Category: Cultural Experiences

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Kishoan ryokan

I’ve been paralyzed most the day, unable to really try to accomplish anything. I’ve looked at my MacBook Pro and checked the same web pages for updates. I’ve looked at my Mac Pro monitor and checked my access logs, downloaded k.d. lang’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I watched the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. But I have, to this point, been too lethargic to do anything other than sit and expect to be entertained. So I did what every good, uninspired, lonely person does in Japan. I packed up my Japanese homework, my laptop, and relocated to Starbucks. So now I am listen to Sigur Ros on my iTouch, have my iPhone for internet access in case I need a quick Facebook fix, and I’m typing away on my MacBook Pro. At all times a walking advertisement for all things Apple, glad that I have a friend working there and happy to be supporting a company who’s stock I own. Go Apple! [I’d like to add that the two people near me also have iPhones. Whoever thought they would be a big failure in Japan was definitely wrong.]

Anyway, so the change in scenery was supposed to focus me on working on my blog. The past few weeks have been grueling. I’m on a cycle now where I’ve got major deadlines every two weeks and towards the end of the two week period I have late night and early morning teleconferences, and average about 4 hours of sleep. Plus, my usual work does not go away either. It is not sustainable, and I hope that our team is improving after each event so that we can minimize the crazy schedule. Now I am in a situation where I am working a lot and I’ve reached my maximum allowable vacation hours, so either I take the vacation or a lose it. Nothing worse than losing vacation. Every time I try to take a day off to not lose the vacation, I work so many hours that I can simply flex my time and make up for the hours missed.

Last week, in an attempt to use some vacation hours, and also to get away, Tomo and I went to Kishoan ryokan at Asama Onsen in Matsumoto-shi, Nagano Prefecture. Actually we had planned to take a longer trip to Bali over this time period. However, we determined after multiple web searches, investigations, deliberations, and discussions that the ratio of travel time to relaxation time to Bali was just too high. The trip might end up being more stressful than relaxing. What’s the point in that? We both were in the mood for an onsen as well, and a little pampering. So instead, we decided an evening at a ryokan at an onsen might be a somewhat cheaper, more relaxing experience.

Tomo did some scouting, and decided that we should go to Kishoan Ryokan in Matsumoto. One of my requirements was to go someplace wintery and ideally with snow so we could get the full rotenburo (outdoor hot spring bath) experience. Basically, just the opposite of our proposed trip to Bali. Oh well. We chose Kishoan because it was from the Hoshino resort group. Dedicated readers of this blog may recall a trip to Hoshinoya in Karuizawa in 2008.

We wandered around Matsumoto-shi for a little bit prior to going to the onsen. I had been to Matsumoto previously, visiting the city on a Monday with my friend Kentaro Tanaka. I remember a Monday because the famous watch museum was closed. Tomo researched soba restaurants and we had some delicious soba for lunch, both cold and hot. The cold was actually better than the hot.

Matsumoto soba

Cold soba

 

Matsumoto soba

Tempura soba.
 
 

After lunch we made our way to the hotel.

Kishoan onsen

Entrance to Kishoan Ryokan
 

The ryokan was very much a modern ryokan. It was built about 10 years ago and purchased by the Hoshino resort group about 3 or 4 years ago. Still, the layout was very traditional. Our room was rather big, the main room was about 12 jo (jo is a counter for tatami mats … so our room consisted of 12 tatami mats). It also had a little sitting area next to the windows, and had floor to ceiling windows with a few of the northern alps. There was a hint of snow in Matsumoto, but certainly not the snow cover we passed through on the way there. The room must have been designed for more people, because it had two toilets, and another smaller tatami room. I didn’t take any pictures of the interior because I couldn’t really get a good angle and it would have looked rather boring. A tatami is a rush covered straw mat The tatami were nice, pretty fresh so they had a nice aroma and very soft. Perfect for lounging on.

Our private outdoor bath

Our room’s private rotenburo – hot spring bath on a balcony attached to the shower room.
 

At a ryokan, you change in to traditional æµ´è¡£ (ゆかた – yukata – an unlined cotton kimono for loungewear or sleepwear). I have a picture that Tomo took of me decked out in my yukata, socks, and a jacket. I HATE the picture though, because I am standing underneath a cold fluorescent light and all the gray hairs reflect and the brown disappears. Yes, I DO have “natural” highlights but I am not as gray as I look in this picture. I am sharing for the purposes of reportage, although my vanity definitely makes me want to delete this picture forever.

