Family Weekend on the Llano River (May 2012)

This trip occurred at the beginning of May.  A long time ago, I know, but Jennifer told me that if I didn’t write about it (and a subsequent family trip to Port Aransas) I’d have to change the url of this blog from mattjennifertravel.blogspot.com to matttravel.blogspot.com.  Besides, I should write about it anyway at least for posterity, though of course we’ll never forget being attacked by sheep.  

So, here goes:

I always enjoy the Beck family gathering in Concan, on the far side of the Texas Hill Country along the Frio River, every Columbus Day weekend.  The Hill Country was one of the main reasons I decided to relocate from flat-as-all-get-out Houston.  So now that I have a family of my own there’s no reason not to try to repeat the Concan experience with them.

Jennifer and I had several criteria:

-        

                         It had to be a cabin.  I camped growing up.  We’re both fine with camping.  But when you’re taking a family trip for the first time and particularly with a two-year old who may be keeping you up all night anyway due to unfamiliar surroundings, we needed four walls, an air conditioner and indoor plumbing.  We’ll wait a few years to actually camp.

-                      I preferred a cabin that was by itself on a bit of land allowing us to roam.  Kind of like a mini-state park.  I didn’t mind if there were other cabins though.

-                      It had to take pets.  Not only was the Kid going to be with us (we might not take a trip by ourselves until sometime in 2016 at our rate, eh) but Maisy the pooch would be a fine addition to the party...maybe.  But we’re optimistic and besides, it’s easier to bring her along than to find someone to take care of her and cheaper than boarding her.  Actually, we boarded her one time which was fun for us because you can watch on webcam.  Maisy was always the dog by herself, either in the corner watching all of the other dogs or tagging along right behind the kennel workers, not waiting for food but rather for acknowledgement.

-                    It had to be on a river.  Texas in May of course is hot so you need a river to cool off in.  The Hill Country rivers in particular are awesome for this purpose as they are shallow, cold and rocky, meaning that there is little mud to obscure the water.

-                      I also preferred a cabin on the Llano River on the northern edge of the Hill Country.  Everyone knows the Guadalupe and the Frio but nobody really talks about the Llano.  Yet I kayaked it once a few years ago and it’s awesome, particularly because of the red granite seemingly growing right out the river (the same stuff that Enchanted Rock is made of).  Plus since we live in North Austin, the Llano is a bit closer than the others.  And it’s far enough away from Austin and San Antonio that you aren’t necessarily going to get huge crowds.

I settled on this place:

http://www.llanoriveradventures.com/amenities.html

To me, it seemed perfect.  By itself on 25 acres with a little cabin overlooking the Llano River.  The nearest town would be London, population 180.  Plus it would be close to Junction, a town I’ve been through a few times and that I knew would have a few restaurants for the nights we didn’t want to cook dinner.

We made reservations for Friday and Saturday nights.  I took a half day from work on the Friday, we loaded up the Kid, the pooch and all of the provisions in the trusty minivan (its first family trip) and we were off.  I’ll take a second to have a word on minivans: holy moly can you fit a lot of junk in them.  And no more do I have to actually plan for how I’m going to pack stuff like the time I managed to fit the Kid’s wagon in the small trunk of my Toyota Camry Hybrid (which loses 1/3 of its space to the battery).  I can just throw everything in.  It’s like sacking groceries actually; just be careful not to put the breakable stuff on the bottom.

One of the great things about driving through the Hill Country is also the drive, particularly if you can get on the little two-lane roads and off of the larger roads like 290, 281 and I-10.  As long as the road doesn’t require four-wheel drive, I’ll drive on it.  You just never know what you’ll find on some of these roads.

Getting out of town on the Friday afternoon, we got on FM 1431 west of Cedar Park heading to Marble Falls.  1431 is an awesome road just for all of the twists, dips and turns.  It was always the road I took people on first when taking hiking trips in college; it’s like the Hill Country slapping your face and saying “Here I am, vato!”  Of course, with a family there are sometimes other considerations as I’ll get to later on. 

Oh, another note.  The Sienna had come with three months free SiriusXM radio and our subscription hadn’t run out yet.  It’s quite nice driving on a long trip and not having to search the radio dial for a station that suits you.  Of course, you also miss some of the local color such as the really small radio stations playing country music from the 1930s or local talk radio hosts who know all of the callers personally (and of course Jennifer and my favorite is still the Memphis provocateur who referred to a local politician as ‘Buffalo Butt’).  At the same time, when you’re negotiating two lane roads for 2-3 hours, it is nice not to have to fiddle with the dial either.  If you’re wondering, our station of choice is the current light pop station, played low.  Think Train and Maroon 5.

After you cross 281 in Marble Falls, 1431 kind of curves northwest following the Colorado River.  Before it hits US Highway 29 (one of my all-time favorite roads), you can cut west on a small two-lane road called FM 3404.  It crosses the Llano at a place we later learned was called The Slab.  At this point the river was about ¼ mile wide but seemingly not more than 3-4 feet deep except for lots of pockmarks resembling moon craters.  There were a few people just lazing about in those craters.  Awesome.  I’ve resolved to go visit sometime, preferably when the Llano has sufficient flow to enjoy it (i.e. not in late summer after it hasn’t rained substantially for several months).

Eventually the small road hits US Highway 71, the highway that begins in coastal south Texas, goes through Columbus, Bastrop and Austin before ending somewhere out northeast of Llano.  We’d need to take it to get to Llano; there was no other good east-west connector between 290 and 29.  We stopped at a small barbecue joint in the south side of town.  Jennifer stayed in the minivan while the Kid and I went inside.  When we walked in, everyone (well, all 7-8 of them) turned and looked at us.  I don’t mind that sort of thing, particularly since the Kid’s flaming red hair always draws a comment from somebody.  Or he sees a woman and pretends to be shy.  Anyway, I don’t remember the details but I remember cracking a joke or two as we ordered brisket and sausage sandwiches to go.  What’s the point of visiting the Hill Country if you’re not going to eat barbecue at least once?

We headed west out of Llano on 29 until we reached the metropolis of Mason.  Mason is home to Texas Monthly’s #1-rated barbecue joint in the state, circa 2002, though it’s fallen off the list since then.  Jennifer and I had been there specifically to sample the meat which I remember as the most awesome brisket I’d ever eaten (Jennifer doesn’t agree, for the record).  So anyway, we were familiar with Mason.  From there, we headed southwest on RR 1871, a little two lane road that was so small the river crossings on the Llano were one-lane (actually, this is not uncommon out here).  This road was great with plenty of scenery, even some leftover flowers from the springtime bloom.

