Hello from Japan! This is country #10 of the 10 on my Bonderman trip itinerary. This is it. I can't believe it! But also, yeah, I can. I have been away from home a very long time. This around-the-world travel deal had to end eventually, and Japan is a fabulous place to enjoy these final weeks.
One year ago (almost exactly), I did a comedy show in Portland, Oregon and met another comedian. He and I have been getting to know each other over long distance ever since, although the amount of geographical distance between us has been gradually increasing over that time, of course. When he mentioned that he wanted to take an international trip in March/April 2017, I asked him to come meet me in Japan, and around New Year's, the plan became official! I bring this up so that you know who I'm talking about when I saw "we" did all these things in Japan :)
(I really should have also mentioned that I had a travel companion throughout Cambodia and Vietnam as well, someone I'd met in South America who offered to meet up with me again in SE Asia. It felt very strange, sad, and inauthentic to write about those experiences as though I was alone when I wasn't. I don't want to do that again.)
Why Japan?
Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that, when I was a kid, my family had a Japanese exchange student (Mayumi) live with us for a few weeks. She brought us a TON of gifts (tapestries to hang on the wall, a tea set, chopsticks, paper fans), taught us how to fold origami cranes, and made us sushi. I was such a little turd about the sushi; there's a home video of me going "Ewww! Sushi is gross!" at the dinner table with Mayumi right there.... my goodness, how time changes one's tastebuds (and decorum).
This is going to sound ridiculous, because it is, but another reason I was drawn to Japan is because there's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where they go back in time, to Japan, to train with actual ninjas or something. There was also a movie where Big Bird (yes, the one from Sesame Street) goes to Japan. In any case, Japan kept coming up as a place of interest during my childhood, and I suppose that stuck with me all these years.
Another reason I wanted to come to Japan was to experience the sakura (cherry blossoms), and the beauty of the various Japanese gardens and temples. I'm also a big fan of Japanese food -- sushi, ramen, tempura, teriyaki, yakisoba -- so that is certainly a bonus as well. They make great cars, Japanese women live the longest of anyone in the world, they are known for some crazy fashion trends, they get really weird with anything and everything, my country dropped the world's first atomic bombs used in warfare there -- there's just a lot that makes Japan an interesting place.
First impressions / General Japan observations:
The toilets are awesome. Most of them have heated seats and bonus features like bidets built into them. I was a bit shy at first, but now that I've tried the bidet and spray features, it will be difficult to go back to normal, cold-seated, boring-ass (pun intended) toilets.
After being in VERY warm countries for four months in a row, the climate in Japan was a bit of a shock. The cost of things has been as well. It is impossible to find a bed for less than $30 a night (compared to an average of $5-$10/night in SE Asia), and meals are $7-12 (in SE Asia I'd spend about $2-5 on a meal). But it's fine; I planned for this. And you get your money's worth -- the hostels here are incredibly clean, cozy, and comfortable.
The Japan Rail (JR) pass is amazing. You can get between cities in two hours or less on the JR Shinkansen (bullet trains), and they are very prompt and reliable. The train stations are enormous, with several restaurants and stores. When inquiring about good restaurants in the area, a surprising number of the recommendations were in the local train stations; in Kyoto, there is a mall in the train station and there's an entire floor dedicated to ramen restaurants. It's bonkers. And navigating the trains / planning trips isn't too hard either, since there's an app called Hyperdia that is designed to give you itinerary options from any JR station to another.
Japan is perhaps the cleanest, and quietest country I have ever been to. It is impressive that they keep the streets so clean, because there are very very few garbage cans on the sidewalks. Then again, perhaps that helps account for the cleanliness, as there are no overflowing trash cans; everyone is expected to hold on to their garbage until they can dispose of it indoors somewhere.
English-speakers aren't too hard to find, thank goodness. I have approached a couple people with questions in English who didn't know what I was saying, but someone nearby has always overheard me and come over to help. However, I do wish I knew a bit more Japanese. All I'm working with right now is "konichiwa" (hello) and "arrigato" (thank you). Investing in new languages is just always such an intimidating process for me...
