A jumble of travelers’ belongings and precious air mattresses.Delayed travelers whose flights had been cancelled could not even check in.
The weather was terrible when we visited Japan last month. There was a whole inch of snow on the ground, and slushy puddles to slog through. It seemed Tokyo was unused to clearing streets and sidewalks. (I’d rather have slush than what I experienced on my March 2011 visit to Tokyo: the earthquake and tsunami.) Our drive to the airport, usually an hour, took three and a half due to closed and clogged roads.
But no problem: flights at Tokyo Narita had been delayed or cancelled. The airport was crowded with huddled travelers, their luggage piled neatly or jumbled. Our flight, too, was delayed, but only by a few hours.
Tokyo Narita airport comfort
We spent the time in a sushi restaurant where we had a mediocre meal and good wifi. Others were not so lucky, but luckier than delayed travelers elsewhere. Tokyo Narita Airport had kindly distributed lengths of air mattress, similar to bubble-wrap. People were sleeping on them, propped against pillows of the stuff, and covered by it. Creative families built tidy fortresses with floors and walls of air.
What a way to make a miserable situation a little more bearable.
Bubble-wrap fortress: more comfort than the digital aquarium in the background.Lunch at the fabulous Aoki Sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Not the airport joint.
You are lucky indeed if you ever get the opportunity to experience a kaiseki meal, especially one in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. You’ll enjoy a long, relaxed procession of delicacies in small portions, exquisitely presented, and usually specific to the season.
I had the incredible good fortune to indulge in a week of kaiseki lunches and dinners in Japan. One meal featured tofu in many forms. One featured tempura. Another was Buddhist vegetarian. The most breathtaking were those served at Yagyuno Sho Ryokan in Shuzenji, on Japan’s Izu peninsula.
I’m in awe of Takashi Shibayama, Yagyuno Sho’s chef, who showcased an endless variety of glorious creations in perfect balance, meal after meal. As you’ll see in the following photos, his magnificent presentations are the synergetic result of his ravishing edible works of art complemented by precious serving pieces, and owe a nod to whimsy.
These photos are from a single kaiseki dinner titled “A Picnic Under the Cherry Blossoms.” A menu was provided in Japanese calligraphy, along with an attempted English translation.
One Kaiseki dinner
Cold sake in iron pot
The meal begins with a treasured sake poured from iron pots into flat red lacquer bowls. Just a sip, it’s a fruity and fervent taste bud wakeup call, accompanied by a tiny red lantern glowing with a short-lived candle. In a deeply-textured covered bowl, a surprise awaits.
Foie gras Japanese style
Surprise indeed! Who would expect haute cuisine—and foie gras, no less? It’s a silky paté “with white radish agar (moon) and salty meringue (cloud),” a garnish of gold foil and cherry blossom petals—an edible haiku in beige. How about…
Fat goose flies in spring
Cherry blooms, moon in cloud, his
Liver is dinner
Kaiseki understatement: “Simple Meal”
A wooden tray is presented. Paradoxically called “Simple Meal,” it is anything but. In the gorgeous little covered bowl: “bamboo shoot, udo, butterbur dressed with young Japanese pepper and moso.” In my excitement, I forget to take a picture of the opened bowl. The central plate of gold-leaf floats on a gold-leaf-spattered strip of handmade paper. It holds “sushi balls, picnic dumpling, and dried wheat.” On the black ceramic dish, sesame seed tofu with caviar. In the beige: “rape blossoms with dried wheat gluten.”
Gluten makes frequent appearances. Itself bland with a pleasant, chewy texture, it’s an excellent sponge and carrier of flavors.
Cold sake
Our cold sake arrives in crystal glass decanters deep in red lacquer bowls of ice and flowers. You must not pour your own sake—but look after your neighbors, and make sure their cups are full. I can’t help noticing the uniformity of the ice—crushed to perfection.
Small soup in big bowl
A small “clear soup with red sea bream dumpling” is in a large lacquer bowl, black with gold bamboo on the outside, dark red on the inside. We are reminded that we are not expected to like or consume everything, but I can’t help myself. I do and I do.
Covered boat sashimi
Boat-shaped dishes with tantalizing covers are set before us. Our chopstick rests are swapped for porcelain cherry blossom petals. We begin to wonder how large the ryokan’s tableware pantry is.
