A Stroll Down Den Den Town Lane (Daniel)

I have been writing about Brian, Sarah, and my trip to Korea during Golden Week. However, it has proved to be a long trip in memory and I so decided to break up the post by days. Then I started writing about the first day and didn't even get past the first few hours. So here is the first part of the first day, we haven't even made it out of Osaka yet. I write the rest of the trip up in increments, as well, and then I will put them all together in chronological order to make a final, long post about the trip as a whole. This is Golden Week Part Day 1, Part 1

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Our flight to South Korea was scheduled to leave in the evening, so Brian, Sarah, and I spent our afternoon in Den Den Town. This is the nickname for the downtown Osaka neighborhood that serves as the hi-tech center for gadgets, gizmos, and garish technologies. When Westerners conjure images of urban Japanese streets littered in bright lights and parades of people in geeky costumes decorating every storefront, they are imagining Den Den Town. (Or more likely Akihabara in Tokyo, but this story doesn't happen there).

Pictured: The Japanese Spider-man/Charlie Chaplin cross-over comics that never reached the States for obvious reasons. 

Our first stop was at an antique video game store. We were, of course, carrying all of our luggage for a week-long trip. We had to delicately rotate our bodies to navigate through much of the shop. Luckily the oldest and most valuable game consoles were protected from our clumsy girth by a glass casing that ran the long horizontal length of the shelf. We snickered and awed as we passed fossils like the Atari 7800 and the NES, Nintendo's original home console. As we continued to browse through the relics we came upon the original GameBoy.

I remembered getting the GameBoy for my sixth Christmas and hardly putting it down until I was a preteen. It had looked so sleek and space-aged back then. Sitting behind that glass case, next to a dusty, hand-written price tag, it looked like a grey brick.

I was a little surprised to see the Super NES and more than a little surprised to see the Nintendo 64. These were machines that were released in the Nineties, during the core of my childhood. The Nintendo 64 is retro, sure, we all agreed, but antique? We all had to laugh a bit at how outdated our childhoods had become. But when I saw the Nintendo Gamecube I found it a little bit harder to laugh at myself. The Gamecube is a sixth generation console, post-millennial, employing optical discs rather than those old-fashioned cartridges, hell I played it into adulthood. 

I stared at the consoles and games of my youth long and hard, trying to see them from the point of view of the children running around the shop. Objectively, I knew what it meant that they sat in an antique section. I am not unaware of my own aging. Yet, I still feel young. And I don't feel outdated myself, well not usually, at least. I'm certainly not beholden to outdated things, at least not most things. Yet, as I try to keep myself open to the changing times I find that I am increasingly defined by the things that have already happened. 

I never thought I'd become an artifact collector simply by growing older. Also, if anyone is searching for some historic beanie babies, I've got nearly a hundred in my parents' attic.

Ignorance Springs Eternal (Sarah)

Of the many new things I've tried in Japan, none of them made me feel quite as alien as my trip to an onsen (Japanese for “hot springs”).  As Japan is a volcanically active country, there are onsen basically everywhere.  Onsen are an important part of the traditional culture, and served as public baths for centuries. Today they continue to be a popular form of relaxation for many modern Japanese. Nonetheless, many of the old customs remain in place at onsens. I wish I could recount the proper way to uphold these traditions while visiting an onsen. Instead, here is a tale mostly of what not to do:

Daniel and I had just spent more than four hours hiking Roko-san (“-san” always follows the name of a mountain as a sign of reverence in Japan). We set out on our hike a bit later than we should have and so we had to really hustle to get off the mountain before sunset. On the opposite side of Roko-san is a little onsen town, Arima. Our muscles aching, we decided to try an onsen for the first time.

