Japan

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 6: Hello Kitty, Pokémon, and Signs Galore

For me, one of the great things about travel is getting a glimpse, even a mini immersion into the history, politics, and culture of another country. I especially like seeing the quirky (or what seems quirky to me) aspects in a place. Japan, in particular, seems to celebrate its whimsical and weird side and these parts of Japanese culture are well-known and popularized even outside of the country. For example, the plethora of vending machines or the counter-culture fashion of the Harajuku girls. I wanted to highlight a few of these aspects of Japan that came up during our trip: Hello Kitty, Pokémon, and signage.

My Hello Kitty collectibles

I am a Gen-Xer and I have a collection of Hello Kitty items. There, I said it. I did not start out as a Hello Kitty fan. What happened was this: When I went to Japan in the late 1990s to teach English, a former college roommate of mine told me how when she was a little girl she had a Hello Kitty purse that she loved. So, to make things a little fun for my friend, I started to send her Hello Kitty-themed care packages. For instance, I sent her a box full of items for the kitchen with Hello Kitty-shaped pasta, chopsticks and cutlery with Hello Kitty’s face, salt and pepper shakers. Then a box of items for the car: a big pink Hello Kitty foldable sunshade, a Hello Kitty air freshener for the review mirror, Hello Kitty ornamentation to stick on her car windows. I also sent a package full of Hello Kitty cosmetics. I had great fun curating the items for the bespoke Hello Kitty gift boxes. My Japanese friends saw me buying these Hello Kitty items and assumed they were for me, and they began to gift me with Hello Kitty items– a Hello Kitty yukata pajama set, Hello Kitty scarf and mittens set–and I began to covet Hello Kitty stuff and bought things for myself. My collection was born.

Sanrio goodies–left: face masks; center: dessert roll; right: water (just plain ole, nothing special water)

In Tokyo this past visit, we saw many Hello Kitty and other characters from the Sanrio family-branded items. There was so much Sanrio merch. You can slap the likeness of Hello Kitty or one of her friends, like Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, or My Melody onto an item and it will sell like hotcakes. Of course, character-branded merchandise is nothing new! Disney characters sell in pretty much the same way but you will also find Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig, Harry Potter, or Star Wars merchandise, to name a few. But there seems something so “extra” about Hello Kitty and friends in Japan as the characters are used to sell far more than clothing and accessories.

C’s Hangyodon goodies haul

Sanrio is experiencing a resurgence in the U.S. and exclusive Sanrio clothing collections are being sold in many stores like Forever 21, Hot Topic, or Uniqlo. Some of it is probably related to the 50th anniversary of Hello Kitty this year, though I have seen the goods in greater numbers for the past few years. My 12-year old daughter is a huge fan. She planned to spend some of her hard-earned birthday, Christmas, and allowance money on some Sanrio goods. Her favorite character is Hangyodon, a male fish character, that has been around for years but is not popular in the U.S. She made sure to get some.

The most wild – and it is pretty wild – Hello Kitty item I found was this mini vape

Overall, though, my friend CZ and I were a bit disappointed by the Hello Kitty goods we found in Japan this time; these are not the Sanrio stores of the ’90s. Back then, one really could find it all. The stores were bigger; there was far more than plushies, clothing, accessories, and cosmetics. I used to have an edition of a quarterly magazine I picked up sometime around 1998 that featured Hello Kitty goods such as a white wedding dress with the eponymous cat’s face stitched into the lace. There were Hello Kitty TVs (pink, with a cover that pulled down with Hello Kitty on it), toasters, vacuum cleaners, mopeds, cars, and so on. I didn’t see any Hello Kitty shaped pasta or milk sold with a Hello Kitty design. Maybe some of Sanrio’s shine has faded?

Maybe it is because Pokémon has muscled in on the Hello Kitty and friends action? Hello Kitty burst onto the scene back in 1974, but Pokémon were created in 1996. Pokémon is now the highest grossing characters of all time, pulling in even more than the famous Disney mouse. I am too old to have been caught up in the Pokémon craze as a kid, but my daughter is and she caught the bug badly. She plays Pokemon Go, has several of the Nintendo Switch games, and has many plushies, figurines, and how-to drawing books among other things. As a fashion-forward tween, she is a big fan of Sanrio, but Pokémon was her first love.

Pokémon noodles, beauty powder wash, and a Pokémon card and goodies vending machine

Though we found less Pokémon goodies than Sanrio, they were still there, and in some unlikely places. Sanrio is most certainly more popular among girls and women and Pokémon’s fan base is about 45% women, there is still a good enough demand for Pokémon-branded cosmetics. I also found there to be more Pokemon-branded food items such as packaged noodles, boxed curry, and sweet and savory snack foods like candy or chips than Sanrio. And I did not find a single Sanrio vending machine, but in our two weeks in Tokyo we did come across two dispensing Pokémon cards and toys.

Another thing I found very interesting about Tokyo was the sheer number of signage – to tell folks how to do all manner of things. See, I have a thing about street signs, advertisements, graffiti, murals, and billboards; basically public messaging. I find they can say a lot about a country and/or culture. I wrote a whole blog post about the signage in Malawi, but I also feature signs among my posts in other countries: Singapore, Kenya, Guinea, and Lisbon.

Nothing quite says be safe on an escalator than a bunch of penguins or drive this way during a natural disaster than a smiling catfish; and Pacman is as good a non-smoking role model as anyone

As the Japanese appear to be far more welcoming of animated characters selling items to all ages than say the U.S., it makes sense that signage also often includes cute characters even when explaining less than cute things, even to adults.

This sign — all in English — is most likely aimed at non-Japanese

What was especially interesting to me is that Japan is considered a high context culture. The level of contextuality of a culture indicates its type of communication. In high context cultures, communication, both verbal and written is more implicit, i.e. that more nonverbal cues/indirect verbal expressions and cultural understandings are used to convey messages, often leaving much unsaid. Japan is considered a very high context culture. While low context cultures, like the U.S., prioritize direct and explicit communication; Americans prefer rules are are literally spelled out. Why then does Tokyo have SO many signs?

I do not know the answer, but I found that signs in Japan often went overboard requesting persons do or do not do things that seem rather self explanatory. Someone I spoke about this with thought the proliferation of signage might be aimed at the city’s expat community or tourists. Maybe. Foreign residents make up less than 5% of the city population, though foreign tourist numbers have been on the rise with over 19 million in 2023. Yet many signs, even those almost entirely in Japanese still include some English verbiage. I expect that just like in the U.S., the inclusion of a foreign language in advertisement can give the messaging a certain coolness factor, and after many years living and working in the region, I find it even more so the case in East Asia.

I would have thought for a high-context society, these (don’t pee in the street, don’t cross the road against the light, and don’t ride a roller coaster when drunk) would be so understood as to not need a sign

The most amusing to me though were when I found very long explanations on how to do something fairly commonplace. Why would there need to be a detailed multiple-step explanation on how to operate a vending machine in a country where there is quite literally one on every corner? The same I suppose could be said for how to use a toilet. That would seem to be something folks would learn really early on in their lives, and those who are too young to know, would also be too young to read the detailed how-to. Granted, I have seen such toilet instructions in other parts of Asia, but few as wordy as those I saw in Japan.

In case you have struggled with using a vending machine of late, these instructions may help you out

For someone who is from such a low-context culture, even I found the Japanese signage to go a bit overboard, but I just chalked it up to one more interesting aspect.

There you have it. Our Tokyo trip in six easy installments. Twenty-odd years since I last visited, and the place still felt familiar. There were still the salarymen in their black suits, white shirts, and briefcases, there just seemed to me more women among them. There were still the Harajuku girls, though perhaps with less fake tan and more understated make-up. There were still the well-stocked convenience stores full of the snacks I fondly recalled from the late 90s: the rice crackers, the vitamin jelly drinks, the onigiri, though the workers behind the till might be from Bangladesh, Nepal, or Kazakhstan. Japan still has the most ridiculously expensive but visually appealing fruit. And I still love it.

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 5: Ghibli, Odaiba, and Disney

Love locks and a view of the Rainbow Bridge on a rainy day in Odaiba

On our seventh day, C and I spent the earlier part of the morning packing up our things and take them over to CZ’s hotel. We were checking out that day, and we wanted to leave our things at the same place for when we came back from our morning adventure: the Ghibli Museum!

Oh yes indeed, we had scored tickets to one of the most exclusive places in town, where the entrance tickets for the entire month sell out in about 15 minutes. The tickets are not expensive, about $7 for adults and $2.75 for kids, but one can only get them through an advance reservation system. The museum sells only 2400 tickets a day, or 600 for each of the four entrance times. We had hoped for the 10 AM entrance, but it was completely sold out when CZ entered the virtual queue so she snagged the 12 PM. We had just the one day and were lucky to get any tickets at all. There are also no photographs allowed inside the museum, making it all the more mysterious.

The only place where one can take photos is the exterior of the Ghibli Museum

We had an hour on public transport to get from Roppongi to the museum; first the subway to Shinjuku Station (the world’s second largest station and where in 1999 I got lost), then the train to Mitaka Station, where we grabbed an early lunch, and then a nice 15-minute walk to the park where one finds the Ghibli Museum. The weather was quite warm but the sky a startling blue, which made the museum, with its bright, colorfully-painted walls covered in ivy, stand out all the more. The line outside wasn’t short, but it moved quickly and soon enough we were inside. Though I understand the Studio Ghibli creators simply want their visitors to live in the moment, oh, how I wish we could have taken photographs! The museum is not large, but the rooms, including the beautiful wood lobby and atrium, are brimming with details that demonstrate the whimsy and artistry of the Ghibli animation. It was crowded and we had kids who don’t fancy lingering and reading a lot at museums. We still spent two hours there, but had we had more quiet, CZ and I could probably have spent at least another hour there.

We had another hour back by train to the hotel, then we gathered our things and caught a taxi to our hotel in Odaiba. After settling in a bit, we all headed over to the DiverCity mall. Unfortunately, the weather had turned with a light rain falling. Though it was the rainy season, we had thus far only had rain our first morning a week before. Our luck had run out.

At the mall, we visited the Unko Museum. “Unko” means “poop” and the museum is just another item in the list of the weird and silly things one can find in Japan (this is not to say that America is also not full of the weird and wonderful; it is). The museum is more about the poop emoji and capitalizes on the youth’s penchant for taking social-media-post worthy photos. It reminded me of the place C and I visited with my sister and her family in Amsterdam, the Upside Down Museum, It was kind of stupid and yet also good for an hour of silly fun.

