1. (1) Patagonia - mountains, lakes and glaciers

2. (2) Esperantists in Argentina

3. (3) A Japanese hostel in Buenos Aires

(1) Patagonia - mountains, lakes and glaciers

The Argentine border was far from the Chilean border. The border post was in the east side of the Andes and I had to ride 50km. I expected it would be near and so I started to ride without gloves at the Chilean border, but it was so far that I had to put on the gloves on the way. It was the farthest border post in my all trips. The two countries might be easygoing, or they merely wanted to have the offices closer to towns.

I rode 500km and at last found a town that has some hotels. As it was a country town and never a tourist place, the hotel charged only $6.8 a night. The owner of the hotel liked a motorcycle and he had the photographs of all the riders who stayed in his hotel. I had the map of Argentina that I had bought in Bariloche. The map indicated that Route 40, which runs straight to the south along the Chilean border, is a "consolidado" road. I didn't know the meaning of the consolidated road. I asked a woman in the bookshop when I bought the map and some other women in Bariloche if the road was paved with asphalt. All of them answered it was asphalted. I absolutely believed this. I had the idea of riding southward on Route 40 to Ushuaia, the southernmost town in the Southern Hemisphere. However, I had a single worry about the road. In Argentina as well as in the Atacama of Chile, there hadn't been a gas station within the distance of 200km. I looked in the map. There was almost no town on Route 40. I asked the owner who likes a motorcycle, "I will take Route 40 tomorrow. Are there many gas stations on the road?" He answered, "In some place it is after an interval of 400km. Besides, it is totally impossible for you to go on the road by your motorcycle". I asked him, "Is it not asphalted?" and he answered, "It is a dirt road. The stones have sharp edges. The tires would be broken". I was right in asking him. I changed my idea and headed east on a paved road toward Comodoro Rivadavia, a town on the Atlantic coast. This road crossing Patagonia ran through an uninhabited vast field, which had brown grass apparently to be hard. It seemed to me that the land was almost a desert. There were neither humans nor animals. Even the cars on the road were scarce. However, there was one place that had oil wells. Patagonia produces oil. Probably because of this, the gasoline was sold in Patagonia at a half price of the gasoline sold for $0.9 per liter in Chile. And, the roads in Chile were toll roads and charged even for motorcycles, but they were free of charge in Patagonia.

There were Internet cafes in the seaport of Comodoro Rivadavia. So Comodoro is a rather big town. A bald mountain stood on the north of the town and on its top the windmills generating electricity were working. Patagonia is well-known for its strong wind. I walked around the streets and I saw a pedestrian mall where people were learning how to dance tango. It reminded me that Argentina is the country of tango. It was difficult for me to find a budget hotel with a parking in this town as well. I rode around the town, but I couldn't find any. The cheap hotel I finally found charged more than $9 although it was never comfortable. It had some space to park the bike in front of the room, but I had some doubt about its security. I stayed only two nights in this town as well and went to Puerto San Julian, also a port around 500km south.

