There are several resorts throughout Kusatsu where Japanese come to spend the weekend and relax. Vacation time in Kusatsu is so wholly devoted to relaxation that the visitors will even walk into town in what is essentially a bathrobe. I’m assuming they’re going to the various onsen that are located throughout the town but, who knows, maybe they’re just going to the store to pick up a few things.
One more nice thing about Kusatsu besides the smaller presence of tourism is the food. Whereas in Karuizawa you couldn’t get a meal at a restaurant for less than about $9, here food is much more affordable. And since my hotel room has a small kitchen complete with fridge, stove, and microwave, I’ve been either making or microwaving all the food I eat.
Microwaveable meals appear to be quite popular here, so popular, in fact, the grocery store has a microwave or two on a counter just beyond the checkout counters where customers can heat up the meals they’ve just purchased before heading home. I’ve been eating these as well and I have to say I’ve been pleased with all of them so far. But what’s been the most pleasing item of nutrition since I’ve been in Japan has been milk. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have access to a refrigerator in China or maybe it was because if you were going to drink milk there it was going to be soymilk. For whatever reason, I didn’t drink any cow’s milk for those four months in Beijing. But now that I’m in Japan where I have a fridge, albeit temporarily, and where dairy is much more accessible, I’ve been putting away some milk. And for those of you who know how much I enjoy cereal, you can probably imagine how, for me, finding a couple boxes of the stuff in the grocery store last night was like finding the Holy Grail.
That’s enough for now about food. So Kusatsu seems to be much more of a regular Japanese town than Karuizawa was. One thing I can say about this town that seems to also be true of Japan as a whole is that it is extremely quiet. When you walk around the streets just about the only thing you might hear is the faint, efficient-sounding whirring of car engines.
You also might hear people conversing as they walk along the street but it’s never loud. These are things I might not have noticed had I not come straight from China to Japan. In China, everything’s louder. I suppose I should say that in Chinese cities everything is louder since there are still lots of quiet, rural places in China. But when you’re in a Chinese city (and chances are if you go to China you’ll be spending a lot of time in cities), whether it’s noise from construction, noise from car horns which are probably used more than the steering wheel or gas and brake pedals, or noise from Chinese people who, for some reason, speak very loudly, you are constantly bombarded with sound. But in Japan, it’s almost the complete opposite. The train ride from Tokyo to Karuizawa, the bus ride from Karuizawa to Kusatsu, the streets, the supermarket, the restaurants, the volume at which Japanese people speak; all very, very quiet.
The quietness of Japan also goes along with its cleanliness. When you walk into any hotel or home you immediately take off your shoes and put on slippers.
And when you go to the bathroom you may find a separate pair of slippers, which you should wear whenever using the bathroom. Those medical facemasks you see people wearing when things like the swine flu break out are also quite popular. I’ve seen several people walking down the street in Karuizawa and Kusatsu, both of which, mind you, are small towns with little to no crowding, wearing these facemasks. All the convenience store workers here in Kusatsu and, if I remember correctly, the workers at the grocery store also wear them. This may be just because of the swine flu but I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of Japanese were wearing these things before the breakout.
And then there’s the countryside of Japan, all of which, from what I’ve seen while riding the train and the bus, is green and lush.
So, all in all, everything here just feels very clean. Of course, I have yet to spend a significant amount of time in Japanese cities, where things may not be so quiet and clean. But I’ll certainly be on the lookout for these characteristics whenever I do go to one.
As for news about tennis, I played my first tournament match yesterday and lost 6-2 6-2 to a guy from Australia. I played decently but my opponent was simply the better player. I would say the main reason I lost was that he overpowered me. I couldn’t figure out why a couple of my shots, my backhand in particular, were so weak. Regardless, it was fun to get out there and play a match. Whereas last weeks’ tournament was on clay, this one is on what’s called carpet, which is Astroturf and sand combined in an attempt to simulate playing on a grass court. I’ve never played on grass so I can’t say whether or not carpet succeeds at simulating grass but what I can say is that it is frustrating to play on. The stuff is extremely slick and you end up sliding every time you try to stop, which can be fun but is also frustrating. I don’t particularly like the surface and most everyone else I’ve talked to at the tournament feels the same way.
Now that I’m out of the tournament, I’ll hang around here for a few days and keep trying to practice with whomever I can find who’s also looking to hit some. I’ll probably leave on Thursday for the next tournament, which is in a city called Akishima. Akishima is a city of a little more than 100,000 located within the Tokyo Metropolis, which is one of the 47 Japanese prefectures. The Tokyo Metropolis is similar to Beijing, which is both a city and a municipality. The municipality of Beijing is basically the equivalent of a Chinese province, or, if comparing it to the U.S., a state. Thus the municipality of Beijing includes the city of Beijing as well as other smaller cities and towns. The Tokyo Metropolis appears to be basically the same thing in that it includes both the city of Tokyo along with other smaller cities and town.
Just to give a brief overview of the geography of the country, Japan is made up of four main islands along with a string of smaller islands in the south. The central island, which is also the largest, is known as Honshu Island. You can think of Honshu as being in the shape of a right angle with the lower part projecting to the left and the upper projecting upwards. Or you can also think of those X and Y graphs we used to use in geometry class; Honshu is basically the upper half of the Y axis and left-side half of the X. Tokyo is located at the corner where those two axes meet (or if you prefer the geometry graphs, point 0,0), with Karuizawa and Kusatsu to the northwest. This is a very rough and possibly very inaccurate guess but I would say that to drive from Tokyo to the area where Karuizawa and Kusatsu are located, one would drive about 3 hours west and 3 hours north.
That’s enough geography for now. But before I finish this post there’s a guy here at the tournament that I’d like to talk about. As I was waiting to go on court, there was a match between a Japanese guy about my age and another Japanese guy who looks to be in his early 30’s. I’m not sure who this guy is but he’s quite a character. He has shoulder-length orange-dyed hair that he keeps out of his face with a headband. He clearly hasn’t played tennis for long but he does seem to enjoy it very much. I first met him on Friday when I came to the courts to practice. He introduced himself and we talked for a little while. Then, as I was paying to get one of my rackets restrung, he started to take a picture of me as though there was something memorable about that moment, which there wasn’t. Unfortunately, his camera malfunctioned and he didn’t get a chance to snap a photo before I had finished handing the racket-stringer my money; a moment now lost in time. We saw each other a couple times Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, sometimes he would address me as “Sam Sam”, other times as “Mr. Sam”.
As for his match on Saturday afternoon, things didn’t go so well. His opponent defeated him quickly and without effort. He did, however, do one thing during the match that I’ve never seen before. And judging by the reactions of all the other players sitting around watching the match, this was completely new to them as well. As he was sitting in his chair during one of the changeovers (when players sit down at the sideline and get a drink of water or Gatorade), he took one foot and rested it on his other knee. He then began taking swigs of water and then with each swig spray the water all over the soles of his shoes. I had already noticed that his shoes looked different than they had at the beginning of the match. I assumed he must have changed shoes at some point in an attempt to turn things around. Later that afternoon I saw him and we started talking. I looked at his shoes and saw that he had put socks around them. I asked him why he did this and he explained that it helped him gain traction on the slick carpet courts. He then added that spraying water on the soles further enhanced their traction, which explained his changeover antics. As you can imagine, the whole thing looked entirely ridiculous but, then again, maybe he’s really come up with something.
