Two food writers devour Tokyo
by Becky Selengut and Matthew Amster-Burton
If you enjoy this excerpt, please buy the book!
Chapter 3: Going Commando
BECKY
Beating jet lag is all about mastering the first night. The trick is to harness great gobs of internal fortitude to stay awake until bedtime, no matter what time you arrive. Follow these rules carefully:
No hot showers, no hot baths. Taking a long hot shower is a nice idea, but not today (and taking a long hot bath, especially, is a one-way ticket to Snoozeville);No napping and no hitting the proverbial futon before it’s the exact moment you want to pass out;No booze. Alcohol is not your friend unless you’re a professional drinker.Stay sober, alert and dirty. SAD, for short. I worked long and hard on that acronym. You’re welcome.
But let’s back up, shall we? At the Narita airport, Matthew and I shook hands on a gentleman’s bet as to who could make it past 9 pm. The gauntlet thus thrown, I mentally plotted out the rest of the day and it involved lots of movement. If you keep moving, it’s much harder to slip into a narcoleptic state, though not entirely impossible. Matthew had reserved us one night at a traditional inn (ryokan). We checked into the Ryokan Shigetsu in Asakusa, shed our bags, tested the firmness of the tatami mat and futon (firm and semi-firm), pondered the complimentary green tea and sesame seed confections, and headed immediately back onto the streets. I was thrilled to be in Japan for the first time and 99% comatose. It was 4:08 pm.
Matthew will perhaps have a greater sense of the details of this first night. What I can remember is this: We walked by a very famous temple with a big lantern-thingy and a large gate. I think it was called the Thunder Dome. No, the Thunder Gate. Yes, that. We ate at a tiny restaurant. The food was good (tempura, karaage fried chicken, miso soup). The ice cold beer was incredible, but a mistake. I noticed, too late, that he didn’t order a beer, that sneaky rat bastard. I started yawning great big dramatic, room-sucking yawns in an attempt to bring him down faster. Back on the streets, we passed endless artisan rice cracker (senbei) stalls. My eyes were tearing up I was so tired. It was 6:46 pm.
Matthew suggested we head back to the inn, put on our yukata (robes) and slippers and hit the top-floor baths. Upon arrival, the host had pressed into my hand the English language playbook on using a traditional Japanese bath (onsen). It had lots of cartoon clipart of pudgy white people with X’s through them. I will paraphrase: Don’t be an idiot. Wear your yukata to the bath. Don’t wear your yukata into the bath. Clean yourself at the shower stall before entering. Don’t wash your junk in the bath. Okay, it didn’t say the last bit, but maybe it should have. It’s probably a good idea to spell things out for sleep-deprived foreigners.
It’s customary to tie the yukata above the waist if you’re a woman and below the waist if you’re a man and somewhere in between if you’re not sure. You can wear them to meals in the inn, to the baths and even to bed. The left side of the yukata goes over the right side, unless you’re attending your own funeral. The obi (belt) brings it all together. There were other rules but I was too bleary-eyed to keep reading. The beer made me painfully tired and Matthew was waiting for me in the hall. I tried not to laugh out loud at the picture of us in our traditional robes, looking to the world like gangly extras in the never released Jewish version of James Clavell’s Shogun. Once upstairs, I slipped into the hot water in the large wooden tub in the women’s bath. Out the window, the glow of Tokyo’s skyline. I had the place all to myself. I love that early-on vacation moment when you shed that first layer of travel weariness; your shoulders settle down onto your back, you let out a long, contented sigh and close your eyes.
WAKE UP! 7:38 pm. I headed back to my room and puttered around. Don’t lay down, I said to myself. Don’t do it. But let’s be real for a second, in a teeny-tiny Japanese ryokan room, if you’re not sitting on the toilet, you’re laying on the tatami mat, there is simply no other real estate to explore and no chairs. So fuck it. I lay down and began reading books on Japanese culture and food. The next thing I knew, I was awakened from a text from Matthew: “are you still awake?” he queried. 8:44 pm.
Goddammit, I lost.
I tried to go back to sleep even though my normal bedtime is midnight, because who really cares now? After all, fighting jet lag is not about being refreshed, it’s about winning. Three hours later — BLAM — wide awake. I clicked on the light, grabbed the bath etiquette pamphlet and read some more. Wait, what was that bit there? “Remember to wear your underwear under your yukata.”
Oops.
MATTHEW
I win! BOO-YA.
Now that I think about it, Becky, remember how the bet was for $1000? You were kind of sleepy, but we definitely shook on it. Also, remember the part where Robert Redford offered you a million dollars to…wait, maybe I’m thinking of something else.
If you’ve never been to Japan, you’ve probably heard it described as “Westernized.” The person saying this is typically a guy who got burned out after teaching English in Japan in his 20s. He makes the accusation in the tone you’d use to lament that an old friend joined a weird religion. Just not the same anymore.
