Needless to say, it was fascinating to
learn about Japanese culture from my more than gracious host. We also met
up with a coworker of his who is now doing her 3 month internship with his
company as she pursues her masters in Romania. She was quite fun as well
and helped us to understand one another's versions
of English. We three had an incredible day exploring Tokyo and it was an
experience that will not soon be forgotten. I'd have to rank it the most
remarkable couchsurfing experience I've ever had, which is
really saying something as I've had several fond and memorable experiences
through that network.
Halfway through the afternoon, I remarked
to my newly found Romanian friend that we were being spoiled since our Japanese
tour guide was paying for everything. She didn't agree until I explained
that I had used spoiled in the sense of how grandparents spoil their
grandchildren by treating them to many things that are costly to their budgets
but they do with great joy. I'm pretty sure my host spent well over $500
on both of us showing us his city; like I said it was humbling to receive that
amount of hospitality. It was also a huge relief as I had started to
wonder how much I was going to have to dip into my checking account to cover
three days in Japan after having spent around $80 a day for the first two days.
We did many incredibly fun and
entertaining things on Saturday, and I'll try to provide a brief synopsis here
although it will undoubtedly be an injustice to the day no matter how I'm able
to convey how much we did and experienced. We went to different shopping
districts and I witnessed that Japanese culture is almost or more of a consumer
culture than American culture can be. We went to lunch at a sushi
restaurant that had a running sushi train that brought around plates in front
of you and then continued on to the next customer to entice you to pick up that
plate in hopes of satisfying your pallet. The operation was in fact very
successful, as we all had several plates but to my surprise my host, who was
much skinnier than I am, had one more plate than I had.
Later, we drove the Toyota Prius that my host had borrowed for the day
from the city's car share program to another shopping district and went to the
craziest restaurant I've ever been to. It was a trendy place in Tokyo
apparently and had only been in business for about 5 years but had over 20
restaurants in Tokyo alone. I'm going to take a wild guess and say the
waitresses were about 15 or 16 years old and were dressed in a maid's attire.
They came to our table and told us how to order, which involved hand
movements as well as meowing like a cat to gain their attention. During
the entire dessert experience I'll call it, I was distracted by a male customer
who wore a mask for some reason and was definitely a show stealer. After
we had spent probably about 15-20 minutes at our table, the lights blacked out
and a disco ball hanging from the ceiling started casting its light around the
room while different waitresses took turns singing karaoke and getting the
crowd involved. They had sold glow sticks right beforehand for people to
use to make the sing-along more interactive and fun, and the masked man had
brought his own version of a glow stick which was battery powered and somewhere
in the middle of a glow stick and a light saber. He danced in his place
to the music being played and more people, including myself and newly found
friends, were entranced by his dancing as opposed to watching the waitress on
stage sing her little heart out. I asked my host if I could take his
picture when we first got there but he assured me it was considered
ill-mannered in Japanese culture. Moments later, I saw a Japanese woman
take his picture so I felt justified when I snuck several pictures and even a
video when my host wasn't looking.
Having our bellies filled with sushi and
ice cream, we needed some time to walk it off so we went and explored some
Japanese gardens that were pretty to look at. They had a technology
called DryMist that you could walk under to get
cooled off, much like the mist in Phoenix and other desert cities out west.
There was a live performance of what my host said was the equivalent of
their American Idol so that was fun to witness as well.
We then proceeded to ask our Romanian
friend if she wanted to join us on our trip to the onsen, or public baths.
My host assured her that men and women are separated when they bathe, but
nevertheless she politely declined so we took her and dropped her off back at
her flat, which sounded about as small as Steffani's flat when she was teaching in Osaka a
couple of years ago. Having dropped off our Romanian friend, my host and
I continued on our journey to the onsen,
which was located on an island.
The cool thing about this island is that
my host informed me it was built on an old landfill, if I understood him right
which I'm pretty sure I did. It reminded me of a park in Sarasota that
had been built atop a capped landfill. It was an enormous island, one
that simultaneously displayed what must have been a disgustingly huge landfill
and an act of scientific and technological brilliance to pull off making it
suitable to build mini-skyscrapers as well as a separate business district on.
We crossed under a tunnel as opposed to
crossing over a beautiful bridge which reminded me of the Skyway that I take back home to get to St
Pete or Tampa whenever I need to fly or go to a Rays game and arrived shortly
thereafter to the onsen.
This was no ordinary onsen,
to relay the understatement of the year. When you first walk up to it,
you are directed to the left for the human onsen or to the right for the dog onsen. It
occurred to me that Japanese people were as crazy about their dogs as American
people are back home, perhaps even more so. Something is wrong in both
countries if we make sure our dogs are well-fed and even sometimes clothed in
the winters depending on the owner but there are people who are not. Not
sure this can be said of Japan as I didn't see one single beggar on the streets
of Tokyo while I was there though.
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