The 65-foot tall Gundam Unicorn

The food court offered us a great spot for dinner before viewing the evening show of the giant Gundam Unicorn statue in front of the mall. The statue was neat but the light show a little long for what it was: the statue lights up and strobes different colors, transforms its helmet, and scenes from the animated show are projected behind it onto the mall building. Maybe it was just fine, but after days of mostly awesome sights and activities, something like this that did not quite hit the mark was a letdown. And the weather was a downer too.

One of our plans for Odaiba had been to spend the evening walking around enjoying the evening lights, including a view of the Rainbow Bridge. The increasingly steady rain put a definite damper on this and when we found the Rainbow Bridge just lit up with regular lights, we learned the colored lights are only for special occasions. Yet, perhaps it was all just fine not to have a good reason to stay out later as we had an early morning wake-up call the next day.

The alarm went off the morning of our eighth day at 4:45 AM. C and I had laid our clothes out the night before so we could just get up and get dressed and meet CZ and Little CZ at 5 AM in the lobby for a taxi over to the Toyosu Fish Market. In another stroke of luck, CZ had one the lottery to be one of the 60-100 people for the special observation tour of the famed tuna auction at the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. Even though I do not eat fish (my only seafood consumption is shrimp) and C often goes into a gag reflex when smelling fish, we were pretty excited about this opportunity.

Massive tuna bought at auction are prepared for shipping

Getting to the tuna auction proved a little trickier than expected as the market complex is so large. We arrived just in time to hand over our lottery tickets and join the English tour beginning at 5:30 AM. The auction is quick with most of the choicest fish gone within half an hour. From our special observation deck, we could see a few auctions in progress; the auctioneer standing on a box or a chair, excited motions as he called out prices, quick hand gestures and noting of things on a paper, the ringing of a bell when the price reached. Fish were being moved with large hooked tools, loaded onto wheelbarrows, and hauled away. It was all over by 6:30 AM. I am glad to have had the chance to see it.

Some of the adorable robots at Miraikan

After a break for C and I and a nap for CZ and Little CZ, we all headed over to Miraikan or the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. I had high-ish hopes for this museum but overall it was just ok. There are a lot of interactive exhibits and many were quite fun. The robots were by far the best part of the museum. However, it is also a LOT of information and it was overrun by school groups, no doubt a fantastic day trip for students. The movie shown in the large dome theater though was far too long, provided way too much information, and was hard to follow with English dialogue through provided headphones. C completely zonked out and I too may have caught a few zzzzz’s.

Tokyo Sea Life Park: Cool design, tuna plushies (I have never seen these before but they make perfect sense for Tokyo), and a very cute pufferfish

C and I then broke off to go to the Tokyo Sea Life Park. I have long had a thing for aquariums and have passed that on to C; we try to visit them wherever good ones are found. CZ is a diver and finds aquariums to be trying. Thus C and I grabbed some lunch and then started our trek to the aquarium. Nearly everything that could go wrong did. Though we were not all that far from the subway, the GPS led on a wildly out of our way direction that was further complicated by the continuing rain. We had to change once because of completely different train company lines and got on the train going the wrong direction. And it was a rapid service train to Tokyo Station, so it whizzed by several stations, taking us further and further from our destination. We got off at our first opportunity to try to grab a taxi. The first driver cancelled on us, probably due to the rain. The second took a while to get to us and then got lost. Apparently, it is is not just foreigners who have trouble finding the Sea Life Park. By the time we finally arrived, we had just over an hour and a half to explore. Though I am not 100% sure it was worth all that trouble, I know I would have been disappointed to miss it while in Tokyo just because it’s one of our things.

We headed back to our Odaiba hotel, reunited with CZ and Little CZ, and then took a taxi to our next destination where we would spend our final days in Japan: Tokyo Disney!

The gates to the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel

CZ and I love Disney! We have met up together with the kids in Paris and Florida and C and I had also visited the Disney parks in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and California; Tokyo would be our sixth and final park. This was indeed the icing on the cake for our trip to Tokyo. Wanting to make this trip truly special, CZ had sprung for the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel. We had a beautiful family room with two double beds, a trundle bed, and an alcove bed, in a stunningly gorgeous hotel just across from the Disneyland entrance. We also had early entry to the Disneyland park.

We bought tickets for four days at Disney; one day at Disneyland and three at DisneySea. We figured the former had many of the rides we have been on in other parks and the early entry would give us a fighting chance to get to those that were unique. Lucky for us, it worked out that way; we were able to get on all the rides we wanted and to ride the fabulous Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast twice. DisneySea was absolutely amazing! The scale and detail of the park blew us away. DisneySea is not a large park, though the new Fantasy Springs expansion adds to its size, but the design of each area makes it feel larger. I found the Mediterranean Harbor, the Arabian Coast, Mysterious Island, and the mostly subterranean Mermaid Lagoon section for kids absolutely brilliant. The rides Aquatopia, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Peter Pan’s Neverland Adventure were my favorites.

Highlights of Tokyo Disney–Left: Toy Story alien dessert dumplings; Center: Incredible design vistas; Right: It’s Japan so there has to be vending machines!

On our final day in Japan, C and I hugged our friends and travel partners CZ and Little CZ farewell. C and I would head to Roppongi for one more night as we flew out of Haneda Airport, while our friends spent a bit more time at the park and then would stay their final night near Narita Airport. Just before we flew to Japan, I found out about a taiko drum performance in Roppongi the night before our departure. I wanted to squeeze in one more cultural event. Drum Tao put on a great show!

Then the next day it was time to leave. Our two weeks in Tokyo had come to an end. From Sumo wrestling to instant noodles; an Imperial Palace and an animation studio; karaoke and pocket monsters; ancient temples and modern sky scrapers; traditional tea in kimonos and a famous amusement park. We had squeezed so much into our time and yet we had run out of time, missing out on many other sights and activities. As we departed, Japan afforded us one last iconic glimpse of the country: Mt Fuji peeking through the clouds just beyond the metropolis.

Sayonara Japan! Until next time.

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 4: Japanese Traditions & Pop Culture

A variety of Japanese masks at Kura Sushi in Asakusa

On our fifth day in Japan, we were off for a morning adventure in Asakusa. Tucked away on a nondescript side street in the heart of shitamachi or Tokyo’s “low town,” one of the oldest parts of Tokyo, we found MAIKOYA, where we would be making the Japanese confectionary called wagashi. Inside and up a flight of stairs we were welcomed into a traditional world of Japanese tea. We placed our outdoor shoes in a bin and donned slippers, then shuffled into a tatami mat room. There our instructor greeted the four of us and a couple from Germany, told us about wagashi, and demonstrated how to make them. We all followed our instructor’s lead to first make a pretty little sweet that resembled a cross between a flower and a pumpkin and then we were free to make whatever we wanted for our second. I felt rather pleased with my cute turtle. My daughter made a colorful creature she named “Stevie the Mosquito.”

Left: my handmade wagashi; Right: my preparations for the tea ceremony

Our instructor had us pack up our wagashi and then ushered us into another room – men to one and women to the other. In our room, we each selected a kimono and then the women got to work dressing us up in them and styling our hair. Putting on a kimono, with several layers of shifts underneath the colorful outermost robe is complicated. But these pros had us dressed and hair elaborately braided and/or pinned up in no time at all. Then we returned to the previous room to learn about the tea ceremony. The instructor again gave us a cultural lesson, beautifully demonstrated the stylized preparation, then let us give our own tea a whirl. Then we enjoyed our flower wagashi with our tea. Afterward, we were free to take photos of ourselves in the kimono in one of the rooms or in their rooftop garden. This activity was one of my favorites from the trip.

We gorged ourselves on sushi and other goodies delivered by conveyor belt at the nearby Kura Sushi and then made our way over to Senso-ji; completed in the year 645, it is Tokyo’s oldest temple. We entered from the western gate, we stopped first to play a few rounds of kingyo-sukui, a traditional Japanese game where one tries to catch goldfish using a paper scoop. It is another vestige of the Edo period, but has become so popular that there is now a National Goldfish Scooping Championship.

Left: design on the wall of the store where one can find goldfish scooping; right: C below the Kaminarimon gate lantern. I have a photo of myself there 25 years before

At Senso-ji we took only a short time to marvel at the main hall and five story pagoda. The kids made a beeline for the drawers of fortunes; I pulled a bad fortune which told me “Everything will come out to be bad, so you should be patient.” I think it meant that if one waits long enough even the bad can become good. At least I hope so. We spent the greatest amount at Senso-ji along the Nakimase shopping street between the Hozomon Gate and the Kaminarimon Gate buying ourselves ice cream and good luck figurines.

Our rickshaw puller takes us through the streets of Asakusa

After exciting the complex we caught sight of some rickshaw drivers and opted for a spur of the moment 45-minute tour through the streets of Asakusa. These were traditional rickshaws pulled by Japanese men wearing traditional garb, including conal straw hats and split toed (called tabi) booted socks. It was a fun tour; our drivers (runners?) were funny and full of information. The upside is we covered more ground in a shorter amount of time. The downside is we passed sights too quickly and I realized there was far more to see in Asakusa; I could have used an extra day or three just in that neighborhood.

This was already a full day, but we were not done! Our rickshaws dropped us off at the station so we could take the above ground train across the river to the Skytree. CZ and I knew we wanted to visit one of Tokyo’s towers but had not quite settled on Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree. But finding ourselves just across the river in Asakusa and still with energy to burn, the decision seemed an easy one to make. At 634 meters (2,080 feet), the Tokyo Skytree is the world’s tallest tower.

Daytime and nighttime views from the Tembo Deck of the Tokyo Skytree

Though it is possible to go as high as 450 meters, we chose to visit only the lower Tembo Deck at 350 meters (1148 feet). CZ had heard that the view was better at the lower deck. And with an already full day, we might only have so much energy left. Our timing was pretty great as we could observe the day turn into night and the lights of the city turn on.

