Introduction by Matt, photo collage by Laura:
Japan... a magical land of robot toilets and efficient transportation. Our friend Susanna was kind enough to host us at her home in Tokyo for our first week and was even more kind to guide us on a weekend trip to Nikko. It was so helpful to have someone to ease us into the country and correct our terrible attempts at Japanese. Susanna knows the most cherished memory I will carry with me from my time in Japan was from when I spilled coffee all over myself and the pristine white sheets and comforter and pillows and wall of a hotel we stayed in. This is when I learned about a new level of shame that does not exist in the USA. For lack of a better word, it's "Clumsy foreigner who cannot speak Japanese and destroyed something beautiful" shame, and if you're interested in experiencing this, go to Japan and be generally careless. You will eventually spill coffee, destroy a paper door by pushing your hand through it, knock over a lamp, or break a delicate teacup. Highly recommended cultural experience.
I even wrote a haiku about it:
Coffee, a dark stain
Upon snow white hotel sheets
Shame consumes my soul
There are so many memories from Japan that it's difficult to put them into words. Instead of an incredibly long post I'll recount a few solid features of the country that stood out to me.
Toilets
Possibly the best thing about this entire trip. Every toilet in Japan is a dream come true. They are clean, fully kitted out with an array of features, and always available no matter where you are. There is a button on some toilets that simulates the sound of a toilet flushing so you don't waste water when hiding your...activities. For me, that's the most perfect example of the intersection of politeness and collectivist thinking I've ever encountered. I realize now that all other countries are second tier in their toilet culture compared to Japan, and I will never look at my useless NYC toilet the same way again. All it does is flush, when it could do so much more.
Toilets, always clean
Flushing water, running strong
Bidet washes all
Onsen
Another amazing Japanese amenity (there are many) are the onsen, or hot spring baths. These come in a variety of sizes and designs, and are a prominent feature in many ryokan (traditional Japanese inns). There are also sento (communal bathhouses), but suffice to say the Japanese love bathing in hot water along with other naked people, and it rocks. For the uninitiated, this is the deal: male and female areas are separate, you must be naked, you must clean yourself religiously before you enter the bath, and you must not keep a mental count of how many wieners you have seen (49). That last one is important.
Steaming hot water
Rejuvenates my body
Schlongs, never-ending
Silence
Have you ever thought to yourself, "I sure wish everyone around me would be quiet," but realized you live in a huge city and people just make noise so there's nothing you can do about it? My friend, you must visit Japan. Barring specific areas known for nightlife, I have never experienced such glorious total silence as I did in the cities of Tokyo (14 million), Osaka (2.7 million), and Hiroshima (1.2 million). Fukuoka was a bit loud but apparently it's the Yakuza capital of Japan so it gets a pass. I believe you can actually hear a pin drop at night in Japan's major cities, and if you did drop a pin somebody would politely ignore how rude you were by making all that pin noise until you realized you screwed up and felt great shame.
Bass does not exist
Don't raise your voice foolish man
People are sleeping
Trash Cans
To be fair, I must describe one thing about Japan I did not love. There are no trash cans anywhere. The entire country is incredibly clean, so when you produce trash, you must take it with you until you return home, where you then must navigate a byzantine system of trash pickup days, which from my understanding is the primary reason Susanna returns to Japan every 3 months, so she can put the trash out at 4am on a Tuesday. The point is, no country is perfect, and in this one particular instance NYC is superior. Hell, you can just dump all your household waste into the nearest trash can in New York with no problem, it's glorious. The rats will eat anything you drop along the way.
An apple eaten
In your pocket it must stay
Keep it with you, chump
An illustration of our travels in Japan:
Photos tell the who, what, how
Tokyo
Nikko
Osaka
Himeji
Kumano Kodo, Nakahechi Route to Yunomine Onsen
Kyoto
Hiroshima
Miyajima
Beppu
Suggested reading: the epic novel Shōgun by James Clavell -- the clash of cultures between Western "barbarians" (English, Dutch, Portuguese) and feudal Japanese under the emerging Tokugawa Shogunate provides a window into aspects of Japanese customs and beliefs you'll still experience on a visit today.
Suggested viewing: Spirited Away directed by Hayao Miyazaki; the anime series Death Note directed by Tetsurō Araki; the recent thriller series Alice in the Borderland directed by Shinsuke Sato.
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