Day Seven

1st January 2007

We woke up today after some much needed sleep. The shower was not what we are used to. I was struggling a bit and had no idea but I managed to some how wash myself! In the house there is a Kotastu which is a table with blankets underneath it that you put your feet in and it is like a heater. It is very toasty! Hideo picked us up around 12pm and took us to the owners of the guest house. They were very lovely happy people and excited to meet us. We then drove to the super market. The first one I have seen since I have been in Japan. It was very big and it was actually open on New Years Day! We then went to Yujins house and had lunch.
A traditional Japanese meal. Again not what we are used to but very delicious. We had some soup to start with and then had like a hot pot in the middle of the table which we all shared. In there was meat, and lots of different types of vegetables and noodles. We even ate raw egg and raw salmon. I also tried my first drink of Saki today. It was pretty nice – a little potent though but drinkable. Gee I am being really adventurous! Yujin’s house has the best view. His dad owns the mountain that his house is on– how amazing is that? We climbed up the mountain on a walking track. The view was fantastic from the top. It is very peaceful here and we have just relaxed for the whole day which was nice because the previous days were very full on. Yujin’s family are terrific people. His mum is so cute – she can’t understand much English but she tries hard to talk to us. His sister is cute too. Yujin’s dad is lovely and speaks English quite well. He is easy to talk to and very friendly. He has been a BIG help. They have a dog called Clifford. I am not keen on him of course and am acting like a spaso which is normal for me with dogs but it is a little embarrassing but I can’t help it! Of course the dog comes to me all the time….. at about 9pm we headed out to a public bath which is a very popular place to go in Japan. I wasn’t quite sure what this entailed but when we told Yujin’s family that we didn’t have bathers with us they were not fussed at all because they said you go in there naked. I was very shocked to hear this and wasn’t sure whether or not I would feel comfortable doing it. After some hesitation I decided what the hell and to just go with the flow…..there was a ladies section and a male section (thank goodness for that – I don’t think I would have coped if it was mixed!) I am so glad that I was with Hisako and Idea (Yujin’s mum and sister) because if it wasn’t for them Marie and I would have been clueless. It was quite a bizarre experience really and it took me a while once I was in the change room to get used to the idea of what I was about to do. Hisako told Marie and I to take our clothes off and we just started laughing like little school girls. When I looked around the room every other lady was naked and it didn’t seem to phase them one bit. So we took our clothes off quickly. We had a little towel to cover our fronts as we walked from one bath to another. Before we entered the spa bath we had to pour water over us then we could enter the bath. It was very hot and once I got over the shock of being embarrassed and feeling like a hefa in front of all the skinny Japanese girls I actually found it relaxing. There were lots of different baths that you could go in. I didn’t want to move around too much so I kind of stayed in the one spot. It was weird at first trying to grasp this concept as it is one that we would never see in Australia but after a while we just got used to it and we stopped feeling so embarrassed. After we decided we had had enough we washed our bodies with soap in a separate section where we could also wash our hair with shampoo and conditioner. They had a set of scales on the way out so I weighed myself out of curiosity and found that I was 55.6kg. I was amazed at this because when I left Adelaide I was 57kg so I had lost about 1 and a half kilos. That made me feel better but I still felt like a hepha compared to all the Japanese girls. Once we were changed we went outside and had some dinner. I ate curried rice with shrimp. It was weird because you ordered your meal through a vending machine. They still had cooks to prepare it but you paid through the machine. Vending machines are very popular in Japan and are everywhere with lots of different things in them. You can even buy hot drinks in cans out of them – how bizarre is that? Everything is a novelty because it is all new. Hardly anything is the same as in Australia which is a good thing because we are having a totally new experience with everything.