The Kikyo-mon gate to the Tokyo Imperial Palace

Our sixth day began with a tour of the Imperial Palace gardens. The Chiyoda Palace has been the seat of the Japanese empire since 1868, but before then the site was used as the palace of the Tokugawa shogunate from 1457, at one point the largest fortress in the world. I wanted to include as many elements of Japanese culture in our Tokyo trip, and I felt a visit to a Japanese castle was a must. Tickets for the 45-minute tour of the inner compound were free, but had to be secured a month in advance. Unfortunately, this tour turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of the vacation. As we joined the crowds in a main room for a pre-tour briefing, our guide joked that the English tour groups were always the largest. It didn’t mean so much in that room, but once we started to move en masse through the grounds, I realized the joke was not funny at all. We had somewhere between 60 and 80 or more in the group. I had flashbacks to a similarly sized tour group at the Tower of London the summer before. Like then, it was hard to keep one’s interest when constantly jostling for a space closer to the guide; unlike then, our Japanese guide did not have the voice projection of a Beefeater. It was hot and muggy; we couldn’t hear the information, the kids were bored out of their minds, and I was bummed my palace tour plan had turned out so lame. I looked longingly at the small French and Spanish groups. Surely, the Imperial Household Agency could have found another English-speaking guide or two to break up our group?

C wanted to “Catch them all!” but I limited her to two plushies from the Pokémon Center

No worries, lunch and a visit to the Pokémon Center cheered us up! My daughter C has been a Pokémon enthusiast since she was six years old. While other kids were memorizing dinosaurs, she poured over her Pokémon encyclopedia, learning the names, types, attacks, and evolutions of every single one. She owns many figurines and plushies, and the Pokémon Center in Tokyo, with its many exclusive items, is like a mecca for those who love Pokémon. She had been saving her allowance and gift money for months for our Japan trip, in a large part for this day. I failed to get us seats in the uber-popular Pokémon Cafe, but I could still get her to plushie heaven.

The current iteration of the Kabuki-za where we failed to see a performance

Afterward, CZ and Little CZ returned to their hotel to do some laundry (they had been traveling for two weeks before meeting up with us) and C and I headed to Ginza to see some Kabuki theater. Kabuki is a classical theater art form that has been recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and a theater has been in Ginza since 1889. Full length performances last about four hours, which can discourage all but the most dedicated theatergoers, but the theater or Kabuki-za, offers tickets for single acts. Unfortunately, despite all the planning that I put into this trip, I had the dates wrong for the performances and the theater was on a week+ hiatus. Another trip fail.

The Studio Ghibli clock at Nippon TV HQ

To make up for this, we walked over to the Nippon TV headquarters in the ultramodern Shiodome section of Tokyo to watch the chiming of the massive clock designed by Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. The copper and steel Steampunk clock is three stories tall and 60-feet wall; in the front it stands on two giant bird-like talons with two additional talons jutting from the clock face. These are just a few of the many small details: there are characters that move and doors that open and even a little elevator that all play out during a 4-minute long performance reminiscent of an animated Studio Ghibli short film.

C and I then returned to our hotel to rest. We had had a busy few days and needed some downtime to prepare for more adventures in Tokyo.

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 3: Eating Our Way Through Chinatown and Making Noodles in Yokohama

Souvenir shop in Yokohama’s Chinatown

When I said that we – my daughter C and I and my friend CZ and her son Little CZ – were spending our entire two-week holiday all in Tokyo, I may have stretched the truth just a wee bit. We had this one-day trip to Yokohama. But given the size of Tokyo and the time it took us to get to those locations, Yokohama was for all intents and purposes basically Tokyo.

Yokohama Chinatown’s entrance gate

By now, our fourth day, I had pretty much decided C and I had miraculously avoided jet lag. And, spoil alert, thankfully we had. (And if I did not have witnesses to the fact that C and I did not face plant early in the day our first few days, I might not have believed it either!) The day was blazingly beautiful as we set off on the hour-long train journey. Our first stop was Yokohama’s Chinatown, the largest in Japan.

We weren’t one minute into Chinatown when C and Little CZ spotted a shop displaying tanghulu, the colorful sugar coated fruits on a stick, and by the time I came back from taking a photo of the gate from across the street, they were busy munching away. Afterwards, we made it maybe half a block before we were lured into a fantastic souvenir shop with three or four floors of beautifully displayed items. A good 45 minutes later and several thousands of yen lighter, we re-emerged onto the street. And almost immediately came upon more snacks that called out to us. Little CZ spotted a vendor hand-making Dragon’s Beard candy, a concoction consisting of a floury sugar thread wound together like a small skein of yarn often referred to as Chinese cotton candy but with a lighter, more nutty flavor. Of course we got some. Then the kids needed bubble tea and I found myself wooed by a jian zhu dousha bao or porcupine bun with red bean paste, a deep-fried steamed bun filled with sweet red beans. Sooooo good. We had woefully misjudged the time we would need to explore this area. Unfortunately, we had an appointment to keep, so we had a Chinese lunch (yes, we ate again) and made our way quickly to our next destination: the Cup Noodles Museum.

Yummy Chinese snacks: on the left the vendor showcases his dragon beard’s candy and on the right are my just-from-the-fryer-and-about-to-be-devoured porcupine buns.

I expect it might be at least a little weird that we planned our whole Yokohama trip around a visit to a museum dedicated to instant noodles. Or maybe not? After all, Japan is full of weird and wonderful things that attract many a local and tourist alike. Noodles are certainly not a Japan-only phenomena; in fact, the food court in the Cup of Noodles Museum is dedicated to the celebration of noodles from around the world, but ramen is a Japanese word that has stuck and instant noodles were invented in Japan. And my daughter might have a particular love for Japanese ramen, instant and otherwise. After all, she did name her cat Ramen…

First up, we had reserved a 90-minute “Chicken Ramen Factory” experience. The name sounds a bit silly, but it’s basically a noodle making class. We each donned a bright yellow chicken handkerchief on our heads, were instructed to wash our hands thoroughly, and were collected by our chicken ramen teachers to begin our foray into the wonderful world of chicken ramen.

Cup of Noodles Museum, Yokohama; left: clandestine photo of chicken ramen factory; right: a wall of instant noodles

For some reason, CZ and I were separated from C and Little CZ. Maybe it was because we were the last to roll into the noodle factory kitchen or maybe the noodle masters like splitting up foreign families? Or, as I mostly suspect, the guardians of the Cup of Noodles cooking operation realize that the foreign kiddos will get the techniques down much faster than their elders. It became fairly apparent soon into the process that the English-speaking noodle coach assigned to CZ and I found our skills wanting. She kept a smile on her face and a bright, chirpy voice, but kept repeating instructions like “Pound the dough more.” or “Turn the handle more faster….No, more faster.” At the next table over, our kids were routinely ahead of us. We were maybe not failing at Chicken Ramen Factory, but we were barely getting by. We also tried to take photos, not knowing this is apparently verboten, further disappointing our chicken ramen guru.

All in all it was a fun activity and our instructor’s frustration with our lack of chicken ramen talent (by her standards!), only made it more fun. At the end we were loaded up with our own handmade chicken ramen package, three other ramen packages, and we got to take home our bright yellow handkerchiefs.

Yokohama Cosmo World

The rest of the museum was a bit of a letdown. It was designed rather like a modern art museum with cavernous rooms with little in them: an all-white plaster (?) rendering of a Cup of Noodles cup with an explosion of artistic white noodles hanging from the ceiling, for example. Still, it was enough for another 30 to 45 minutes before we emerged back on the street.

Across the street, Yokohama Cosmo World, a small amusement park with a giant ferris wheel beckoned to us. We had to check it out. Through attractive from a distance, we did not stay long. The ticket process was more complicated than it could have been: one had to buy paper tickets for each ride, much like what I remember from traveling carnivals in my youth, but we found some machines not working (or we couldn’t figure them out). In the end we road only the pink coaster and decided to pass on the wheel and the air cabin.

View of Yokohama from a water taxi in the bay

Instead of just walking to a train station to return to Tokyo, we opted for a 15-minute ride on the water taxi from Shinko Pier to Yokohama Station. In the Yokohama Bay Quarters shopping center we had dinner at Kua’aina, a Hawaiian burger joint, then took the train the hour back to Roppongi where we wrapped up our day with an hour of karaoke in our own private family room. Another successful day in Tokyo!

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 2: Sumo, Great Waves, and Harajuku Culture

C faces off against a sumo wrestler in the ring

My daughter C and I were up around 5 AM on our second full day in Tokyo. Early, yes, but still far better than I expected so early in a trip half way around the world. I made sure C had some breakfast goodies from a nearby convenience store and I took an early morning of walk over to Tokyo Tower. I returned in good time and we met CZ and Little CZ at the Roppongi metro station where we hopped on a train to the Sumida district.

One of the several sumo wrestler statues on the street near the famous Kokugikan stadium in Sumida

We were heading there to take part in a lunch with sumo wrestlers at the Yokozuna Tonkatsu restaurant. The Sumida district is famous for sumo wrestling. Japan’s first sumo tournament was held here in 1768 and the stadium there continues to host three of the six Grand Sumo tournaments held each year. Many professional sumo wrestlers live and train in the area as well.

We had a little over an hour to kill before our lunch and wrestling show began at 11:00, so we walked up to the Kokugikan stadium, where the grand sumo tournaments take place. I was on the hunt for the sumo wrestler statues I had heard dotted the area. I wish I could say the walk was pleasant, but the temperature was quite warm and Sumida district exuded an almost-deserted feel on a Saturday morning, a sharp contrast from the hustle and bustle of Roppongi. The biggest bit of excitement was when I finally found the statues and when two young, but of course very large, sumo wrestlers came into a convenience store where we were buying drinks. Their presence caused a bit of a stir, not only with us but also the Japanese patrons, but they were not particularly friendly.

We arrived just in time for our sumo lunch. The food, a traditional tonkatsu or breaded fried pork cutlet, rice, and miso soup, was not particularly to our liking, but the fact that it is often served to sumo wrestlers and at this restaurant the meal is cooked by retired sumo wrestlers made it more special. However, it was the after lunch entertainment we were here for. During lunch, the restaurant showed a short film on sumo and then brought out two of their retired professional wrestlers to explain the key rules and procedures of the sport and give live demonstrations. Then, we the lunch-goers, had the opportunity to don hilarious suits and step into the ring. My hand shot up first, much to the amusement of my daughter and Little CZ. Following my triumphant (and silly) attempt, they also agreed to get into the ring. All in all, it was great fun.