After about three hours of driving, we arrived at the cabin.  The entrance was so non-descript we almost missed it.  It was very remote and definitely reminded us we were out in the countryside.  We had to pass through the first gate (with a combination lock) and then a second with what I’ve always heard called a ‘gap’.  A gap is a gate in a barbed wire fence that, rather than being of a solid frame, is essentially several posts linked by the barbed wire.  You have to unhook the post on one side and carry it across to the other side as the wire bends and wraps around.  My grandfather on my dad’s side would always make fun of me whenever he would watch me open one of the several of his property near Rockne.  “Put your back into it, City Boy”, or something to that effect :) 

Anyway, once past the gap we were at our cabin.  It wasn’t much to look at, being made of cinder 

blocks, but it would do.  The thing that struck me actually was the vegetation.  It was more sparse than I’d expected and most of the plants were unfamiliar.  That’s when it hit me; this is what Austin will look like if we keep getting less precipitation every year.  The plants this far west were adapted to a drier and hotter environment yet I still saw plenty of flowering plants.  I was inspired to try to get only native plants, preferably from the Edwards Plateau region, integrated into our landscape from now on. 

The cabin had a bedroom with bunk bed (awesome for the Kid), a full bed and a separate room with a kitchen, dining table and couch.  The intended clientele were actually fly fishermen and birders.  I had no idea that this part of Texas was such a great place to watch birds (I’d been warned by the proprietor that this was a good time of year to see painted buntings, several of which I did see during the weekend).  There was a cute back porch that looked out over the river valley. 

  Since there was still an hour or two of daylight left, we decided to head down to take a look at the river.  There was an easy walking path down that took you through the sheep area.  The property was divided up into thirds.  The first part contained the two cabins, the second was an L-shaped area hugging the first area and the third was the part with river frontage.  The second area was the domain of the sheep and we would have to cross it in order to access the river.  No problem.  We crossed through a gap just below the cabin, walked maybe 150 yards through brush, crossed through a second gap and voila, we were by the Llano River!    

We spent maybe ten minutes scoping out the river.  On the upstream side was a small lake formed by what appeared to be a natural bottleneck in the river.  On the downstream side was a wide open flowing river that couldn’t have been more than five feet deep at the most.  Separating the two was a small stretch of rapids with some calm and shallow riffles where we could chill out.  It was perfect except for a lack of trees which would have provided some shade for a five month pregnant Jennifer (who wasn’t planning on swimming).  Satisfied we knew what was available to us, we headed back through the second gap to the house.

We had not seen the sheep on the way down but we had heard them.  Well, we had heard one of them, the one who had a bell on.  Ding-ding, ding-ding.  While we were down by the river, we heard it again.  Ding-ding, ding-ding.  As we crossed back through the gap by the river, we heard it again.  Ding-ding, ding-ding.  There was no cause for concern on our part because a) they’re sheep and b) if there were a problem the owner would have mentioned something (his cabin visitor’s manual he sent me in Word after making the reservation had even warned about mountain lions and water moccasins and admitted he put it in for liability reasons).  And again, they’re sheep.

 Ding-ding, ding-ding.

And away on our right in a draw we saw them.  In the lead was a ewe with the bell around her neck.  She was followed by around twenty or so shorn sheep who looked more like goats to me.  They were no taller than the middle of my thigh.  No problem.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

Then I noticed the two rams in the middle of the pack.  They both had curved horns that spread out sideways from their heads, did a corkscrew and pointed pretty much forward.  And they were with the herd of sheep that was recognizing our presence and was slowly walking towards us.  OK...

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

I knew what they were after.  They were thinking that the man, woman, little boy and dog that they had never seen before had food.  Thus they would trail us until they got within a certain respectful distance, getting no nearer but following us until we either gave them some food or until we got through the gap.  This was my totally logical thought based on my limited experience with my grandfather’s cows.  And I’d never visited them with a dog whose behavior in the face of farm animals was unknown.

Hmm...

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

I told Jennifer to walk faster.  She was holding Graham by the hand and I was walking Maisy on a short leash.  The sheep reached the path about twenty feet behind us, made a right turn and proceeded to match our speed in a big pack.  And one of the rams was moving toward the front.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

We kept walking.  I was of course trying to act like everything was perfectly ok as I didn’t want to worry Jennifer or Graham.  We weren’t even halfway to the gap that would lead us to the safety of the cabin.  I wasn’t worried but it would be a lie to say I was perfectly calm.  I snuck a look behind me and saw that one of the rams was now in the front.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

OK, no problem.  All they want is something to eat.  They’re not going to get any closer than ten feet.  And the ram is in the lead because he’s the boss.  The ram seemed to have sped up and was definitely closer than ten feet.  I was starting to get very, very nervous.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

Walk faster, I told Jennifer.  At that moment the ram was probably six feet behind the dog and I.  Maisy, in her infinite wisdom and in a spirit of being friendly, stopped, turned around and tried to walk toward the ram.  Bad idea.  The ram lowered its head and tried to buck her at the same moment I yanked back on the leash as hard as I could, let out a strong cuss word and yelled at Jennifer to run.  I have no idea whether the ram hit Maisy with the crown of its head or whether it was aiming with the horns but Maisy was unfazed as she and I started running after Jennifer with Graham in her arms.  After running for twenty seconds, I turned around and saw that the sheep had not matched our pace but were still ambling down the path after us.  Better hope we don’t have trouble opening that gap.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

I hadn’t been that scared of anything since I don’t remember when.  I was very, very agitated but still thinking clearly.  We had to get to the gap, open it and get through before they reached us.  I was fairly confident we could do it.  We reached the gap with the sheep maybe fifty feet behind us.  I got it open with little difficulty, ushered Jennifer, Graham and the dog through, hopped in after them and shut that sucker with about thirty feet to spare.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

Suck it sheep.

After seeing us flee the scene, the sheep stopped their pursuit, made a left turn and disappeared into the brush.   The dinging grew fainter and disappeared all together when we went into the cabin, relieved to not be having to rush our dog to the nearest veterinary hospital.

Yeesh.  How the heck could we not have been warned about this?  I felt like I needed to talk to the owner of the property who had helpfully left his phone number, at the least to tell him to ‘for the love of all that is holy, warn people about the aggressive sheep if you’re going to warn us about mountain lions’.  He didn’t pick up when I called but returned the call about ten minutes later, explaining he’d been outside hanging laundry.  Matter of fact, his own dog had been headbutted by one of the rams out of nowhere earlier in the week but no harm was done.  AND YOU DIDN’T THINK TO WARN ME ABOUT THIS EVEN KNOW YOU KNEW I’D BE BRINGING A TWO YEAR OLD AND A DOG?!!!!!  Well, I didn’t say that but you’d hope he got the hint.

So we then set to figuring out how we were going to get to the river the next day.  There was no way to get there without crossing sheep territory but there was a dirt track we could drive on to get down there, still having to cross through two gaps.  I’d scope it out the next morning to see how passable it would be with a Toyota Sienna, ha.

We had a nice time watching the sun set over the far away plateaus.  Thankfully we also couldn’t hear any ringing bells.

