enthusiasm for the Daishi, he decided to take me under his wing. ‘As a retired person, my time is flexible,” he said. “If you place your bicycle in the back of my small truck, I shall take you to see the various attractions of this island, which is my home.”
    And so it was, I slung my circus prop in the back and climbed into the passenger seat. This was getting easier and easier. I was now catching rides without holding out my thumb while on a bicycle. Surely a record of some sort.
    Akihira Kawahara was a gentleman through and through. A recently retired schoolteacher, he spent his free time reading English dictionaries. “I read ten pages a day. So far, I have completed three lexicons of vocabulary. It keeps my mind busy and increases my abilities.“ It also explained his extensive, if somewhat eccentric, vocabulary.
    Akihira was an excellent guide, but not terribly discerning in his choices. “On your left is Saisho-an Temple, which has as its principle deity a carved image which is nine hundred years old. And here, how shall I say, is our new urine processing facility, where human waste from a wide area is gathered. The specialty on Shōdo, I should add, is tenobe sōmen, a type of handmade noodle that is quite delicious.”
    He was very thorough. He even identified smells. When we came down an especially pungent stretch of road, he said, “What you are noticing is the smell from many seaweed and soy sauce factories, for which Shōdo is also famous.”
    The island was far bigger than I imagined. There was no way I would have been able to ride a bicycle around it, even with gears. Shōdo was also far more mountainous than I expected, with a cloak of forest covering the peaks like a blanket draped over sharp rocks. These mountains, mossy green, provided the backdrop to every view, just as the sea provided the foreground. It felt Mediterranean, which was more than mere imagination. As Akihira explained, Shōdo was the only place in Japan where olives were commercially grown. The climate was so similar to that of Greece, with just the right mix of sea and sun and long parched summer days that, while olives failed elsewhere, they flourished here. Olive branches, as Akihira pointed out, were a symbol of peace and Shōdo was known as the Olive Island, a pocket of peace in an otherwise hectic world.
    “It is often remarked upon that Shōdo Island is Japan in miniature,” said Akihira, proudly, as it was a great honor to be the miniature anything in Japan. “In Shōdo we will find the same percent of mountains to plains, agriculture to industry, and town to country which we find in Japan as a whole.” When Akihira noticed that I was taking notes, he concluded, “If I may so presume, your occupation is that of journalist.”
    “Ah, no. Not really”
    Akihira suddenly veered to one side—his driving rivaled that of the Blind Swordsman himself—and took me down a