Road trip

To be on holiday, sometimes the best thing to do is actually go on holiday.

It seems obvious, but it's not. It's quite easy to spend the time at home, sleeping and burning multiple pieces of toast, but the fact is: unless you go somewhere else, it doesn't actually feel like you're having a break.

I've not been on a road trip with another person since The Boy. We went on multiple beautiful, landscaped mini-breaks, most of which were spent with me either crying or wondering when I would probably cry next. And - let's be frank - it doesn't matter if you're camping at the base of Mount Fuji at sunset: if you're crying while you do it, or on edge just in case you start, some of the magic tends to evaporate from the experience. So I was a little bit reluctant (read: terrified) to go anywhere else with anyone else, whether a romantic partner or not. I didn't want to spend any more time seeing Japan countryside through a quarter inch film of tears or staring out of a car window with my chin wobbling.

I needn't have worried. Yuki had zero interest in making me cry, and apparently - and this was a revelation - I don't actually burst in to tears for no reason at all, so our 36 hours were spent blissfully histrionic-free. In fact, despite the fact that 15 of the 36 hours were spent driving, in the car, with nothing but each other for company, I discovered that I can spend large, undiluted amounts of time with another person without being constantly scared of getting into some kind of fight, or of saying something wrong, or of getting a pain straight through the chest as a result of them saying something even more so. This was also a revelation. I realised I'd avoided being in a small space with another person for over a year because I assumed that one or all of the above would be the outcome.

No: our trip to Beppu - the Onsen capital of Japan, and therefore my Mecca (making this my pilgrimage) - was marred only by Yuki's driving. Some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen - sunlit mountains, herons in flight, large red sunrises over the ocean, winding roads, large lakes and turquoise rivers, fields lined with cherry blossom - were interrupted, frequently, with "Jesus Christ, Yuki, why aren't your hands on the wheel? Either of them?" At which point Yuki would inevitably laugh.
"We're going to have a crazy trip," she would say happily, continuing to check the internet on her multicoloured, flashing phone. The car would wobbly climb another steep mountain to our doom.
"Yes," I would respond, taking her phone from her and putting it back in its fluffy holder (Yuki - and her car - are very female, and very Japanese: everything is lined with fluff, or leopard print, or swinging cartoon characters). "We are going to have a crazy trip. But we are going to have safe driving."
"Crazy trip, safe driving," she would repeat like some kind of mantra, turning around to see if she could find her fluffy box of tissues and letting the car do what it felt like doing in the interim.

According to the Road Law as interpreted by Yuki, you are allowed to stop whenever you want wherever you want: when I said I needed to throw out some of my Oden juice (Japanese stewed vegetables), she promptly slammed her foot on the break and brought the car to an immediate standstill, regardless of the fact that were were on a corner, and there was a lorry behind us. "I meant at some stage," I whimpered when I eventually got my breath back.
"Oh," she said, giggling. "Okay. Shall I carry on driving then?"
"Yes," I said, bowing to the lorry sitting furiously behind us.

According to Yuki's Road Rules, red lights are also not demands: they're suggestions.
"Gomen nasai!" (sorry!) she would shout, accelerating through them, as I held my hands over my eyes. "Well, I don't want to be rude, do I," she told me when I asked who she was apologising to: me, or the lights, or the other drivers. "I'm just apologising to all of you."

According to Yuki's Road Rules, the speed limit is also up for negotiation.
"You follow speed limits in the UK?" she asked me, going 100kmh on a 50kmh road. I think she could tell that I was leaning forwards every three minutes, looking at the speedometer and very quietly and very internally writing my own will.
"Yes. We do. More than this, anyway."
"Ah," she said, laughing again. "For the Japanese, it's more of an idea. We look at the speed limit and then go 30, 40, 50 kmh over."
"And the police don't mind?"
"Not if they don't see," she said, accelerating a little bit faster.

The only time she wasn't a bonkers driver was when we stopped at Takachiho Gorge and hired a row boat to paddle around the famous river at the bottom of it. And this is simply because she couldn't get the boat to move.
"It's impossible," she said after four or five minutes of grunting and waving the oars in the air. "We'll just have to stay here and look at the gorge. Our boat is broken."
"It's not broken," I told her, taking the oars off her and rowing away from the edge. "You're broken."
She gaped at my oars. "Oh my God. You're amazing! You're like a genius rower!"
"I'm not. I just understand that boat oars need to go into the water in order to work." Yuki started clapping. "Yuki," I told her firmly as I paddled away. "If we ever have to escape jail together, you are not allowed to be in charge of transport."

We survived, though. Actually, we did more than survive: we had a great time. We went to the best onsen either of us have ever been to - a natural hot spring in the middle of a pile of rocks, under the stars - we visited the local wild monkeys, and I got so close I could have touched one if it hadn't jumped up and screamed blue murder at me (Yuki nearly started crying), and we ate takoyaki (octopus balls) until both of us had stomach ache. It was lovely. Exactly what a holiday should be.

I feel more refreshed now that I'm home, and more eager to get moving again: I'd forgotten that travelling, and moving, and seeing new things, breathes life into me. I'd forgotten that I'm not a maniac, and can spend large amounts of time with one person without fighting, crying or staring at the horizon without actually being able to see it. And I have a new found respect for Yuki and her car. Both of which, apparently, have the power to make sure I never see anything ever again. Ever. Screw volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis and nuclear radiation: my life is in far more immediate danger because of a teeny tiny Japanese girl and her fluff filled, leopard printed car.

I have four months left in Japan, and I'm going to see as much as I can of it in the meantime: go on as many tiny holidays as I squeeze in. Because you know what?

A change is not as good as a rest at all. It's much, much better.