Still a little shaken from our sheep encounter, we set about getting the Kid ready for bed.  The cabin had a little shower which was not a problem because the Kid loves taking showers.  We shuffled him into his nice bunk bed, sat around and talked for a while before turning in ourselves on the full-sized bed which, as we discovered, was a bit too small for us due to its annoying habit of buckling in the middle, throwing us together.  Graham woke up several times during the night so none of us really slept well.  At one point I took him outside to calm him down.  We looked out at the stars in the inky blackness.  It would have been nice except for a certain sound we kept hearing down in the draw below the cabin.

Ding-ding, ding-ding.

Stupid sheep.

The next morning I chanced a walk with Maisy down the dirt road to the river in order to make sure we could drive the Sienna over it.  I figured that with just the two of us we’d be ok because we could outrun the sheep.  Luckily we never saw nor heard them.  The overgrown road had some ruts but nothing a car higher than a low rider couldn’t handle.  Feeling pretty good, I returned to the cabin with the good news.

Later in the morning we headed down to the river in the Sienna.  We had to park about fifty yards away from the river but at least it was on the river side of the fence and not on the sheep side.  I was thrilled to have a day to hang out in a Hill Country river.  They’re simply awesome.  Spring-fed, they’re usually quite cool, particularly when the temperature is 95 degrees as it was that day.  Flowing over rock as opposed to mud, they’re quite clear.  And not having tons of water in them, they’re usually shallow enough to have a space to chill out in and relax (you can’t relax in a river with steep banks and is 20 feet deep).  The Kid liked it a lot (though he likes the beach a lot better).

The interesting thing about traveling with a toddler is nap time.  We’re naptime zealots, keeping the kid on schedule as much as possible.  What this means is that whenever we’re someplace fun, we still take time off from 1-4 to make sure that the Kid has his nap.  When we’re at home, it means we have time to do projects and work we couldn’t necessarily do with him awake (or just additional work).  With us being on  long weekend, it meant that Jennifer and I had about three hours to kill where we were doing a big fat load of nothing.  For me, it meant three hours of reading books, some of the time on the back porch watching for painted buntings (I saw several).  For Jennifer, it meant taking a nap and reading. 

The rest of the day was uneventful as we went back to the river and then into Junction to find barbecue to eat.  Unfortunately Graham got sick with an ear infection sometime during the night so we had another restless night (and this time I slept on the floor next to his bed).  In the morning, it was apparent he was really sick so we packed up the car and got on the road by 10am.  We stopped for a quick lunch in Burnet at Storm’s (the local Hill Country equivalent of Sonic with quite possibly the greasiest burgers I’ve ever had) and headed back down 1431.  This was a great idea from the scenic point of view but a bad move from the sick kid point of view.  Halfway through the drive he puked on himself and we had to stop on the side of the road to calm him down and clean him up as well as the car seat.  I drove more slowly the rest of the way, cranked up the a/c and we were all glad to be home. 

So thus ended Graham’s first foray into the wilds known as the Hill Country with just his family and his second overnight trip anywhere besides his grandparents’ houses in Dallas and Houston.  It also fulfilled a strong desire of mine to have our own weekend out in the Hill Country wherever the heck we wanted.  It didn’t work out perfectly, what with the killer sheep, crummy bed and illness but it’s always better to get out and try than to stay at home doing the same old same old.  Here’s looking forward to more Hill Country weekends in out-of-the-way places!

Singapore.

I had never been to Singapore but I knew a few things about it:

-        -   It is a small island city/state at the bottom tip of Malaysia measuring about 30km wide and 20km tall

-         - It is a center of world trade, particularly since it is situated at the convergence of three major shipping lanes

-         - It has a mixed population of Malays, Chinese, Indians and ex-pat British and Australians

-         - It has a Formula 1 race, something that Austinites are paying more attention to since an F1 track is being built southeast of town

-         -  Situated on the equator, it was going to be hot

I’m always interested to see new places and Singapore was no exception.  I had made sure that my first stop on my trip was Tokyo though since flying from Austin to Singapore would have involved a three hour flight to Los Angeles, an eleven hour flight to Tokyo and then another 6.5 hour flight to Singapore, plus time for layovers.  Since I was already in Tokyo, was fully rested and had dealt with the first two flights, a 6.5 hour flight seemed like nothing to me.  Seriously.

My flight was scheduled to depart at 6:25am from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport so I spent the night at a hotel right next to the airport.  ‘Right next to the airport’, however, does not mean ‘right next to my terminal’, so I was obliged to catch a shuttle in the morning.  I went to bed at 11:30 fully intending to wake up in time to catch the hotel’s first shuttle, the 5:02am, but woke up well before my alarm (at 4:06, to be precise), so I hustled to catch the 4:20 bus.  If I’d missed it, I would have had to wait until 5:02.  Anyway, it was sitting out there waiting for me and packed with travelers.  The funny thing is that even though it was 4:20 the sun was already starting to rise.  I’ve probably said this before but the thing that would drive me crazy the most about living up north would be the crazy long days in summer and the crazy short ones in winter.  Give me the more steady daylight hours of Austin’s latitude any day.

Anyway, I made it to my gate without delays and caught the last ten minutes of Spain’s 2-0 Euro 2012 quarterfinal victory over the French.  Nothing quite like a soccer tournament to unite foreign travelers, at least the male ones.  Today’s flight would be with Singapore Airlines which I mentioned in the Tokyo travelogue so I won’t rehash it here.  My one additional comment is that they are the airline most likely to put on the ‘Fasten Seatbelts’ sign.  Most airlines wait until it gets to the point of actually being uncomfortable but Singapore Airlines seemed to do it at the slightest bump.  Again, these are the things I notice.

The flight was uneventful and we landed in Singapore’s Changi Airport without incident.  I was expecting, being the tropics and all, huge thunderstorms when we landed.  Nothing of the sort was around thankfully though there were lots of tall clouds that we had to maneuver around and through to land.  No rain though.  In fact, the locals were telling me they were in a bit of a dry period.  That didn’t prevent the humidity from still being quite high, though not quite Houston levels, I think.  And, interestingly enough, the temperature never got above 86 degrees or so.  So for you people baking in 40 degree Celsius/105 degree Fahrenheit temperatures in Texas, people on the equator at sea level have it better than you.  I wandered around part of the island for five hours and never was in fear that I would dehydrate or collapse. 

I caught a taxi at the airport (sometimes the office sends a driver to pick you up but apparently not in Singapore which is ok).  I immediately showed how clueless I was about Singapore by attempting to get in on the wrong side of the cab.  I prefer to sit up front in the passenger seat (better view and, if the driver speaks English and is talkative, better conversation) and had gone around to the driver’s side.  You mean you guys drive on the left down here too?  OK.  Apparently they do in Malaysia as well.  Actually, that reminds of something: in Singapore, you must pay a tax of around $75,000 to $100,000 just to own a car.  That’s right, you have to pay huge money upfront just to own a car.  Why would they do that?  Well, on a small island that isn’t getting much bigger with a population of five million people, there is already gridlock around the island.  The way the government has decided to limit the number of cars on the road is the tax.  It’s of course not fair to lower income people but at least there is a fairly good network of buses and trains.  And cabs are everywhere and very, at least by my American standards, cheap.  I was thinking about the car tax and really, what would the alternative be?  A lottery?  No one owning a car?  It’s an interesting dilemma. 