Sashimi revealed
Lifting the bamboo roofs, we discover sashimi: tuna, sole, and horse clam. We’re gently instructed on which condiment highlights each fish. All the garnishes are edible, including the cherry blossoms.
Hot stone at table
Done with delicate for the moment, a hot rock is brought to each of us wrapped in fresh juniper branches in a wicker basket. We are served at meals by the same women who look after our rooms, and now they cook for us. Izu beef, shrimp, squid, and a green chili pepper are placed on each heated stone, which sears the food in a minute or two. I get two fat scallops instead of beef.
Dengaku
These colorful popsicles are called dengaku: “grilled tofu and dried wheat gluten on skewers coated with miso glaze.” They’re balanced on a bamboo cane on a rough plate the color of bamboo.The plate is a mossy pond whose surface is disturbed by koi kissing air.
Steamed icefish on raw sea urchin.
Steamed icefish on sea urchin. The tiny white fish are complete with little eyes. The beautiful bowl and urchin-colored saucer are paper thin. We’ve learned to recover our bowls when finished with a dish. The staring fish and raw sea urchin gonads are too much for some; their bowls are quickly covered.
Tomato juice
“100% fresh tomato juice.” It is thick enough to eat with a wooden spoon, and very cold in a crystal shot glass. A concentrated flavor break between two hot dishes.
Bamboo shoot in liquid starch
In a brown and gold covered lacquer bowl, “deep fried bamboo shoot with liquid starch.” There must be a better translation for “liquid starch,” but the Japanese haven’t found it. Enriched broth? Thickened consommé?
Miso soup mystery
This one has an element of mystery. The menu translation is “dark brawn miso soup with bean curd tofu skin.” Is that dark brown soup or dark prawn soup? Either way, it is delicious. Ahhh… another bottle of sake, please!
Rice finale with small shrimps
Finally, and always last, comes the rice. It’s in a stunning stoneware bowl with an accompaniment of cooked small shrimp. A plate of pickled vegetables on the side.
Sweet summer yellow orange
And for dessert, something small, cold, and light on a silver dish. “Sweet summer yellow orange,” a strawberry for contrast, and a sweet drink made from fermented rice with soybean milk pudding.
Breakfasts at the ryokan are just as spectacular, but served expeditiously, in well over a dozen different little plates and bowls. I’ll spare you the photos.
Over five dramatic meals on the property, I never saw the same serving piece more than once. And all of this was managed just days after the earthquake and tsunami, under the threat of nuclear meltdown, between scheduled rolling blackouts. Praise and thanks to Yagyuno Sho Ryokan and its wonderful chef and staff.
Despite the focus on negative experiences compiled on this site, it is possible to travel without being ripped off. It bothers Bob and me that our blog, as well as our lectures, present travel as a minefield of risk and theft. Because we discuss and relate mostly the catastrophes, the sadnesses, and the evils of travel, our audience gets a scary mass of horror stories compressed into an unfair perspective.
Bob and I have just completed a totally theftless traipse across Asia, and I’m in the mood to write about the joys of travel—the foreign experiences we seek, as well as the serendipitous discoveries.
Japans shoe rules
I’ll begin with a simple little story here and, unless I interrupt myself for something time-sensitive, I plan to post several more Asian vignettes.
Say goodbye to Western street shoes for the duration of the stay.Temporary shoes, just to get us to our rooms.
As a child, I had school shoes and play shoes. I have quite a few more now, but no dedicated “toilet shoes.” There are no communal shoes in my house, either.
Last month, I had the great fortune to stay in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. Upon arrival, we leave our street shoes at the entry, and slide into flat black leather slippers.
Indoor sandals with tabi socks.
These are used only to get to our rooms because once there, proper woven sandals await—but they require special socks. We change into multi-layered and belted yukatas, and tabi socks, which have a split toe. The split toe allows us to wear the thonged sandals. But not in the room! On tatami mats, we pad around in just the tabi socks. (Fresh ones provided every day.)
Clogs for the stone floor.Sandals for the private garden.
