RYOKAN 'N ROLLIN'



Back from Kyoto over the weekend (September 11-13). (The only quiet weekend before classes start Sept. 21.)

I picked Kyoto for my first major outing because:

a) It's in the region (under two hours by train)
b) It's crammed with traditional Japanese sites and crafts
c) It's tourist-friendly for the English speaker

Kyoto is the former capital, where the emperor (tennoo) and his family lived for generations. They only took off for Tokyo in 1869. It was also a famous Buddhist center of learning, so it's a bit like Japanese Buddhist Vatican City with scores of temples, zen monasteries, etc.

I figure any city as major as Kyoto in Japanese culture is somewhere I'll be coming back to again and again, so I didn't want to squeeze everything in breathlessly in one time. So, I purposely selected a quiet side of the city to inaugurate my first of many anticipated visits: Maruyama ("Round Mountain") Park on the east side up against the tree-covered hills.

In my guide book I had found a semi-traditional Japanese inn (ryokan) -- Yoshimizu Inn -- and booked a room ahead. Some such inns are distinctly uncomfortable with Western guests, but this one has both a Japanese and international clientele. I figured it was a good start for a "ryokan virgin" like me.

I arrived at the inn after dark. It was tucked up in the trees on the hillside. Quiet and coolness. My train travel had cost only about $7 total from Nishinomiya, but the taxi for five minutes from Gion bus stop to the inn cost nearly as much! It's in windy back roads in the park itself, so the taxi driver took a while to find it. But once inside the door, I parked my outside shoes in the front hall and got my guest slippers. The Japanese inn keeper poured me a drink of water as I signed the guest slip.

We clumped the wooden hall together in slippers back to my room. It was kind of a "he-stoops-to-conquer" arrangment. The rounded doorway was only about 3.5' tall ("like a tea ceremony room," he said). I had asked for the "6 tatami mat size" advertised on the web (a "medium" room), and each straw mat was about 5'-6' long and fit together like a puzzle. The wood-and-paper doors opened onto an enclosed porch and, beyond that, a garden, which was too dark to notice much of when I arrived. No bathroom, not even a sink. Those were communal, down the hall.

The all-wood room was spare and barely furnished. A low table was in the middle with guest brochures and policies (curfew by 11 pm, bath open 5:30-11:30 pm, breakfast 8-9, check-out 10 am). A homely touch: a guestbook that previous guests had written mash notes to the inn in - in both Japanese and English, I was happy to see. A small laquer make-up table was set on the floor in the corner with a cloth over the mirror (bad feng-shui to have an exposed mirror, I guessed). In the corner, a small screen with hooks to hold clothes and the special guest bathrobe (yuukata) and sash. The bedding is kept in a closet: a mattress, sheet, comforter and pillow to put on the mats. Very comfy!

After leaving my bag and walking through the park to get back to the main street in Gion district, I got a soba noodle supper. When I got back to the inn, I was all set to enjoy the o-furo (Japanese hottub) in the big marble room down the hall, but some Japanese woman had jumped in ahead of me just as I managed to get my yuukata and towel. I was bound and determined not to give up "my" bath, so stayed and read a magazine. Half an hour later, I finally got to enjoy the 45-degree (C) bath water and get rid of the day's travel sweat before bedtime. Heaven! (By the way, you can't just jump in the tub; you have to wash all over outside the tub with soap and water and rinse with a wooden bucket before putting your body in the tub!)

At breakfast, we had a nice mix of Japanese and Western guests. Pretty continental: toast, jam, tea or coffee and a bowl of onion broth soup. Sunday we were treated to a boiled egg.

Saturday's tour: walk from inn to the end of the "Philosopher's Walk", a foothills' path along a canal and historic shrines and temples that a Kyoto U. professor used to use for his "constitutional" in the early 20th century.

Good thing I did that in the morning. The off-and-on rain became entirely "on" all afternoon, and I sat grimly with the other wet rat customers in the cafeteria of the old Imperial Palace waiting for a dry window. It never came, so I got the bus back to Gion and the main shopping drag - the best place on a rainy day!