My hotel was the Intercontinental, a swank hotel that was solely designed to remind me how much I feel uncomfortable in luxury hotels (though I have now decided that I need to get with the program since this may be my life for the next thirty years).  First, a man opens the taxi door even while I’m still paying the driver.  Second, another man offers to take my bags to my room even before I have approached the front desk to check in.  Not seeing the point of losing my bags when I might need them and no, I can take my own bags thank you, I politely refuse.  While checking in, another man asks if he can take my bags to my room.  What part of ‘no’ do you guys not understand?  Two minutes later a third man approached to ask.  Well, I was just then finishing the checkout so I still refused but he gave me this look and implied it would be quite difficult for me to do on my own so I said yes.  It turned out the difficult part was a small staircase in the middle of the hallway of maybe six steps which is about 1/10 of the number of stairs I’ve sometimes negotiated with my bags while in subway stations and airports with broken escalators.  In fact, the poor guy decided to go take a service elevator off to the side rather than mess with the stairs.  He opened the door to my room and wow, it was quite swank.  It was huge and felt like I was staying in a banana plantation owner’s house.  It had a very nice couch in it with lots of cushions (that I promptly strewed my clean clothes on), a nice desk, a huge soft bed and a bathroom with both a shower and a huge tub.  And wood floors.  Nice.  This I could get used to.

But back to the whole luxury hotel uncomfortableness thing.  I did tip the porter (I never know when it’s appropriate to tip but I don’t care, I do it anyway) so that much I can deal with.  But when I tried to leave the hotel, well, I didn’t want to go all the way down the warren of hallways to take the elevator down one floor to the front desk.  In any low- to midrange American hotel, from Super 8 to Courtyard, there is a stairwell you can use to go down to the first floor.  Just at the end of my hall was a door marked exit.  I opened it to find that it led onto the roof.  Incredulous, I took a peek around the corner to see more roof, not letting go of the door lest it closed and I get locked out.  Deterred, I turned around and headed back inside only to see a hotel employee staring at me.  Still disbelieving what I’d seen, I asked him if I could get out that way. He shook his head emphatically, I sighed and headed back down the half mile of hallways to the elevator.  On the way out the front door, a porter asked if I would need a taxi but I said I was going walking.  He didn’t acted surprised or miffed and, truth be told, I was really expecting some sort of resistance on his part.  Nice guy, eh.

One new experience at the Intercontinental Hotel that was luxurious that I did enjoy was the Lounge/Club.  I forget the full name of it (Business Lounge/Club) but I was given access to it by the lady checking me in because, well, I presume because I’m an international business traveler and they have a quota to meet.  What access to the lounge means is that you have a private area where you can chill out, have breakfast or drinks and overall just relax away from the other non-business traveler guests, i.e. the ones with kids.  No offense to kids but it was extremely nice to have a private place to quietly eat breakfast with other mostly solitary business travelers.  I was worried when I saw that there was a ‘Smart Casual’ dress code but that was never a problem as I was always dressed up for work anyway.  The breakfast food was quite decent as well which, in Asian terms, means I didn’t have to eat corn, kidney beans or fried rice :)  I can also understand why frequent fliers covet the airlines’ private lounges now.

At around 3 on the Sunday afternoon I arrived, I set out from the hotel for one of my strolls.  I really need to get a small backpack or messenger bag to carry my stuff in because I had to rely on a plastic shopping bag from Tokyo.  The equipment I was carrying consisted of:

-        -  Bottle of water

-        -  Umbrella (ever since I got caught in a freak thunderstorm in Slovakia two years ago, got drenched to the skin and lost a digital camera because of it, I always carry one of these, except maybe in Arizona)

-        -  Digital camera (waterproof, eh).  It’s nice not to have to worry about water anymore but it’s a bit too bulky to put in my pockets

-        -  Map of downtown.  I feel dumb these days using a map in this day and age of GPS but I don’t care; map-reading is a skill both of my kids will have, whether they like it or not.

-        -  Snacks. just in case I have a tough time finding a suitable place to eat.  If I stocked up properly before leaving the US, I should still have trail mix and granola bars (my latest discovery is Fiber One...those are awesome)

I was fully prepared to venture out into the heat as I had put on sunscreen, had my bucket hat and was wearing one of those moisture-wicking shirts that doesn’t show the fact that you are sweating to beat the band.  As I get older and travel to places in the summertime that don’t make as liberal a use of air conditioning as we do in the US, I realize that, man, I sweat.  It actually reaches the point of being uncomfortable in many places, even as people around me are walking around in long-sleeve shirts.  It’s weird and it really does bug me.  I mean, if you’re working outside, you’re supposed to sweat and that’s ok.  But when you’re strolling around downtown, you shouldn’t.  Anyway, wherever I travel, I refuse to let the lack of air conditioning or miserably hot temperatures deter me from seeing the places.  Thankfully the shirts can at least hide most of it; whoever invented those things should get a Nobel or something.

I tried to head to the ocean from my hotel but to do so, I had negotiate not one but two malls.  Singaporeans seem to like their shopping malls but actually I think they like their air conditioning.  Several times I’d walk into a shop and the ac was set so low a polar bear would shiver.  Or sometimes I’d walk past a shop with an open storefront and feel cold air blasting out into the open air.  Anyway, after finding my way through the malls and passing what was termed the largest fountain in the world, called the Fountain of Wealth, (I’m not sure if I believe them but whatever), I found the ocean. 

There’s just something about the ocean, isn’t there?  It’s calming and mysterious at the same time.  You can stare at it for inordinate amounts of time.  If there’s a beach, you can create a whole family vacation around it.  I don’t understand it but I knew when I started my walk that that was the thing I had to see first.  I sat there for maybe ten minutes just watching the harbor before pushing on. 

The rest of the walk wasn’t that thrilling really.  Singapore is just like any other city with its parks, markets, traffic and pedestrians.  In some ways, I get a kick out of seeing those normal things being replicated in a different culture.   Like the wedding I passed by that had probably one hundred guests under a pavilion with a large buffet and a very jolly MC describing the proceedings and giving instructions in both Malay and English.  In fact, it was a mirror copy of a birthday party I stumbled upon in a park in Bloomington, Minnesota, that was being given by an Indian family for a large Indian community (except there it was an older, but still jolly, Indian lady speaking in English with the microphone).  I saw people picnicking in small groups and large, teenage couples trying to find some privacy (including two who were getting a little frisky on a cannon I wanted a closer look at...I let them have it), parents walking with their children and tourists shopping.  I also saw unusual things like a cricket match which, after watching for ten minutes, I still didn’t understand, and Little India.  I had been warned by a former co-worker of mine that it would be extremely crowded since all of the Indian laborers would have the day off and indeed it was.  About 95% of them were young Indian men either walking around or sitting together in large groups.  You could imagine them enjoying the relief of being out in the open and not working or in their cramped living quarters.  The sidewalks were quite crowded and there were very few non-Indians around but that didn’t bother me.  Actually, as long as there are people around, I never get nervous when walking.  Anyway, I looked extensively for some flowing Indian-style shirts for Jennifer but decided not to get any due to the prices; if they were that cheap were they really going to last?

