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It's about a month into summer, and though it seems totally counterintuitive, I went to the hot spring at the edge of my town for a dip. I had originally wanted to go to the one I found on my map within the city centre, but it looked like it was closed when I got there. So I braved the traffic on Route 4 and drove through a fortuitously cool, light drizzle to get to the Hibari Healthland spa.
My impression of hot springs tends to follow those I've seen in anime, namely the natural outdoor set ups surrounded by trees and bamboo fences. So far I must say I've not yet found any that fit my mental image, unfortunately. The Hibari spa, being a largish industrial looking complex built around a natural hot spring right next to a national freeway, is consequently short of natural foliage, however they make up for it with wall sized murals of forests and Japanese gardens. It's a relatively modern complex with lots of private and common use tatami rooms, massage areas, dining and rest facilities.
Faux pas number 1! Walking right up to the reception desk and then being asked politely to get a set of keys from the shoe lockers right at the door. Must remember to keep eyes peeled for lack of footwear anywhere within any kind of spa or hot spring.
Entry to the place was a little pricier than I'd expected at 780 yen, but this was probably due to the 100 yen charge for the towel, something I can save if I bring my own shower implements. I spotted a 500 yen deal for 90 minutes, but that was for weekdays.
There was some kind of party going on in the main tatami hall just outside the spa that day, with women in kimono performing some kind of fan dance, and singers in flouncy, sequinned dresses doing enka on the karaoke machine. I really can't appreciate the overuse of tremolo in this kind of music, so I decided to hurry on to the bath. After all, I only had 2 hours to get washed and relaxed.
The place has no mixed bath facilities, but I'm totally cool with that, even though I'd like to try one sometime. After depositing my stuff in my designated locker, it was off for a thorough shower and scrub down before entering the spring.
Faux pas number 2! Bringing both the small washcloth and large towel into the shower area. I constantly have to remind myself that you leave your modesty at the noren, together with your bath towel when you go to a public bath. I bet the rest of the ladies there picked me out as a complete n00b right there and then.
My preference is for the outdoor bath wherever possible, since the cool circulating air outside makes staying in the bath a more pleasant experience. The water in the spring was cooler that I'd previously experienced at other places, but this meant that I could soak for longer before overheating. The water also felt a little bit dense and soapy, something that I wasn't used to. It was only after squinting at the signage (astigmatism and myopia do not help) that I realized that this spring had lots of different salts in it for therapeutic purposes. There were also signs that said that the water in the spring was also meant to be drunk to relieve certain ailments. I don't know about you, but I have reservations about drinking any kind of bath water, especially if I'm not the only one who's been using it.
Faux pas number 3! Forgetting to bring a hairclip and struggling to wrap long, wet hair in my very small washcloth. Not only is this a futile task with a piece of cloth ill-equipped to do the job, it also uses up the only barrier against complete exposure of your bits to all and sundry.
I reckon it's my gaijin upbringing that results in extreme self consciousness whenever I go to these kinds of places. I thought I caught a few older ladies staring at me from the open air spring while I was cooling off on a nearby deck chair, though with my poor vision I might have been mistaken. I hope this feeling will pass if I go to public baths more often. Maybe then I can truly relax and enjoy the hot water without curling up into a foetal position every time someone walks by.
Earlier on in the year I posted that I'd picked up brush calligraphy and joined a school where people spend hours writing pretty looking kanji. Though it might not look it, I've been going to classes as regularly as I can barring sickness, so I can now proudly say that I've broken into the regional ranks of calligraphy enthusiasts at Level 7. Six more levels to go... *sigh* it will be a hard slog.
I went to class once after being absent the week before due to my cold, and as luck would have it, the class had been cancelled owing to the teacher preparing for an exhibition of her students' work in the town's community centre. I decided to go take a look because I reckon I should support my teacher, but mostly because I had to apologize for skipping so many lessons this month. ^^;
Looking at the stuff on display makes me feel a lot better about my own work, until I realize these are kids and they'll be miles ahead of me by the time they get through elementary school. T.T
Just to drive the humility angle home, the town's calligraphy teachers (so mine isn't the only one after all) lent the exhibition some of their own works. Sure I had to read the labels beside their scrolls to understand what they wrote, but it just goes to show that the longer you work at it, the more aesthetically pleasing your stuff gets... yeah.