Puerto San Julian is a small town at latitude nearly 50 degrees south. The paved Route 3 links the capital Buenos Aires and Rio Gallegos, 400km further south. The road from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia, the city at the end of the world, is partly unpaved. I had the idea of staying only one night in Puerto San Julian and going to Rio Gallegos. I wanted to leave the dying BMW for repairs in Rio Gallegos and to make a bus trip to Ushuaia. But I found a good public hotel in Puerto San Julian. It was the first public hotel during my 2-year-and-9-month journey. Although it was public, it was so gorgeous that the charge, I imagined, would be beyond my budget. However, I asked the charge, not seriously. It was $13 including breakfast. It was not an unacceptable expense. I hesitated a little, but I thought there couldn't be such a good hotel for such a low charge in Chile or Argentina. I decided to stay there. As a result, I stayed five nights in that comfortable hotel after a long interval. There was a pier close to the hotel and a boat carried tourists to an island of penguins. It was a two-hour tour for $6.8. I saw penguins, cormorants and dolphins by the boat. There was nothing more special to see in the town. One day I went to the barber. The barber asked me about my travel. I answered him, including the story about the sick BMW. Then the man told me that his son had a motorcycle workshop and that he would take me there after cutting my hair. We went there. His son Ricardo Arbaizar was in a well-equipped garage. He has been a motocross racer since he was a child. So he knows anything about a motorcycle. I had great anxiety about my BMW then. It was so unstable in low gears that I was frightened of riding and it began to eat lots of gasoline. I had already taken the bike to a mechanic two times before, but the problem remained almost the same as before. But, Ricardo is the same enduro racer as Masahide Kuraya, who was my motorcycle maintenance teacher. I believed he would fix the bike. According to my expectations, he soon found out that the injector was out of order. He told me that it would take a week or ten days to repair the bike if he sent the injector to Buenos Aires for repairs. In any case, I had the idea of leaving the bike somewhere in the region and going to Ushuaia by bus. Ricardo told me he would repair the bike during my trip. I thought it would be better to leave the bike in his place for repairs. So I decided to head toward Ushuaia, leaving the bike there and the luggage in the public hotel. I didn't know much about Patagonia except Ushuaia where all the motorcycle travelers visit, and the glaciers. However, I saw the photograph of an extraordinarily beautiful mountain in the public hotel. I asked where the mountain was. It was Mt. Fitz Roy that stands in the Andes close to the Chilean border. I decided to visit there.

Mt. Fitz Roy was also splendid. The bus was heading to El Chalten, the town on the foot of Mt. Fitz Roy. Fortunately the sky was cloudlessly clear. Mt. Fitz Roy and its surrounding mountains seen from the window of the bus were more fantastic than those in the Himalayas. Mt. Fitz Roy was not seen well from the town. I kept supporting the heavy BMW on tiptoe in the USA and Canada and it made me unable to walk a long distance. However, I wanted to see Mt. Fitz Roy more. So I took a tour bus to Lake Desierto in the north. On the way I saw the beautiful shape of Mt. Fitz Roy, which enchanted me. The following day I decided to walk to have a closer look of the mountain. In the morning I left the youth hostel and went to buy a bus ticket for Puerto Natales of Chile in the south. At that time Mt. Fitz Roy was clearly seen. However, after I climbed up the mountain by the sweat of my brow for an hour and a half, the cloud had already covered the beautiful Fits Roy. Nature is malignant at times.

In Ushuaia I stayed in a Japanese inn for the second time during this journey of two years and nine months, or rather, in my 31 trips abroad. All the rooms in the inn were shared. I had never stayed in a dormitory in my previous trips. I experienced it for the first time during this journey in the youth hostels - once in Canada and recently near Fitz Roy in Patagonia. However, Japanese inns where all the guests are Japanese are one hundred percent safe. The Japanese inn "Ueno-tei" in Ushuaia didn't have the keys to a door. Both the doors of the rooms and the door of the entrance were open for 24 hours. I met lots of young Japanese travelers in the "Ueno-tei". I had been worried about the future of Japan for more than 20 years as Japanese young men were and are not only short on brains, but also inactive. But, those young men traveling around the world were irradiated. I though they were very reliable. All of us naturally gathered around. During nine days when I stayed there we had a party almost every night till four or six in the morning. We had moule, king crab, sea urchin and smoked salmon, usually with cheap one-dollar wine, sometimes with two-dollar wine. I appreciated an excellent savor of seafood that I had never tasted even in Japan. By airplane and bus I went back to Puerto San Julian where I had left my bike and luggage. The broken injector was repaired and sent back form Buenos Aires after more than 20 days. My BMW that had been having a series of troubles since it had completely died in Santiago was perfectly revived by the skillful hands of Ricardo.

