It is raining today. I headed to the morning markets- Jinya-mae and Miyagawa morning markets and walked around and ate some more Hida beef on a stick and grilled mochi. I also found a great little miso shop that sold miso and a type of miso marinade that you put on a type of leaf and then add meat and veggies and then cook in on a hot plate- it was very tasty so I bought some to bring home. My original plan for the day was to head to the Hida no Sato- Hida folk village which has restored homes and such and then I was going to go for a hike. Given that the weather is bad and there’s not much to do here in the evening I made the decision to head back to Tokyo.
Since I wanted to spend the 25th in downtown Tokyo I decided it didn’t make sense to stay at Kunoko’s parents house so where better to stay than another capsule hotel! There just so happens to be a capsule hotel in the heart of Shinjuki (which is a great place to spend an evening). As I was checking in another white guy was checking in and we chatted. Josh is from Toronto and was giving the capsule hotel a try to see what it is like. We hit it off and ended up hanging out. This capsule hotel was pretty big. It had a large restaurant/bar and an extensive spa/onsen. We put on the clothes they give you and headed up to the spa/onsen. There were 3 indoor baths, 2 outdoor baths, and 2 dry saunas (one insanely hot) and a stem room. They also offered a variety of other services- massage- shiatsu, thai massage and a sort of scrub down that exfoliates your skin. The weird thing was that there were 2 women who did the scrubs (done on a table out in the open) working among a bunch of naked dudes. So we checked out the hot tub and sauna and then went down for a massage. They had a huge room with probably 10 tables and a bunch of massage therapists. So we enter the massage room (no one spoke a lick of English) and they indicate to Josh to take off his top- which he did and then he pulled down his pants (you are supposed to leave them on but he didn’t know) and you can imagine the response- a whole lot of Japanese embarrassment and laughter- Josh said they were laughing throughout the whole massage- just typing this makes me laugh. Anyway the massage therapist who did my massage was fantastic. It was quite cheap- 35 bucks for 40 mins.
After that we headed for dinner. Josh hadn’t had sukiyaki so we went for that at a nearby place recommended by lonely planet. It was really good (of course not as good as Kuniko’s mom’s sukiyaki). The restaurant was fun and our waitress spoke amazing English which she states she only learned at a conversation school.
Given that neither Josh or I had been to a Tokyo night club we both decided it would be fun to check one out. We ended up doing some research online to find a place and when we got there connected with a couple of Aussies living here teaching at an international school- it was a 3 floor nightclub and was pretty crazy. Josh ended up making out with this girl and then was quite surprised when the large Nigerian bouncer broke them up and pulled the girl away- he later found out from the bouncer that it was his girlfriend! Amazingly the bouncer was quite cool about it- I think in the US (and Canada per Josh) this could have easily resulted in a back alley beating. We headed back to the capsule hotel- upon arrival a couple of absolutely hammered Japanese businessman came in- one was so drunk that the staff had to help him out of the elevator. There was some hardcore drunk snoring happening in the capsule hotel-should have used earplugs. Either way these things are a bargain and I would stay in one again (for a night or 2).
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3 comments:
The bizarre stuff you bring home.. pickles from Nara, miso from Takayama.. They are so an acquired taste.
K
didn't we establish that I had to have been japanese in a past life? probably in kansai where they don't eat natto and eat lots of tako-aki
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