Speaking of temperatures…
When I arrived here, in the sweltering heat of June, I scoffed at the heated toilet seat.
“What a silly, useless thing,” I thought.
Like the seasons of the year, how things change. I flipped that switch back on for the first time the other day and it won’t go back off until next summer.
Today is one of those days when I unhappily realize I’ve been working for the past five months at a job where I have to wear a suit and tie.
Five days a week I tuck in a starched shirt and tie that silly strip of cloth around my neck. And I actually leave the apartment wearing this get-up.
Suits are for special occasions and death (someone else’s, not one’s own — don’t put one on me when I go), not for everyday wear. And when I realize how normal it’s become for me to don this garb every morning, I’m slightly horrified.
Sean and I rented a car last weekend and traveled to the Noto Peninsula for two nights of camping on the beach. Noto Peninsula is the large finger of land that juts out into the Sea of Japan to the west of Nagano. Because it’s so expensive to travel on expressways here (there are no “free”ways), we made the trip on secondary highways, over the mountains and then up to the upper-west coast of Noto.
Pictures from the trip are here.
The drive there took about eight hours, which was most of the day Saturday. We arrived after dark, and set up the tent on Kotogahama beach, near the small town of Monzen. The weather was cloudy, and we saw lots of rain during the drive. But when we arrived, there was no rain and the temperature was fairly mild.
We spent Sunday exploring the coast north of Monzen, and did a great hike along a trail carved into the sea cliffs. As we drove further north along the west coast of Noto, we took some small back roads that curved up into the hills along the coast. The scenery was amazing and the roads were crazy narrow. At many places on one road, vegetation on both sides of the road brushed the sides of our (very small) car. And every once in a while, we would come upon a tiny village tucked into the hills, usually no more than a dozen or so buildings.
After having a dinner of ramen in the town of Wajima, we headed back south for a bath at a public resort near our campsite. For about $4 each, we soaked in the hot baths, including an outside bath perched on a hillside balcony.
By the time we returned to the tent on Sunday night, it had started to rain.
The rain continued through our departure the next morning. When we woke up Monday morning, we hauled all our stuff up to the car and then carried the tent to a picnic shelter nearby. So we were able to have coffee and breakfast out of the rain, and were able to take the tent apart in a dry, non-sandy area.
We drove back to Nagano along the Sea of Japan coast, which turned out to be a fairly ugly drive through miles of urban/industrial blight. It wasn’t until we turned away from the coast and headed south to Nagano that we got back into some relative nature.
At one point on the drive home (in the mountains north of Nagano), we spotted a monkey sitting calmly on the edge of a tunnel, just as we passed underneath.
For about an hour in this part of the drive, it seemed like we spent the majority of our time in tunnels. There is such an amazing amount of concrete in Japan. And at times it felt like we would never get out of the tunnels.
The highlight of this trip was being able to explore back roads with the car. Most of the time I’m stuck on the well-traveled train and bus routes, so this was a nice change.
One of the best things about traveling by trains in Japan is the ease of use. It’s 11:25pm now — half an hour before our train bound for Osaka is scheduled to leave. We’ll leave the apartment in ten minutes and make the ten minute walk to the station. With ten minutes left, we’ll board the train, which will leave at exactly 11:55. No lines. No security check. Just walk onto the train and go. Who needs airplanes anyway?
Sean and I leave tonight for five days in the Kansai region. We’ll be traveling overnight to Osaka, where we’ll stay Saturday night. On Sunday, we head to Kyoto for two nights and three days. After that, we’ll spend one night in Nara before returning to Nagano. Two days later, we’ll be heading to the Noto peninsula (on the western coast) for a couple nights of beach camping. I’ll try to post some pictures next week after the Kansai trip.
We visited Zenkoji yesterday morning, and then did a hike up a hill near the city to see a reconstructed castle with a great view of Nagano.
Zenkoji, Nagano’s 1300-year-old temple, is believed to house the first image of Buddha to come to Japan. At the temple, there is a subterranean passageway containing “the key to paradise.” In order to find this key (which is more like a heavy door handle), one needs to join a line of pilgrims groping their way through the pitch-dark passageway. This is definitely an attraction that wouldn’t survive liability laws in the U.S.
I’ve been meaning to post a picture of one of the better toilet seat control systems from Japan. In the meantime, enjoy this article:
Japanese Masters Get Closer to the Toilet Nirvana
Japan’s toilet wars started in February, when Matsushita engineers here unveiled a toilet seat equipped with electrodes that send a mild electric charge through the user’s buttocks, yielding a digital measurement of body-fat ratio.
Unimpressed, engineers from a rival company, Inax, counterattacked in April with a toilet that glows in the dark and whirs up its lid after an infrared sensor detects a human being. When in use, the toilet plays any of six soundtracks, including chirping birds, rushing water, tinkling wind chimes, or the strumming of a traditional Japanese harp.
(NOTE: New York Times articles require free registration).
Sean arrives in Tokyo later this afternoon. I’ll be taking the Shinkansen down to Tokyo to meet him after work tonight, and we’ll be spending a three-day weekend in the city. The typhoon seems to have cleared a path for good weather, and the forecast is for sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s. And in contrast to the oppressively hot and muggy summer temperatures in Tokyo, the air is crisp and dry this time of year. (The smog is still present, of course.)
I’m looking forward to taking some extra time off this month. We’ll be traveling to the Kyoto/Osaka/Nara area next weekend, and then likely doing a camping/kayak trip on the Sea of Japan coast the weekend after that.
It’s a beautiful, sunny morning. As I have coffee, I’m watching my neighbor across the street hang her bedding out in the fresh air. This is a routine for many here on nice mornings. Futons (which are much thinner and lighter than the futons in the U.S.) and quilts are hung over balconies and on laundry lines.
It’s a little strange to see so much laundry hung out to dry in Japan. At least for me, I connect this sort of image with developing countries, where dryers (and even washers) are a luxury. But although almost everyone has a washing machine here, many people still choose not to use dryers, opting instead for a natural dry. It’s been a bit of an adjustment for me. Not only does it add some more time to the laundry routine, but the clothes end up feeling not quite as soft as I’m used to (from the use of dryer sheets back home). But that slightly-starchy feeling goes away quickly once the clothes are worn. Since I don’t have access to a balcony or clothes line outside, on laundry days my tiny apartment is packed with hanging clothes and sheets, creating something of a cave environment.
Japan is currently being buffeted by the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in the past 50 years. But here in Nagano, it’s been relatively calm. We’ve had a lot of rain, but that’s about it.
Most typhoons seem to track a path along the east coast of the country, and the mountains surrounding Nagano protect the area from the worst of the strong winds.
By tomorrow, the typhoon will have passed and the dry, warm air that follows will be covering most of the country.