I also discovered that these professionals were actually the same people I met during the New Year's dinner hosted by the Sukagawa branch of Soroptimist, a Rotary-like group dedicated to furthering women's interests all over the world. Thing is, I wouldn't have recognized their names even if I'd remembered how they were written, because they go by different names in their work. I was told that they would use their family name but take on a different given name, one containing a character from their teacher's adopted given name. If it sounds a little confusing, it's pretty much the same system as the one in Memoirs of a Geisha. Which is cool, because it means that if I ever get good enough, I can use a different name too. Might take a while though. A long while. Gah.
Some weeks ago I posted about one of the elementary schools switching from milk packed glass bottles to that in paper cartons. It would seem that a change is happening in the school lunch system at some schools too, because my latest school has mysteriously dropped last year's system where the kids serve each other using proper crockery, to individual, ready packed lunches in plastic bentou containers. I have a feeling that the food is being shipped from a central school lunch factory, just like the schools in Koriyama up north, instead of being prepared fresh on the school grounds.
This is the change I'm talking about:
It's probably not my imagination that the oishii factor in the lunches has taken a beating since the switch. Maybe it has something to do with soaring food prices and the snowballing petrol price crisis, but I have a feeling this happened at the beginning of the school term in April, before these things became a problem.
The other thing I wonder about is what happens to the plastic trays once they finish lunch. I see them all stacked up and returned to the kitchen, but what happens afterwards is a bit of a mystery. I asked the teachers about it, and it seems that the trays get returned to the supplier where they might be washed and reused. "Might", I say, because even the teachers weren't sure. I can only hope that they don't get dumped into the incinerator like I suspect.
Maybe it's just me, but if this system gets introduced to more of my schools I'll sorely miss the kids doling out the food to everyone in the queue during lunchtime. Taking away the kids' involvement in their school lunch kind of lessens the communal experience, methinks, not to mention it might give kids the idea that lunch should always come ready to eat in a sterile plastic tray. Welcome to TV dinner land.
Sukagawa prides itself on being a pretty town to look at, what with the peonies and greenery that's everywhere. I suspect it's this sense of civic pride that motivates its people to occasionally mobilize to do a clean-up of the town. The elementary school I was at at the time did just this one morning, and I was roped in to watch over the kids as they went about the neighbourhood picking up trash and stuff. I took it as an opportunity to see a typical suburb in a not so rural area of Japan.
Oh, and there won't be pics in this post because I reckon the rest of the teachers won't fancy a strange gaijin taking photographs of their kids on a school outing. Privacy laws and all that, see.
Anyway, the area around the school was quite nice to walk around in. Japanese houses tend to be quite compact and modern looking, though most will have a tatami room hidden beyond the glass and aluminium. It was from this nice quiet neighbourhood that the kids brought back an impressive bunch of swag, from ordinary items like drink cans, scrap paper and glass bottles, to the slightly less pedestrian tyres, number plates and aluminium siding. I would have liked to keep one of the number plates, since it had the name of the prefecture on it, but I suppose it would have looked very strange for a teacher to be hoarding junk.
All in all it was nice to get out for a break from class after class of screaming kids, and in a situation where I didn't have to be leading the activity. And since the kids were busy spotting even the most minute bit of trash on the street, they didn't have time to hang on to my arms and legs. That can't be all bad.
With June comes the other round of elementary school lessons on my schedule for the year. Though having enthusiastic students is a refreshing change from junior high angst, the prospect of being mobbed by ankle biters and catching a bad cold makes it a little bit daunting. The odds of coming down with something nasty this time are a little lower, since the weather is getting warmer. That didn't stop me from coughing and sniffling my way through the first week with the kids, however. I can't win.
Regardless, I wasn't going to let a piddling little cold keep me from watching the annual elementary school marching band parade through the main street of the town. I'd heard the band at one of my schools practicing on the grounds after class, but I had no idea it was to be a public performance:
It was nice to see that some of the kids actually remembered me from months ago when I was last at their school.
This particular school is apparently the best marching band not just in the town or prefecture, but the whole Tohoku region. They didn't disappoint either, with an extra complicated piece, super shiny instruments and all the bells and whistles a champion school gets for bringing glory to the town. And just so the kids don't completely show up the adults in town, the local police marching band gave a rousing send off at the end of the parade, complete with flag twirling girls in abbreviated band outfits. XD
The mascot of the town, Botan, an anthropomorphic burning haystack (if you remember my post on the annual Taimatsu Akashi festival) was also in attendance. We found it quite amusing to see him getting continuously swamped by little kids wanting a handshake or a hug from a local celebrity.
Yes, his head's on fire. It was only later when the guy inside the costume took off the mask that we realized it was the guy sitting next to us in the Board of Education office that we'd been laughing at the whole time. Oops ^^;
