asia | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

Amelia and I were proud of our abilities navigating Japan. She had a hot spot and I had a working GPS. She spoke Japanese and I am experienced with train systems. So we had it made.

Except when we didn’t, but we submit that our mistakes were of an upscale variety. We didn’t get on the wrong train; we mistook a 7 for a 1 and got off at the wrong station. We didn’t fail to book accommodation; we decided to be spontaneous and carefree and the flea pit we wound up sleeping in proved a delightful adventure. Plus we avoided bedbugs. We didn’t misread a bus schedule; we spent two hours enjoying the mountain views of Minakami before scheduling a taxi ride.

Perhaps the best mistake was on our return. We flew Tokyo to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Baltimore. Most of our fellow travelers from the East left in Atlanta.

Having delighted my heart and solved a logistical problem by buying a Woodstock and Snoopy suitcase in Tokyo, I had also proved to everyone that I would never grow up. Woodstock has been my favorite cartoon character since age 8, and as I told Amelia, I might even kill for the chance to own a Woodstock suitcase.

Which might prove necessary, Amelia said when we tried to get into the character store at the main Tokyo airport train station. Cute culture is everywhere in Tokyo. Character stores specialize in Pokemon, a cute cat company called Mofusand (I fell in love and went broke) assorted superhero collectives, and yes, Peanuts. And they are equally attractive to tourists and locals. We couldn’t even pass through the hallway outside, stuffed with people. We fled, but that night I found a Peanuts carry-on at the big department store near our hostel. Best souvenir ever, and no one stateside would own one like it, Amelia and I agreed. Well, except those 400 people in the hallway outside the character store, but they were probably going for Pokemons.

You know what’s coming, right? We got off last in Baltimore because we were cattle call passengers in Zone 8. We hadn’t paid for checked bags but I took advantage of the free offer staff usually make at the last minute to let Snoopy and Woodstock ride in the hold. When they came off the conveyor belt in the first round of cases, they proudly sported a “Delta Priority” sticker, which I assumed was because of the last-minute checking of the bag.

Nope: some guy in first class had a case exactly like mine. To be fair, it was 11pm and had been Wednesday for 32 hours, so cut us a little slack, eh?

When we reached our hotel, Amelia found a message on her phone commanding us to return and exchange cases. On the way back to the airport (fortunately just a few miles away) we discussed what sort of professional traveler businessman in first class would have a Snoopy and Woodstock bag. But we couldn’t be too judgmental, Amelia pointed out, because, you know, I had one.

The exchange was made without anyone coming to blows. When the United employee suggested to me that I had not looked carefully enough, I looked at her very carefully indeed, then smiled (it might have been more teeth baring) and said “Goodnight.” Japan can teach one a lot about polite aggression.

I never met the guy who owned the case just like mine, but did see one tall, thin Japanese man with a dignified ponytail sitting in a sad little slump outside the office where the exchange took place. It seemed best not to engage.

See? We only made upper class mistakes.

Kenrokuan Gardens are in Kanazawa, and they are quite something. I enjoyed them, but Amelia was having a mystical experience. After her first trip to Japan a couple of years ago, she built a Shinto garden at her Airbnb–which is her maternal grandmother’s old house, modernized for visitors–and we do believe she has the only Tori gate and Inari shrine in Elk Creek, Virginia. (Inari is the white fox who guards rice, and therefore prosperity and possibility.)

A kind couple at the bewildering array of bus stops at Kanazawa station helped us to the right bus and were very sweet in helping us get off it properly, as they were headed to the gardens themselves. The gardens are free if you’re over 65, so Amelia’s happy day started early. I had to pay 500 yen (which is a little over $3).

Plum trees blossom in snow. I did not know this until I saw them with my own phone camera! The gardens are famous for that era of rapid transition in Japan, when feudal lords (samurai) were on the way out and modern Japan as a power to be reckoned with in manufacturing and goods was hoving into view.

Of course, the samurai didn’t like this, and many of them were wiped out around the same time as the American Civil War in an ill-fated rebellion. It was shortly after this that samurai were forbidden to carry swords as part of their daily attire. (I am ignoring the implications to open carry in my home commonwealth of Virginia and moving on, thank you.)

The gardens are named Roku because of Japan’s six prized landscaping elements incorporated in their design: open spaces, panoramic views, solitude options, art made by humans, ancientness, and lots of water features. One of Japan’s oldest trees (a pine) sits in the garden. Amelia’s aunt sat on the tree seventy years ago to take her bridal picture, but it’s roped off now. One too many tourists, probably.

Amelia walked around in a daze, every turn and corner a new epiphany. I am a cheerful but not accomplished gardener, so I walked around going “Oh, pretty” and “I wonder if this is edible or medicinal.” (Bad gardeners make good foragers.)

And of course we had to do the winter tea experience, because it was cute. This country invented cute. They do cute with elegance, cute with glitter, cute with dignity, cute with gravitas. Warning to visitors: DO NOT LAUGH when you see a businessman in a black suit and black cashmere coat carrying a black backpack with a dangling fuzzy bunny onto a train. This was our international incident #17 or so, we think. We’ve lost count.

Amelia sat in blissful silence, munching her bean paste snowman, matcha chocolate, and almond lantern cookie in deep contemplation. She’s planning her garden back home. I bit the head of my snowman and watched a fat raven work the crowd outside the window.

After the gardens we investigated the reconstructed castle walls, then wandered through town. The high tea Japanese style was charming, but not entirely filling, so we stopped at what can only be described as a Japanese tapas bar.

The owner was a very sweet woman, and I had an assortment of six dishes plus hot red wine. (That is a big thing here and one of the cultural imports I will be making at home. Hot red wine is delicious, not mulled, just heated.)

She had a small display of handmade jewelry all in the same pattern, a family crest. Her sister makes them. Amelia and I treated ourselves to earrings, and then headed for a neighborhood outdoor onsen. These communal baths use volcanic hot water with a lot of natural minerals in it, and they are awesome. International incident #18, I left my glasses in the washing room, so had to reenter it after the onsen, with my sweatshirt on. You don’t wear street clothes into the bathing area.

The onsen also shows something kind of gritty about human divides. In America, many Americans will avoid direct contact with Mexicans unthinkingly, or make assumptions about their cleanliness and such without overtly expressing why they decide not to sit there, eat that, talk to him or her.

In the onsens we have visited, if we go to the inside tub, the Japanese women who come in after us go to the outside, and vice versa. Once an older woman shot us a suspicious look and left. By contrast, at my first ever onsen, the only woman there spoke fluent English and welcomed me to the experience when she discovered this was my inaugural immersion.

The neighborhood onsen was sublime. The gardens were spiritual. So what better ending to such a meaningful day could there be than an Irish pub in the heart of Kanazawa at happy hour? Amelia had a curry pizza. I had sausages. The Olympics were on a massive screen TV, showing the Asian figure skaters. A good time was had by all.