TOKYO: Pandas, Robots, Beer, Karaoke
I arrived in Tokyo late (around 10:15pm) the night of March 15th. It was cold, and not just relative to Malaysia -- actually cold, like 40 degrees. I lost the coat I'd bought in Hanoi, so I just had to layer up with a thermal shirt and a long sleeved running shirt while I waited for the train to take me from the airport into town. It was pretty confusing to figure out which train I needed; fortunately, a man on the subway could tell I was anxious and confused, and helped me get off at the right stop and then catch the last train of the night into the neighborhood I needed. THEN, because I am the luckiest person ever, a couple offered to walk me to my hostel from the subway station after watching me try to get a cab. Things just always seem to work out!
My first day in Japan, I had two objectives: get some ramen, and get a coat. I achieved both goals, plus got a hoodie and a scarf (it's so cold!) and spent most of the day wandering around the neighborhood in awe of all the charming little restaurants and shops and everything written in Japanese...
One of the fist things we did was visit Ueno Park, which has a path lined with cherry blossom trees (they weren't yet blooming) and a zoo. I love zoos, so we went there, and I got to see giant pandas for the first time!
There's a comedian (BJ Novak, who played Ryan-the-temp on The Office) who has a joke about pandas that I love:
"Pandas are going extinct because they refuse to mate with each other. Wildlife experts are trying to help, but they can't figure it out. I guess, contrary to the opinion of everyone else in the world, pandas just don't think pandas are cute."
Once we left the neighborhood of Asakusa and switched over to Shinjuku, we spent the afternoon walking around a lovely park and enjoying the very Japanese aesthetic of bridges, koi ponds, precisely trimmed shrubbery, and an occasional beginning-to-bloom cherry blossom tree.
One of the highlights in Japan was definitely the "robot cabaret" show, known as Robot Restaurant. It is not a restaurant, but they do serve alcohol, which is..... good. This show is hard to describe, but I'll try: weird, cheesy, bright, colorful, energized, bizarre, hilarious, ridiculous, and awesome. We got tickets for $55 and it was well worth the price. There was a guy sitting behind us who complained during intermission that it was stupid, not worth the cost, and an insult to Japanese culture, and suggested to his friends that they should just leave. They did leave, and the rest of us high-fived each other once they were gone, because who needs someone sucking the joy out of the stupid-awesome-weirdness that Robot Restaurant is SUPPOSED TO BE?
I got some video, I'll let you see for yourself what I'm talking about:
Japan has a fun craft beer scene, but holy cow, are their microbrews expensive! It's strange, actually -- a craft beer will cost between $8 and $14 for a pint, but a serving of Macallan 18 year whiskey is $7... (in the States, that goes for about $20). We wanted to brewery-hop and try a bunch of Japanese craft beers, but we ended up switching over to whiskey and sake pretty quickly.
When we were in Shinjuku, we did go to two memorable beer places, though: Baird and the PDX taproom. Baird Brewing Co. had collaborated with Ishii Brewing Co. and Stone Brewing Co. to create a Green Tea IPA, the proceeds of which were donated toward disaster relief after the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. Apparently, the original, limited edition Green Tea IPA was amazing. They made a new version in 2015, but my sources say it isn't as good.
The PDX taproom is a Portland, Oregon themed bar, which is pretty surreal. A Japanese exchange student who studied in Portland just fell in love with the Portland craft beer scene and wanted to recreate the magic in Tokyo. The PDX Taproom has PNW beers on tap, and a schedule for the Portland Tinders soccer team hanging in the bathroom, which I presume they air on the TV during game time. There was no game on while we were there, so the TV was rotating through miscellaneous photos of the Portland area. Just... amazing.
Below is a photo of the very busy Harajuku area, known for sighting crazy teenage fashion trends.
From here, we walked to the Shibuya Crossing, famous for being the "busiest intersection in the world."
This arcade drumming game was SO. MUCH. FUN. I think I'm a fan of J-pop music...
Singing at Karaoke Ken the last night in Tokyo.
I would never forgive myself if I traveled the world singing in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Thailand, and Malaysia, but NOT in Japan, the birthplace of karaoke.
(I know there are no lyrics on the TV, but that's just because I held the note for a long time... not because I was posing for this shot...)
At a delightful, cozy bar near our hostel, with some new friends, on our last night in Japan together:
OSAKA: A day with the Asahi Broadcasting Company
After Tokyo, we headed to Osaka. Our first night there, we were approached by someone representing the Asahi Broadcasting Company (a local Osaka channel) at the hostel. They were looking for tourists to participate in a promotional show for Osaka tourism, and in exchange, we would be receiving an all-day, very unique and special tour of Osaka. Since we weren't set on any other plans, we agreed to this strange opportunity.
