The famous bath house in Dogo Onsen (Shikoku)

Steaming waters at Kawayu Onsen (Hokkaido)

The rules of conduct in the public bath may at first seem puzzling to a foreigner. Unlike Northern European saunas, the onsen is in general separated in a men only and women only part. (Many hotels switch daily which side is for whom, so make no mistake, look out for the red curtain on the door for ladies and blue for men!) But like in the sauna, you’re supposed to go naked inside. At this point, similarities end. The Japanese public bath usually contains a row of small seats and showers, where one is supposed to wash before entering the actual hot spring bath which is shallow. If you sit down inside, the water will reach up to your shoulders. It’s definitely not made for swimming, but soaking. The small towel one is handed when entering is not used for drying, but for scrubbing oneself. The most important rule of all is not to track soap or shampoo into the bath. The towel is kept out of the water as well, it can for example be deposed on one’s head while soaking. Often, the onsen water is scalding hot, so it is advisable to enter slowly. Many people go out after a while to wash themselves a second time or to shampoo their hair.

Foot bath and egg boiled in hot spring water in Beppu Onsen (Kyushu)

Do you think Japanese people learn English more? Why do you think most of all the Japanese people are not good at English? How do you think the Japanese people can improve their English?

It’s a very good question, and one we have wondered about many times during our stay in Japan. Getting by with English does not work too well in Japan. Most people seem not to speak English at all, even though everyone learns English in school. Contrast this with Taiwan or Shanghai, where at least the younger generation is happily prattling away in English. Their English may be less than perfect, but at least you can communicate.
Sometimes, we heard the lack of English communication skills in Japan blamed on the way English is taught in schools: it’s very theoretical, and there’s not much conversation practice.
While many people in positions where you’d expect some English knowledge don’t speak any English at all, we often found English proficiency in the strangest people: the guy who delivered our fridge (not the one who sold it to us), the guy at the local florist, a guy directing the traffic next to a construction site, or the guy working at our local pet shop. These people all worked in jobs that do not seem to require knowledge of English in the least. We were even joking that admitting to speak English would ruin your job prospects in Japan. But jokes aside, I have a different explanation: it’s the Japanese quest for perfection, that is keeping English knowledge sealed behind closed lips. In principle, most people know some English, but in order to avoid making mistakes, they prefer to abstain from trying it out. Those people who astonished us with unexpected English skills probably just felt they had less to lose in their low-profile jobs and were thus less worried to practice their language skills. As a result, their English became much better than that of the silent theoreticians.
While Japanese perfectionism is undoubtedly on of the pillars of Japan’s success, it becomes a hindrance for learning a foreign language. You just can’t learn a language without making mistakes and looking a little foolish in front of others. It happened to me all the time in Japan. Japanese people who have lived abroad in general speak very good English, for the very reason that once you’re abroad, you’re forced to speak the language no matter what.

It has to be said that there is a manifest interest of the Japanese population to learn English. We have met many people who attended English lessons in their free time as adults and approached us in order to practice.

In my experience, there’s only one piece of advice for learners of a foreign language: speak it as much as possible, no matter how foolish it makes you feel.

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But there are many things that are different back in Europe.

I find myself often missing the absence of certain things. I miss the silence when I am woken up by a honking concert down the street at six a.m. (I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the sound of honking at all in Japan). I also miss the silence when I am sitting in loud chatter in the train or am listening to the music leaking from my neighbor’s headphones (as the posters in the Tokyo subway admonish: please do it at home!). Or when another baby screams like it’s being murdered on the tram. By now I have figured out that the most likely explanation is that the mother is trying to put a jacket on her child. For some reason, Japanese children not only don’t scream on such occasions like they’re being speared, they hardly seem to make any sounds at all in public (if someone would care to explain me the trick, I’d sure like to take note for future use).
And I miss the smile and the politeness when I end up in front of someone whose expression and behavior announce to the world that they hate their job and in particular, dealing with me.