If you’re planning your first trip to Japan, just go ahead and assume this is right, that after marinating in Euro-American influence since Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer arrived in 1853, Japan is now the 51st state plus a sprinkle of soy sauce. That way, it’ll be more fun when you arrive and your head explodes from how wrong the idea is.
Like a lot of nonsense, there’s a sliver of truth to the claim. Japan enthusiastically hoovers up international culture — from Asia, from Europe, and especially from the US. It has over 3000 McDonald’s outlets, over 1000 Starbucks, and over 500 Denny’s. You can get a bucket at KFC or delivery (on a tiny scooter) from Domino’s or Pizza Hut. Road and transit signs are in Japanese and English. Sportcoats outnumber kimonos fifty to one.
All of that is true, but this is also true: When you first visit a Japanese shrine, you expect every aspect of the experience to be new and different. When do I bow? How many times do I clap? Why is this guy with a camera asking me to disrobe?
When you go to a Japanese Pizza Hut or Denny’s, you probably go in expecting a carbon copy of the chain you grew up with. During breakfast at a Denny’s in Tokyo, however, I once watched an American open the menu, frown at the fermented soybeans and tofu salad, and say to his family, “What the fuck is this?” Pizza Hut serves pies like Melted Beef Stew, Bulgogi, and Iberico ham ($38).
My point is not that you should order Pizza Hut in Japan, although I know you want some melted beef stew up in your stewhole. Actually, I have two points:
A Westerner who comes to Japan will be continuously surprised, amused, and bewildered by local customs and preferences, despite (and because of!) the presence of lots of Western stuff.Japanese cities — especially Tokyo — are so big and packed with stuff that a thousand Starbucks are barely noticeable. You will never, ever wind up in a situation in Japan where you’re stuck eating American fast food. And if you do, you’ll probably get a hell of a story out of it.
One of the more obvious cultural differences between the U.S. and Japan is that people here love to take baths and don’t mind sharing the bath with strangers. I mean, don’t show up at a random house and jump into the tub with whoever’s in there. That’s frowned upon except in certain rural prefectures.
So when you arrive at a Japanese-style hotel or inn (even one of those capsule hotels), the staff will almost always tell you where the public bath is. Don’t be a fool: get in the pool. Or the bath. Whatever.
Now, having said that, I can usually handle about ten minutes in the bath. If you go to the bath with friends of the same sex, you can hang around and chat with them. Naked. Otherwise, you have to split up and yell at each other over the divider between the men’s and women’s sections. Coed bathing used to be common in Japan, but is no longer. Total crime against humanity, right?
No one else was using the Shigetsu’s bath when Becky and I arrived, so I showered off and got into the cedar-lined tub. The water was at a gentle poaching temperature. I enjoyed the view of the Skytree. I tried to think deep philosophical thoughts, like Jack Handey. What makes Japan unique? Would I eat whale meat just to freak Becky out? What is melted beef stew? What if some ladies came in here accidentally?
Five minutes of deep thoughts was plenty, so I went back to my room and played video games.
BECKY
Allow me to step back into the lukewarm bath water here. While Matthew was playing video games and I was still marinating in the tub upstairs, I was thinking about the whole bathing thing and well, where he has a 5 minute max poaching time, this bird takes at least 45 minutes to fully cook. And beyond that, I knew I wasn’t fully experiencing all that a Japanese onsen can deliver because I was alone in my tub, it was sort of small, and the pudgy cartoon NO drawings of white people meant that I didn’t make any totally embarrassing, publicly-witnessed cultural mistakes. Where’s the fun in that?
I told Matthew, I said, “Matthew! Take me to a real onsen!” Just like that. That’s how I said it. So a few days later, we took a long train ride out to the Utsukushii no Yu onsen. We walked in, took off our shoes and Matthew expertly navigated the ticket vending machine to get us access to the baths. We placed our shoes in lockers by the door, grabbed our locker keys and walked up to the counter, just like Japanese people. White Japanese people. While Matthew was handing over his tickets, I saw a small sign that read “No tattoos.” I poked Matthew’s arm and pointed out my small, 3” wide tattoo of a rosemary branch on my upper back. And that’s when the needle came off the record.
MATTHEW
I knew Becky would expose herself to me sooner or later.
Seriously, I felt like a real jerk. I knew Japanese baths didn’t allow tattoos and totally forgot that Becky had one. The reason tattoos are banned is kind of crazy: they’re associated with yakuza gangsters, who are known for their elaborate full-body tattoos.
Now, I realize Becky is probably a member of an international lesbian crime syndicate (which is about the most entertaining phrase I can imagine), and I know this comes dangerously close to calling for racial profiling, but would it really mean the end of civil society to let a white girl’s culinary tattoo slip into your bathhouse?
So, no bath for us. Instead, we went next door to Mister Donut and drowned our sorrows in sugar, then got back on the train. I headed off to visit friends in the suburbs, while Becky went to one of Tokyo’s oldest department stores to loiter in the basement. (More on that later.)