I am not this gray

An old, white man standing in Japanese yukata.
 

Socks

Detail, socks.
 

Detail of the yukata

Detail, yukata.
 

We settled pretty quickly into the room and then decided for a visit to the onsen. I think I’ve described the onsen experience before. I’d take pictures, but that’s probably not very cool. As it turns out though, I could have, since for most of the time we were the only people in the public baths. We had a nice soak, and I was able to melt away a lot of the stress I had been feeling up to that point. We enjoyed a regular bath, a whirlpoolish bath, a large rotenburo, and a steam bath. I really enjoyed the steam bath – I’ve never had one before.

After more than an hour in the onsen, we were wrinkling and it was time to move on. The room had no internet, and there were “two chairs” in the lobby that were able to access a wireless connection, so I went to one of the chairs and wrapped up some work I had to do. Sad, I know, but I was committed to finishing something over the weekend.

A big part of the ryokan experience is what should hopefully be a fantastic meal. Many times the meal is brought to your room. In this ryokan, they actually have individual dining rooms where you take your meal.

First floor map

Map of dining rooms centered around a pool / waterfall.
 

View from the dining room in the morning

Morning view from our dining room.
 

I enjoy good food, although I am not a foodie. I’m not going to go into excruciating detail over each course. I do have some pictures though, and I will share some of them. It was nice of them to print a menu of the 10 course meal.

The menu

My personalized menu in English. Yummmm.
 

Appetizers

Our appetizers.
 

Sashimi

Pumpkin soup

Followed by sashimi and pumpkin soup. The pumpkin soup was my favorite dish of the entire meal. It was so delicious.
 

Salmon cake

The salmon cake was not my favorite dish.
 

Coated scallops

The scallops were very nice, covered with potato flakes and peanuts.
 

Meat and soba

Our meat and soba were served together. Three cuts of beef, and a different sauce chosen to complement each cut.
 

Dessert

Followed by dessert. No, there is not a fine layer of chocolate sauce. The dish is transparent and the dark table is showing through and looks like chocolate.
 

In the morning, we took a late breakfast. Japanese breakfasts are a lot different than western breakfasts. Our room was set up for our 9:30 am arrival.

Dining room in the morning

Our dining room.
 

Do I ever smile?

Looking a little less gray.
 

A luxurious Japanese breakfast

Breakfast detail, first plates. Pickles, salad, wasabi squid, congee, rice.
 

Fried fish for breakfast

Fried fish for breakfast!
 

We wrapped up the morning with a visit to the onsen again. They have two different bath areas, and switch them between men and women. So today’s bath for men was yesterday’s bath for women. A good idea. This bath had a bigger rotenburo, but also had a relaxation room where the room was heated to just about body temperature. They had large tiled chaise lounges that were also heated. You just sat back and relaxed. I could have stayed in that room all day. Unfortunately, checkout was approaching and it was time to head back to reality. Tomo boarded his train to Tokyo, I headed on my train to Nagoya, pulled out the BlechBerry, and dove back into reality.

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お通夜

I try to keep my blog light and more focused on the quirky or quirkily mundane rather than the issues that face expatriates that are more serious, or at least amplified because we are away from our usual surroundings. But that is part of the experience over here, and while I am not going to dwell on the “downers” it is important balance if I’m trying to explain my life here.

The past couple of weeks have been very difficult. I found out my boss was leaving sooner than I thought and I was working really long hours trying to resolve various issues, and I really didn’t have an option to not work those hours. However, far worse than those complaints is that last weekend one of our expatriate colleague’s children died suddenly.

Certainly in any small office, friendships develop and people in the office care for one another. In an expatriate office, we of course care a lot for each other. But everyone in the office somehow seems a little more like family than when I am in the office in the States. Here in Nagoya, we are all thrown in to this big mélange of new experiences, confusion of how to do some of the simplest things, uncertainty as to the duration of our assignments, and even uncertainty in what our roles are. Although we don’t socialize that much since everyone does have their life here, we do some important things as a group and with families. For example, we do a major community event in May, we have a group Thanksgiving dinner, we had a bowling party / food drive, we sponsor orphans at Christmas time, we have 忘年会 (bounenkai – forget-the-year party), 新年会 (shinnenkai – New Year party), and simple 飲み会 (nomikai – drinking party). We’ve even as a group ended up at a hole-in-the-wall bar and taken over the karaoke machine. My point is we pull together, know each other’s families, and look out for each other.