While I do enjoy the return of cheese into my life, I miss Japanese food. Where’s my miso soup and my breakfast fish? I don’t dare eating Japanese food out of Japan because I fear disappointment. By now, I can tell whether it tastes right or not.

I even miss the 100 yen stores! So many practical items are hard to find here, and when I find them, they cost way more than I now think they should.
I’m already preparing a shopping list for my next stay in Japan… I will totally go with an empty suitcase and bring it back full. (Just the way we did the other way round when we’d return with a suitcase full of cheese and muesli.)

And during this time of year, I do miss the climate (not sure I’d say the same in August). Novembers are fabulous in Tokyo with electric blue skies almost every day. In Geneva, we’re counting the rare days when the sun manages to pierce through the fog.

At least our home is not so different from the way it was in Tokyo. We brought a lot of Japanese kitchen things, we still sleep on a futon, and we have Japanese prints and tenugui on our walls.

• Ise Shrine and the Ise Peninsula, Mikimoto Pearl Island.
  The Ise Shrine is the single most important shrine in Japan. Also the Ise Peninsula is said to be very scenic, plus you can visit the pearl island of Mikimoto, the guy who invented the cultured pearl. This trip was already planned and booked, but was prevented last minute by a cold I caught.
• The cherry bloom in Yoshino. From pictures I’ve seen, the thousands of trees in bloom must be an amazing sight. Yoshino is near Nara. When we were in Kyoto for hanami this year, we seriously considered going, but the cherry bloom in Yoshino was several days behind the one in Kyoto, so it just didn’t work out.
• The Camellia Festival on Izu Oshima. We have visited Oshima and had planned to come back in early spring for its famous Camellia Festival. We had booked the jet-boat and the hotel for March 12. But we hadn’t taken into account giant earthquakes…
• The Plum Blossom Festival in Mito. Mito, located in Ibaraki Prefecture was home to a branch of the powerful Tokugawa-clan. The kairakuen of the Tokugawa is home to over 3000 plum trees and its plum blossom festival (ume matsuri) is famous. We had meant to go this spring, but with the constant aftershocks and the radioactive contamination, moving up north just didn’t seem a very compelling idea anymore…
• Okinawa
  must be an amazing tropical paradise. We always meant to go, but were thwarted by bad timing and expensive packages.
• Southern Kyushu
  While we had traveled some of the Northern part of the island, we never made it South. A new Shinkansen line is under construction, making the access easier. My plan consisted of visiting Kagoshima, the active volcano of Sakurajima, hiking in Kirishima-yaku National Park, taking the jetfoil to the island of Yakushima which has a UNESCO World Heritage forest, and bathing in the hot volcanic sands of Ibusuki. This would have been a week-long trip, and we just didn’t find the time.
• More of Shikoku
  Also our visit to Shikoku was much too short. We never made it to Kochi or any of the temples of the 88 temple pilgrimage. There’s definitely room for improvement.
• Tohoku
  I had a great plan for our Tohoku-trip. It included hiking on the Hachimantai Plateau, seeing Lake Towada, walking along the very scenic Oirase Stream and visiting the city of Morioka, home of the cast iron tea kettle. We had meant to go last autumn, but then the autumn leaf season in the North was already over when we finally had the time…
• Snow Monsters
  I also wanted to visit the mountains up in Tohoku in late winter, to see the famous snow monsters. They are trees covered with very thick layers of snow which form when the moist air of the sea of Japan hits the mountains. Covered with snow and sculpted by the wind, the trees look like ghosts.
• More of Hokkaido
  Our Hokkaido trip was constrained to the Western corner, but there is so much more. We’ve not even visited Sapporo, let alone the other National Parks. Hokkaido in Winter must also be very impressive.

I guess part of the reason why many of these trips didn’t happen is because these regions are away from the main Shinkansen arteries and travel times become very long, which was hard to reconcile with our limited time. But I still hope to do these trips in the future!