I stayed three nights in Puerto Madryn and headed to San Antonio Oeste, 250km north. Although I don't have to worry about the immediate advent of cold climate any more in this part of Patagonia, I am somehow traveling with haste. The rush in Chile might have given me a habit of traveling quickly. The sky was clear that day as well. I had been having good weather days and days. My trip meter indicated 50km because I went to see the sea lions. After riding 20km, I didn't find the gas station that someone told me about. Over there I saw a road sign of 125km to the next town. I was sure the bike could travel this distance. But, I was not sure that it would be a reasonable size of a town or village, and it was doubtful if there would be a gas station even it was a village. I kept riding till the meter indicated over 100km, feeling uneasy. The vast field with nothing equally extended in front of me. I got really worried. I still had enough gasoline left in the tank to go back at that time. I parked the bike to ask someone about the distance to the next gas station. Soon a bus came. Strangely enough, the bus turned the indicator on and stopped behind my bike. There were no passengers. I saw a couple in the bus. I noticed the bus was towing a trailer. The driver was a man apparently older than I. He told me he was carrying a Honda Africa Twin in that trailer. He put 4 liter of his gasoline into the tank of my BMW. The gasoline that he gave me guaranteed my safe trip to San Antonio Oeste. He was very kind to me even though we were the same riders. His name is Luis Ruben Miglaro. He has a house in Comodoro Rivadavia where I stayed several days before, however, he is the president of a company in Ecuador and usually lives in Quito. I came to understand why he could travel by such a big bus. I hadn't seen a traveler like him since the USA and even in the USA I seldom saw a traveler by such a huge bus. He told me he wanted to buy my BMW after my journey. He is the second Ecuadorian who wants my bike. In Colombia it is not allowed to register any used vehicles including motorcycles. I will have to sell my bike in some country near Colombia. I thought about selling it to Luis. However, I remembered that the Ecuadoran customs officer wrote the permit of the BMW's temporary importation in my passport. If I sell the bike in Ecuador, I will probably have some problems when I leave the country. For the time being, I don't want to think about how to do with the BMW after the journey.

San Antonio Oeste, where I arrived safely, thanks to Luis, without having the accident of running out of gas, is a small town of 20,000 inhabitants, and free from tourism. The town is quiet with a small volume of traffic. All the necessary stores, including an Internet cafe and a supermarket, are found in the vicinity of the central plaza. The hotel is inexpensive and the people are friendly and kind. In addition it is safe in the town. I like a town of this size best. It was always cloudy in Ushuaia, but the weather became better in the north. The sky has been clear in this town for the last four days. So you can see the beautiful stars at night. You can see the bright "pseudo Southern Cross (Carina)" at the zenith and the Southern Cross a little below to the southeast. Just like I felt in Chile, I didn't like Argentina for a while after I entered the country. But I am now getting to like this country.

I will head north to see some Esperantists in Neuquen and Buenos Aires.

(2) Esperantists in Argentina

I had some connection with an Esperantist in Argentina before I began learning Esperanto. I began to learn Esperanto at the age of past thirty. One of the teachers of the Spanish class was Yukio Hirai who passed away one and a half years ago. The students of the class were only two, Ms. Shuto, a young woman who was teaching Japanese at a senior high school and I. One day she suggested that we should read the book “Gracias a la vida” written about a folk singer Violeta Parra that she bought in a foreign country. We finished translating the book after about five years and it was published. During the period, Yukio kept corresponding with Alfred Valle, an Argentine Esperantist, to ask the meanings that we didn’t understand. Yukio thought that it would be risky to make a contact with a Chilean Esperantist under the political situation in Chile in those days.

I had been corresponding with Ruben Sanchez who lives in Neuquen, Patagonia, and Roberto Sartor in Buenos Aires for more than a year, and I told them to visit them in Argentina. Both of them are the Argentine delegates to Universal Esperanto Association. During this period I stayed overlong in Honduras and Colombia for six months respectively, and I was late in arriving in Argentina. However, the Esperantists were waiting for me.

