Wow... today started as a very strange day... First I got a call saying my class at Kobuchizawa was cancelled. Then I get to work and my Global Biz boss tells me to stop all of my work and wait until 15:30. Then Kyoko comes down to the lunchroom and tells me to stay there. Then the entire company assembles. Then our president tells us that the entire group was bought by our rival CMIC. Wow... It has been a very strange day. The funny thing is that for about a month I have been telling my Global boss that the way the pharma industry is changing these days SMR would be best to be bought out by a rival CRO in order to compete with the global CROs who are restructuring like crazy... I was right! Wow... How cool is that! I get to experience a brand new happening!!
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Hi Cameron
Just stumbled across your blog now. I've recently moved to Japan to live, so I'm interested to pick up some tips etc from you. I passed through Fukui with my wife in 2005, but now I'm based in Kyushu, near Kumamoto.
Hadashi - Thanks for writing. Kumamoto is a great place. I have a wonderful best friend in Aso. I hope you enjoyed Fukui when you passed through. Have a great week and I hope that the summer is not too killer hot/humid down there for you this year.
Hi Cameron
My mum-in-law's family comes from Aso. As for Fukui, I remember it well:
‘You must not park your cycles here!’ stipulates the sign outside Fukui City Hall. Even to approach induces paroxysms in a group of elderly watchmen. After locating a cycle stand, we go inside to seek directions to a sento. A receptionist drags out the yellow pages and a map of the city. I leave Mami to it, and catch some sumo on an enormous public screen. Before going to bathe, we catch the last of the day’s bouts in black-and-white in an underground eatery that specializes in do-it-yourself okonomiyaki. Asashoryu, the grand champion from Mongolia, wins his match to remain undefeated, so far, in this month’s fifteen-day tournament.
Fukui city is the capital of Fukui prefecture. It is a busy place with an exciting atmosphere. Nevertheless, it only has one, run-down sento. We locate it in a seedy part of town, where it occupies the first floor of a small, decrepit building.
Now that’s a job that I could tolerate. I wouldn’t mind being the man in charge. His office sits astride the wall that separates the men from the women, giving him an overview of the entire area where bathers of both sexes disrobe. Should he need a toilet break, or a smoke, I’ll volunteer to fill in. Always willing to give it a shot.
Mami: I was horrified to see a man as the bandai. Normally bathhouse overseers are old ladies; such a person isn’t likely to get aroused. I was even more surprised at the sight of a woman drying her body right next to him, the two engaged in casual conversation. A sento is an interesting place to observe human behaviour, but this time I didn’t know where to look . . . or where to change.
We wait for darkness to fall, before stealthily pitching our tent in the main park in the centre of town. We deliberately hadn’t sought permission—if we’d asked we’d only have been told ‘No’. Our rule of thumb is: just go ahead and do it. That way, no one forbids you. One by one, the lights in the surrounding office buildings go out. It’s been a long day.
Hadashi - "From Aso"... does that mean your wife is from Aso? My best friend lives in Uchi no Maki, if you know it.
Your story of your trip through Fukui was very nice. Your wife must be very unique as I have yet to meet a Japanese woman who would be so brazen as to camp in the middle of the city. Was it next to the city hall? I vomited there many years ago (it turned out to be an appendectomy attack, of which I survived, but it was a difficult operation).
I'm also surprised that there was a man as the bandai in the sento you visited; very unusual. He must have been the owner. There are quite a few modern places there now, and I am sure more than only one. In my town of Kamishii-mura (amalgamated into Eiheiji-cho - take the highway running up the Kuzuryu River to Katsuyama and you go through it), we had a sento that cost the locals only 200 yen. That was very nice on the cold winter nights.
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