The Long Goodbye from a Magical Year in Japan

Well, my year in Japan is a day away from its expiration date. There were times throughout the year when I surely thought the best-by date had passed. Where I thought I couldn't take another minute. When the language barrier and the separation from that which is familiar seemed to be too much to handle. But those moments would be followed by enough wonderful moments that it rounded out to a truly fantastic experience. In the end, the year has passed much the same as any other chunk of time that we carve out in our lives. In the blink of an eye.

Magic Maikos

I really felt like my time here was completed, like everything had come full circle when I went to the Kyoto lantern festival a couple of weeks ago (a four-kilometre stretch of temples and cobblestone streets lined by lanterns and jovial spirits) and was invited to have a drink with a family from Hawaii. In my sweats from my earlier gym visit and my sans make-up face, I decided "ah, what the heck" and took them up on the offer. It turns out that the bar we went to was regularly by Maikos (Geikos or Geisha in training), and that they, in fact, lived in the apartments above the bar.

Now meeting a Maiko/Geisha is one of those events that you never expect to happen to you. They are a disappearing group and it's usually the select few that have the money or the connections to frequent their establishments. But I ended up meeting two Maikos that night. So almost exactly one year after I saw the Geisha spring performance in my honeymoon days in Japan, I was sitting next to a kimono-clad Maiko in a smoky bar, singing Karaoke and getting cheered on by the crowds.

People often ask me why I decided to come to Japan, and to be honest I am still partly fleshing that one out. But certainly one of the reasons was that I was enamoured with the culture described in the many Geisha novels/biographies that I had read over the years. I never really wanted to admit this because the Geisha tradition throws a fancy kimono on a hostess-like practice. But nonetheless, the tradition, ceremony and attention to beauty and detail really fascinated me. It is at least part of a complex puzzle that made up my desire to come to Japan.

It was fascinating to listen to my companion’s rituals. How she attended all sorts of culture-rich classes during the day. How her kimono weighed about 25 pounds in the winter. How she got her hair done once a week and had to sleep on a wood block to keep her hairstyle all week. But at the same time, a bit of the mystery surrounding this tradition was destroyed. After a good talk, she was just a sweet girl with a fancy costume and stark white makeup on her face. 

Looking Good Miss

Sometimes miscommunication in this country produces quite humorous results, and lately it is like I'm talking in riddles. In my business class the other day I asked one of my students how he felt about one of the meetings that he had held the previous week in English. He got very shy and said that it was hard to say. I repeated the question with some urging. He ended up blurting out that it was very nice because I was nice to look at and that everything was all in place (as he indicated in my direction). He had misunderstood me and thought I was asking how he felt about me. And last week I sent an email with information for my Sayonara party, indicating that the location was TBD (to be determined). One of my Japanese friends emailed that she wanted to come but that she didn’t know where TBD was located. Love it. 

Running to the Toilet

A little while back my friend Nathan and I entered a 10k fun run in Wakayama. The run was like any other run in any other country I'm sure, but I couldn't get over the after-race energy snack. It wasn't an energy bar or a banana, but some prunes and oranges. Now I don't know if many of you are aware, but running is a good jolt for the digestive system, as are prunes. And oranges are not the best medicine for many stomachs I've encountered in my life, so it seemed a strange combination.

The View Through My Legs

I went to Amanohashidate a few weeks ago. Some bloke many moons ago decided that it was one of the three best views of Japan, which you see through upside down through your legs. It is a 4km sandbar that stretches across two ports and you are meant to "enjoy" it by heading up a cable car, stepping on a ledge backwards, bending over and looking at it through your legs. The attraction itself has become the hundreds of people an hour who bend at the waist and giggle while looking through their legs. 

There was a huge snowstorm that weekend and it was a virtual winter wonderland. So since I didn't really have anything that resembled a white Christmas here, I skipped forward on my ipod to the Christmas section and was bouncing around town to Boney M and Frank Sinatra. It was wonderful, sitting in an onsen with snow falling outside the frosted window, kicking my feet through 4 kilometres of white snow, and eating a hot and steamy bowl of udon and tempura in a cozy little noodle shop.

I stayed at a wonderful hotel for really cheap and the staff went above the call of duty as they drove me around town endlessly (it was really quiet). The best though was when I was heading out for a long walk and they said that I should take an umbrella. I declined politely, even after they insisted three times. They also gave me a number of concerned comments about my choice of shoes (summer hiking shoes with vents in them). Anyway, I went on my walk and after about 5 minutes could hear my name being shouted. I thought that I was hallucinating and decided to ignore the voices for the time being. But they kept getting louder and I turned around to see one of the hotel staff girls running after me with an umbrella (she was without Jacket or umbrella for herself I might add). She handed it to me and I was on my way. Apparently, they just couldn't stand the thought of me being out there without protection!!! The service!!!

Bathing Bliss

My name is Carrie and I am a Bathaholic. I'm a bath lady. A lady who bathes frequently, in public...naked. I am honestly addicted to soaking my skin off in scalding hot baths with a ton of naked women. In my first big bath, I walked in clutching my modesty towel tightly to my chest as I entered the cavernous space. I nearly lost my cool and dropped my security blanket when a little boy came sliding to a halt in front of me and gasped in what could only be described as gut-wrenching horror. His wide mouth in a mini interpretation of *The Scream* was quickly followed by a curling up of the sides of his mouth into a playful grin followed by squealing laughter. Initial uncomfortable *There's a naked gaijin in the room* moment handled stoically, I was relaxed and ready to bathe, and I haven't looked back.