Ruben in Neuquen teaches mathematics and physics at school. As soon as I arrived in Neuquen, I called him on his cellular phone. He visited me immediately after he finished his class. I imagined he would be an elderly man because he is a delegate to UEA, but when I met him I found him much younger than I expected. He is 39. In addition, he came to my hotel by motorcycle. I have never met an Esperantist on motorcycle. When I met him, he began to speak very fast in Esperanto and I couldn’t understand his Esperanto well. So I asked him to speak slowly. As his Esperanto spoken slowly was clear and beautiful, I was able to understand better although I always have difficulty in listening. We went to a nearby coffee shop. He suggested that I should join him in his class of the following day. I accepted his offer on the spot. After we talked for about an hour and a half, he left, telling me he had to collect his twin sons of ten. I thought he is a busy person. At ten of the following morning, he rode to my hotel on his motorcycle. I also pulled my BMW out of the hotel garage, which was formerly a movie theater, and we headed to the school together. On the way Ruben took me to the place to grow flowers. He told me the flower grower is a Japanese. As the Japanese man was not there then, we kept going to the school. The students gave a steady look at my BMW hardly found in this city. Ruben took me to the staffroom. Ruben gave a light kiss to one of the woman teachers of a certain age on the cheek. The lady protruded her cheek toward my face as well. After a moment’s hesitation, I moved my face closer to hers. Although I have been traveling in the countries that have this kind of custom for two years and nine months, I don’t get accustomed to kissing yet, particularly when I am sober.

Ruben had the class for 80 minutes. The students seemed to be over 15 years old. The class had, probably, 30 to 40 students. As it was a technological school, there weren’t many girls in the class. The students asked question after question to me, giving me no time to even introduce myself. Unlike Japanese students, they were never reserved. I, however, didn’t understand their Spanish questions at all. Ruben interpreted them into Esperanto. I have talked at school two times during this journey. First time, I did it at an elementary school in Dallas, USA. Needless to say, I spoke in English. Second time, it was in Bogota, Colombia. As the Esperantist Leonardo who took me to a school in Bogota was an English teacher of the school, I spoke once again in English. But, I spoke in Spanish for the first time in Neuquen. Ruben repeated my Spanish answers in proper Spanish, when my answers were hard to understand. 80 minutes passed very quickly. It was an enjoyable experience to me.

Later on that day, Ruben made a phone call to the Japanese flower grower whom we couldn’t meet. The Japanese called me at the hotel in the night of the same day, but I was out to dinner. I called him back in the following morning. I came to know his name is Kazuaki Okinishi. When I talked to him on the phone, he told me to see each other at 12:30. I took a taxi to his flower garden in slight expectation of a Japanese lunch. He was waiting for me at the gate. I guessed that he should be an old-time immigrant and so an elderly man. But he was young when I saw him. Although he told me he was 49, he looked to be around 40. He soon took me to his home by his car. His house was large. It had even a swimming pool. He told me he bought the house for only US$30,000. I haven’t ever seen a house with a pool in Japan. This sole fact is sufficient to say that his immigration was successful. He came to Argentina by the aid of the JICA (Japan International Corporation Agency) 24 years ago at the age of 25. Unlike the immigrants of many years past, he came by airplane, not by ship. He took a plane on condition that he wouldn’t have to pay for the flight if he worked in Argentina for two years. After he finished working as an attendant of a flower shop for two years, he went back to Japan. However, he didn’t like Japan and came back to Argentina. This time he was accompanied by his bride. He now has three children by the wife. The lunch, which I secretly expected, was given. I was served with raw fish with even “wasabi (Japanese mustard)” and curry and rice. Thinly sliced and boiled cabbage with mayonnaise is my favorite food. It was also served. Particularly curry and rice was great because I hadn’t eaten since I had in Honduras. After lunch, Kazuaki took me to a nearby hot spring by his car. The hot spring was in a vast field and had ferruginous waters. I had a lot of faith and pride in Japanese through Kazuaki who served a meal to an unknown traveler and took him to a hot spring even though the traveler was of the same nationality.