One of the things I’ve always worried about as an expat is something happening to my family in the States, or something happening to me while I am here. Several members of our team have lost parents or grandparents and have had to travel back to the States. Other colleagues have been traveling back because of parents that are ill. Although I live a long distance from my family when I’m in the States, the distance isn’t so great. Living across an ocean makes the distance feel very far.

Medical care is hard enough to navigate in the US – I can’t imagine what it would be like here to really get what you needed. One time when I had strep throat, I got these pills that looked like children’s aspirin and had to take them forever. It took a long time to remotely start to feel better. How I longed for a Zithromax 3-pack (mind you, I am not an antibiotic pill popper – I can only remember these two cases of antibiotics in the past 10 years. The Zithromax wiped out a case of pneumonia I had picked up after traveling LA – Hong Kong – Kuala Lumper – Tokyo – LA in less than one week).

So of course the death of our colleague’s child was shocking. Without going in to too much detail, the Nagoya media speculate that he died due to complications of H1N1. That can’t really be confirmed though, but his death was sudden and unexpected, and he did test positive for H1N1. He was 4 years old. Many of my colleagues have young children of their own with them in Nagoya, and this news was particularly difficult for them. Fortunately, our company has a program to assist employees in these situations and an American counselor residing in Fukuoka was dispatched to Nagoya to talk to our team.

Over 75 families attended the wake (otsuya – お通夜) on Tuesday night. There was a Buddhist prayer from in the home of my colleague and then a viewing / wake, still in the home. My colleague is Japanese-American and his wife is Japanese, so they had a more traditional Japanese wake than a western wake. Almost everyone from the office went. There’s a lot of mixed information out there surrounding otsuya, so for once I’m not going to make a link. If you are curious, you can do the research on your own.

Once again, I’m not going to dwell on the serious difficulties we face at times as expatriates. My next entry will be frivolous and lighthearted. There is no way that I know to seque from this topic to any other topic, so forgive me in advance.

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500 円 please

500 ml of cc lemonFriday afternoon, I was returning to the office with my interpreter after a meeting. I stopped at a vending machine just outside the office to get a CC Lemon. CC Lemon is a rather overly sweetened lemon drink that contains the vitamin C of X lemons. The size that is in the vending machine is worth 70 lemons. Wow! That’s a lot of lemons. There’s nothing naturally lemon about it, just flavoring and a vitamin C equivalent. I enjoy the empty calories of the drink and have only one a day, so I rationalize it by saying the vitamin C helps keep me healthy.

CC Lemon is popular with the gaijin, and in our previous vending machine, it was always selling out. The vending machine supplier figured that supersizing was a good idea, so they went from the standard 350 ml can size to the 500 ml pet bottle size. That difference to me is actually just enough to put me over the edge of being totally sick of it, but I do get an extra 20 lemons out of it. That also bumped the price up from 100 円 (yen) to 130 円. That’s about $1.10 and $1.40 these days.

In Japan, the lowest bill available is 1000 円, and then there are 500 円, 100 円, 50 円, 10 円, and 1 円 coins. In terms of notes, I really only see 1000 円, 5000 円, and 10000 円 notes in circulation (about $11, $55, and $110).

Some Japanese currency

[Note: While preparing this picture I got a warning that Photoshop does not allow the printing of banknotes. How in the HECK did Photoshop know I was photographing banknotes?!?]
 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any coins so I was forced to use a 1000 円 note. In the interest of commerce, all vending machines have slots for bills, and some vending machines are even capable of accepting 10000 円, so it is not uncommon to put a note in the vending machine.

Here’s some old school vending machines.

Old school vending machine

 

And a new school vending machine, including Tommy Lee Jones and CC Lemon.