It is ritualistic and there's something really unique about a modern country that still heads in droves to public bathhouses to scrub up and take a soak. Baths are everywhere. On cruise ships, in gyms. There’s even a massive bath called Spaworld that you can literally spend the whole night in. I am lucky enough to have a Sento (bath) right next to my building and there is no better way I am convinced to cure a bone-chilling cold that has seeped through my pores all winter through lack of any semblance of Central heating.

Japanese women must have the smoothest skin in the world, the way they scrub for hours and slap on moisturizer while repeating what sounds like mini mantras and making random grunting noises. The other day I was all salted up in the salt sauna room, sweating my aches away, when a little lady next to me asked through gestures if I would like her to salt scrub my back. How could I say no?

If you want to pay a little extra money you can even have a woman wearing a black lace bra and panty outfit scrub your flesh raw on a table in the middle of the entire complex. In my local sento there's a Jacuzzi bath for two, a scalding hot bath, a brain-numbing cold bath, a strong jet bath and a bath that is filled with electric currents that feels like, I can only guess, that you are getting mildly electrocuted (too bad I can't read the warning sign on the wall). It's a bit of a surreal yet totally relaxing experience. In the main area before you leave you run across a multitude of exhibitionists having a beer, a smoke, sitting in a massage chair, having an ice cream, and occasionally slapping themselves with moisturizer.

It is usually pretty quiet when I'm around, but the chatter normally picks up double speed when I leave and I always hear random words that I understand like "Eigo" (English) and "gaijin" (foreigner), followed by laughs. My dream is to be a fly on the wall for one day and to be able to understand all that is said about me in Japanese.

Besides scrubbing down to the bone in local sentos, women here don't seem to be shy about shaving every part of their body (except for the less seen areas which are left Adam and Eve style). They even shave their faces. The other day in my high school class a girl was intently looking into a portable mirror, which I kept telling her to put away. For some reason, she didn't seem to hear me and as I approached her I realized that she was shaving her face with a little face shaver. Right there in the middle of class in front of the boys and all. Again with the contradictions. It is rude to eat and walk in Japan but seemingly normal to shave your face in class.

TO DO - Burnout

I am burning myself out as usual trying to complete my Japan to-do list before I leave. Of course, there are things that I just can't possibly do, but at the same time, there are things that are remotely possible that I keep adding to my list. One of these things was to stay in a capsule hotel. You may wonder why in the name of all that is sane I would want to pay to hole myself up in a coffin-like cubicle for the night, but it is (just like staying at a love hotel, eating at a true sushi bar and bathing with strangers) a truly Japanese experience.

I hopped into a cab after spending a ladies' night with my friends in Kobe and said in my best katakana accent (making many English words discernable in Japanese) capsule hoteru kudasai. He ended up driving me to the 24-hour Kinkos to get someone to speak to me in English, but after a brief interlude, I ended up at a massive community centre-like building that had capsules for women (many only cater to salarymen) and was quite a hoppin' joint for 3 in the morning on a Sunday night.

The reception was filled with groups of people hanging around and I was escorted up to the women's only floor where I was led to my locker and capsule and shown the floors onsen and lounge area. It was swanky and clean and at 30 dollars a night, I was sold. Despite the hour, there were groups of girls in the onsen bathing away (and this was a real onsen meaning the water came from the earth). I had a soak and retreated to my capsule to pretend to watch a little Japanese television (just because I could) and then to attempt to fall asleep, though the classical muzak being piped through the building made it impossible without some heavy-duty earplugs.

Time to Say Goodbye

The big guys were back in town last week. The Grand Sumo tournament returned to Osaka and as the stadium is a block away from the office, fans and sumo gods took over the sidewalks. The very first touristy thing I did in Japan was attend a sumo tournament, jet-lagged and falling asleep in the bleachers after one container of "one cup sake". So to see them in town again before I left created a perfect symmetry to my time here!

There is a lot I will miss in Japan. I am convinced that there is nowhere else in the world where I will experience gasps and cries of Kirei (beautiful) as I walk down the street, or where I will get paid to interview children or to sing Karaoke and talk all night (more about that in another email), or find a jeans store/supermarket/tako yaki stand/pachinko parlour/and anything else you can think of 24 hours a day. Or be able to get anywhere in the city by either a 10-minute walk or 20-minute bike ride, or soak the night away with a beer and a bath. I of course will not miss being stared at when I have no make-up on, having to use gestures to communicate frequently, or my clothes smelling like ramen when I hang them out to dry.

The open road or sky beckons and I will write you more from there. My plan for the time being is to head from Japan to China for about 20 days. Then I am linking up with a Habitat for Humanity Global Village project in Kuching Malaysia. (I was collecting some donations for that here and I'm not so good at my pitch. I started telling people that I was collecting money to build a house in Malaysia without mentioning the charity bit. Thankfully someone pointed this out before I tarnished my image in front of too many people!). I will then head to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Australia and maybe Hawaii before I plan to head back to the big TO in early July.

I'm really very sad to leave this amusement park of lights, people and noise. Life is so vibrant and in the moment here. You can't help but feel the spark in the air. I am however very happy to escape before the cicadas and cockroaches arrive. I know I'm going to regret saying this, but catching a spider in my house in Canada is infinitely easier that catching a speed-running, hard-shelled, resilient cockroach. EECH...I'm getting shivers from the mention alone.

I have left Japan changed in so many ways (not the least of which is that I can no longer go to the bathroom without the automatic flushing sound to mask the sound of me going to the bathroom).

I am so glad I made the leap, met so many great people and had so many truly wonderful experiences. On to the next adventure!