Ruben, who is always busy, came to my hotel every day after work and we talked for about one and a half hours. He teaches Esperanto in a library of the city center from eleven in the morning on Saturday. Naturally I went there. I guessed the number of the student would be few as in Osaka. But surprisingly, twenty students came to the class. Unlike in Osaka, in addition, most of the students were not only young people, but also beautiful women. I got jealous of Ruben. I thought I would teach such a class even every day. The reason his class in Neuquen has lots of young students is that the city of Neuquen itself is young. Neuquen was a small country town 40 years ago. Oil was found there. Further, there are four hydroelectric dams in the upstream river that flows into this city. Neuquen is a rapidly growing city as an energy base in Argentina. A young town has young people. I was again flooded with the questions by the young people who started learning Esperanto in a town like that. Most of the students were beginners and couldn’t speak much Esperanto. Ruben interpreted the Spanish questions asked by the students into Esperanto as he did so at his school. Needless to say, I answered in Esperanto this time. After the class of an hour, Ruben went somewhere to do something, telling me that he would visit me at the hotel an hour later. When I was also leaving, four of the young, beautiful women and one of the men came to me and began to speak in English. To tell the truth, most Esperantists whom I met during this journey can speak English. But we try to communicate in Esperanto. We are against the fact that one of the ethnic languages, for example English in our age, is used as an international language. The only reason an ethnic language is used as an international language is that the nation speaking that language has political and economic power. If we allow this, the hegemony of such a country can be strengthened through its language. It is unfair. Because of this, we Esperantists try to use not English that is merely one of the ethnic languages, but artificial and neutral Esperanto as an international language next to each ethnic language. I was disappointed that most young Japanese didn’t want to learn Esperanto. However, I renewed my hope in Neuquen after Oaxaca in Mexico. I gave a goodbye kiss on the cheek to the four of the young woman Esperantists. I didn’t hesitate anymore then.

Ruben told me that there is a hot spring in the west of Neuquen close to the Chilean border. I thought there would be no more hot spring far from here to Colombia. because I was going away from the Andes. Looking in the map, I guessed the distance to the hot spring would be about 200km. So I decided to visit there. After riding about 20km from Neuquen, I parked my bike at a gas station. I asked the distance and the answer was 500km. As I didn’t believe this, I rode a little more and asked some other person. He told me 400km. As I expected it would be nearer, I left the hotel later than usual. It was already half past eleven. The hot spring was too far at any rate. I made a U-turn and went back to the east. I didn’t want to go back to the same hotel because I already put the luggage on the bike. I rode another 350km to the east so that I could come closer to Buenos Aires.

Concerning the two ATM cards that I lost in Colombia, I received the new cards in Santiago thanks to Daniel Carrasco, the Esperantist in Chile. This time I was faced the necessity of receiving the renewed credit card as the card would expire in this March. My brother sent me a message that the new card was delivered to his home. I didn’t have enough time to receive the card in Neuquen if it was sent to Ruben’s place. So I asked my brother to send it to the residence of Roberto Sartor, the Esperantist in Buenos Aires. Besides the credit card, I had to receive the Certificate of Title of my BMW from Michael in California. I asked Michael to send it to Roberto as well. The certificate was safely delivered. Roberto called Ruben and left the message about it for me. Thanks to Roberto, these two problems that had been annoying me for a long time were solved.

Roberto is 70 years old, slightly older than Ruben of 39. He is introduced as a university professor in the book of name list of Esperantists published in 2000. He is a journalist and also the editor of the Web page of Argentine Esperanto society. He wrote about me in the Web page, and besides this, he widely informed about my journey to other Esperantists in Argentina. I was still in Honduras when I received his first e-mail on the 30th of December, 2002. While I was traveling in the countries farther south in Central and South America, he kept sending me the information about the Esperantists in those countries I would be visiting. Nevertheless, I met only a few of them, because I am a lazy man.

In the evening on March 1, I arrived at a Japanese hostel “Nippon Ryokan” in Buenos Aires. I immediately made a call to Roberto. Roberto had something to do on the day and told me to call him again at ten or eleven on the following morning. On that night I drank with the Japanese travelers of the hostel till one o’clock and got really drunk. It was already two in the afternoon when I woke up. The time that I promised to call Roberto was already over. I knew I had to call him, but I couldn’t feel like making a move because of a hangover. At half past four I went to a telephone house and called him. I asked him to see each other on the following day.

