What`s the best thing you`ve done here, what are your best memories so far? (anything outside work – adventure, a great night out, joining a club etc..)
Well, I haven’t really done or experienced anything here yet that has knocked my socks off, but I think I would have to say that the time my wife and I went to Shiobara (in Tochigi prefecture) to spend the night and partake in the hotel’s onsen is probably my best memory so far (in 7 short months of living here).
The 1-night getaway came at just the right time, just after my mother-in-law and I had had a big argument, and so I really needed to get out of the house and spend time alone with my wife rather than with her and her family together. The trip afforded us to talk about a lot of things we hadn’t yet had the time to talk about.
It was also nice to drive up there, and use the car to explore the surrounding towns. Coming from car-culture America, there’s something very comforting about being behind the wheel of a car and in control of one’s own destiny, so to speak. And it was my first extended car trip in Japan, so I was proud of being able to drive along the expressway on the “wrong” side of the road.
There’s something to me very luxurious about padding around a ryokan or small Japanese hotel in a robe and slippers, to and from the communal onsen bath or dinner. Despite the other guests, I have this image that the entire hotel is mine, that it’s one big penthouse suite or something. And the bath, well what can one say…one of the true joys of Japan, an onsen bath.
One last thing about that trip to Shiobara. My wife and I are fairly certain that it was during this trip that our child-to-be was conceived. So yes, I think this trip to Shiobara is my best memory of Japan so far.