Later that night, someone interviewed us (with the help of a human translator and the Google Translate app) with questions about what brought us to Japan, and what we had done so far. Part of the deal was to also promote a few Tokyo tourism guide books, so we were given direction for how to respond to certain prompts during filming the next day.
Them: "Where did you two learn about Robot Restaurant?"
Us, holding up the guide book: "In here!"
Television acting is as glamorous as I always imagined it would be...
Filming didn't start until around noon the following day, so I took the morning to take care of an urgent medical situation. With some guidance from a staff member at the hostel, I went to a nearby clinic to see if I could get some medication for a urinary tract infection that had rendered me incontinent for the past few days (you can imagine what an inconvenience and serious bummer it is to have a UTI when you're trying to explore a new place). Fortunately, the whole process only took a couple hours, and cost about $100 out of pocket for the appointment and antibiotics, which I expect to be reimbursed for by the international health and traveler's insurance plan that I have. (Can you imagine what a similar process would cost somebody out-of-pocket in the United States?? Maybe the same, I honestly don't know, but I assume it would be much more expensive.) The staff at the clinic were incredibly friendly, and the nurse, doctor, and I were able to use the Google Translate app on my phone to communicate about my symptoms. I can't even imagine how someone would try to navigate a foreign healthcare system without these technologies...
Anyway, when filming began, it happened quite suddenly. We were hanging out in the common room, when a film crew and two TV personalities -- one dressed as a samurai -- burst in. We went through our staged question-and-answer lines, and then they asked us "how would you like to see places in Osaka that no tourist would ever find on their own?" and then, as we had practiced the night before, we went, "we'd love to!!" I may have thrown up my arms and given a "woooo!" as well...
Then, we all got into the ABC bus and drove to a master chef tempura restaurant. They explained to us the intricacies of preparing fine tempura -- how often the batter and oil must be changed, what they do to customize the oil combinations for seafood vs. vegetables, what type of grater is best for preparing the horseradish that goes into the tempura sauce -- and yes, it was all quite delicious. We tried shrimp head, shrimp tail, and zucchini, but there two special highlights:
1) Small fish that were pulled right from the fish tank, numbed in ice water until they stopped moving, and then battered and fried alive (doesn't get much fresher than that).
2) Fugu (i.e. "pufferfish"), the intestines, ovaries, and liver of which contain a poison called tetrodotoxin. It is 1200 times deadlier than cyanide, and a lethal dose is smaller than the head of a pin. Because of the high risk, chefs must undergo two to three years of training to obtain a special fugu-preparing license, and such expertise raises the price of a fugu dish to up to $200. Fortunately for us, this rare, exotic, and life-gambling experience was free!
From the fish tank to our plates in less than 10 minutes...
Left to right: Chase, the tempura chef, Ronald (a tourist from the Netherlands), and myself, outside the restaurant, the name of which translates to "Heaven Star"
While we finished our tempura lunch, we learned that the special graters used to prepare the horseradish for the tempura sauce are hand-crafted by only two people in Japan. These craftsmen can only make about five graters a day, so they are always in demand. The crew took us to see one of their workshops and watch as he demonstrated a few phases of the process.
As he showed us how he used a chisel and hammer to create the tiny raised razors in the metal, I jokingly asked if I could give it a try, knowing that it would be absurd to let me ruin a perfectly good artisan product. But he said yes! He switched out the actual grater for some practice metal, but we still each got to try it out. Then, he let each of us try the first row on actual graters, and said that he would finish them and mail them to us as gifts! So at some point, I hope to receive this hand-crafted copper-and-tin Japanese horseradish grater (I'll use it for cheese, obviously, but they said that's fine.) Amazing. What a unique experience.
Getting ready to hammer out a grater at a Japanese craftsman's workshop in Osaka
The practice rows (mine's the one at the bottom)
My favorite part of the whole day: a caricature that the samurai guy drew of us riding shrimp tail tempura.
(The Japanese on the sides say something to the effect of "The way to a person's heart is through their stomach")
Along with the fancy graters, the ABC crew said that they'd mail us copies of the episode on DVD. You can bet I will be sharing that as soon as I receive it!
HIROSHIMA: The Peace Memorial Museum
The main event in Hiroshima was going to the Peace Memorial Museum, dedicated to telling the story of the city targeted by the world's first nuclear weapon used in an act of warfare. It was another brutal one (reminded me a little of the War Remnants Museum in Vietnam) -- difficult to face the pain, suffering, and destruction inflicted on innocent people and their city by my home country.