For stepping down into the stone-floor garden room next to the glass doors, two pairs of white leather clogs are strategically positioned. Slide open the glass doors to enjoy the bamboo, mosses, koi pond, and hot soaking pool. Step out, and thick wooden garden shoes await.
Slippers for our own tiny toilet room only.
One pair of woven toilet slippers are always arranged toes-forward just inside the bathroom door. They are not to leave the bathroom! One must back out when exiting, so the shoes are ready to be stepped into next time. We found toilet slippers in many restaurant bathrooms outside the inn. You wouldn’t want to get close to the toilet in just your socks, would you?
At the same time, you wouldn’t want to wear your toilet shoes outside of the toilet room. Yet we find it’s easy to forget to take them off. We repeatedly looked down in horror to see toilet slippers on our feet in the bathing room. Gross!
We wear the woven-straw thonged sandals when leaving our rooms, but leave them at the door of any tatami room—toes pointed out, of course. Everybody’s are the same, so it doesn’t matter which you step into when you leave.
At the tatami dining room, most of us leave our sandals helter-skelter. When we come out, they’re neatly arranged, toes-out, for step-in-and-go convenience.
Wooden shoes for outdoor strolls.
Want to go for a walk in the woods? At the inn’s entry, grab a pair of wooden outdoor shoes, the wider ones for men. These are particularly tricky to walk in, sized to fit no one. But—no Western shoes until check out!
Some of us have considerable difficulty with the one-size format. My nephew’s size 12 tootsies hang off the backs of his shoes, while my tiny sister developes a sliding shuffle to avoid inadvertently stepping out of her slippers. Our men, considerably larger than the Japanese, unanimously cry pain.
Shoes, lit.
We visit a martial arts studio across the road to watch the ryokan’s chef demonstrate his sword skills. We wear the outdoor wooden shoes to get to the studio. On entering, we’re given sandals to cross a stone floor—three or four steps across—then ditch them and wear only tabi socks when stepping onto the tatami mat.
Have you lost count? That’s eight separate single-function footwares to use (and learn the rules of) while staying at a ryokan. Mistakes were made, of course.
Weird: "Pair bird" is my sister and her boyfriend, who didn't go on the trip. "The patient…"—my sister is a nurse. And she is in the final stages of "building a new house."
4-1/2 hours before Japan’s earthquake: it might have been my sister’s fault. Had she kept the slip of paper her bad fortune was printed on, as was her intention, blame certainly could have been laid. Instead, she folded the paper and impaled it on a tree branch in the ritual manner of rejecting bad fortunes. Surely by doing so she should have prevented the predictions she’d plucked only a few hours before the 9.0 devastation.
“BAD FORTUNE,” warned the English translation on her plucked paper. “Although it seems to be quite safe, everything is full of the coming danger.”
It was 10:15 a.m. on the first day of our family vacation in Japan. In Tokyo’s Asakusa district to visit the the Senso-ji Buddhist temple, all 16 of us were high on togetherness, anticipating the exotic experiences we’d carefully planned.
“You meet so many sadness, to be forced to leave from the people with sympathy.” Karen’s fortune continued. “Wind is so hard and make waves so high.”
“You should make an offering and get rid of it,” our Japanese guide explained. Karen folded the paper and stuck it to a branch.
The accidental celebrity takes a bow.
4 hours before: As we left the temple compound, a mob of Japanese schoolgirls surrounded my blond, blue-eyed, buff nephew, taking turns snapping photos of themselves with him. Nick felt like a celebrity—and acted like one. We were all certain the photo-frenzy would be the highlight of our day.
Relaxed innocence just three hours before the disaster.
3 hours before: Our next stop was the 790-foot-tall Sunshine-60, a skyscraping tower capped by an observatory on its 60th floor. One of the fastest elevators in the world blasted us to the top, from which we looked down on the dense city. Strangely, we watched seal-training on a rooftop below.
Rooftop seal training as seen from 60 floors up.
The earthquake, now less than three hours in the future, would have swayed the observatory to a sickening and terrifying extent. The speedy elevators would have been shut down. Alone but for a few young staff members, we’d have been stuck in the stratosphere for the huge aftershock 30 minutes later, petrified.
