More Thoughts About Japan

Here are some observations, admittedly gross generalizations, that portray my images of Japan:

First, and most noteworthy: imagine a toilet lid that rises like a salute when you enter the immaculate cabin, a clean warm seat at just the right height, handy push-buttons to get birdsongs or music to cover up embarrassing noises, a warm spray directed to the exact spot where you want it (and doesn’t stop until you press “stop”), warm gentle air to dry you afterward, and, of course, it flushes and the lid closes when you stand up.

Road side stops featuring vases full of fresh flowers also offer a safe holder for your baby in the cabin and equally luxurious child-sized facilities and play rooms. Warm water & soap flow automatically – motion activated - at ultra modern washbasins. All hail the land of the rising sun!

Old people walk stooped over, painfully low, & with difficulty; old ladies wear hats & gloves outdoors, young women are bow-legged & pigeon-toed; they walk with apparent difficulty in their ubiquitous fashionable, super-high platform stilettos.

Young girls have adopted a style called, cosplay, (costume role-play), based on popular animée & comic book characters; girls wear ruffled, lace-trimmed short shorts & loose tops, lacy tights, straw hats & those very high heels. The hair is long dark blonde, straight bangs, longer at the sides, longer in the back, and lots of makeup. To me they look like naughty slutty schoolgirls; I think that’s the point. The boys look rough with spikey colored hair & oddly cut clothes.

Japanese adore kitsch: teddy bears, pussy-cats, cutesy dolls, dangling sparkly things, paper flowers, etc. etc., and won’t leave an empty space on any horizontal surface. They love wall-to-wall vending machines and bright neon lights. There are boxes of tissues everywhere. They have removed trash cans from the streets in an effort to “cut down on trash.”They say, “Bring it home with you.”

Food at road stops is good and better than good; no smoking indoors; most doors slide open sideways, automatically. Freeway tolls are expensive - to pay for those fabulous toilets at the rest stops, I suppose. Cement retaining walls on the sides of steep mountains are artful & decorative as well as effective.

Business hotels offer impossibly tiny but immaculate rooms; they supply kimonos or pajamas, toothbrushes & toothpaste, razors & all the rest, but impose a cruel 10 AM checkout time.

They don’t offer senior discounts anywhere.

From L.A: Remembering Japan

Masa & the Van

Still dreaming of a misty green mountain, the steep narrow winding road with rain & fog, the unexpected teahouse and wire footbridge, the ryokan floating in the clouds, slippery stone steps down to the hot springs & a 12 course dinner including sashimi of a pink mountain-stream fish, filleted and folded around itself to look like a rose.

In Hiroshima, I ate the best steak I ever tasted (not kobe or anything famous), drank the best cup of coffee in Noshiro City, sipped the most delicious bancha tea on a mountain top, and enjoyed the best scallop sashimi in the world in Goshogawara.

Nor can I forget that Zen moss garden in Kyoto.

Ran around crowded Tokyo for four days on the brilliant subway system thanks to the kindness, patience & good will of the Japanese people. Without speaking or reading the language this is close to impossible, although ticket machines do manifest in English, like ATM’s. Nevertheless, I dare you to try it on your own.

I love Tokyo! Enjoyed the freshest sushi lunch at a stall in the central fish market, checked out the sites in 4 neighborhoods (each one arrived at by train!), bought stationery products at Itoya, shopped for sales at Mitsukoshi Department store – the Neiman Marcus of Tokyo, visited temples and gardens, walked my feet off, watched the Tokyo Sumo wrestling matches on TV, & best of all, met Keiko, Masa’s music producer/manager friend, and her gang of talented musicians, and Mihoko, features editor at Japanese Vogue, who is a friend of another friend, and her mother. The beautiful ladies wined & dined me like I was an Empress.

Next time in Tokyo I hope to have enough energy at the end of the day to check out the famous night life in Roppongi. But I rarely get out for any night life in L.A. either.

last installment & more pictures coming soon.

Ryokan Dinner Starters




Sushi Master












Sushi at The Tokyo Fish Market


Department Store Sale