It is luxurious to have a house like this in the city center. The newspaper reporter introduced himself as Andres Asato. Andres is a young man and is married to a Japanese woman Alejandrina who was born and grew up in Argentina. He was accompanied by his wife. He had the intention of asking her to interpret his Spanish into Japanese. Three of us Esperantists and Silvia’s husband talked about my journey and Esperanto. As I didn’t understand most of the Spanish questions Andres asked, Alejandrina interpreted into Japanese and sometimes Roberto into Esperanto. I answered in Japanese and Spanish, from time to time mixed with Esperanto when I was confused. I really enjoyed the 2-hour interview served with good food. It was an interview given to me just because I got acquainted with Roberto, a journalist and an Esperantist. Roberto gave me an unusual and good experience.

(3) A Japanese hostel in Buenos Aires

At the Japanese hostel in Ushuaia, the southernmost town in South America, I heard there is also a Japanese hostel “Nippon Ryokan” in Buenos Aires. Although I knew the addresses of the Japanese hostels in Central and South America, I stayed in those hostels only two times, the first time in Costa Rica and the second time in Ushuaia. For, I didn’t know how to get to other hostels by their addresses. The king crab and the sea urchin that I ate in Ushuaia, however, evoked the nostalgia for my Japanese food. I heard a Japanese lunch would be served in “Nippon Ryokan”. I definitely wanted to stay there. So I bought the map of Buenos Aires beforehand and made certain of its location. I left the skyway close to “Nippon Ryokan”. But against my expectation, I rode into another highway going to the opposite direction. I took the first exit and made a U-turn on an ordinary road. Meanwhile I lost my way. I stopped the bike many times and asked the way to someone, showing the map. In Latin America few people can read a map. At last I didn’t know where I was. It took two hours to arrive at “Nippon Ryokan” after I left the skyway. I parked my bike in the garage of “Nippon Ryokan” and wrote my name in the hotel register. I asked Mr. Shimafuji, the owner of the hostel, “Isn’t a man named Doiura staying here?” The man standing next to me was Doiura. He has been traveling for five years. He started his motorcycle journey from Alaska and rode around North and South America. When I was in Central America, I visited his Web site and sent an e-mail to him. I wanted to make sure if a carnet is required for the countries in Central and South America. I had kept contact with Canadian Automobile Association before then and had already acquired the list of the Latin American countries that require a carnet. The paperwork to get a carnet had almost been finished at that point. Doiura answered me that a carnet would not be necessary. This information was a load off my mind.

About 20 Japanese people traveling around the world were staying in “Nippon Ryokan”. Most of them kept traveling for years after they left Japan. Motorcycle travelers were Doiura and I, however, there was a person who traveled by bicycle. His name is Toshinobu Hata. He has cycled for five years from Alaska to the south end of South America after the trip around Asia, Australia and New Zealand. From now on he will keep cycling in Africa and Europe to finish his journey around the world. He is 48 years old. He has kept taking a trip to the world since he quit the job at the age of 42. He says he will travel around the world by motorcycle after finishing this bicycle journey, and then he will make the third journey as a backpacker. He will spend the rest of his life as a traveler. He is really a tremendous man. I had the same idea, but my journey will probably end in Colombia in 5 or 6 months.