1-1/2 hours before: After lunch we visited a house in a residential district for a traditional tea ceremony. First, we were each to be dressed in kimonos—a long, arduous process, we learned, with their many layers, and the tugging and tying of the obi, the wide, extravagant sash tied elaborately in back.
9.0 Earthquake
Earthquake! I was half dressed when the rumbling began. Lamps, scrolls, and empty hangers rattled while the house seemed to be surfing mad waves. At first, we hustled into doorways—many of us had been trained as California school children. Moments later, the staff ushered us under their two large tables. The house also functioned as a cooking school, so the two tables were big enough to shelter all 16 of us.
The staff threw open the doors and windows—as they are trained, I later learned, to enable escape should walls shift and doors jam. Meanwhile, the bumps and jerky rolls continued. For two full, long minutes, we rode the rocking floor bent double under the tables, some of us already bound tightly in traditional Japanese dress.
I’m no stranger to earthquakes. I was in “the big one” in Los Angeles in 1971, and many smaller ones. Most of them last a good 20 seconds or so which, when you’re in one, feels like a long time. This one just wouldn’t quit. Crouched and crowded with my family, I wondered how many floors the tables would support. And how many stories high was the building we were in, anyway? Should we run outside? Why hadn’t I noticed more about the neighborhood?
The second time under the tables. My father snapped a picture from under the dining table.
Some of the staff were kneeling, hands together, praying. One of our children wailed. There was nervous laughter and inappropriate joking. There were tea cups falling in their cabinets and weird, whistling sounds. We all had the same thoughts: how long would this go on? And: this is our whole family. My parents, their four children, some spouses, and five of their seven grandchildren.
4 minutes after: When we emerged, we looked around dazed and confused. There wasn’t much evidence of damage in the house, but cell phone service was down. Without radio, television, or phone, we didn’t know the severity of the quake. The staff looked shaken, but quickly got back to their duties. I was shoed back into the dressing room for obi-tying along with my niece, who was also half-dressed, and my sister, who was photographing. All of us nervously watched the lamp, hangers, and scroll, and noticed that they never totally stopped swaying.
30 minutes after: The first huge aftershock came soon after the earthquake—about 10 minutes after we’d resumed our activities. We dove under the tables again, those of us who appeared calm soothing the ones who let their fear show. We were all scared, floundering, and aware of how helpless we felt.
One of my sisters got news on her Blackberry. The quake was first measured at 8.8—huge. There were no immediate reports of damage. We studied the staff members for signs of fear or distress. To us, they appeared a little distracted, but resolute, ready to push on with their characteristic dignity. A little familiar with the national ethos, this did not necessarily fill me with confidence that all was well.
We soldiered on through kimono-dressing and a somber tea ceremony, only half interested, whispering worries and nervously joking. The Japanese showed no emotion. They maintained perfect grace and extended courteous hospitality. At 5:00, we left the house, only then looking up to see what had been above us.
Kimono-clad and uneasy, an hour after the earthquake.
1 hour and 15 minutes after: By then, traffic was at a standstill. The sidewalks were surging with office workers, many wearing hardhats. Our vehicle had satellite TV tuned to Japanese news. We got our first horrendous images of the raging fires and tsunami damage. On every station, maps of Japan blinked with garishly-colored tsunami warnings. We learned that all trains had stopped running. With traffic jammed, even buses and taxis would not be able to get office workers home, many of whom live an hour or more commute outside of Tokyo. They’d be walking all night.
Ginza, earthquake night. Hardhatted pedestrians behind the traffic.
4 hours and 15 minutes after: The five- or six-mile drive to our hotel, the Peninsula, took three tense hours. The lobby was full of stranded workers. A scribbled signboard promised the hotel would provide food and drinks to all. We worried about our two magnificent guides, who would be as stuck as everyone else in the city. We decided to double up: three sisters and one husband sharing one room, freeing one of our eight rooms for our guides. It took much cajoling before they gratefully accepted our offer.
Superimposed on images of fire, a map of Japan shows tsunami warnings in purple.
Our dinner plans had been scrapped and, with gas stoves shut down, the hotel’s kitchens were only semi-functional. My nephew set out to find groceries, but returned to report that all shelves were bare. We weren’t really hungry anyway.
Lobby of The Peninsula is crowded with stranded workers.
