JAPAN MISCELLANY

1. TIME ZONES: My blog remains set to US Central Time. Thus the time and date listed for each post is Madison time. I am 14 hours ahead of you. Right now, you are stuck in April, for me it is already May (Saturday morning). All this to say that I am now officially an EU-nian! [Today, Poland joins the EU. As yesterday’s International Herald Tribune reported (I broke my news reading abstinence and read it on-line), today’s monumental expansion of the EU has enormous consequences for the European continent. The IHT commented that never has something so important to the European community received so little coverage in the US.]


2. YUKATA: A reader passed on the correct term for the bathrobe-like garment worn by those attending Japanese public baths – it is the yukata. When asked why I didn’t in the end partake, I have but one answer: laziness. You have to scrub yourself silly before entering a public bath and everyone I’m sure would watch to make certain that the one American, with odd overseas customs, adheres to this one. I have heard that sometimes people take as long as half an hour for the pre-wash. After you have done this, you get to soak. I have, in my past travels here, soaked in a hot Japanese tub. My two word reaction? Freaky hot! (That is not to say it wasn’t pleasant in a steamy sort of way.)


3. FOOD: Last night I had dinner at a place that again offered the “all you can eat” option. This restaurant’s version of it was still different: it was, for the most part, a buffet (though you could order additionally freshly made tempura and grilled scallops) and you could eat anything at all from it, and drink any one type of drink as well, so long as you were out of there within 90 minutes. No problem, when you eat alone, 90 minutes tends to be the average amount of time you’d spend in a restaurant anyway. The meal for me was noteworthy because it had (in addition to other things which I will not mention because I am embarrassed at the glutenous way I approach dinners here) this recurrent trilogy, pictured here at the side.

4. NAGANO: In a few hours I am leaving Matsushima and heading inland toward the Japanese Alps, my second “scenic spot” selection for my pause from work here. My base will be in Nagano, so that you might say I am making the circuit of Japan’s Olympic towns (both Sapporo and Nagano hosted the games). Three train rides await me today. First, though, I must make my way to my paltry breakfast while the rest of the robed populace feasts.