After one week and 4 hotels, 2 planes, 9 trains, many buses and uncountable flights of stairs, we are both still alive and neither of us has been reduced to tears yet.
We have left the land of wifi and are reduced to sharing the single LAN connection in our hotel room. Life is tough. I didn’t even connect for the 3 days that we were in Kanazawa. But, when we got into our room in Kyoto where we will stay for the next 7 days – I got my own machine going.
We are having a fine time. My traveling companion is not too adventurous foodwise. So we have settle on eating a buffet breakfast at our hotels. (Aside: The Japanese eat a lot of breakfast. No bowl of cereal, bagel, etc for them.) Since I wake up hungry as a horse (the Japanese eat those too) I think the Japanese breakfast buffet is a great thing.
We decided to forego lunch and then pickup and early take-out dinner. The basement of most department stores is devoted to take-away food.
Our stay in Kanazawa was a hotel “learning experience”. Saturday’s lesson was that we should have “made reservations” for our free breakfast earlier. By the time I got around to getting our free breakfast tickets – the earliest time slot they had was 9:10 – 9:30. Who knew you had to make a reservation for free breakfast? The first night they just gave us the 7:00 to 7:30 time slot and that was when we happened to show up. So, we were spared arriving at the wrong time and committing a terrible cultural mistake.
Our first experience was the room lights. After we checked in (at 3PM as required), they gave us 2 breakfast tickets, the secret code for the onsen (communal bath) on the roof and our room key. I had prepaid this room and the staff spoke about as much English as I spoke Japanese. They did not tell us how to turn the room lights on. Turns out that when you are in your room, you stick your key in a little slot. That makes the lights work. When you leave, you take the key out and all the lights go out. It was rather like being in one of those old time “adventure” video games where you were always looking for a secret device to get you to the next level. In this case the next level was light.
I had a rather unsatisfactory food day Saturday. I accidentally acquired a raw egg for breakfast – and well, I was for damn sure going to eat it. Being the only western person in a room full of pajama wearing Japanese. Then at dinner – selected from the local 7/11 – I ended up with another raw egg. And, some nasty fermented mung beans. I did not get all that egg eaten. In the middle of the night – I declared an emergency and broke out a Granola Bar.
For our big Saturday night – Sam did her laundry and went to the hotel onsen. To die for. Wonderful indoor/outdoor natural hot spring waters delivered to the roof of the hotel. Plus all manner of lovely skin/hair care products. (I had to point a body parts to be sure the right stuff was going to the right places.) Plus combs, brushes, little scrubber things, and a 200+ degree sauna, which I stepped in and said – not for me. Oh yes, and a cold bath as well, I passed on the cold mineral bath as well.
The onsen is just for women – men have their own – and at 8ish on a Saturday night I’d say there were 15 women from 20ish to 75ish using the facilities.
We are getting all settled into are fine digs here over top of the Kyoto Train Station.
Good whatever time it is to you,
I recognize some of the food items on your tray. What gives on the raw egg bit. No fears over there that we are warned of over here, cook your eggs till over well done.
I can imagine traveling with an advanced aged teen. I can remember knowing everything, then a few years later seemly lost all that and had to start trying to figure out what and how to do next. Course on the flip side the teen sometimes wonders how we oldtimers made it through all these years on the limited knowledge and strange ideas of what is right and wrong. I think Mark Twain, one of my favorites, once said something to this effect; when in my teens I thought my Dad didn’t know anything, and how suddenly when I reached 20 he had acquired great knowledge. Even back then there was a time of awakening for the youth.
Continue enjoying the adventure and think; I might turn this trip into a great little big book about traveling witha teen. Guess your travel mate knows situational Japanese that does not include the words two tickets to whereever.
Lance; The 3 or 4 crashes in front, beside, and to him plus the flat tire in an earlier stage just too much to overcome. He is 38th overall now and about 12+ minutes behind the leader. Back home we would say Lance was snake bit on this tour. When he is not in the contention my interest level wanes. I do admire the stamina of those riders and like to watch the chases.
To Kill a Mocking Bird is big conversation in the literary world at least over here. 50th anniversary. Harper Lee still lives quietly in her little hometown in Ala. Hard to believe the little boy in the story was Truman Copote.
Enjoy. Zee