5 hours after: We hunkered together, reluctant to separate from other family members, opened wine, and nibbled mini-bar nuts in front of the news. Hyper-aware of our rooms being on the ninth and 18th floors of a skyscraper, we considered choosing an emergency meeting place. Everything seemed uncertain, though. What would the world look like in an emergency? What’s a good meeting place in a landscape of skyscrapers?
Aftershocks rocked the hotel every ten or fifteen minutes. The highways below were parking lots. I came across a video showing Tokyo’s skyscrapers swaying after the earthquake. It wasn’t until we turned off the television and got into bed that we heard the eerie creaking of the building. Only those who popped pills got any sleep that night.
The Japanese are often characterized as stoic. This trait has been pointed out relentlessly over the following days, and for good reason. Where possible, people carried on as usual. Little emotion was shown. Life goes on, even for survivors in the most devastated areas.
For us, too. We cried for the country we cared enough about to visit. We are heartbroken for the Japanese, for those we know and those we don’t know but know about. Yet, there we were, wondering: what now? What should we do?
1 day after: Glued to the TV, thankful for Blackberry news when away from it, we debated our course of action over and over. Should we leave? Are there flights out? Is it safe to stay? Insensitive? What reports can we trust, anyway? Are the Japanese being forthright? Is CNN dramatizing? BBC overly cautious?
With major changes to our itinerary, we stayed—one day at a time. We were constantly aware of the dichotomy between the massive devastation and our frivolous holiday. It felt strange to continue. Queasy. Callous and selfish.
Each day, we all received concerned but hysterical emails begging us to leave. Fears of a nuclear meltdown and radiation leakage brought new worries. Not for us so much as for our five teenagers. We moved south and west, as planned, first to Hakone, then to Kyoto. Our flights at week’s end were to be out of Tokyo. Would the city be safe then? What if we flew to Tokyo, then couldn’t get out?
Red-labled drinks are hot, blue-labeled cold, from ubiquitous power-sapping vending machines.
3 days after: Rolling blackouts were announced, to save power. We diligently turned off unnecessary lights in our luxurious rooms, irony not escaping us. The papers criticized the power-hogging vending machines that my family had been so entranced with. Each machine serves both hot and cold beverages. You can have a bottle of hot green tea or cold maple-syrup pancake drink on any street corner.
7 days after: We had flights from Osaka to Tokyo, from which we’d all be flying onwards: some were going home, some to Beijing, one to Vietnam, and I was going to Hong Kong. Reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant seemed to be exploding daily. With the situation so unstable, we agonized over returning to Tokyo with our children. In the end we did though, and were treated to one last, large aftershock in the airport, shortly before our flights.
Who needs iodine? A traveler passing through Narita? What about a long layover? Eating in the airport? Eating on a longhaul flight out of Narita? Who knows?
15 days after: Flying through Thailand, I come face to face with a health screening desk for passengers flying to Japan. Free iodine tablets are on offer. I wonder if I should partake. I’m flying through Tokyo again on March 31 and radiation levels are increasing. Even today, just writing this report feels frivolous in the face of headlines.
Our trip was a celebration of my father’s 80th birthday. He and my mother chose Japan because they love the country’s people and its culture. In a world of conflict, I’m sure they also considered it safe for the family. The week became one of conflict anyway: worry and fear and festivity and pleasure. And though we’re all still riveted by the news out of Tokyo, for us it’s over. Not so for our new and old friends in Japan.
4/25/11 edit: While we were blithely dressing in kimonos, the tsunami was rolling in (unbeknownst to us, of course). See this horrifying video to its end.
I like the Japanese philosophies of beauty and simplicity, love the food, but can’t get used to the unquestioning, obedient nature of the people. Or that all answers are “yes,” even when it means “no.”
High-tech toilets: I like having a warm seat and a control panel. The electronic sound effects are annoying—fake waterfall or babbling brook sounds. The bidet/washing features are—um, too personal for comment.
Steam draws me, always.
I appreciate super-fast Asian internet, but my hotel wifi ate a bunch of my outgoing email without telling me. I prefer slow and reliable.
Cherry blossoms make up for the gray, cold, windy, rainy, dreary weather on the March/April cusp.