The Peace Memorial Museum is located in the Peace Memorial Park, which contains the Atomic Bomb Dome, the Flame of Peace, and several other monuments to honor those who died in the bombing. There is a special monument dedicated to children, and one for the 45,000+ Koreans who died or were exposed to radiation in Hiroshima. Many of them had been forced to be there due to Japanese colonization.
The Atomic Bomb Dome (formerly known as the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall) is one of the only buildings left standing after the a-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima: "The atomic bomb exploded at an altitude of 600 meters approximately 60 meters southeast of the iIndustrial Promotion Hall, instantly killing everyone inside the building which was seriously damaged and completely burned out. In December 1996 this structure was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a reminder to the entire world of the horrors of the atomic bomb and a symbol of global peace."
This is the Flame of Peace Memorial. It will burn until all nuclear weapons are destroyed from Earth
(...or until it is destroyed by a nuclear weapon itself, but let's all hope its flame goes out for the intended reason...)
The museum offers an optional audio guide, which we used. The first exhibit begins with photos of the bomb exploding. Then you walk through a hallway that has been designed to make you feel like you're in the middle of a building that has been burned out and collapsed by the explosion, where everything outside has been leveled for miles. You turn the corner, and on the right is a life-size scene of two people walking through the smoking rubble, their charred skin melting off their bones. This was the most emotionally penetrating moment of the museum for me. I knew there were thousands of people who died instantly, and I knew there were countless people who survived but were exposed to radiation that damaged their health in all kinds of ways for years after the explosion; but I had forgotten that there were people on the outer edges of the fireball, who were exposed to heat severe enough to melt their skin, but not long enough to kill them. Many of these people were only able to survive for a few days, maybe a week, before they died. I can't begin to imagine the torture and agony they experienced during those last few days -- not just physically, but emotionally as well, coming to terms with the loss of their home, their city, the skin of their own bodies and faces, and so many of their friends and family members.
As you continue through the museum, you come to a model of the "hypocenter" -- the site where the atomic bomb actually exploded, 600 meters above ground (I hadn't realized before that the bomb detonated before it hit the ground). Along the walls, there are several glass cases with items and clothing left behind by those who died -- a canteen, a uniform, a tricycle -- and the audio guide describes the individuals to whom each item once belonged, and how these items helped the victims' families identify their bodies.
One question I had that I was hoping would be answered on this day was, Is there a difference between the atomic bomb and nuclear weapons in general? In other words, is there more than one kind of nuclear weapon? This question was answered in a somewhat horrifying way. It turns out that the atomic bomb is one type of nuclear weapon, yes, but there are more -- more types and an unbelilevalbe quantity of -- nuclear weapons now. Once the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States and our "frenemy" at the time, the Soviet Union, engaged in a nuclear arms race which led to the development of the hydrogen bomb. The hydrogen bomb has a destructive force 3,300 times greater than the a-bomb. At the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia discussed strategic arms reductions, but even now, there are still about 16,000 weapons exposing the world to a nuclear threat.
Ho-lee-shit. I cannot even wrap my head around a weapon capable of causing 3,300 times more destruction -- and death, and pain, and suffering -- than the atomic bomb. And I also don't know how we can begin to regulate the possession and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, so.... shit.
The final section of the museum contains notebooks for people to write their reactions to what they learned, and to express hope for humanity. It also has a display about President Obama's visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, as the first sitting head of a country which possesses nuclear weapons, on May 27, 2016. President Obama looked at a few exhibits, including paper cranes made by Sadako Sasaki, who believed her [radiation-caused] leukemia would be cured but died 10 years after the atomic bombing. President Obama then gave 4 paper cranes made by himself to Hiroshima City and wrote a message to promote abolition of nuclear weapons:
"We have known the agony of war.
Let us now find the courage, together,
to spread peace and pursue a
world without nuclear weapons."
Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, wrote a message as well, but it was not displayed in the museum because (presumably) it was given to Obama and is now in the White House.