The Sumida Hokusai Museum

We stopped next at the museum dedicated to Sumida Hokusai, the Edo-era ukiyo-e or woodblock print artist whose work “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. Hokusai was born in and lived the majority of his 90 years in the district that now takes his name. We spent about an hour here. Though both C and Little CZ were familiar with the famous Great Wave painting and found some interest in the comic-like woodblock prints of Hokusai and a few of the interactive displays, the museum involved far more reading and staring in wonder at art works than a 10 and 12 year old were prepared to give, especially with so much more to see in do in Tokyo awaiting them. Truth be told, the museum exhibits use up only two floors of the building and CZ and I were also ready to move on to more sightseeing.

The original plan had been for C and I to return to our hotel after the museum; I had been quite sure that by that time we would either be succumbing to jet lag or dangerously close to doing so. Yet again, surprisingly, we were not. With the Sunday weather forecast including rain, we decided to join CZ and Little CZ on a jaunt to preview some of Harajuku’s culture ahead of our planned visit the next day.

Left: Rainbow grilled cheese; Center: Entrance to Takeshita Street; Right: Plastic models of scrumptious crepes

We made a beeline to the most famous part of Harajuku, Takeshita Street, where we would find many of the wild, wonderful, and wacky parts of Japanese youth culture. C desperately wanted to check out the fashion stores and quickly disappeared into one, but we dragged her out soon enough to have some snacks. First up were some of Harajuku’s famous crepes that have been filling up customers on Takeshita Street since the 1970s. Unlike French crepes, the Japanese crepes are thinner, crispier, stuffed full of goodies like fresh fruit, whipped cream, syrup, and ice cream, and wrapped up like cones so they can be eaten on the go. Oh my were they good. We followed up the sweet with the savory, chowing down on some breaded rainbow cheese, which was just okay.

C in front of the Torii gate to Meiji Shrine and a selection of the sake barrels donated to Meiji

We then spent a good hour in one of the ubiquitous toy capsule stores spending coins like there was no tomorrow. CZ and I found it nearly as addictive as the kids! Then we meandered over to Meiji Jingu, one of the most important Shinto shrines in Tokyo. It is an oasis of green forest in the middle of the world’s most populous city; there are over 100,000 trees of some 230 varieties planted over 170 acres. I wanted some space, tranquility, and more muted colors after the crowded, color explosion of Harajuku. We spent maybe 20 minutes there, but after so many hours of walking, we opted to call it a day. I thought we might get back to Meiji again the following day, but alas, we did not.

It was rainy on Sunday morning. I had forgotten that June was Japan’s wettest month and in all the travel planning had failed to check this key bit of information. Having already covered some of Harajuku the day before though, we had the flexibility for a later start. Off we all went to Shibuya on the bus. We were already getting a good handle on Tokyo’s massive public transportation network and felt, rightly I think, pretty proud of it.

Great view of the Shibuya Scramble from the Starbucks

We first stopped at the famous statue of Hachiko, a real dog who waited faithfully each day outside of Shibuya Station even many years after his owner died. It is a beautiful story of loyalty and unconditional love that has made Hachiko one of the most famous dogs in the world, nearly 90 years after he passed away. We then made our way across to the Shibuya Scramble, the famous spot where seven roads converge and traffic lights signal for all pedestrians to cross at the same time. Though there are several vantage points to watch the crossing, we chose the Starbucks. The price of admission to the viewing windows was a green tea latte for myself and a cookie for C.

We leisurely made our way on foot back to Harajuku by way of another lost hour in a toy capsule store and a lovely ramen and tea lunch at a small mom and pop shop. Once again on Takeshita Street, we had a little time for window shopping and people gawking, before arriving at Harry’s Harajuku Terrace for our 2 PM appointment with the hedgehogs, chinchillas, and otters of this animal cafe.

There are many, many, MANY animal cafes to choose from in Tokyo. Initially, C had really wanted to visit a dog cafe with Shiba Inus, but we realized that was far too vanilla a choice from the options available. Should we see owls? Snakes? Fennec Foxes? As we were planning, I sent CZ a message of this particular cafe in Harajuku and within minutes of sending it she called. She didn’t even say hello, only “OTTERS!” And thus our decision was made. Though the hedgehogs were very cute, C and I had had our fair of experience with wild hedgehogs in Malawi, so they were not all that new for us. The chinchillas were adorable, but Harry’s limited the interaction with them. The otters were indeed the stars of the day. In our special interaction period with them (for an extra fee) they could not have given a fig about us; they just wanted their treats and we were merely in the way. But it was still a great experience.

Today’s purikura turned my daughter into an anime-like character

After Harry’s, CZ and Little CZ broke off for their own fun while I took my daughter C to the Purikura booths. “Purikura” is short for purinto kurabu (or “print club”), which are very popular photo booths where one can make all sorts of stylized photos. This is *not* the US version of the four poses, four printed photos booths. This is so, SO much more. Purikura had been a big activity when I lived in Japan in the late 1990s. Then though, you or you and a friend or a group of friends would have your photo printed on a variety of backgrounds to make mini stickers to share. Now, I found the photos and editing options are incredibly advanced. We struggled to figure out the process with the Japanese instructions, but C still had a fun time with it.

Dinner is served! My delicious hamburger steak with grilled miso cream cheese

Then we were off to meet my friend Koki, who had been my big’s big in my college’s co-ed service fraternity. Since college, Koki and I had met only one other time, around 1998, when I spent two weeks in Tokyo attempting to learn Japanese. Yet, I recognized him immediately. The three of us had dinner at Niku no Mori, a very small traditional counter service restaurant specializing in the very popular Japanese hamburger steak. It is more like an American meatloaf, usually cooked with onion, egg, and panko crumbs, and served over rice. Niku no Mori offered it also with a grilled miso coated slab of cream cheese.

I really enjoyed catching up with Koki over dinner and then he walked with us along Takeshita Street while C did a little Japan-style thrifting. We said goodnight to Koki at the train station and C and I returned to the hotel.

Day 3 in the books and still no real jet lag to speak of…

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Two Weeks in Tokyo, Part 1: Preparation & First Days

My view of Tokyo Tower on a glorious summer morning

A trip long time in the works

Right now travel to Japan is hot. Everyone and their brother and their third cousin twice removed has been making their way to the Land of the Rising Sun. The government closed the country to tourists for over two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, with individual travelers only being able to enter after 2 1/2 years. Thus a weak yen and people no longer wanting to put off their trip of a lifetime, Japan is now seeing record-breaking numbers of visitors.

Our trip though had been long in the making. I have wanted to take my daughter for many years. When she was in the first grade she did a presentation on Japan as the place she wanted to visit the most because, she said, the people there cared deeply about nature (this is the same kid who broke out in sobs during the class viewing of the great floating garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean). That same year C told her teacher she was part-Japanese so that could march in the school’s international parade with the small contingent of Japanese students.

C in heaven in the Japanese snack aisle

C has loved Pokémon, anime, Nintendo, and Japanese snacks for several years, and now as a teenager is very keen on the fashion. She has wanted to go to Japan soooo bad. Also, we love Disney amusement parks and Tokyo was the final park for us to visit (after four times each to Florida and Shanghai, two times to Paris, two times to California, and one time to Hong Kong).  And over 20 years ago I was an English teacher in Western Japan, and though we would not make it to my Japanese hometown, I still wanted to introduce my daughter to this country where I made so many memories.

I initially planned for us to visit while we were in Malawi, though the long distance and the complicated route were making me rethink it. Then the plan, for April 2020, was made impossible by the global pandemic.

Planning in advance, but not too far in advance

C and I would be traveling to Tokyo with our good friends CZ and her son Little CZ, with whom we have traveled together with in China, Paris, Finland, and on our London and Norway trip. After some discussion, we made the decision to only visit Tokyo as the mega-city offered ample cultural activities and sights to keep us plenty busy.

CZ and I are big travel planners; we really love it. For example, we have known we would go to Japan together in the summer of 2024 since sometime in 2022. We bought our plane tickets in the summer of 2023, as soon as the dates became available. We had our hotel in central Tokyo for the first part of the trip booked nine months out. And, we began to build our shared spreadsheet on places of interest about seven months out.

And then we were stymied because so much to see in Tokyo must be booked in advance, but not too far in advance. And it seemed every place has its own advance reservation rules. So many times we knew what we wanted to do, but we had to wait until the window of opportunity opened. This was a whole other level of planning detail that we had not been quite prepared for.

We were soooo lucky to score these unique film strip tickets to the Ghibli Museum!
  • Tokyo Disney hotels can be booked from 11 AM of the day four months before.
  • Tokyo Disney park tickets can be booked starting from 2 PM of the day two months ahead of your visit (and you cannot book multi day tickets or park hopper).
  • Imperial palace gardens tour can be booked from the first of the month preceding the month you want to visit.
  • Pokémon cafe – reservations are accepted from 6 PM 31 days out from desired visit date, but you need to be on the website at the moment reservations open and have a tremendous amount of luck.
  • Cup of Noodles Museum Yokohama – reservations can be made starting at 10 AM three months and one day prior to the day you wish to visit. 
  • Toyusu Market Tuna Auction tour – is offered through an advance lottery system: to visit one has to apply for lottery the first seven days of the month preceding the month of your visit and only 100 people selected per day. (We got it!) 
  • Ghibli museum – Visitors must have advance reservations, but one can only do so at 10 AM on the 10th of the month preceding the month of your visit. This was the most difficult of them all as there are only 200 tickets available in 4 entry times per day. CZ and I logged on to the website in advance.; at 15 minutes till the appointed hour, a countdown started on the website. At exactly 10 AM Tokyo time, we were brought into the virtual queue – CZ had about 2500 people in front of her and I had about 17,000!! It took about 15 minutes and CZ got in; she was booted out of her first attempt – probably sold out – but on her second attempt she got in and scored us our tickets!! It felt amazing! It felt like we had just one the lottery and I suppose in a way we did.  (I waited and I got in at 10:58 and nearly all days were completely sold out, just an hour after tickets sales for the month went live!!) 

Is your head about to explode? We thought ours might! Yet, against the odds, we lucked out time and again. Sadly, it did not work out for the notoriously difficult-to-get Pokémon Cafe. I set my alarm for 4:50 AM so I would be on at 6 PM 31 days in advance. I logged in and could see the tickets for my day were not yet available. I refreshed at 5 AM, and the site was immediately unavailable due to heavy usage. At 5:03 it cleared and every single entry for the day was already sold out! In three minutes.