Singapore has an interesting history.  When the British East India Company showed up in 1819, the island was only inhabited by a few hundred people.  Before that, it had been a city/state off and on but kept getting invaded by Malaysia, Java and Siam (there was even one story about Siam attacking it but withdrawing after a Chinese messenger who happened to be passing through told them to knock it off).  The island had a spring not too far from the ocean which made it a good stop for ships needing to replenish their fresh water suppliers.  The British took the island over and proceeded to make it into the powerhouse of commerce it is today.  The British still owned it when the Japanese attacked Malaysia and Singapore in World War II; it did not go well for the British and they were forced to surrender.  The account is fascinating if you’d like to read it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Singapore#Invasion_of_Malaya

The food in Singapore was kind of Chinese-like but I think the guys in the office always ordered me things that they knew were more palatable to Americans like chicken and rice.  That’s ok.  I’ve experienced foreign foods wherever I travel and, while I like to try new ones, I always just go with whatever place people decide to take me to and eat whatever is ordered for me (though people know I want to eat local food).  The flagship meal occurred when I was treated by one of our service providers the night I was to fly out to Shanghai at 1am.  We ate at an oceanside seafood restaurant and it was one of those meals where there are nine thousand different things to try on the lazy susan including duck, sea cucumber and other interesting things that I don’t remember.  I’d told them I’d eat anything except sea cucumber since the only time I’d ever tried it I gave up eating it after seven minutes of chewing with no results.  The boss guy didn’t know that when he ordered though but this sea cucumber, while tasting revolting, was at least able to be chewed into little pieces and thus swallowed.  I’m pretty good with chopsticks and had no problems with that and I was also used to being relied upon to take the first bite of anything so that everyone else could join in.  In fact, the pecking order was me, the boss man and then the guy to my right.  After that I didn’t pay attention. 

We finished dinner around 9 but my flight wasn’t going to leave for another four hours (yes, I was cool with taking an overnight flight...that’s the confidence Ambien brings, eh).  So some of the guys from the service provider decided to take me to, of all places, a Latin dance club.  Yes, six older to middle-aged guys sitting in a Latin dance club in Singapore, drinking whiskey mixed with coke and watching mostly Chinese-looking people cutting a rug on the dance floor.  The band consisted of three Colombians and a lady from Adelaide, Australia, who looked vaguely Hispanic and didn’t even know any Spanish when she joined the band.  To my disappointment, they played mostly music that couples dance to like cha cha and salsa, not the more club friendly stuff I danced to back in my college days.  Not that I was going to get up and dance anyway, despite the best encouragement of my compatriots, none of whom were getting up and dancing themselves, hopefully not because they were dependent upon me.  Sorry guys.  Still, it was an interesting experience.  I spent a good part of it teaching them important Spanish words like ‘corazon’, ‘salud’ and ‘alma’ and explaining why the Cotton-Eyed Joe is the best dance song of all time. 

They drove me to the airport while one of the guys found the Cotton-Eyed Joe on his cell phone for us to listen to.  And with that, I was at the airport and on my way out for another flight.  The 1am-6am Singapore to Shanghai flight is supposedly popular for businesspeople since you can sleep on the plane and then go right to work but it was only a third full and looked to mostly be used by younger people and families.  I realized to my chagrin that I couldn’t take the Ambien since I’d been, um, drinking but thankfully had a free seat next to me and managed to knock out 2.5 hours of sleep which for me is enough. 

It was my third time in Shanghai and I really can’t speak much about it that I haven’t written before.  The experience of visiting Shanghai is always the opposite of what people think it would be: “Wow, you’re visiting Shanghai!”   Well, imagine flying into Houston and only visiting Pasadena.  Imagine flying into Dallas and only being around Fair Park.  Shanghai does have culture but the parts that I’m always in are more new and master-planned and surrounded by factories.  I will speak highly of my hotel which was right next to the office and I slept surprisingly well even though my mattress was seemingly made of granite.  Oh, and breakfast usually consisted of corn, kidney beans, cucumber, grape tomatoes, bread, fried pork and fried rice (which actually made it a fairly healthy, though unusual breakfast).  I even liked staying in my hotel since there is a pizza restaurant (that I almost never see anybody else eating in) on the first floor.  This time it was manned by bored teenagers watching music videos on their cell phones when I walked in.  But the pizza is actually not bad and of course pizza is my ultimate on-the-road comfort food.

Right now (Sunday morning) I’m in a hotel at a ski resort in Korea chilling out for the weekend but I’ll write more about that later.  Ciao!

Back in Japan!

Greetings from 30,000 feet or so above the Pacific Ocean just east of Japan (the pilot just told everybody on the right side of the plane, which does not include me, that they can see Mt. Fuji). I’m on a Singapore Airlines flight heading from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Singapore on the second leg of another one of my two week Asia tours. I’ve been in Japan for the past four days and have this vague feeling that I’m going the wrong way, ha; I saw planes from American and Delta Airlines near my gate and just wanted to yell ‘Take me with you!!!’ Still, every trip has new experiences and this one includes flying with Singapore Airlines which, last time I paid attention, was rated one of the top airlines in the world for service. Unfortunately, I think that may be synonymous with ‘not having any flight attendants over the age of 30’; makes me wonder if it’s only middle-aged business traveling men voting for these things. Oh wait, that will be me in a few years. Nevermind.

It’s 6.5 hours or so to Singapore which gives me some primo time to get my travel thoughts down. So here goes:

I started my trip with a new blunder: I didn’t book the proper day for my shuttle. Rather than have Super Shuttle pick me up at the house on Monday, June 18 at 5:15am, I had scheduled it for Wednesday, JULY 18 at 5:15am. Of course, I didn’t realize this until calling Super Shuttle at 5:45 wondering where my van was.

Ooh...maybe Singapore Airlines deserves the high marks after all. I’ve just been handed, for the first time ever in my flying career I think, a breakfast menu. I have a choice of salmon, vegetables and rice or baked egg with bacon, beans, mushrooms and potatoes. Since I’m in Asia, I think it’s more likely they do a better job with their salmon than their ‘Western’ breakfast. And if I want, I can wash it down with a Singapore Sling cocktail (I think I’ll stick with water thanks).