On the train to Hiroshima, I had a little time to read the foreword of a book I'd intended to read by the time I got there (but oh well - the foreword is probably a decent summary, right?) Here are some excerpts from the book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, that I felt were important to keep in mind about the development of the atomic bomb as part of the bigger picture / the story of humanity:
Reviewing the history of nuclear physics gave the lie to the naive belief the physicists could have come together when nuclear fission was discovered (in Nazi Germany!) and agreed to keep the discovery a secret, thereby sparing humankind the nuclear burden. No. Given the development of nuclear physics up to 1938, development that physicists throughout the world pursued in all innocence of any intention of finding the engine of a new weapon of mass destruction--only one of them, the remarkable Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, took that possibility seriously--the discovery of nuclear fission was inevitable. To stop it, you would have had to stop physics. If German scientists hadn't made the discovery when they did, British, French, American, Russian, Italian, or Danish scientists would have done so, almost certainly within days or weeks. They were all working at the same cutting edge, trying to understand the strange results of a simple experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons.
"Knowledge," Niels Bohr once noted, "is itself the basis for civilization." You cannot have one without the other; the one depends upon the other. Nor can you have only benevolent knowledge; the scientific method doesn't filter for benevolence.
Our worst natural enemies historically have been microbes. Natural violence, in the form of epidemic disease, took a large and continuous toll on human life. By contrast, man-made death -- death, that is, by war and war's attendant privations -- persisted at a low and relatively constant level throughout human history, hardly distinguishable in the noise of the natural toll. The invention of public health in the nineteenth century, and the application of technology to war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, inverted that pattern in the industrial world...man-made death became epidemic in the twentieth century because increasingly efficient killing technologies made the extreme exercise of national sovereignty pathological.
The 1996 Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons identified a fundamental principle that it called the "axiom of proliferation." In its most succinct form, the axiom of proliferation asserts that as long as any state has nuclear weapons, other will seek to acquire them... the basic reason for this assertion is that justice, which most human beings interpret essentially as fairness, is demonstrably a concept of the deepest importance to people all over the world... the attempts over the years of those who own nuclear weapons to assert that their security justifies having those nuclear weapons while the security of others does not, has been an abject failure...manifest unfairness, double standards, no matter what power would appear at a given moment to support them, produces a situation that is deeply, inherently, unstable. This is because humans being will not swallow such unfairness. This principle is as certain as the basic laws of physics itself.
I can't figure out whether I'm oddly comforted or sad about the idea that the discovery of nuclear fission and its development as a weapon was inevitable. Would someone else have used theirs by now, if we never had? It's impossible to know, of course, but I imagine it had to happen at least once before people would realize how awful they are and how catastrophic it will be if anyone ever uses one again. It was one thing when we were the only ones with those weapons, and using them brought a definitive end to our conflict with Japan (although some say the Japanese were getting ready to surrender, and our use of the a-bomb was more about intimidating the Soviet Union and the rest of the world... ugh). Now, if anyone uses a nuclear weapon, they will not be able to avoid retaliation. Even if they are used against a country that has no nuclear weapons of their own, it's quite likely that countries that DO have nuclear weapons will rally to their defense and destroy whoever was foolish enough to launch a nuclear weapon after we'd managed to avoid doing so for over 70 years.
I know it isn't fair for us to insist that we (and our allies) should be able to have nuclear weapons but other countries should not. At the same time, I don't know how else we could handle it that would be better or safer, not just for us, but for the world at large. Imagining a world without nuclear weapons seems unrealistically ambitious; we can't un-learn that this technology is out there and what it's capable of. So even if we did manage to get rid of them from the world altogether, they could always come back.
Moreover, humanity may need to start relying on nuclear energy to replace fossil fuels at some point, in which case, we'll be stockpiling uranium and whatever else is needed for that. (I have a friend who works in the nuclear energy field and he's convinced me it's not a bad idea, even though it sounds really risky and scary).
But the thing is, it doesn't really matter what I think about this. Either we will all perish in a nuclear holocaust or we won't. If me and my loved ones die instantaneously in a flash of fire and radiation someday, so be it. But today we are here, and life is beautiful, and I am full of love and gratitude and awe toward the world and the humanity that is -- somewhat miraculously -- still here.
KYOTO & NARA: Monkeys, Kimonos, Deer, Shrines
We only spent two nights in Kyoto, but we did a LOT. The day we arrived, we spent the afternoon in Arashiyama, where the main objective was to visit a monkey park and walk through a beautiful bamboo-lined path. It's also a gorgeous area to just walk around and explore, which we did. While sharing a sakura latte, we stumbled upon a really small but gorgeous display called the Kimono Walk, and some beautiful homes, like the one below.
