To briefly sample a segment of “normal” Japanese routine, I booked a room in an urban ryokan, or Japanese inn, a 10-minute walk from Ueno Station.
A friend had suggested the place, Yamanaka Ryokan, because its rates ($240 per room, including dinner and breakfast for two; $160 without the meals) were reasonable by Tokyo’s unreasonable standards. She also selected Yamanaka because it stood near a major railroad-subway station and enjoyed a comparatively bucolic setting (although the name, roughly translatable as “middle of the mountain,” is a trifle misleading).
Several such inns are concentrated in the Ueno area, northeast of central Tokyo. They might be likened to American bed-and-breakfasts–without the chintz, folksiness and zucchini muffins. As with so many other things on this brief visit, Yamanaka Ryokan would have to stand in for everything else in its category.
Yamanaka’s front yard, no wider than a two-car garage door, beckoned from a narrow sidewalk in a block of houses and small apartment buildings. A stone path led about 20 feet through an attractive, minimalist Japanese garden to the front entrance.
A smiling, bowing attendant in a housedress nodded toward the tiny front desk in the wood-paneled lobby, where another employee proffered the registration form.
We accomplished the check-in with grunts, smiles and gestures, a smattering of half-remembered phrases: “We-r-r-rcome!” (welcome) “Domo arigato” (thanks a lot). Our communication difficulties were mitigated by a mutual understanding that all of us were in the same boat, baffled by languages invented before anyone dreamed that these two segments of the world would need to interact.
The ryokan attendant pointed at several neat rows of bright green plastic slippers near the front desk, making it clear I should take off my street shoes, deposit them in an adjacent cubicle and slip into a pair of those emerald scuffs.
Then she showed me to the room, one flight up. We entered a small foyer, removed our slippers and stepped up to a floor covered with tatami mats. It was a 10-mat room, considered spacious in ryokan circles but still no larger than a small motel unit. A low, wooden table surrounded by four backless chairs served as the only furniture. A rice-paper window opened to reveal a concrete wall 2 feet away. The 12-inch NEC TV set rested on a shelf above a mini-refrigerator filled with beer, water and juice.
In an adjoining recess, I found the bath area. A lavatory held only a toilet and wash basin. Brown plastic slippers on the floor clearly were the required footgear for brushing teeth and other duties.
Directly across, another cubicle contained what appeared to be a large shower stall with a frosted-glass door. This, I learned, was the hip, modern version of the traditional ryokan bath. Guests are expected to crouch on the tiny bench provided, shower and rinse thoroughly, then soak in the deep tub. More traditional ryokans feature a communal bath, where the regulars critically scrutinize foreigners to make sure they observe all rituals. With no one watching, I would guiltily climb directly into the tub and direct the shower there.
The attendant returned in an hour or so with dinner on handsome gray plates: a delicate lineup of prettily carved pickled vegetables, sashimi (sliced raw fish), large shrimp, well-done marinated beef, rice and a turnip soup in a blue lacquer bowl. From a shiny red box, I extracted a handleless cup and canister of loose green tea. A tall vacuum jug stood ready with hot water.
During dinner, while my hip joints ached, I formulated a theory. Perhaps this style of dining accounted for the lack of obesity in Japan. Stretching my legs flat on the floor caused shooting pains. When I curled them under me, they fell asleep. Such contortions wouldn’t encourage anyone to hang around for seconds.
After a night on the town, I returned to find someone had shoved the furniture aside and replaced it with a futon and pillows. A party of visiting American teachers in adjoining rooms apparently saw this sleep-on-the-floor arrangement as an invitation to stage a pajama party. But their noise, after my foray into the clangorous Roppongi nightclub district, was but a whisper by comparison. I fell into deep sleep.
At breakfast in the cellar dining room, the five teachers–two of them men–were still going strong. We played footsie and pass-the-orange-juice at a long, low table, while a quartet of Japanese men seated nearby held a quiet, deep conversation full of profound pauses. They were casually but self-consciously dressed in the popular Timberland mode sweeping the country.
A sense of duty compelled me to forego the American breakfast and eat the Japanese way from a bowl filled with chunks of chicken, stir-fried eggs and rice (oyako domburi). A side dish of tofu, some pickled vegetables, an inscrutable but tasty soup and green tea. All that filled me up, but I did cast a couple of longing glances at the teachers’ fried eggs.
The teachers explained between giggles that they hailed from the Portland, Ore., suburbs and had been visiting a sister high school in Sapporo. Now they were back in Tokyo for one last toot before heading home.
“Oh, we’ve been having a ball,” one of the men enthused, and it began to dawn on me that maybe Americans would find ways to make Japan their little isle of joy. I bid the room sayonara and creaked off to wander some more.