The jet-lag busting plan and the first full day

Jet-lagged and faced with this shower!

It had been a long time since we had made a flight as long as that to Japan, 14 hours from Dulles Airport to Haneda Airport. To combat jet lag, I had us in bed at a decent time the night before our flight and then we slept in as long as we could. As our flight took off around noon, the plan was to stay awake as long as possible, falling asleep only the last few hours. We would disembark bleary eyed and shuffle our way through immigration at 3:30 PM Tokyo-time, but the equivalent of 2:30 AM Eastern Standard Time. I hoped we would get to our hotel room around 5 PM where we could collapse and sleep as much as we could.

The first part worked out well, but the second part a bit too well. I did not sleep on the plane at all and C only slept for 1.5 hours. I worried we would be extra grumpy in the immigration line, but managed to get through the surprisingly poorly-designed immigration line. It seemed the airport was not quite prepared for the tsunami of visitors; it took us at least an hour. But we remained awake and in good spirits.

We did not fall asleep in the taxi ride to the hotel. Nor did we do so immediately in the hotel room. We had showers and went out to get some food from the closest convenience store. It was nearly 8 PM when I finally just turned out the light after 23 hours straight without any shut-eye.

I knew we would wake up in the early morning hours, but I thought it would be even earlier than it was; we made it to 3:50 AM. Luckily, our hotel was smack dab in the bustling area of Roppongi in the world’s largest city. There were, at a minimum, eight 24-hour convenience stores within a 6-minute walk from our hotel. We visited at least one each of 7-Eleven, Daily Yamazaki, Lawson, and Family Mart, checking out all the Japanese goodies, and buying snacks along the way. Once we had been out at least three hours we took our haul back to the hotel room for an eclectic breakfast.

C’s digitally enhanced tea and matcha ice cream in the tea room of teamLab Borderless

Knowing we would have jet lag and expecting an early afternoon crash, we had only one thing planned for our first day. We met CZ and Little CZ at the teamLab Borderless digital art museum about 15 minutes from our hotel on foot. They had arrived in Tokyo a few days before us after a multi-stop journey to Dubai, Singapore, and Borneo, and thus were already adjusted to the time difference.

I find it hard to describe the teamLab installation; it really is something that must be experienced. A series of rooms with digital art projected on to the walls and spilling from room to room? The overflow from one room to another is why it is called “borderless.” Yet, this does not even begin to adequately describe the sensations of rooms large and small that defied my expectations. My favorite installations were: the Bubble Universe room filled with thousands of silver crystal orbs hanging from the ceiling that would light up at our proximity and the En Tea House which is so dimly lit that the colorful digital flowers that bloom from the tea or coconut matcha ice cream are even more vibrant as they spread out across the darkened liquid or black table top. We stayed in the museum for three hours.

You can indulge your hankering for Japanese KitKat flavors at Don Quixote

We grabbed lunch at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo (C and I have a tradition of visiting Hard Rocks around the world). I was sure that after lunch C and I would drag our jet-lag-fogged selves back to the hotel. But we were still awake! The magnificent 7-story, 24-hour operated Don Quixote store across the street called to us and we all heeded. We spent at least an hour, and a good chunk of change, exploring every floor.

C and I then parted ways from our friends. I figured we were going to give in to the jet-lag at any minute and would be best off at our hotel when it happened. I don’t know how we did it, but we made it to 7:30 PM! Surely, this could not last, right? We would find out on day two…






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Japan 1997-2000 Part Five: Travels from Little Stick

In July 1997 I arrived in the small coastal town of Kogushi (which translates as “little stick”) to teach English as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. This is the fifth and final in a series of posts about my three years in Kogushi.

  • Japan has sand dunes! At the largest in Tottori

When I was in Japan on the JET Program – and it could very much be the same now, I do not know – the vacation days were set by the prefecture. The vast majority of prefectures gave the JET teachers 15 days of vacation, though some lucky JETs got 20 days, and the sad folks in Tottori Prefecture got only 10. Yamaguchi Prefecture, where Kogushi was located and where I taught, gave 15. The thing was, there were far more than 15 days with the school closed. The school year was divided into trimesters with the first beginning the second week of April and ending around July 20, the second starting around September 1 and ending around December 20, and the third beginning around the second week of January and ending the third week of March.

Basically school was closed for 12 weeks of the year. The students were at home; the teachers, who often had been transferred from far away, headed to their home prefectures. I came to love the small fishing village of Kogushi in many ways, but I just could not sit there alone in that apartment, that town, for all but 15 days a year. Part of loving it was being able to leave and then return. The prefecture had another policy — if you traveled within Japan, you did not need to use your 15 days. You didn’t need to tell me twice.

I did travel outside of Japan – a trip to New Zealand, also to Australia, one to Bangladesh, another to Thailand, a two week trip to Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and a week in Taiwan. But I also made the most of living in such a fascinating country. I traveled all across the country – to three of the four main islands (Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku), and to at least 22 of the 47 prefectures. I went by slow local train and fast (the shinkansen or bullet train). I took overnight ferries (from Kitakyushu to Takushima, Ehime to Osaka, Kitakyushu direct to Osaka, and from Kobe to Kitakyushu). I also twice took long distance buses — but after a bus breakdown followed by being left behind at a rest stop at midnight on the way back from Tokyo (I ran after the bus through the parking lot and luckily one person remembered the foreigner on the bus and the driver stopped – this was memorable!) and having the bus on which I was traveling on a return trip from Tottori getting hit by a truck…I did not find Japanese bus travel as reliable. Sadly, my memories are so faded, but there are some that still stand out.

  • Nothing says 90s backpacking than acid washed jeans and a fanny pack – At Shuri Castle in Okinawa

Okinawa. I wish I remembered more about my trip here. I do not remember how many days I visited or where all I went; I do not even remember visiting Shuri Castle though I have photographic proof that I at least stood in front of it. What I do remember are two incidents. In the first, I took a bus north of the capital of Naha to visit the 18th century historical Nakamura residence. The bus I ended up on was the wrong one or it was not going all the way to the house that day because of the day or the time. By car the trip would take 25 minutes, but by bus over an hour. And when after an hour I realized the bus was not going to the right spot, I was pretty bummed. But I was the only one on the bus and the kindly bus driver decided to take me straight to the site, completely off his route. A backpacker’s hero! In the second instance, I just went to the mall to buy clothes. I figured that with the U.S. military base, there might be more sizes that fit me. Though I was a size small in the US, I felt like Gigantor in Japan. But sadly, I tried on a pair of jeans in size “large” and could not get them over my thighs and found myself stuck in a “one size fits all” shirt. I thought I would have to ask a Japanese sales clerk to come to the dressing room to help me out though I knew that would probably be worse as the women often ran away giggling when I tried to ask questions (a perennial problem in Korea and Japan, at least at that time).

Scenes from my time in Tokyo

Tokyo and its environs. Between my first and second years in Japan, I signed up to take part in a two week Japanese course through the Tokyo YMCA. The YMCA set up a homestay for me with a family in Yokohama. I remember almost nothing from the Japanese course itself — I don’t think it did much for my Japanese — it was more the being in Tokyo, about as far away in Japan from Kogushi as I could get: the opposite side of the country and a megapolis compared to a village. What sticks out the most from that trip was my homestay family — a two parent family, with dedicated working dad, a stay at home mom, two elementary aged kids. What made them so memorable was their keen dedication to Disney. The had annual passes to Tokyo Disneyland, had Disney decor around their home, and they named their two girls after Disney characters. I also remember meeting up with Miyako, a young mother who had befriended me in Kogushi when I entered a local government building seeking information on town recycling. No one could help me, but her husband called her — with her excellent English — to assist. We started to hang out and I even briefly joined her husband’s band. I sang the Beatles songs at a wedding. Miyako was back in Tokyo with her son and we went for a cruise on the Sumida river. Then I visited Senso Temple, Tokyo’s oldest. It is a magnificent temple of bright, colorful red buildings, including a pagoda, and is one of the city’s most significant — though anyone can tell this from reading online. I do not actually remember. What I do recall is demonstrating a high level of patience waiting by the massive red paper lantern at the “Thunder Gate” until there were few people so I could jump in and get a silly photo of me below it.

Hiroshima, Himeji Castle, and Itsukushima Shrine

Osaka to Yamaguchi. One year for Golden Week, a period at the end of April and early May when multiple Japanese holidays (Showa Day to honor the WWII Japanese Emperor on April 29, Constitution Day on May 3, Green Day on May 4, and Children’s/Boy’s Day on May 5) coincide, I decided to take an overnight ferry to Osaka and then work my way back to Yamaguchi. While in Japan I took several overnight ferries — and even twice to/from Korea — and they were rather fun — much less expensive than the bullet train and it saved a night of accommodation. These boats were huge with large sleeping rooms for maybe 50 people complete with roll out tatami mats with blankets (at least in the 2nd class dormitory) and a massive dining room. There was a gentle rocking throughout the journey, though I fared better on these big boats than I have on smaller vessels. I docked in Osaka and spent a night or two there (I had a few trips to Osaka — once for a JET Program second year conference, another time to meet up with my friend CZ who came to visit me in Japan, and then this trip — so they blur together a bit). I recall visiting Nara and feeding the wild deer and running into a Japanese celebrity. Well, its a bit embarrassing, but the “celebrity” was a young, blonde American girl of about 12 who starred in a Japanese kids show. I watched the show regularly because they mixed in English and so I could follow the plot… From Osaka, I took the train west to the town of Himeji in Hyogo province to visit the incomparable Himeji Castle, considered Japan’s best. I wish I remember the castle itself; I don’t even have any photos of the interior, but what I remember is walking the grounds, crossing the moat, and catching a beautiful view of the castle and the streamers of carp flags strewn in celebration of Children’s Day. I headed next to Okayama city, Okayama Prefecture. I had almost forgotten about this stop completely til as I was writing this I had a sudden recollection of biking through some fields and of a very strict hostel. My roommate from my Korea days had been a JET in Okayama and had recommended the Kibi Plain cycling route, which wound past historic sites and rice paddies. My next stop was Hiroshima and then the iconic Itsukushima “floating” shrine before heading home.