I just can't get over how elegant the geishas look in their painted faces and stunning kimonos... but socks and thong sandals as the formal footwear choice (?!)
It's official -- wearing socks with sandals is not only formal, it is worldly, and should be permissible in all settings.
I would make an adorable monkey cartoon. LOOK, HERE'S PROOF:
View of the Arashiyama District and the rest of Kyoto -- and a monkey -- from the hilltop monkey park
For some reason, I want to call this one Philosopher Monkey. Just seems like he might know some things, up on that roof all solitary and pensive-looking.
The Bamboo Grove path -- another tourist attraction that was everything its online promotional images promised it would be!
The Kimono Walk, lined with colorful pillars of kimono patterns (which, lucky for this shot, also includes two women dressed in kimonos)
I can't blog about Japan without at least one sushi photo, so here it is -- sushi and grilled squid -- from our dinner the first night in Kyoto:
The next day, we spent the morning in Nara, a place where deer roam freely and go from adorable and delightful to pushy and aggressive (but still adorable and delightful) after about 5 minutes of feeding them crackers.
After Deer Park, we headed to a different part of town to walk through a series of hundreds (thousands?) of red shrine gates, leading the way to the main shrine at the top of the hill, called Fushimi Inari-taisha. It is a really beautiful experience, despite being crowded with other tourists. We didn't go all the way up to the top -- that would have taken about two hours and after an hour of it, you're like, "this is gorgeous...but also redundant... and I'm hungry." So we turned back about halfway up the hill. We still had one more destination on our list for the day: the Kyoto Imperial Palace and park.
The shrine-hike begins...
The Kyoto Imperial Park is great, and it was awesome to see a few of the cherry blossom trees in full bloom, but the main attraction -- the palace -- was closing RIGHT as we got there at 4:30, which was a shame. But oh well.
Later that night, we had a delicious sushi dinner at one of the restaurants in the train station mall, and then meandered through a market area downstairs. I passed a display of sake, with tiny plastic cups for tasting samples. I should have known better, but for some reason i assumed that the samples were self-serve... I poured us each two tiny servings of sake before I was reprimanded. Worth it.
HAKONE: Night at the Ryokan
Staying at a ryokan -- a traditional Japanese inn -- was recommended to me repeatedly, but I went back and forth about it. It's a bit of a splurge. Especially if you want one with onsen (hot springs) -- and I absolutely did -- you can't find any for less than about $250 a night. However, I figured I may never have this opportunity again, and I wasn't sure how else to find good Japanese onsen... so I went for it. We booked a ryokan in the town of Hakone, which required us to take an hour-long bus ride up a mountain which got progressively more and more snowy. Neither of us was prepared for snow, but fortunately, the ryokan was just a two minute walk from the bus stop.
View of the ryokan courtyard
It was so cozy and dreamy, and the onsen were perfect. There were two public baths available anytime, and I had time to try each one. They were divided separately for men and women, since you must get naked to use them. However, this wasn't my first time getting naked in a spa with other women (in fact, I'd done it with men around as well at Doe Bay on Orcas Island), so it was weird for just one second and then it was incredibly relaxing. You can also reserve a private bath, in case you don't want to bathe next to strangers, or you want to bathe with an opposite-sex sweetie.
Interesting fact: people with tattoos are often not allowed to use public onsen, because tattoos are associated with gangs and people find them threatening/intimidating. SOME onsen will allow it, but generally, people with tattoos will have a hard time getting access to them.
They gave us special robes to wear to the onsen and for lounging around the ryokan. Dinner and breakfast were included, and were both delicious. When you go to dinner, someone comes to the room and sets up your beds on the straw mat floor, and then when you're at breakfast, they take the beds out. It was a beautiful experience, and definitely one of the highlights of Japan so far.
View from the room
And now I am a solo traveller again. It feels so strange to be exploring Japan by myself, especially after months of anticipating this reunion.
Traveling for so long has done some strange things to my perception of time. I am more patient than ever, I think, because I am more engaged in the present. The constant pattern of anticipation of something, then experiencing that thing, then being sad that thing is over, followed immediately by anticipation of another thing, has just drilled into me the reality of how temporary things are. No matter how mindful and present I try to be, time keeps whisking me away from one experience and on to another. It will be difficult, I think, to transition back to a life of routine, but I am actually really looking forward to getting back to a semi-predictable daily rhythm.
Three more weeks...