New school vending machine

 

I fed my note into the 自動販売機 (じどうはんばいき, vending machine), chose my CC Lemon, and collected my change. In simple math, my change should be 870 円. Typically, that is a 500 coin, 3 100 coins, a 50 coin, and 2 10 coins. (I’m reminded of the Saturday Night Live mock commercial where a bank makes change. That’s all they do. Unfortunately this link is unavailable outside of the US thanks to the good folks at NBC. C’mon, this commercial is so old, make it free to the world). I extracted my 御釣り (おつり, change) from the change portal and found, as expected, 3 100 円 coins, a 50 円 coin, and 2 10 円 coins. Unfortunately, I was missing my 500 円 coin. I did another finger sweep. No coin. I pulled down on the lever a couple of times. No coin. At first I was ready to give it the old, “Oh well,” but then I thought, “Wait a minute, that’s over $5!”

Fortunately, my interpreter was by my side and said, “I’ll call the telephone number here and report it and they’ll refund the 500 円. I’ll leave them my cell number and then they can pay me and I’ll keep it.” We joked that she would charge my 1000 円 for the help. So she called the vending machine company and told them of the problem. They said they would be by the office on Tuesday to refund the money since Monday was a holiday. This was at about 3:00 pm.

A little after 4:00 pm, my interpreter called me and told me the vending machine company was at the vending machine and had my 500 円. SAY WHAT?!? Within one hour, a person came to refund my 500 円 and actually handed me the coin and gave me an apology. I walked into the office and described what had happened and all the gaijins’ jaws dropped to the floor. They were amazed. The Japanese in the office kept working, probably wondering why I was so boisterous and what the big deal was. Our office administrator’s comment was, “That’s the second time this week someone didn’t get their 500 円.”

Of course, the Americans were amazed at the customer service, my Japanese co-workers were accustomed to it, and our OA was upset by the malfunctioning of the vending machine. It was truly an “only in Japan” experience.

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Lucky bag

Brown Stew and MinestroneI decided to go to Soup Stock Tokyo for lunch today. I basically had two reasons, to get some food since I was hungry, but also to force myself outside and go for a bit of a walk. On these gray, chilly, winter days, it is very easy to simply do nothing. Lately I’ve been “recharging my batteries” and plan to continue to do so. Or, in other words, I have been exceedingly lazy by plan. I haven’t touched work and don’t plan on it until I get back in the office. So to get out, see humanity, and get some food seemed like a good idea.

It is chilly, but not freezing, so it was no problem walking to La Chic shopping center to get to the soup place. The streets to the Sakae area of Nagoya were not very busy, so I thought the holiday weekend might be keeping people at home. Once I got to La Chic, I noticed that there was a special line just to get in to United Arrows. Perhaps I had misjudged the crowd. Then at Soup Stock Tokyo, there was a long line as well. Apparently everyone wanted soup.

After eating, I thought I’d walk around La Chic to see what the fuss was all about. The entire shopping center was packed and there were special routes on and off the escalator.

Escalator mayhem

 

That’s when I remembered and discovered that it is Lucky Bag season. I noticed that last year as well. You never know what is inside a “Lucky Bag.” Sure, there might be some nice things, but are they nice things I want or need?

Do you need what is inside?

 

Also, traditionally, there are many big sales in the period as well. It is traditional to clean your dwelling at the end of the year, so with all the newly found storage space, perhaps it is just as important to fill that space up again.

What I forget, when judging crowds in Nagoya by sidewalk congestion, is that there is an immense network of underground passages from subway and train stations to shopping areas. I bet many of the people I saw in the shop never actually set foot outside. So whatever I see above ground on a cold day, a wet day, or a hot and humid day I probably need to double or triple.

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Happy New Year 2010

Happy 2010 to everyone, or in Japanese, あけましておめでとうございます (or alternatively あけておめでとうございます). May 2010 be a happy, healthy, and prosperous year for you. I’m not sure what the year has in store for me – lots of variables at play. But we will see. I hope that I can do better with the blog than I did in December.

I have not spent enough New Year’s in Japan to know how these recent years compare to the past. My expectation is that New Year’s is a family time, and many shops and restaurants are closed. This morning I went out and about to check out the fresh snow and much to my surprise, my local Starbuck’s was open. Yeah! I was hungry. While I feel bad that they had to work, it was nice getting an easy breakfast, especially since I didn’t have any food at home. I’m guessing that in recent years, more and more shops and restaurants stay open on New Year’s to catch all the other workers that are off. As for me, I’m planning on laying low, although we will see as the day wears on. I suspect jetlag may be the controlling influence of the day.