Beppu and Sakura-jima

The Kyushu Hot Springs Tour. While in Japan, I came to really love the hot springs or onsen. I had been introduced to the concept while teaching English in Seoul, South Korea, where I lived on the top floor of a four story walk-up. The building, painted a deep purple, and over a shoe store, had terrible plumbing, and the large, cheerless, bathroom, I shared with two roommates was not really up to task. But down the street, just a few blocks away, was a traditional public bathhouse. It was here where I 3-4 times a week (in conjunction with the shower at my gym) came to suds up alongside other neighborhood women. I was quite thrilled when I moved to Kogushi and learned that just one town over was the famous Kawata Onsen. But I was not satisfied to just head over there to fulfill my onsen interests, I started to motorbike around the district and prefecture to other hot springs and to seek them out in other locations. There were indoor onsens and outdoor onsens. Modern onsens and traditional onsens. Obscure onsens and famous onsens. And onsens that offered unique experiences such as varying temperatures, an electric bath (this was quite literally shocking and made me really uncomfortable), and more. I never did get up to Hokkaido or northern Honshu (known as “snow country”) for an au naturel soak surrounded by snow and mischievous monkeys, but I did visit the famous Tamatsukuri Onsen in Shimane prefecture and the Dogo Onsen Honkan in Ehime Prefecture, reportedly Japan’s oldest hot springs resort. Thus, in my third year in Japan, I made it my mission to visit some of Kyushu’s most famous.

I traveled first with my friend Hiroko to Saga Prefecture, where we bathed to our hearts content at the 1000+ year old Takeo Onsen. We then traveled together to Nagasaki to visit the Peace Park commemorating the atomic bombing of the city that ended WWII. Hiroko headed back home while I continued on to Kurokawa Onsen in Kumamoto Prefecture, among the country’s top ten. Further south I visited Kagoshima and Sakurajima for their onsen and I finished up at the famous springs of Beppu in Oita Prefecture. Of this whole trip, my biggest memories are of Kagoshima. Here, I partook of the famous “sand bath,” where women bury you in hot sand warmed by the very active Sakurajima volcano. It seemed innocent enough — undressing and then wrapping oneself in a specially provided robe, following two women with buckets and pails out to the beach, and then have them dig a hole in the sand to get into. And this though is when it got weird. I realized I never liked being buried in sand at the seaside. Heavy enough when it is perfectly dry, when its damp and steaming hot, it was suffocating. Ten minutes in that inferno is supposed to be enough to sweat out all one’s impurities, and I was counting down the seconds. My other big memory was of staying on Sakurajima – literally Cherry Blossom island – which was turned into a peninsula after a 1914 volcanic eruption. I stayed two uncomfortable nights. The hostel was comfy enough, it was the proximity to the smoking mountain that made me leery. But it was after enjoying a soak at the Sakurajima Maguma (I am pretty sure this is Japanese for “magma”) Onsen, with its beautiful view of the ocean from its outdoor bath, that I hitchhiked for the very first time.

Not that I have made it a habit — I’ve done it I think five times in my life? But when I came out of the onsen and realized it would be awhile before a bus came — if at all — and the walk back to the hostel would take an hour at least, the Japanese teenager that stopped to give me a lift was like a godsend. I remember a tape deck, some music we both liked, and the both of us trying to muddle our way through a conversation in broken English and broken Japanese.

Shimonoseki. Travel did not even have to be particularly far afield. There were onsens and the Mara Kannon fertility temple (with its hundreds of large and small stone phalluses) and the five story pagoda in Yamaguchi City to be found in my own prefecture. My favorite place though was the Akama Shrine in Shimonoseki. Dedicated to the child emperor Antoku who was drowned by his grandmother during a major sea battle in the Shimonoseki Strait between warring clans in the year 1185. When in Shimonoseki, I would often stop by here, it commands a beautiful view over the strait and towards the Kanmon bridge linking the islands of Honshu and Kyushu. I took my mom and aunt here when they visited, I went with friends, I glimpsed a wedding there once. But the best time was when I attended the Shimonoseki Kaikyo Festival. I had missed this festival my first two years as it fell during Golden Week, a time I was normally away, but I was low on vacation time and money, so I stayed in Kogushi. I was pretty intent on being miserable stuck in my little town, but friends invited me to attend the festival with them. It recreates the naval battle and the capitulation of the Heike clan to the Minamoto. But the most anticipated part is the walk of the Heike women to the shrine. A bridge is erected for the women, dressed as geisha, and representing different ranks. The higher the rank, the higher the geta or traditional Japanese wooden shoe and the more exaggerated their walk. The finale is when the highest of the women representing the fallen Heike women, dressed in the most gorgeous and elaborate kimono, with her multi inch high geta, slowly, and deliberately walks toward the shrine, the sides of the geta dragging along the path as she makes wide arcs with her feet, puffing out her heavy robes. It is sober and beautiful.

It is interesting to delve deep into my memories to see what survived the decades. I am a huge fan of travel and have been all over the world and yet despite my love of visiting new countries and cultures, there is only so much that I have retained. My three years in the town of Kogushi, Little Stick, have no doubt shaped my life in myriad ways. Just as I am sure my four years in Malawi will forever be a large part of who myself and my daughter are going forward.

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Japan 1997-2000 Part Four: The Uslurper and Little Meat

In July 1997 I arrived in the small coastal town of Kogushi (which translates as “little stick”) to teach English as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. This is the fourth in a series of posts about my three years in Kogushi.

  • Kawatana Onsen’s famous Kawara Soba
    (not my photo)

Food is an art form in Japan. Like many traditional arts and practices in Japan, such as the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, calligraphy, food presentation and consumption can be highly formalized, governed by centuries-old techniques and ritual. Traditional Japanese meals focus on awakening all five senses; it is not just how the food tastes or smells – though the combinations of tastes like savory and sour, sweet and bitter, seem heightened – but also its texture, sound, and appearance is also important. Is the food warm or cold? Is it smooth or chewy? Is it served in a smooth ceramic bowl and eaten with freshly broken wooden chopsticks? As you chew, does the crunch reverberate? Do you smack your lips in appreciation? What are the plays of color of the different foods and the plateware in different sizes and shapes on which it is served?

I grew up eating a combination of home cooked American comfort foods and packaged convenience foods. Macaroni and cheese. Pork chop casserole. Baked chicken and mashed potatoes. Beef Pasta a lá Hamburger Helper and Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. Our plateware was nothing special and the drinkware a mismatch of plastic and glass, some from yard sales, some from various fast food restaurant promotions. I found the Japanese way of food difficult to grasp.

A few months after arriving in Japan I wrote this little story for myself, called “The Uslurper.”

One day I was working away at my desk. Because it was lunch time, I expected to have a bit of peace and quiet while I worked. Even though most teachers eat their lunch at school, it was a testing period so there were few teachers around. I set about coloring. Then, I heard it. SLURP! The teacher who sat cater-cornered from me, a small, wiry man with whispy white hair, bushy eyebrows, age spots on his face, took a sip from his tea cup I eyed him wearily and went back to work. SLURP. SLURP. Again! I tried to shake off the feeling that was coming over me. Then, he got out his bento box. SLURP. SLURP. SMACK. SMACK. SLURP. SMACK. The hair on the back of my head stood up. SMACK. SLURP. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. SLURP. SLURP. SMACK. CRUNCH. I could feel my nerves tensing for the next onslaught. SMACK. SMACK. Argh! When would it end? My hands clenched. My lips pursued. My shoulders bunched up around my head. I did not know if I could control myself. I wanted to march over and snatch his chopsticks away and snap them in half.

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. SLURP. SLURP. SLURP. SMACK. CRUNCH. SLURP. I could not work anymore. I looked over and saw him get up and throw away his trash and then move to the sink to rinse out his lunch box. He put away his chopsticks carefully in their case. Thank goodness, it was over! I let out a sigh of relief. I relaxed. He sat down, and in signify a very satisfying meal he let out a loud BELCH and then two more sips, SLURP, SLURP. Then, at last, he was done.

This seemed emblematic to me of the cultural differences associated with food and eating between the U.S. and Japan. In one we are taught to be quiet when chewing our food, to apologize for noise; in the other, the noises of chewing and crunching and belching showed an appreciation for both the food and the audible parts of the eating experience.

I am also, I will admit it, not a particularly adventurous eater. As mentioned before, I grew up on a particular set of American staples, and I rarely strayed from it as a child and only branched out some as a young adult. And here I was in Japan where fish, that I never ate, is a staple and pickled octopus is served on sticks and packed in plastic containers like sweets next to the cash register. Therefore, in my introductory letter to my new school, sent a few weeks before arrival, I told them I was a vegetarian. I didn’t want loads of questions about the limited meat I consumed, so I just took meat out of the equation.

Or so I thought.

  • A Japanese noodle shop menu
    (not my photo)

Turned out that many people I met just did not know what to do with this information. It seems rather unbelievable, but for a country that embraces Buddhism and has at least a stereotype of embracing nature (because at the same time they are one of the few countries in the world to still hunt whales and eat them) many Japanese could not wrap their head around vegetarianism.

Just a week or so after classes started at the high school in Kogushi, teachers from my school were out and about and we stopped for lunch at a small noodle shop. Like many small shops like this, the menu was all on wooden blocks in Japanese and I knew only a few basic phrases I had learned in six weeks of night classes at a community college in Miami before accepting the job, certainly not enough to figure out the menu or say much of anything. The same older teacher who had been to pick me up at the airport when I arrived at the Yamaguchi-Ube Airport about a month before, the guy who had stood languidly against the wall and showed zero excitement at my arrival, he said he would order for me. I reminded him that I did not eat meat. He said he remembered.

Imagine my surprise as I am eating and I distinctly taste fish. I ask him, “X sensei, is there fish in this dish?” He says no. I taste it again. I most certainly tastes of fish. I ask him again and he gives me an annoyed look, like one might give a child that has asked for something umpteen times, and again says no. I tell him I am sure there is fish in the soup. He looks at me again and says, “you can’t taste it.” Meaning, there IS fish in the soup. And yes, I absolutely could taste it! How presumptuous that he ordered for me and ordered something he knew I had specifically asked not to eat.

While I expect that teacher in part did it to be cheeky, this was just the first of many odd encounters I had regarding meat in Japan.