Yokohama has no trash cans. None. After I needed one, I kept looking the rest of the day as I crisscrossed the city. I never found one. Yep, there was a little trash on the ground, but only a little.
Natto beans with mustard, ready to top rice.
Breakfast: a bowl of rice with 30 different garnishes, 30 different ones every day. Wonderful. The one constant: natto beans, the love ’em or hate ’em fermented beans with a strong ammonia fragrance, which you whip up into a froth of snotty, stringy, viscous liquid, not unlike the stuff okra oozes. When you eat natto beans, the stuff loops from the chopsticks in long, fine, spiderwebby strings that stick to your chin and do feel like actual spider webs a minute or so later when dry.
Astonishing and confounding, how little English is spoken in Japan, including by the young people. What English exists is often amusing. The woman who was assigned to translate our presentation spoke to me beforehand and, pointing to a bald man, innocently called him a skinhead. I saw shops called “Junk Jewels” and another, “Junk & Antiques.” There’s a chain of mini-markets called “Sometimes Fresh.” Passed the “Pay Up Hotel.”
Pocari Sweat, available on every street corner.
If you’re thirsty on the street, you can stop at a vending machine and buy a bottle of “Pocari Sweat.” Vending machines also sell “Full Supporty” stockings, and tickets for full, hot meals, chosen by plastic display and then picked up from a cook nearby with never a word spoken.
Some very tall pine trees looked like cellphone towers.
A digital sign in front of a tollbooth showed an animated cartoon man waving a flag back and forth.
I’ve been to Japan quite a few times. These thoughts are not cumulative, but specifically from this visit.
I started talking about Consular Information Sheets here.
Odd but possibly vital information can be found in the Consular Information Sheets regularly posted by the U.S. Department of State [D.O.S.]. For example:
“It is illegal to bring into Japan some over-the-counter medicines commonly used in the United States, including inhalers and some allergy and sinus medications. Japanese customs officials have detained travelers carrying prohibited items, sometimes for several weeks. Some U.S. prescription medications cannot be imported into Japan, even when accompanied by a customs declaration and a copy of the prescription.”
Staggering advice! But the report doesn’t stop there. It includes links to English-language Japanese sites with prescription look-ups, because “Japanese customs officials do not make on-the-spot …˜humanitarian’ exceptions.”
Lurking danger.
In a recent Peru information sheet,
“Travelers are advised to seek advice from local residents before swimming in jungle lakes or rivers, where alligators or other dangerous creatures may live. All adventure travelers should leave detailed written plans and a timetable with a friend and with local authorities in the region, and they should carry waterproof identification and emergency contact information. … Peruvian customs regulations require that many electronic items or items for commercial use be declared upon entering the country. Failure to make a full and accurate declaration can lead to arrest and incarceration.”
Better mention your laptop or digital camera.
If you “get sand in your shoes,” that is, fall in love with island life on your Bahamian vacation, you’ll be glad to have read that
“U.S. citizens should exercise caution when considering time-share investments and be aware of the aggressive tactics used by some time-share sales representatives. Bahamian law allows time-share purchasers five days to cancel the contract for full reimbursement. Disputes that arise after that period can be very time-consuming and expensive to resolve through the local legal system.”
Going to see the pyramids of Giza and Cairo’s exotic Khan el Khalili bazaar? The U.S. D.O.S. tells us that
“Egypt is one of the world’s leaders in fatal auto accidents. Traffic regulations are routinely ignored. If available, seatbelts should be worn at all times. … Sidewalks and pedestrian crossings are non-existent in many areas, and drivers do not yield the right-of-way to pedestrians.”
Certain danger.
Knowing this will certainly alter your behavior whether driving, taxiing, or walking in Egypt.
The U.S. Department of State isn’t in the scare business. Each of its reports is rich with phone numbers and links to official websites to help travelers get the information they need. Instruction is included on how to deal with problems and emergencies while abroad, including after-hour phone numbers. The State Department’s information is invaluable, available via phone, fax, pamphlet, and internet; and free.
U.S. Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520
For recorded travel information, call 202-647-5225
For information by fax, call 202-647-3000 from your fax machine www.travel.state.gov
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams Chapter Two (part-c): Research Before You Go