We entered through the front doors and I made my way to the front desk...or at least I tried to. Very quickly I was stopped by no less than 4 people waving their arms at me and calling out "ie!" ("no"). I hadn't realized that the flooring had changed and that I was walking in the "no shoes section" of the building ( mistake #1). The Japanese believe that shoes bring in the dirt and the impurity of the outside, so you’re not supposed to wear shoes in many places, including, as I had just learned, the lobby of an onsen. I gave what I imagine is a sufficient number of “sumimasens” (“I'm sorrys”). I took off my shoes, not sure that I was truly bringing in any less dirt given that the rest of me was also covered in sweat and dust, and placed the evidence of my crime in a nearby locker.

Daniel and I bought two tickets from an automated machine, walked ten feet to the front desk, and exchanged our tickets for a key. We were ready to head up the stairs. Though I didn’t know it yet, this was my second mistake.

 At the top of the stairs I said goodbye to Daniel as he departed for the men’s side and I braced myself for whatever was behind the curtain on the women's side. It turned out just to be a locker room with only one other woman in it. Unfortunately, her locker was directly above mine. I sat and waited for her to finish. Of course, I also not-so-subtly watched what she did for cues as to what I should do next. She quickly shed all her clothes and walked through a nearby door. From this I gathered that the towels were in the next room. So I followed suit and made my way through the door. 

Fifteen women whipped their heads around to stare bullets into my pasty white skin. There I was, stark naked and clutching a water bottle as if it would hide my nakedness. Most women were just as exposed as I was, although many were submerged in the rich, red mineral water. Others, upon seeing me clutched at their towels in an attempt to cover up. These standard Japanese towels are not much larger than a piece of printer paper and did little to conceal their bodies. Even though they all sat there staring at me in silence, I swear I could hear their thoughts: "so Westerner's nipples ARE pink..."- "What lovely pale skin!"- "Do all white women have a butt THAT large?" 

After this long moment of awkward staring, everyone must have decided they had seen everything they wanted to see because they barely paid me any attention for the rest of my visit.

Thankfully I kind of knew the procedure from here. I remembered Lonely Planet saying I had to clean myself before entering the pools. I headed over to where I saw other women sitting on stools in front of facets. I sat down, trying not to think about how many diseases could be on the stool. I quickly realized I had nothing to scrub with. Not only that, but there were metal bowls at each facet and I had no idea what they were for... I'm still not really sure.

So once again, I not-so-subtly watched to see what everyone else was doing. The other women had small towels that they were scrubbing with. So I looked around to find one for myself.  But I found no small towels...or large ones for that matter. And then mistake #2 dawned upon me: we were supposed to rent towels downstairs.

At this point I was rather embarrassed already and didn't need any other shame to be heaped on. I decided I wasn't going to retreat to the locker room, get dressed, get my towel, return to the locker room, get undressed, and head back into the springs. No, I'd tough it out. I took the provided body wash and shampoo and cleaned myself, then cleaned the stool, and then placed the bowl upside down on the stool. 

Now it was time for why I was willing to put up with all the awkwardness...actually going into the onsen. I approached the pools. There were three. One of the pools was absolutely packed with at least ten women crammed in. Another had an older lady who did not seem to take kindly to my presence; she gave me a mad stink eye. So, I chose the third. This turned out to be mistake #3.

Thankfully, I had brought a water bottle into the onsen with me (mistake #4 to my looker-ons, but I consider it one of my most brilliant ideas) because within minutes I was light headed and sweating buckets. Any energy I had left after our long hike all went into making sure I didn't pass out and look like a stupid gaijin (“foreigner”) in front of everyone there. I was only able to put up with the heat for about fifteen minutes.

When I finished, I showered and started to make my way towards the locker room when I noticed that the pool I had been in was a good 3-5 degrees Centigrade higher than the other pools. This explained why no one besides me stayed in there for any length of time. 

I entered the locker room and once again cursed myself for not realizing I was supposed to rent a towel. Thankfully I had my hankachi- a little Japanese hand towel, maybe 5 inches x 5 inches, designed to dry the hands and nothing more.  By now, a large mass of people were in the locker rooms. Imagine the spectacle of the girl drying her body with a washcloth in front of a gaggle of Japanese onlookers. So much for not looking like a stupid gaijin.