On another occasion, a few months after arrival, a family in Kogushi invited me, the exotic blonde American English teacher, to dinner. When they heard I did not eat meat they asked me to make a list of all the things that I did eat… This seemed to be quite a long list compared to the one I didn’t (i.e. meat), but I obliged: spaghetti (without meat), pizza (without meat), curry (without meat), ramen (without meat), tempura (vegetables only), etc, etc.

There was one day when I was at the hospital school where I taught a few classes every other Tuesday. The teachers asked if I might stay for lunch. I asked what they were having and if it had any meat. They went to check. Upon their return they told me that it would be Japanese curry…and that although it had meat in it, it was chopped into small pieces. I failed to see the difference, but it made them happy to report it. And the karate group I joined that seemed to want to influence more than one’s martial art skills, they tried to sneak some little fish into my food. When I pointed out that I saw the small black eyes of the shirasu (しらす), small white parboiled baby sardines, in my rice (i.e. I was wise to their attempts), they shrugged it off, noting, again, their small size. Little meat is apparently just like no meat at all.

  • A few of my favorite Japanese foods

Overtime I let good friends in on my secret, that I actually did eat meat on occasion, I just was rather particular about it. In my own time I tried foods on my own and came to have my favorites. One was a wonderful meal of meat and vegetables heated in a stock enjoyed during the winter months called nabe. Introduced to me by my Yutama adult English class, I associated the steamy pots of food then dipped in a sauce of ponzu (a concoction of soy sauce, rice vinegar, rice wine, and citrus juice) and grated daikon (pickled Japanese radish) with gatherings of good friends. I also came to enjoy the Japanese traditional breakfast of rice, miso soup, pickled cucumbers and radish, and a block of chilled silken tofu with green onions and soy sauce (though I left off the fish flakes). Tempura also became a favorite. My favorite tempura being shrimp (shhhh…shrimp is the only seafood I eat) and pumpkin, which seemed a specialty of the restaurants in Kawatana, the town one over from Kogushi. In fact, Kawatana was also famous for being the birthplace of a special dish called kawara soba. Soba are buckwheat noodles a bit thicker than spaghetti. In Kawatana they used cha soba which are the soba also made with tea, giving them a bright green color, and cooked them, along with ingredients like shredded fried egg and meat, atop a kawara, or roof tile. The ubiquitous curved tiles found in Japanese villages are made of clay and hold heat well and the dish is served still sizzling at one’s table. I was not a major fan of kawara soba, but I did enjoy it on the occasional special meal with friends, in the restaurant where it was invented. My favorite Japanese dessert was mochi, a sweet made of glutinous rice with added flavorings or stuffings like red bean paste and then shaped into little decorative balls. Mochi was like ultimate celebration food, traditionally served at holidays like Children’s Day or New Year’s and also often served during the tea ceremony. The sweet mochi perfectly cut the bitterness of the matcha tea.

I am still not an adventurous eater (many persons express great surprise I survived three years in Japan and do not eat fish), but my time in Japan introduced me to a whole new world of tastes and the pleasure derived from consuming good food. I still cannot stand the sound of slurping though.

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Japan 1997-2000 Part Three: Activities in Little Stick

In July 1997 I arrived in the small coastal town of Kogushi (which translates as “little stick”) to teach English as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. This is the third in a series of posts about my three years in Kogushi.

When I first arrived in Kogushi, I was a little overwhelmed. After graduating college, where I had kept busy with intramural sports and volunteer work, and living in the metropolitan city of Seoul, Korea where I had lived with and hung out with several American roommates and colleagues, here I was in a small fishing and farming village on the Japanese coast. What was I going to do in my free time?

I had heard of other JET teachers who had taken part in really cool activities. A friend of mine, my roommate when I taught English in Korea, had been a JET for three years. She had studied the Japanese tea ceremony. It sounded really intense; Japanese arts are not something one can generally learn and master in only a short time thus she had to seek some sort of special permission. Another JET I met had joined a Japanese drum group. I was hoping for some activity along these lines to keep me busy and learn more about Japanese culture.

I arrived at the very beginning of August and classes did not start until the 1st of September. I had a week of a forced summer English class at Hibiki High School, my base school, and a weekend English summer camp for middle schoolers and not much else. This left me with a lot of time just hanging out in my poorly air-conditioned (read: quite warm) apartment. Luckily, soon after school started I met Kiyoko, a Japanese teacher from another high school in the area. She spoke English really well and she invited me to join a chorus group that met at Hibiki once a week. I am not the best singer, but this seemed an opportunity to meet some people and learn Japanese.

Front and center at our grand choral finale

That is how I found myself once a week at chorus – singing songs in a language I barely understood, with a chorus instructor who did not speak English, and frantically trying to read the hiragana and katakana symbols in songbooks so I would at least know the pronunciation of the words coming out of my mouth, even if I did not know the meaning. Music is a language that crosses cultures, but the last time I had sung in a chorus had been in middle school and I also struggled with remembering musical symbols and notes. It was quite a challenge. But I showed up week after week. First, it was something to do that was not sitting in my house and teaching English. Second, I will be honest, I really enjoyed it.

In February, we had a concert at a local community center. Though I was probably one of, if not the tallest in the choral group, our conductor wanted me, the gaijin (foreigner), front and center. And there I stood, clutching my song book, hoping that all the practice had paid off, and I could read and sing the songs reasonably well.

After chorus ended I was in search of another activity. I heard about a judo group, but after one introductory lesson in which I saw burly young children being slammed repeatedly into mats, I realized that this might not be the pastime for me. However, I had heard about a karate group with lessons held a town or two over. I do not remember how I was introduced, but soon enough I was given an introduction, bought my gi, the white uniform, and been assigned a young English-speaking woman named Tamami as my translator and mentor.

  • With my karate group on our Ise fieldtrip

At first I really enjoyed going to karate. I had taken some Taekwondo in the U.S. in college and also spent nearly a year studying it in South Korea, where I, in a large stadium hall, executed several forms and sparred another aspirant in front of a panel to be awarded my black belt. This felt like a natural extension of that and to learn the Japanese version of this martial art. Though I could not communicate with most of my classmates, I liked the physical and technical aspect of being part of the group; I even went on a trip with them to Osaka and the Ise Grand Shrine. But things got weird after a few months.

There were a lot of rules in the martial arts practice room or dojo. I am a rather silly person who can most certainly laugh at myself. There were times in karate where things did not go quite right and I laughed. Tamami told me, “There is no laughing in the dojo.” I laughed again, incredulous, but was told it was quite true and she pointed to the rules posted on the wall. A pointless exercise as I could not read Japanese, so I had to take her word for it. One time I executed a really good kick and received some praise from the shihan (master) and I did a little victory dance. “No dancing in the dojo,” came Tamami’s quick admonishment. Our workouts started at 7 in the morning. One time, really exhausted, I yawned. “There is no yawning in the dojo.” I brought water to our practices because they were two, two and a half hours long. Once when I took a swig in class I was told, “There is no drinking water in the dojo.” In retort, I said, “Sounds like there is no fun in the dojo.” That did not go over well.

When I politely declined some pumpkin, I was used as an example in class of someone who does not appropriately follow the master. When I kicked my bicycle after getting my foot stuck on the spokes as I prepared to ride home, I was told I was not considerate of my bicycle’s feelings. When I said I did not like fish, they tried to hide small ones in rice they gave me. When I said I meant to travel some of the summer, I was told to submit my schedule for the shihan‘s approval. The shihan ridiculed my punches in class to the amusement of others. And finally, the shihan wrote me a letter, which was delivered by Tamami to me at my apartment, informing me that my picky eating and failure to follow all his rules would mean I would continue to have allergies and harm any future children I might have. Apparently, this was supposed to put me on the straight and narrow. Instead, I quit.

So much for becoming a student of karate.

With my ikebana sensei

I had somehow met a young English-speaking woman named Kaori who invited me to join her in studying the Japanese art of flower arranging or ikebana. Ikebana is one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement, along with kodo for incense appreciation and chado for the tea ceremony. This then was something really Japanese to learn that I hoped would be a little more straightforward, a little less ceremonial than the tea ceremony. So, once a week for a little more than a year, Kaori picked me up to head to the home of her ikebana teacher for an hour-long class. We sat seiza style, with our knees folded under us and buttocks on our feet (for as long as I could stand it anyway though I did try to power through) on a tatami mat in front of a low table called a chabudai on which lay an array of carefully curated flowers, blossoms, branches, and other greenery and the all important pruning shears. We also had a kenzen, a weighted metal circle or square with pins to hold the stems of each item into place, and a container or vase. I bought my own.

The main elements of ikebana are mass, color, and line, so quite different from western flower bouquets which may use color but are often just bundled together. Like chorus and karate, my ikebana sensei teacher spoke no English; Kaori would do some translation for me, but basically, I just took my sensei’s lead. Ikebana is quite stylized, yet I did not have to have an exact reproduction of the sensei’s arrangement; I had some wiggle room. Though if I started getting too creative, I would get a certain look, maybe pursed lips, or a tut-tut to bring me back into line. We would build our arrangement and when we had the sensei’s approval, sketch them in our books. Then we would disassemble, wrap in tissue paper, and then recreate it using our sketches at home. I got a lot of enjoyment from ikebana: a sense of accomplishment when the teacher recommended fewer fixes and beautiful fresh flower designs in my home every week. But over time the satisfaction waned. Kaori had been studying ikebana for about three years and was still considered low intermediate! It was clear I would never progress very far in the eyes of a sensei of the craft. I had enjoyed it while it lasted, but saw little point in continuing.

Some of my Ikebana creations

At this point, I was 0 for 3 in my search for the right hobby for me. I heard about a teacher who taught Japanese dance in Kogushi, but the thought of yet another rigid, ceremonial pursuit did not have me all that excited. And then somehow, I do not remember now, I heard about a jazz dance class.

With my jazz dance teacher before a show

Like my other activities, the teacher and most of the students did not speak English. But in this case, I did not really need anyone to explain anything to me. I had taken ballet, tap, and hula as a child and though was not by any stretch of the imagination a dance prodigy, I had learned to follow steps pretty well. The teacher was very good, talented, and strict but also engaging, and we danced to popular American and British hits. One of our performances was to a popular song by Geri Halliwell in her post-Spice Girl phase.