Sunday morning was fair weather again, and I took advantage of it by walking the other way from the inn south along the foothills through historic old-fashioned Japanese neighborhoods (filled to the brim with every nick-nack and food store you can visualize!) The tourist "pilgrimage" ends at Kiyomizu-dera ("Pure Water Temple"), a thousand-year-old Buddhist temple up in the hills.

Since cash was getting very short (none of my cash cards have worked here - I'm credit card rich, but cash poor!), I had to count out my trainfare home to the last yen coin and keep it in the inn so I didn't get stranded! (Train companies accept only cash.)

So, the weekend was great R&R and gave me a great feeling of accomplishment getting through three train changes (two completely new stations to me) and survive an entire weekend on just a few yen (+ credit card) a day.

NOBLE STUBBORNNESS

That’s the original motto of the university. Nowadays, they prefer the newer “Mastery for Service,” but you can still find plaques in English with the old stubbornness motto – perhaps part of that tradition of noble stubbornness!

We’re nearing the end of week 2 here, and I’m happy to say I know my way around (both walking and by train) better than the first week. My contract is signed. I’ve figured out how to use my Japanese washing machine (in Japanese script) – but not my refrigerator, which I can’t seem to get cooler because I still can’t read the settings.

Most of my neighbors at Canaan House apartment complex - 15 minutes' walk from campus - are fellow teachers here, so we help each other out. The other new teacher, Susan from Ohio, shares the same landing with me, and we’ve been out once this week together to try a local ramen place that a Japanese staff member recommended. (It was 4 times further from the train station than I had understood. One elderly lady hair dresser who we stopped to ask directions of walked with us the entire way for about 10 minutes!)



Got up the nerve Sunday to take the train down two stops to the main Nishinomiya station, which has a sky walk directly to the new glitzy “Nishinomiya Gardens” mall. (They use the English name.) Four stories of fascinating familiarity and bewildering differences. Banana Republic, Cold Stone Creamery - yes. Cul de Paris (“anus of Paris”) - no. In fact, I doubt the French would recognize that last one.

I was flummoxed at one stationery store when the cashier kept asking 'ik-kai?' (“one time?” Or did she mean, “first floor?”) I just kept saying “ii desu!” (that’s fine) and finally got the bag. Turns out you can opt to split your purchase price into several payments – although how many Japanese couldn’t afford a $33 purchase?

The other thing that strikes the North American shopper here is the relentless verbiage of the store/restaurant help (who seem to be everywhere). They assault every entering customer with a kind of nasal ‘irasshaimase-e-e-e!’ (welcome!) over and over and jointly chime in ‘arigato gozaimashita-a-a-a’ as they leave, and every new clerk you encounter bows and asks if you need help. Fortunately, you aren’t expected to carry on a lengthy conversation, just nod wanly in their direction.

This weekend, I’ve booked a room (“6 tatami mats”-size) at a semi-traditional Japanese inn in classical Kyoto, about an hour away. A nice get-away before classes start and one of Japan’s more tourist-friendly (and English-speaking) destinations.

Domo arigato gozaimashita-a-a-a-a!

DAY #5: CONTRACT!

Well, it's been a slow week, unpacking in my spacious apartment a 20-min. walk from Kangaku (KGU) campus. I arrived Monday evening, August 31 (see previous post). Each day has been small ventures out on foot into the neighborhood to explore nearby amenities and shop for basics.

Friday was the first really official day: contract signing (with one other new EFL teacher from Ohio U) at 9:45, then introductions at the first staff meeting of the Language Center EFL instructors. They seem like a nice - if a bit young - group. A couple of Canadians have somehow slipped in the mainly American staff.

The contract signing was interesting. This is a very JAPANESE university. All the signs, formal papers, the boards outside the ENGLISH program - even instructions on the hot water pot - are in exclusively Japanese characters. The tall HR man who handed out our contracts in Japanese and English spoke only Japanese, and although we obviously spoke little Japanese, he helpfully talked on and on about contract details - IN JAPANESE. Our English-speaking Language Center assistants could barely get a translation in edgewise! He could have saved everyone lots of time by just having us read the translations and ask questions via our interpreter.

