At the sushi restaurant, I ordered myself a basic tray of sea creatures on individual beds of rice at the counter, with a draft beer. The somewhat drunken older man on my right ordered me a vial of warm sake, a snack of oyster-like creatures cooked in their sea shells, and gave one of his own salt sea eels on rice when I discovered mine to be delicious. He chatted away eagerly to me in Japanese, praising my language skills, hacking up the occasional lung over a cigarette, and all the while spitting food in my general direction. He was a local, he explained, who often came to this restaurant. He encouraged me to remember only the good of Japan.
Soon before he left, two more heavily inebriated business men to my right struck up another conversation. One discussed his history of work in importing, the other laughed at his mate's complicated vocabulary directed at a foreigner audience, and the mate's persistent return of the conversation to his own opinions and history. He turned out to be the Kyuushu regional manager of Jalux. They tried to shout me another round of sake, so I finished the first one very slowly! Meanwhile, I was given an ornately presented baked tuna on the house, and it was the most delicious fish I've ever eaten. This was Japanese hospitality as I could not have imagined.
Just before I left, I watched this poisonous-finned fish (not fugu, which is more poisonous) meet a rather gruesome, efficient end and become food before my eyes.
The two businessmen went off to sing some karaoke, and I left to hop into an onsen around the corner. Here an old man from Tokyo struck up a friendly conversation. Two younger men sat down on the floor in the small bathhouse room to wash. The facility had the look of a swimming pool, and according to the old man, is popular, including with tourists. I might pop back tomorrow.
I made my way back to my lodging to have the bath I'd booked in one of their three in-house onsens, this one "half open air" and lightly perfumed, a wooden bath with a gentle breeze blowing through. This was my fifth bathing facility for the day. It was much nicer than their additional no-reservation-required general men's onsen on the first floor, which had been somewhat dilapidated and decked out with plastic plants.
The hot bath before bedtime makes you wonderfully sleepy - goodnight!
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1 comment:
Great that you're experiencing some of the famous genuine hospitality of the rural Japanese folk. And some of the city ones don't sound half-bad either :o)
David
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