Anyway, it was actually Jennifer, who was waiting up with me while the Kid slumbered, who realized my shuttle error. So in about seven minutes we had the Kid up and at ‘em and him and the pooch loaded in the minivan for an early morning cruise to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (it’s int’l only because there are flights to and from Cancún, Mexico). Since there is zero traffic in Austin at 6 in the morning and my flight didn’t leave until 7:35, I knew we were good. And so it was. It stunk for Jennifer to have to drive me but from my perspective, a goodbye said at the airport is a million times better than the goodbye in the living room of your house when it’s dark outside, you’re trying to be quiet so as not to wake your son and the Super Shuttle is waiting for you. Plus Jennifer was already packed up to take the Kid and Pooch to Dallas to stay with my in-laws and the Kid wakes up at 6am anyway so it wasn’t too much of a hassle for them.

The other good thing about that goodbye was that I think for the first time the Kid truly gets the fact that I’m traveling on an airplane and won’t be back for a while. He knows what an airplane is (we’ve been tracking the ones that arrive from points north and fly over our house for maybe the past year) and now has definitely made the connection that I’ll be on one. That and Jennifer shows him on the map where his daddy is. Actually, Jennifer told me he actually looks up in the sky in Dallas and talks to the airplanes that fly overhead like I’m on them. Awesome.

I arrived at my gate in plenty of time to catch my American Airlines flight to Los Angeles Int’l Airport (LAX). I say this all the time but I love Austin-Bergstrom for the very reason it’s easy in and easy out. No crowds and on nice days that I park my car I can actually walk to the airport. The downside is that it’s more difficult to get direct flights but there seem to be more and more popping up everyday (now you can fly direct to Washington, DC, yay). Yes, these are the things the near middle-aged business traveler thinks about.

 I love flying west because the scenery is better and the likelihood of cloud cover blocking your view is much, much lower since there is so much less precipitation. The travel agents for work had done their magic again and hooked me up with a window seat just behind the wing, the place I like to be, so I had an awesome view of the 2.5 hour or so uneventful flight. Unusually for me, I didn’t try to talk to my seatmate until we had landed. He was actually a pilot for DHL who lives in Austin but was about to chill out for 12 hours in LA then fly a plane to Leipzig, Germany, hang out for 30 hours, fly another plane to somewhere in Asia (I forget), then fly back to LAX. He works usually 20 days straight with 11 days off. See, it’s people like that (and of course soldiers on deployment) that keep me from complaining about being away from my family so much. But at the same time, it’s the career you choose, you know?

Anyway, the DHL pilot also has a two year old son which of course made me think of the Kid. I’ve reached a stage now that I enjoy seeing other peoples’ kids, regardless of age. Quite often it brings a smile to my face. I don’t remember if I used to be jealous when I saw people with their kids while on my trips but I know that back in the pre-childless and even pre-marriage days when Jennifer and I were going out I would be envious when I saw boyfriend/girlfriend and husband/wife pairs, particularly the closer in age they were to me. WHY ARE YOU ABLE TO BE WITH YOUR LOVED ONE AND ENJOY THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE TOGETHER WHEN I HAVE TO ENJOY IT BY MYSELF?!!!! Sigh. I’m over that now. I’m just thankful I’m there to enjoy the beautiful place in the first place though, as those of you who’ve been reading me for a while, I purposely avoid the super awesome places like, say, the Louvre in Paris so that I can save the experience for when Jennifer and I are there together (or maybe with the kids though of course the three most boring hours of my life were spent at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was 11 years old).

I had a three hour layover in LAX before catching my flight to Tokyo’s Narita Airport. The airline was going to be my old buddies at Korea Air which, if you’ve read my prior material, you may remember that I flew on my last Asia trip. I get a kick out of their baby blue planes and friendly staff, even if none of the female flight attendants are older than 26 and it’s kind of creepy how they all have their hair rolled up tight in a bun with a little baby blue ribbon/pin/thingy in the back.

I had another window seat for the Korea flight, this time right on the wing so I couldn’t see much of the ground. This wasn’t a problem for the flight since we were going to be going mostly over the ocean. There’s nothing to see when you’ve over the ocean except usually clouds so no worries there. I also had something even more important: my old friend Ambien. Ambien is the only sleeping pill that works on me and I was excited to have a stash again. Ecstatic. I had slept terribly the night before and was determined not to stay awake the whole flight to Tokyo (which would arrive around 3pm Tokyo time). Once we had reached cruising altitude, I popped one. Used to be I’d warn the person sitting next to me but this time I chose not to do so lest the person, a middle-aged American guy, think I was nuts. I love Ambien so much, we might name the next kid that, boy or girl.

I waited five minutes, put in my earplugs, put on my eye mask, wrapped a blanket around my neck and waited for Mr. Sandman. And waited. And waited. After maybe ten minutes of feeling foolish, I figured it wasn’t going to work and took everything off. Dinner came by and, even though I didn’t feel hungry, I took the tray. Here’s what I remember after that:

Telling the flight attendant that I didn’t want her to take away my dinner tray, even though I hadn’t touched it.

Opening my eyes to find the dinner tray was gone.

Holy smokes, it worked! I’d been out for about four hours which was absolutely awesome for an eleven hour flight. It doesn’t sound like much but I knew that would be enough to get me through the rest of the day without significant tiredness and would allow me to sleep once I was in Japan. I hope I hadn’t done anything crazy while I was asleep...

I spent the rest of the flight watching three movies: Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, The Secret of Arrietty (the new Hayao Miyazaki animated film) and an Australian movie called Tracker (which could have been a Western and was quite good). After we landed I decided to apologize to the guy next to me in case I’d done anything strange. He said nothing except for the...

 Oops, breakfast time! Let’s see how this goes.

Yum, salmon for breakfast. Konnichiwa!

So the guy next to me told me I didn’t want to give the flight attendant my dinner but she came by after a few minutes and took it anyway since I was zonked out. The guy had seen me take the pill and, having been a sleeping pill user himself in his earlier days, sympathized. He’d decided to stay up the whole trip, something I usually do. He said I didn’t do anything else weird and I have to believe him. Anyway, I have a 1am-6am flight coming up from Singapore to Shanghai when I’ll make use of the Ambien again for sure.

Tokyo was enveloped in clouds and fog from 35,000 feet pretty much down to a minute or two before landing. Those kind of descents are always interesting as you pass through multiple layers of clouds and thankfully, for my turbulence-phobic self, rarely bumpy. And presto, I’d returned to Tokyo.

