Enough Hairy Wrinkly Crotches for a Lifetime

I woke up to my last day in Tokyo (I’ll be transiting through in less than a week but that doesn’t count). It was a pretty stressful morning. I started packing and trying to cram all the stuff into my suitcase again. I ate the beef tongue from the conbini last night and then watched some TV. This one show had a bunch of celebrities competing to see who could read the most kanji (Chinese characters, not the phonetic Japanese scripts). I can see why they adapted the Iron Chef show’s format instead, I’m not sure if American celebrities would like to have their literacy tested on national television.

I also started the laundry. The hotel had some coin-operated laundry machines…in the parking lot basement. Talk about weird. There were some other foreigners there as well trying to figure out the machines. At least the machines dispensed soap by themselves – I was worried about trying to find detergent. I forgot how weak the washers and dryers are here – they only use 100V. I’m glad I didn’t bring many thick cotton items or sweatpants. The few pieces I had had to be run through the dryer again. Some of my sports socks were pretty thick and took an hour to dry. It was pretty stressful waiting for laundry and then packing before I had to checkout at 11. I worked on the wedding speech and planned the schedule for the day while I waited by the laundry machines.

I was able to get everything done and checkout of the hotel on time, miraculously. I shot off an email to SM to ask for help to translate the intro of my speech into romaji too – talk about last minute. Whoops. I left my luggage and suits at the hotel front desk and went off to Denny’s to give it one more try. I went to the one around the corner. No English menus. Hmm. I tried the omurice again and was not disappointed. I also had fresh kiwi juice and it was really good. I paid for my meal in coins – yeaaa….

After Denny’s I went to Keio to pickup a bento for the train and some omiyage gift box for SF’s family since I was staying with them. I decided to go for the glutinous rice specialists for my bento. I only got to eat it when it was cold, but I’m sure it would have been better if it was hot. I then went back to the hotel to pickup my luggage and headed to Tokyo station to catch the shinkansen to Kakegawa for the wedding. I arrived at Tokyo station 45 minutes before my train. I built in a lot of cushion because it is Golden Week and it’s a long way from the local JR trains to the Shinkansen section. I guess better safe than sorry. For awhile I was trying to send an SMS to MP to pick me up at Kakegawa and I couldn’t get it to work – then I remembered that Japanese cellphones can only SMS phones of the same mobile phone company. They can send emails but I didn’t have SF’s mobile email. I eventually called to tell them to pick me up. It’s really weird about the SMS though.

On the train ride down, I practiced the speech and enjoyed wonderful views of Mt. Fuji while traveling at 180kph on the “local” Kodama Shinkansen train. It felt more stable than the LIRR going at 60kph. Heh. I arrived in Kakegawa without incident. MP and SF’s brother, Takeshi picked me up. He was a pretty cool guy and the most outgoing of all her brothers. We then went to go meet MP’s family at the hotel to take them back to SF’s home. We also picked up SF’s friend, Yoko who came from Osaka for the weddng. She was one of the happiest/friendliest Japanese people I’ve ever met. She laughed at everything.

The ride back to SF’s home took us out of the “city” and through some rice fields and some of the narrowest roads I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of driving on. The roads were usually flanked by deep canals and ditches with no guardrails. I could definitely see us flipping over and falling into a canal and then drowning like those poor guys in the humvees in Iraq. After the harrowing ride we made it to her home. It was part temple, part house. I was lucky enough to be staying in the renovated building but it still did not have hot water – all the faucets were cold only. Thankfully the place had a western-style toilet and I was truly thankful for the heated seat the next morning. No hot water but a heated toilet seat, hmm. The old part of the home was fairly large and only had a traditional ofuro bathing area – a fire/coal heated bath and no shower. I think all the rooms were tatami. The renovated building was all tatami as well and they were simply amazing. I forgot what it was like living in a room with no furniture again. My ass was hurting by the time I left.

SF drives a silver xA just like mine! It’s funny seeing the steering wheel on the other side of my own car. It’s a Toyotal ISE or something here. Apparently there isn’t any power steering and driving through the narrow rice field roads is a bit more taxing but then again, it might be better without power steering so you can feel your car slipping into the ditch a second or two earlier.

Being surrounded by rice fields, the traditional house, and the old bathing area – it really doesn’t get any more authentic than that. It was truly a wonderful experience. We had a large communal style dinner with 30+ people. Many relatives had come from Osaka for the wedding and it was getting really hard to remember any names or the relationship they had with SF. There were also quite a few worshipers that stayed at the home as well so remembering any names/relationships would be close to impossible that first day.

I think SF’s family believed that foreigners ate a lot. The food just kept coming. It was really great home cooking. It’s just what I needed after all the greasy (but good) meals I had in Tokyo. I’m not sure if MP’s family liked the food though. After being stuffed at dinner several of the men went to a public ofuro bath house because there was only one bath in the house and it would take forever with all the relatives staying there and they probably could not boil that much water anyway. It was me, MP, Takeshi, and two second cousins of SF. They were the husbands of two of the daughters of SF’s father’s sister (I think). From what I could piece together I think one of them is some bike racer. He said sponsors pay for all his gear and apparently he’s ranked 2nd in Western Japan. Pretty nuts. BMS-R.com

The ofuro experience was pretty cool. Takeshi drove us 30-40 minutes and then paid for all of us too. I felt pretty bad so I got him a bottle of water later. Haha. Communicating in the ofuro was a bit tough but I think MP and I got the general idea. We sat in the outdoor bath for the most part and then showered on the stools. I wish I had mosaic/censored vision I could have turned on in the bath house. I just tried to keep my eyes level and keep the hairy balls in my peripheral vision only. We had lockers for shoes and then another set of lockers for clothes. You had to put Y100 to use the lockers but I was pleasantly surprised when it refunded the money after we were done using them. After the bath we went to the lobby and the big thing to do was to get ice cream and have a smoke. I also spotted an autographed Nagasawa Masami calendar and an autographed photo poster of Nagasawa Masami at the place. The thought of sharing the same bathwater as Nagasawa Masami (sort of) gave me goosebumps.

We passed out once we got back to the house. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.