One Japanese custom is to send out New Year’s cards, or 年賀状 (ねんがじょう, nengajou). Of course, I don’t. But I don’t send out Christmas cards either. The idea is to get ALL the cards delivered on New Year’s Day. So that means the post office is jammed with these cards. I even got some this year. Apparently there is a day that you have to get them submitted so that they can be sorted and ready for delivery. I got cards from businesses and friends. I guess I’m becoming more integrated! Wikipedia, has a good description of New Year’s customs. I stumbled across a Japan Post moped filled with 年賀状.

Special delivery on New Year's Day

 

And the office building next to me was decorated with traditional 門松 (門松, kadomatsu).

Traditional kadomatsu

 

As with last year, my New Year’s transportation was not without difficulty. This should not come as a surprise though. In general, this trip has not been transportationally easy. My flight arrived late to Narita, and security to get from one international flight to another was backed up. A family of 5 was kind enough to let me in front of them since they had 4 hours until their flight. I got to the departure screens and saw my flight had been advanced by 20 minutes and was on-time. I hurried to the gate, and the sign said “boarding” but all the queues were blocked off. I still had 9 minutes to spare. I wild-eyedly went to the counter to see if I could board. Ah, but the flight has been delayed due to weather in Nagoya. The fact that every sign indicated otherwise was a bit confusing.

Our flight, originally scheduled for 5:50 pm, advanced to 5:30 pm (how can they do that?) was now going to leave after 7:00 pm, maybe. The weather in Nagoya had an advisory for heavy snow and gale. Nice. Things didn’t look good. I did a little pacing and then came back to see people queued. I found out that the airline would allow us to take the train in lieu of our flight. I prefer the train anyway, so I hopped at the chance. And I waited in line. It was probably about 7:15 pm or later before I was processed. I then had to clear immigration, pick up my bags, clear customs, and catch a train. All possible. I went down to baggage claim and saw everyone processed before me still waiting. Not a good sign. I waited a while and struck up a conversation with a guy from Indianapolis and a Japanese guy returning from Thailand. The J-guy was very helpful to us.

By the time we got our luggage, there were no more Narita Express trains. Drat! The best we could do was take a local express at 8:08 pm and get to Tokyo Station around 9:35 pm. Then we’d have to take a Shinkansen (slower Hikari instead of the fastest Nozomi) at 10:00 pm, arriving Nagoya at 11:49 pm. Just in time for the New Year.

Our local train was empty for quite a while except for the Nagoya refugees. J-guy and I both had iPhones. About midway through the local train, we checked the status of our flight and learned that it had taken off at 8:06 pm. Say what? They actually left before WE did! How did that happen and how did the airline not know? So while the passengers who chose not to hop over to the train were probably home and in bed, we were still chugging down the tracks.

Still, I’m glad I went for the sure thing, because the outcome could have been a lot different. I just wanted to get home. I bought a round of beers for my travel companions and we toasted the approaching new year and J-guy laughed at everything I said in Japanese. Not in a mean way, more in a tall beer on an empty stomach sort of way.

I got home almost exactly at the stroke of midnight. It was snowing heavily and I was inspired to take a few pictures. I love when it snows.

Snowing in Nagoya

 

Snowing in Nagoya

 

Last night I made sure I shut my alarm off, because I knew that once it went, that would be it – I’d be up because of jetlag. I was able to successfully turn off my alarm for Saturday. Unfortunately, today is Friday. Oh well. So I was up and went for a walk to check out the snow. It was still around although now it is melting quickly.

Snow in Nagoya

 

Snow in Nagoya

 

Unfortunately, even the snowmen smoke here.

Snowman with cigarette

 
 

The gas saga

I’m please to report that my gas was restored in LA the day before my departure. I am no longer at risk of blowing up the entire building. I’ll be interested to see what my gas bill looks like.

This is definitely NOT what you want your gas pipe to look like:

Not the desired state of a gas pipe

The elbow joint is completely corroded and basically disintegrated when the plumber got to that area. No wonder I had a big leak. All I have to do is deal with a small hole in the driveway. I guess I’ll be working that from abroad. Oh, and for all you people who are reading this blog looking for vacationers to rob, I do have someone living at my place so don’t bother.