It had been four and a half years since my first and only previous visit to Tokyo or Japan in general actually. I remembered a few things about it:

- it was exceptionally clean
- there were tons of people but it never felt stressed like New York City does
- I love listening to people speak Japanese because everybody always sounds so happy
- Better be prepared to eat a lot of fish

After four days there, I have now added to my level of knowledge and my experiences. But first, some vocabulary:
- Hai! (must always be said with an exclamation mark)
– Yes - Eea (sounds like eee-ee ay)
– No - Subarashii – wonderful
- San – Mr or Mrs. My name in Japanese would be Beck san.
- Meegee – right (as in, turn right here Cab Driver san)
- Hirodi (I think) – left
- Dai jobe – ok/whatever (I really wish they were two different words)
- Campai – Cheers!
- Oosoi – you’re late! As in
  o Me to Nishimura san who had arrived late to a business dinner: “Nishimura san! Subarashii!”
  o Japanese Customer who does not really speak English and had consumed a rather large beer and two glasses of what must have been sake: “No. Nishimura san, oosoi!”
  o Me: “What does that mean?”
  o Japanese Customer: “Nishimura san, you are late!”
  o (all laugh uproariously)
- Sayonara – good-bye. Problem is I’m used to hearing sayonara in action movies right before somebody kills somebody else. I prefer to use the other acceptable term: bye-bye.
- Darvish – Beck san, you are from Texas!
  o For those who don’t get the reference, Yu Darvish is the half Iranian, half Japanese superstar pitcher who recently left his Japan league team to pitch for the Texas Rangers.
  o After asking people what they thought about good Japan league players leaving the league to go to Major League Baseball, the reply was most people are happy because usually the player plays for a competing team, eh.

It’s funny because this trip is my first to Japan where I really needed to be the consummate professional/international businessman. This means being able to do the following:

- Dress the part. For a man, this means black slacks, white shirt and preferably a black suit jacket. I swear I was the only businessperson in downtown Tokyo wearing a green polo. Though to be fair, I suppose downtown New York or downtown Washington, DC are the same way.
- Bow properly. This is not as easy as you think because I don’t always know when to bow. I know to do it when greeting someone but exactly when? It’s easier with a handshake because with a handshake, you have to shake hands at the same time. With a bow, it’s like synchronized swimming because you need to bow at the same time but not touch each other (ouch). But then comes the question of how low to bow? If you’re in sales and you’re talking to a customer, your upper body almost needs to be parallel to the ground. But what about meeting a service provider? And do I look at the ground or look at the person? Bowing can be fun but when it really means something it’s a bit more serious.
- Clinking glasses properly while saying ‘Cheers’ (campai!). When you clink glasses, the most senior person’s glass is supposed to be higher. Well, was I the highest because I had Director in my title? Good thing as an American obviously a bit new to Japan I was being cut some slack. Or was I?
- Giving and receiving business cards. In the US, it’s easy because you give with one hand and take with your free hand. I do it without any second thoughts. But in Japan, you have to use two hands AND bow. Holy smokes. Even without the bowing, it’s tricky to extend the card holding it with two hands while the other person does the same, then seamlessly take their card while they are taking yours. Sometimes while you have your other business cards that you have to give to everyone else in the meeting tucked in your palm. I never figured it out while I was in Japan but eventually I did, even though Singapore and China don’t require the bowing and sometimes not even both hands.
- And I’m sure there are a lot of little things I don’t know about but I should at least be aware of. I’ll learn.

OK, now I’m in the Shanghai Airport waiting for my Korean Air flight to Seoul. I’ll get to that later in the travelogue but now, back to Japan!

I did get to do some sight-seeing while I was in Tokyo on the Saturday before flying out. I strolled out of my hotel around 8:30am for a walk around the city, at least places within walking distance of my hotel. Tokyo is such an awesome city due to its cleanliness and quiet traits which are seemingly hard to find in such a big, crowded place. Plus it just feels like there is a lot of culture while walking on the streets, whether from tall buildings, little apartments tucked away in corners, baseball fields in small spaces surrounded by fences that must be ten stories tall and children’s playgrounds that each have their own personality. It’s quite difficult to describe how I felt while walking around but mainly I was at peace, enjoying this city as much as I could as a visitor while thankful that I didn’t have to live there. Anyway, if you’re reading this, you’ve seen the photos on Facebook.

The one notable thing was that, for the first time in my traveling career, I had to take a taxi to complete a walk. Not only did I end up way far away from where I thought I was, I had to meet an old friend from my previous job at 1pm back near my hotel. At 12:45 I realized that wherever I was, I wasn’t anywhere close to where I needed to be and hailed a cab. And so it goes. I knew it would happen sometime but seriously, every walk I’ve ever taken in any city has always been a loop where I’ve managed to get back to my hotel. Usually though I’m not on a deadline so I’ll use that as an excuse.

My old buddy Manabu, who I hadn’t seen in 4.5 years until the night before when we met for dinner at an awesome little Japanese restaurant, was going to take me on a bus tour of Tokyo and a Japanese bathhouse. The bus tour was really more of a sight-seeing tour of a couple of local sights. We first went up in the 40 story tall World Trade Center to get a 360 degree view of downtown. Then we went to the Emperor’s Palace which actually is more accurately termed the Emperor’s Compound since you can’t get inside the walls to see the actual palace (the Emperor himself only emerges to be seen by the general public on his birthday, Dec. 23, and Jan 2). After that we went to a major Bhuddist temple which was crowded with people but quite interesting to check out, particularly for the rituals associated with good luck and curing ailments (which included have your affected body part touched by incense smoke).

Afterward we took a cruise down the river to the harbor with tons of other local tourists. One note about the tour: this was the first time I can remember ever being with a tour group led by someone carrying around a little flag on a small pole such that everyone in the group knew where he was and where we were going. There are three types of tour groups:
1. Tour groups with a guide but no discernible connection other than they’re standing in a group following one person who is usually walking backwards.
2. Group 1 but the person walking backwards has a flag.
3. Group 2 but they’re all wearing an identical article of clothing such as a t-shirt or hat.

Thank you Manabu for not booking a Group 3 tour.

After the bus tour, Manabu and I hopped a train to the Japanese bathhouse, called an ‘oosen’. The train was a monorail that took us on a bridge over Tokyo Bay to a spit of land that looked like it had been constructed of dirt fill quite recently. It was perfectly flat with buildings spaced widely apart, including the bathhouse. My image of a bathhouse was something tucked away in a back alley with 17th century architecture. This bathhouse was more of the Schlitterbahn of bath houses, catering expressly to families and groups. I didn’t care; I wanted to experience what the Japanese experience, even if it didn’t require any clothing. Here are the e-mails between Manabu and I about the subject:

 Manabu: Japanese Hot-Spring theme park (http://www.ooedoonsen.jp/higaeri/english/index.html) This is in tokyo and it took around 30min from Hamamatsu-cho station. I've been there once and there's entertainment besides Onsen as well and that is pretty fun. You can wear Japanese Yukata (kind of kimono) and feel Japanese old festival style.
Me: Excellent! If we’re going to use the baths, I brought my swimsuit.
Manabu: In Japan, basically, we cannot wear swimsuit in the Baths. So if you don't wanna take bath, probably it would be better that we can try one day bus trip instead of half day.