The visitors at “Nippon Ryokan” are all young except Toshinobu and I. They are mostly men, but there are some women. Among all, Makiko Iwabuch is a woman who has been backpacking around the world by herself for 8 years. I didn’t know Japan also has an extraordinary woman like her. In “Nippon Ryokan” I met not only this lone woman traveler, but also three young married couples. I felt jealous of them. There are some who travel with a PC as I do. The visitors of this hostel make a lengthy stay probably because of their long trip. Some of them have been staying for one or two months. I also stayed there for 20 days in the end. It was a long stay for me next to the stay in Honduras and Colombia. I seldom went out except meet Esperantists and spent most of the time watching the Japanese satellite TV programs,. The people who don’t watch TV read the Japanese books of the home library of the hostel. As the hostel has a PC accessible to the Internet, the visitors use it in order. There are some people who play mah-jongg till the early morning every night. Most visitors don’t go out and spend the rest of the time of the above activity on washing clothes or cooking. “Nippon Ryokan” has a full-automatic washing machine and two kitchens downstairs and upstairs respectively for the visitors. In this hostel you might have a feeling of living rather than traveling. I felt I had seen a typical example of Japanese hostels at “Nippon Ryokan”. There are Korean and Bolivian Quarter in the neighborhood of “Nippon Ryokan”. On the third day of my arrival in Buenos Aires, I went to eat Korean food at a restaurant in Korean Quarter with a young visitor of the hostel. It was 8:30 in the night. There is a street that is a little dark and has few passersby about three blocks away from the hostel. I was informed that the street was dangerous because it is close to Bolivian Quarter, and that we would have to be careful. When we came to that place, I was talking to the Japanese friend. Then, 4 or 5 men came close to us from behind and surrounded me all of a sudden. They gave me a storm of punch. When I fell down by the punch, my leather portable ashtray fell from the pocket. They might have thought it a wallet. They took it and ran away. My face punched by them hurt a little. I had never been punched in my life although I was slapped by the teachers several times when I was a junior high student. I was shocked not by the pain in the face, but to know that there are people in the world who do violence to an innocent person in order to rob money. After we had Korean noodle soup, I asked the owner of the restaurant to call a taxi. The hostel was in a short distance, about ten minutes’ walk, however, I was too frightened to walk back.

Needless to say, there were some food shops in Korean Quarter. They sold the same pickles and dried squid as those in Japan, as well as “sushi rolls” similar to those in Japan. I bought some dried squid and “sushi rolls”. Besides Korean Quarter, there is also a China Town in Buenos Aires. In the quarter I bought some packs of Japanese instant ramen, pickles, cooked seaweed and Japanese mustard “wasabi”. After entering Argentina, I always had beef and was bored with the food. So the Japanese food like those was really precious to me. There was a Japanese restaurant of Korean style in Korean Quarter. I had even raw fish there. After the attack by the rascals, I decided to eat out in a group of 5 or 6 people. However, most of the visitors at “Nippon Ryokan” are budget travelers. Although Korean food is served for around US$5, it is too much for them. They can’t afford it every day. So I went into the kitchen and cooked ramen or “ocha-zuke (boiled rice in the tea with pickles)” for the first time in my trips abroad. “Ochazuke” was especially delicious. I couldn’t cook more complicated dishes than this. Other visitors might have felt sorry for me. The cyclist Toshinobu cooked “miso” soup and ham and eggs for me, the lone woman traveler Makiko gave me dessert and Yoshinori Todo, who had traveled in Central and South America to see football games, served me good sea food. Yoshinori, a former motorcycle rider, will go to Europe to see more games of football. I have never seen a traveler like him. Thanks to the good food given by the three friends, I had a belly once again although it had become a little slimmer after a long trip. My body became ugly as it was before. However, I enjoyed eating good Japanese food because I was afraid of eating out for fear of another attack by rascals. I think I might have to express my thanks to those rascals.

As luck would have it, there were two bathhouses in Korean Quarter. Both of them had hot, lukewarm and cold baths as well as wet and dry saunas. They offered a body-rubbing and massage service. Concerning the body-rubbing, I laid myself buck naked on a place like an operating table in the corner of the bathroom where others were bathing, and a man only with swimming trunks rubbed my body. I was embarrassed a little, however, after the rubbing I got incredibly smooth skin and I felt refreshed. The charge for an hour’s massage was $14. As it was a powerful massage, I felt pain in every part of my body. I, however, endured the torture, screaming in pain. As a result, I felt better after the massage. I am an Asian after all. The culture of Korea or China is close to that of Japan. Eating Oriental food and bathing in a bathhouse, I didn’t feel that I was in Argentina, the country on the opposite side of the earth.