A whirlwind week
A friend visited from Chicago, we hit up Tokyo-Osaka-Nara-Kyoto
Staying in Tokyo Koreatown, in Osaka’s dotonbori
Our friend Natalie visited us over this last week. It was just enough time to stay a few nights in Tokyo and then Osaka with day trips to Nara and Kyoto. It challenged Raghav and me to navigate these cities with a guest, and to put our experience and language acquisition from the last six weeks into new use. It also gave us the opportunity to “revisit” places that we had previously been to, explore new areas of those places, and do things from our list.
With Natalie we experienced the joy of a hot ramen bowl on a rainy day, saw the first sakura blossoms of Tokyo, ate savory obento on Shinkansen, hiked up part of Fushimi Inari Taisha for a second time, celebrated with a lemon sour (レモンサワー), watched Natalie feed rice crackers to rather aggressive deer, ate specialty nigiri at Osaka’s market with fish caught that morning, bathed at sentō nearly every night, visited with piglets at a pig cafe, and stayed in a capsule hotel in Akihabara in Tokyo. These are a few of the things we did. And then there were also the many easy, lovely in-between moments that we had as well.
It was nice and a little surreal to have someone from home suddenly be with us. It was comforting and familiar. It provided me with another perspective to reflect on what I have achieved and attained over the last 6+ weeks in terms of knowledge, language, and a little more ease and know-how in Japan. That was a boost for me to recognize progress that has been made.
Falling in love with sentō
Our greatest discovery was the neighborhood sentō or bathhouse where we went to bathe nearly every night, first in Tokyo and later in Osaka. Our Airbnbs in Tokyo and Osaka were tight and small. There was very little space for the showers and the ventilation was poor, leaving everything damp and drippy. The bathhouses were clean and spacious. There was the space to sit on a stool and leisurely move through the soaping, showering, and eventual soaking in the hot baths. It was luxurious and inexpensive at about $3.68.
Raghav actually first “discovered” sentō at the tail end of our Kyoto stay. He has a good nose for finding places and he is also a creature of comforts. There is no barrier too big that he cannot overcome to do what he deeply and somewhat obsessively enjoys. I watched with a lot of secondary stress as Raghav called four squash gyms in Kyoto, asking in Japanese whether he could book a private lesson. Raghav asked me to add that he was ultimately successful in booking a lesson. A mark of perseverance in spite of limited Japanese language and really no telephone etiquette.
Sentō has joined squash in the things that Raghav loves. The bathhouses are divided by gender so I don’t see him for the time that we spend in sentō. However, I got some idea of what he does in there when he recently asked me if taking 3+ separate showers with 3+ bath soaks in between is too excessive.
Sakura’s early blossoms
Luckily for Natalie, she was able to see a few early sakura blossoming in her brief time here. I previously didn’t fully understand the hype of sakura. Now after weeks of experiencing gray, rainy, and cold days in Japan, I better understand the excitement. The monotony of gray is suddenly broken, first by the fuchsia of ume and then the early pink sakura that follows, ending with the explosion of blooms in late March and early April.
It is marvelous that these delicate blossoms survive and even thrive in the still-chilly winter days. The gradual emergence and progression of the different trees and blossoms marks the seasonal transition in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. It’s like a party that marks the beginning of the end of winter days. I couldn’t resist taking more photos of flowering trees and including them below.
Now to end with birds spotted, or rather ducks spotted, from the last few weeks. Ducks of a variety of species are plentiful here. We have seen them in Tokyo parks, outside of Tokyo, in Yokohama, Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka. There are many waterways and small to medium water bodies where they take up residence.
Laughed out loud at Raghavs persistence and the payoff he experienced. Also fun with Natalie! Thanks for the updates Tatum.
Good belly laughs at several points with Raghav's 3 baths and 3 showers. He gets a lot for $3.68 !