I loved my dance class. We met twice a week at the Kogushi Community Center. It had a wonderful large high ceiled space with a well-worn wooden floor, excellent for dance, and a stage at one end. One of the best parts was that the work we put in amounted to something; we actually had performances! This was not one of the Japanese activities that one spends years and years and years on with little to show for it, such as Kaori spending three years studying Ikebana and Tamami doing karate for about five years yet was only second belt. With jazz dance, in a matter of six months, we had three shows, two in our Kogushi community center (one for a group of senior citizens on Respect for the Aged Day and another before Christmas) and one other on a bigger stage in another, inland, town. Our teacher somehow managed to book us as an opening act for some minor celebrity. I do not recall if she were a singer or a comedian or a little of both but she was fancy and had big hair and the crowd was pretty excited to see her. And they gave us a pretty nice welcome too. Pretty crazy that I was doing this dance thing in Japan in front of an audience of thousands.

  • Performing jazz dance in Japan

Even after jazz dance finished – and unfortunately with the passage of over two decades I do not remember why it did not continue – I continued to take lessons with that teacher. She had a studio in Ayaragi, just five train stops from Kogushi or a 30-minute ride on my motor scooter. As my time grew shorter in Japan, I went less and less and about a month before departure I told my teacher farewell.

All the activities I took part in during my sojourn in Kogushi offered me glimpses into the complex Japanese culture and an “in” in the little corner I found myself. I made tenuous connections with people that ultimately did not last — due most likely to a combination of my poor language skills, limited attention span, and the relatively short time in the country. That anyone bothered to let me into their circles for even a little while is probably a minor miracle and even in the case of the strange karate cult, I am glad they did. In the end, it was the least Japanese of my activities that gave me the greatest satisfaction and connection.

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Japan 1997-2000 Part Two: Teaching in Little Stick

In July 1997 I arrived in the small coastal town of Kogushi (which translates as “little stick”) to teach English as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. This is the second in a series of posts about my three years in Kogushi.

  • With the English club at Hibiki High School

As English teachers go in the JET Program, I think I probably had one of the best gigs out there. First, I had my base school, which I lived near and taught at three times a week. Then, I had a second school I visited once a week and two specialty schools that I alternated on the other day of the week. I know some teachers were always at just one school and felt a little bored while others rotated so frequently they never built any bonds with teachers or students, never felt they belonged. I got the best of both worlds.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and any other day when my other schools did not need me I could be found at my base school, the wonderfully named 響高校 or Hibiki Koko or Hibiki High School. (Hibiki means “sound” or “echo” in Japanese) Here I had a cubby for my shoes in the entrance hall and a desk in the teachers’ room. Each morning I arrived just before 8 AM and participated in the morning teachers meeting even though it was all in Japanese, a language I barely knew, and no one every told me what was said in the meetings (“participated” is perhaps too strong a word; I was present).

Hibiki seemed at first an odd place — well nearly all of the Japanese schools I worked in seemed different than what my perceptions of Japan had led me to believe. First, I really thought I was going to be teaching English, similar to what I had done in South Korea the year before. But instead I was more like a life sized humanoid tape player. Often I just said English things and the students repeated after me. In August, I had to attend a week-long English “summer camp” at Hibiki – probably one of the least summery and least camp-y experiences that could have been executed – but it was just a preview of how pretty much every English class at Hibiki would go my three years.

Second, I had these preconceived notions of a country on the cutting edge of technology and that this modern viewpoint would be reflected just about everywhere I turned. But in reality, while many Japanese had the newest gadgets in their cars (and even their toilets!), there were many areas of life where tradition reigned supreme. The education system seemed one of them. The schools had a bit of a worn, musty feel. They did not hire cleaning staff. Instead, once every week or two the students were gathered together and, under some teacher supervision, were given brooms, dust pans, dusting rags, and set upon the school cleaning. Have you ever tried to get a group of teenagers to do chores? Or been a teenager asked to do chores with your friends and classmates? You can imagine how great this experiment worked out.

  • Hibiki High School, a Hibiki cheerleader, sumo practice at Kogushi’s middle school

The school also had no air conditioning or heat. In the winter, a large wood burning stove with a metal pipe up to and along the ceiling, was set up in the teacher’s room. I guess I was a bit lucky with the stove placed just five feet from my desk, but still even there I could barely feel the heat. There was no heat anywhere else in the school; the students just had winter uniforms. Thing is, the change between summer and winter uniforms and the appearance and disappearance of the ridiculous heater was dictated entirely by the calendar, and not by actual temperatures. On November 1, winter uniforms on and heater makes it debut; on March 1 they go away.

Another curious aspect about Hibiki was it had only one major sport team: baseball, the most popular sport in Japan. The baseball team met every single day of the week except Sunday for practice. And yet it had only one or two games against another school the entire year! I thought back to my own high school, where a student could play three sports in a school year. For example, soccer in the fall, volleyball in the winter, and track and field in the spring. And they would have multiple opportunities to play against the teams of other schools in the area.

Once a week, on Thursdays, I taught at Hohoku High School. To get there, I took the little train from Kogushi Station north four stations to Takibe, a 30-minute journey, and then walked 20 minutes to the school. I would teach three classes with an enthusiastic Japanese Teacher of English, eat lunch in the teacher’s room, and stay for after school English club. Maybe because I was there only once a week I felt a little more welcome at Hohoku than Hibiki by both students and teachers. The students at Hohoku were more likely to go to a two year trade school or four year university after graduation than the students of Hibiki, so perhaps this made them more keen to learn English? Despite the nearly two hours commuting each time, I overall enjoyed the trip to Takibe, the break in routine. Sometimes I stayed in town later and had a soak in the really nice Takibe Hot Springs resort before heading home.

  • Teaching at the Deaf School

On Tuesdays, I alternated between two specialty schools. One a hospital school in Kogushi, the other a school for the hearing impaired in a town about 40 minutes south by train. These were my favorite places to teach. First, I found it impressive that these schools incorporated English language training. But second, the students were wonderful, far more positive about overcoming challenges and learning English than the exhausted teens I encountered in the “normal” schools (where many of the kids listed “sleeping” as their hobby), and the teachers super dedicated. I looked forward to Tuesdays each week.

At the hospital school, the kids were either day students who commuted daily from their homes or, if the level of care they needed was higher, they roomed within the hospital. I never really knew what illnesses most of the kids had — some were physical afflictions, some mental — they were just students. At times one or two might be too sick for lessons or even had seizures or episodes in class, but most of the time they were just like other kids, though we usually had WAY more fun in class.

Although I traveled the furthest to the hearing impaired, it was my favorite place to teach. I taught two classes, one with only two middle school boys and one with five primary school children. To help with the pronunciation of English words, the teacher taught me a series of gestures – such as one finger placed on my throat to symbolize a “n” sound, two fingers on the throat to symbolize an “m” and so on. This was different than signing. It just struck me as so extraordinary — not only that the kids were learning English, but also that I was lucky enough to be part of it.

  • Fun at the adult English classes at Akiko and Isao’s house

Five months after arriving in Kogushi I received a letter from a woman who had seen a write up of me in the town gazette. After I gave her a call, she offered to pick me up that very day to visit her and her husband at their home in Utama, the next town over. Akiko, a retired school teacher, and her husband Isao, an about to retire school principal, instantly made me feel at home. I stayed at their house for five hours that first meeting, through dinner and discussion. And that evening they asked if I would teach an adult English class with a group at their home. I did not really have all that much going on in my life in small town Kogushi and honestly with only two to three classes a day, I could do all my regular lesson planning at work — and still leave many unstructured hours. Especially given that much of my lesson planning was in vain as I mostly was just called upon to serve as the live native speaker reading text or be present as Exhibit A: English Speaking Foreigner at Hibiki’s English club. I was eager for something else with other people.

I ended up teaching the adults class at Akiko and Isao’s three times a month for two and a half years. I became pretty close with some of the students. Akiko and Isao hosted my mother, aunt, and aunt’s friend at their home for a few days when they visited and my tiny apartment was bursting at the seams. I went sailing with some of them (and I do not sail well). We went for drives, to a firefly festival, to a concert, to karaoke, and when I ended up in the hospital after an emergency appendectomy, they visited me. Teaching at Akiko and Isao’s is probably the best teaching gig I ever had. Though when I started I was just happy to have something else to do with my time and to earn a bit of extra money. (Just noting I arrived in Japan in summer 1997, at the very beginning of the Asian financial crisis. As I was paid in yen, I watched the value of my salary drop 25% from when I arrived to six months later. And my plans of saving loads of money tanked too.)

One day I was invited to do a special class at the local elementary school. I jumped at the chance for something out of my usual routine and to teach a more enthusiastic, less jaded age group. When I arrived at the school I found that a local media outlet arrived to cover this momentous occasion. I decided to do a basic body part lesson and the song “Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” but jazzed it up with a little intro and a few more hip movements. It was a huge hit and soon I had invitations pouring in to visit other elementary schools. At the third place I visited, I taught my special version to one class until we got really good and then we were placed on stage in front of the entire school with that class as my back-up dancers. I became a big time celebrity amongst the 5-10 year old set in Kogushi.

One of the students at Akiko and Isao’s adult class, Tomomi, had a daughter in kindergarten. I checked in with my supervisor at Hibiki and received approval to spend a few mornings a week with her class. It made a difference in my life to be with kids who just wanted to play and saw communicating with me in English as something fun. For Christmas I took part in the school pageant as all the kids and I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” first in Japanese, and then in English, in front of all the parents.

  • Kids Halloween English Class and the Toyoura Community Adult Evening English Class

I continued to be approached for special classes to do in my off time. I generally didn’t mind because there was not much to do in Kogushi for a single 20-something woman. There were only one or two small restaurants in town, a few more in the town over associated with the hot springs resort; there was no movie theater, no shopping mall, no local park, no museums, and so on. Teaching at least kept me focused and around other people. As the only “obvious” foreigner in town this was rather my forte. (There were other foreigners, such as Koreans and Filipinos who worked at the Kawatana Hot Springs resort — I referred to these as “stealth” foreigners as they could sort of blend in to the local population; I could not.) Several parents in town approached me about putting together a weekend English class and I did so focused on American activities such as Halloween, Christmas, and Easter. Then the Toyoura Community Center reached out to my supervisor to see if I would do an evening course for adults. I did that one too.

Overall, I enjoyed teaching English for three years in Kogushi. It afforded me a wonderful opportunity to interact with several segments of the local population from elementary to high school, from local teachers to adults from all walks of life.