Hokkaido Highway Blues

videos.“
    I had seen Japanese “special” videos before. ‘Are the good parts scrambled out?”
    He shrugged philosophically. “They are. But if you squeeze your eyes together like this”—he showed me how—“you can kind of see what’s going on.”
    “The capsules don’t have karaoke machines as well, do they?”
    I was kidding, of course, but Ogawa didn’t brush the suggestion aside. He sighed. “Not yet. Maybe someday.”
    And he was probably right. I could well imagine a Japanese salaryman, lying prone in a pod no bigger than a coffin, singing soulfully about his old hometown and the woman he left behind.
    Ogawa didn’t have much use for karaoke. He was one of the few Japanese people I ever met who was openly hostile to it. Karaoke, it turned out, had cost him his livelihood. He hadn’t always been a capsule hotel manager. No, he was once an entertainer who traveled the show-biz circuit of Japan as—I swear I’m not making this up—a freelance accordion soloist. He had been involved with bands, but his rugged spirit and the constant back-stabbing power plays among the performers soured him on the group experience. No, he had to be free. Just him and his accordion. But, alas, karaoke had driven traveling musicians, such as himself, out of business. And the way he said it, you couldn’t help but agree that the end of barroom accordion artistry had been an irretrievable loss to Japanese culture. “Nowadays,” he said, “when I try to play my accordion music, people tell me to stop. I blame karaoke for this.”
    Having checked in, commiserated with the manager, and forced my much-beleaguered backpack into a locker, I went out to explore Himeji by night. The streets were alive with activity. At the end of the boulevard, lit up like a neon mirage, was Shirasagi-jō, the White Heron Castle, the finest castle in Japan—and possibly the world.
    The city of Himeji was firebombed into ruin during the war. The castle survived—scorched, but intact. When, through the fire and smoke, the people saw that the White Heron was still standing, the castle became a symbolic rallying point. What they didn’t know was that American bombers had spared the castle. They needed it as a reference point for their bombers. Turn right at the castle and you were soon over Osaka’s shipyards. Turn left and you would be over Hiroshima.
    Whatever the reason, the castle’s continued existence is a miracle worth celebrating. Built in 1581, and expanded in 1609, it remains the preeminent example of warlord architecture in Japan. It stands perched on a small bluff of land, like a bird about to take wing, and the nearer I got, the thicker the crowds became. Most were leaving, streaming out from the grounds, heady with cherry blossoms and rice wine, their faces a deep red—almost purple. So many Japanese get red faced when they drink alcohol, because of a hereditary lack of the liver enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde. It is this chemical by-product of alcohol that causes their features to become flushed.
    Some were singing, many were staggering; a few were hurrying to make the last trains; others, flagging down taxis. It was the type of charged atmosphere you find in a parking lot after a rock concert. I crossed the moat and entered the castle grounds. Stubborn partygoers were still active in the pockets of light beneath the sakura.
    At Himeji Castle, the flowers were in full bloom and everywhere there was activity and laughter. Hands waved me in. Voices cried out. It was such a wonderfully friendly atmosphere. Long-lost friends I had never before met, clasped my hands and smiled nostalgically. I made a few guest appearances, drank a bit of saké, shared a few laughs, and cadged a couple of cans of beer, but everyone was too far gone and I was still distracted by the castle itself, rising up in all its glory above the pink-and-white spray of sakura.
    There are three thousand cherry trees around the castle. I excused myself and walked down the middle of the wide, grassy plain in front and stood, looking up in something akin to reverence. Fringed with flowers, it was so well presented, so impressively arrayed in spotlights, so perfect , that it was all I could do not to applaud.
    Downtown in Himeji, the bars were closing and customers were being turned out. I headed back to the Capsule Hawaii. Along the way, I passed a man in a crumpled suit, reeling drunkenly, He was defiantly keeping his balance, as his eyes focused on