The next two HR people were two young women with documents from Social Services (our health insurance etc.) and pension. If we leave Japan after three years, we get most of our pension back, but if we stay longer, we lose it all unless we stay 25 years! We are exempt from Japanese taxes for two years, but then get hit in year #3 if we stay. Our contracts extend automatically from Year 1 into Year 2 (unless we get arrested for burglary or some other major infraction!) We can stay up to 4 years at the institution - max. Under those circumstances, two years sounds like the best of all possible plans.

Some interesting cross-cultural oddities:

- At the bank where I changed my $85 into yen, to get a 1000 yen note ($10) that they had just given me broken into smaller denominations, I had to fill out yet another form!

- Everything is wrapped. You can buy one banana in a sealed plastic bag! Individual cookies in a box are individually wrapped.

- As in Britain, cars (and pedestrians) hold to the left. When meeting an oncoming stranger, you each veer to the left.

- Homes don't use driers. Clothes are hung out, not on lines, but on poles with hangers.

- People refold and re-cover used items. On ANA flying to Japan, my Japanese seatmates would recover every container on their tray, fold the hot towel, etc. when they were done. Even waste should be neat and tidy! Nor surprisingly, the Japanese word that means 'beautiful' [kirei] also means 'neat'/'clean'.

And I could go on, but it's Friday after work hours, and I need to eat!

So ... Ja mata!

DAY #1: THE LAND OF THE SETTING SUN

I’m here! With all my luggage!

The ANA flight LAX to Tokyo left at 1:30 pm on a sunny LA afternoon August 30 and followed the afternoon sun all the way across the Pacific to Japan, landing about 4:30 pm in Tokyo, eleven hours later. But of course, by then it was the next day, Monday August 31.

The flight was uneventful until the very last, when we ran up against “The Typhoon that Trashed Tokyo.” The crosswinds were so bad that the pilot had to abort the landing at the last minute. Abruptly we were flung back in our seats as the plane nosed sharply upwards. He tried once more after circling aimlessly (it seemed) for a while, and again the rains were lashing, winds pounding as we hit the runway very fast and wobbly – then righted, landing safely. We passengers were all so relieved we broke into spontaneous applause in the cabin! But even when the airliner had parked at the gate, the winds kept the huge 777 rocking side to side.

Flight #2 into Osaka was less dramatic, and as the clouds parted, we could finally see city lights below in the darkening sky. On meeting me outside the luggage area (all 9 bags/boxes arrived safely!), Akiko Hirota, the Language Center admin assistant told me Osaka had been spared the typhoon and hadn’t even felt a raindrop. Her boss, Mr. Okazaki was a bit overwhelmed to see my two trolleys full of luggage, ($770 for excess baggage, under the $1000 limit for a new employee shipment) but he gamely tried to fit it all into his midsized sedan. No go. We finally hired a taxi for me, Akiko, and the biggest box!

When she opened the door to my new (quite spacious) apartment in Canaan House, Akiko gently reprimanded me for walking in without taking off my shoes at the door.

Right! Take shoes off. Go inside. Put shoes back on. Go outside. Take shoes off. Go inside. (Darn those laces!) Make mental note to wear lace-less shoes.

The place was bare and functional with a table and chairs, cheap-ish sofa, TV set, bed without bedding, desk, etc. Most importantly, it had working AC! (Nishinomiya is still quite muggy.)

I quickly realized I had no food and had had no meal since a Pacific-view lunch on the plane and would have a very unhappy belly soon after they left. So, Hirota-san and Okazaki-san walked me down the narrow street to the train station, where there are a number of shops and restaurants. The basement supermarket was bright and spotless and had the normal supermarket goodies. I wavered on the cheeses to go with my breakfast bread, however. All were in such tiny packages that cost $3-5 (or they seemed to gravitate to the heaviest creamy cheeses like Camembert). I finally settled on some string cheese (lower-fat) in sealed plastic lunchbox packs. The super-spicy version, it turned out!

Armed with a survival supply of snacks, paper towels, toilet paper, and hand soap, they finally left me in peace. And I got to bed at a respectable 10:30 pm local time, setting the alarm for 6:45 am. (I always try to beat jetlag by immediately starting local waking and sleeping times.)

Konbanwa! (Good night!)