Let me say that I enjoyed the bathhouse immensely. I would go back at the first opportunity, solely for how relaxed I felt while I was there. It was a little strange of course but I’m not lying when I say it was totally family friendly. Let me explain.

You enter the bathhouse (I did not take any photos of course so you’ll have to be dependent on my descriptions) through a main door into a lobby. Off to your left are lockers, at the far end is a spot where people are being handed kimonos. Down the way is a desk where you pay. And in the middle, not unlike a movie theater lobby, is a queue where you wait to pay. We had arrived at 5:50 and sat here with many others to await the discounted evening rate to begin at 6. There were all sorts of people there. There were families with little children, teenagers in groups, boyfriend/girlfriend combos and random Japanese of all ages. I counted maybe four white-skinned people, all men between the ages of 20 and 40, the whole time I was there. Excellent.

The first step actually upon entering the bathhouse is to remove your shoes and place them in the lockers in the lobby. Yes, just your shoes. So everybody gets to see your nappy socks and nasty feet, ha! You take your locker key and other belongings and deposit your credit card with the clerks. You are then handed a bracelet with barcode on it and a key attached (it rotates into a hidden fold in the bracelet). After putting the bracelet on, we headed to the back of the lobby to select a kimono. Yep, even as a guy I was going to wear a kimono. Awesome. There were three designs to choose from so of course I chose the most silly-looking, one with a fat samurai wrestling a huge fish on the back.

 With our folded kimonos in our arms, Manabu and I proceeded through a curtain into the men’s locker room. In there, we found our lockers, stripped down to our underwear and put on our kimonos. Manabu tied my sash for me (the sash is seriously like ten feet long) and out we went into the main area, still with our key/barcode bracelets but wrapped up in our cool kimonos.

The main area is a bit like the mini-bazaar, complete with little booths to buy trinkets, a food court, two different small stages for performers and stalls for games not unlike you’d see at an amusement park. The atmosphere at the point though was totally Japanese bathhouse with dark lighting, a lowish ceiling and fake wood walls. Oh, and probably five hundred people walking around wearing identical kimonos. We would eat later; it was time to take a bath!

In order to take a bath, you have to get third locker. This time we went into the bath locker room (for men) and fully stripped down, taking a locker key to hang on your wrist and leaving your barcode/key bracelet behind. And your underwear. And your kimono.

Disclaimer: For those who don’t want to hear me wax ecstatic about being nude in public, please skip down a few paragraphs to the spot marked ‘IT’S OK TO READ NOW’. And for those on the fence, Jennifer has already edited this whole blog to keep me from completely embarrassing myself.

 Now, for my own posterity, I’ll wax on nudity. I’ve been using men’s locker rooms for time out of mind and walking around without clothes is just a thing you do. You don’t usually make eye contact with strangers though and you don’t look down except when necessary to make sure you don’t trip over a bar of soap. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve always felt that I could go to Hippie Hollow and as long as I knew no one was taking pictures I’d be good. Yet, I don’t have the urge to go naked in public so I’ve never been. Anyway, we were all born naked and the human body is the human body so it doesn’t bother me.

Back to the locker room. Now, you’re not entirely without cover. A washcloth is provided to you to take into the bath. It is large enough to sufficiently cover yourself. I decided that I would show that this American has nothing to hide. So with the washcloth held loosely at my side, I walked into the bath.

There are several steps before entering the actual baths. First, you have to wash yourself off a bit at a trough using a bowl. I never asked Manabu if it was ceremonial or not because the next step was to take a shower. Yep, a shower. And not just any shower: a seated shower. There were two rows of little stalls with low mirrors, bath soaps and stools to sit on. Thankfully the showerheads were on a cord so, after feeling awkward for about ten seconds while trying to wash myself while seated, I said to heck with it and stood up. Most people were still seated but to each his own.

Once the shower was done we could get into the tubs. There were several rather large ones to choose from. There was a slightly elevated one under a little roof. There was a bigger one level with the floor. There was one off to the side with little jets of water shooting out of the walls. There was one outside in a little walled compound set to look like a real Japanese garden (complete with rocks and everything in and around the bath). And there was even a cold one to sit in but it could only hold about six people without rubbing against each other.

There were lots of males in the bath. I only caught a couple of them looking up as I walked in but really, who doesn’t look up when there is movement sometimes? Manabu and I would chill out in one of the hot tubs for 5-10 minutes (I wasn’t trying to keep track of time), then we’d move to another one. It was so humid in the house I started to sweat, even though I was up to my neck in the hot water (at about 104 degrees it was quite hot), so we moved outside where the nighttime temperature was in the low 70s. That was quite nice so we stayed there for a while. Then we moved inside again and I alternated between the hot tubs and the cold tub (which at 68 degrees felt like it was about 36 but felt really, really good once you were in it). We were in there for at least an hour and it was awesome.

One last comment: when you’re in a jacuzzi with a swimsuit on, well, there are some parts of you that the water doesn’t get to. This is not the case in a Japanese bath house :)


IT’S OK TO READ NOW!!!!!!


When we left the bath, we showered (not together) and put on our underwear and kimonos again. We ate a nice little Japanese dinner in the food court with all of the other patrons (all wearing the six available styles of kimonos, three for each gender). Then we hit the doctor fish. What are doctor fish, you ask? They’re fish that eat your dead skin. Awesome. Manabu and I entered this little hut that had a shallow, square-shaped and recessed tank that was just large enough to hold sixteen people seated on the edges and just deep enough so that the water went to the middle of your calves. And then these little fish swam over and started nibbling on my feet. It felt really tingly at first but after that felt kind of good. The funny thing was that my feet had about five times as many fish on them as anybody else, so much that about every two minutes or so the other six people in the hut would chuckle simultaneously (the first time they did I responded with a perfectly-timed shrug and ‘Sorry’). Here’s a link with more info and a photo: http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/problems/treating/doctor-fish.htm

I can’t say if it made my feet look nicer or cleaner but it definitely was relaxing.

After the doctor fish session we chilled out in the foot bath, basically an outdoor Japanese garden with a fake little stream running through it. You could sit on the edge and soak just your feet in the hot water. If you wanted to truly relax, or so the signs said, you could walk the length of the stream which was maybe fifty feet. The problem was that the bottom was embedded with polished stones sticking straight up which HURT to walk on. Manabu and I gave up after about five feet.

After the foot bath, it was 9pm and time for us to get back to town since my flight the next morning would leave at 6:25am. Manabu and I took the train to a station close to the hotel, I walked with him to his train station, we parted ways and I was off to walk another half mile or so in the dark. It’s always wonderful seeing old friends and visiting places you enjoy but it’s also always bittersweet to leave. At least on business trips to multiple places you get used to saying goodbye. And with my job being the way it is, being truly responsible for trade compliance around the world for the company and being in the weeds everywhere, I’ll be back sooner than later (though hopefully not too soon...I need to be home for the arrival of the next kid).