Images of pavilions, kimonos and bonsai had captured my attention since my parents returned from a trip to Japan when I was ten, dumping brochures and museum guides on our dining room table. Those images stuck until one day I received an email from my university’s alumni association announcing a small group tour to all the places in Japan I wanted to go. I joined without hesitating, although I’d never been on a group tour.
On a brilliant morning in late winter, I squinted at the glare of snow coating the flanks of Japan’s Mt. Fuji, watching a lone wisp of cloud dissipate into air. The mass and symmetry of this stand-alone mountain on the edge of the Pacific Ocean were worthy of being Japan’s icon. I was lucky to see Mt. Fuji. It is rarely fully visible.
I was halfway through the group tour. Yet, I was feeling flat.
It wasn’t because the sights weren’t impressive, or the tour guide ineffective. Akane efficiently organised our days with castles and Buddhas, calligraphers and tea ceremonies. Akane also gave meaning to what we were seeing. Gesturing toward worshippers passing under the Torii gates and inhaling incense before entering the temple, she explained, “Japanese are obsessed with purification!” Communal bathing, Toto Washlet bidet toilets, and even the custom of passing money on a small tray at the 7-11 were other examples.
Akane was funny, too. When our bus pulled out of the parking lot at the gold leaf factory, she waved to the manager for a full minute as we gained speed on the highway, refusing to chicken out before he did.
“Still waving, “ she said, grinning.
Maybe I was feeling off because the independent traveller in me resisted what a group tour offered. For decades, across six continents, I had taken pride in piecing together uncommon adventures for my husband and me, not quitting until I found the small, family-owned pension in the Julian Alps of Slovenia, where we had the best chance of experiencing a genuine connection with the innkeeper. Poring over maps, blogs, guidebooks, and ferry schedules, I obsessed over planning the smallest details. “The taxi stand is to the left when we exit the Naples train station,” I announced to my husband, not wanting to look like a lost American. At Iceland’s famous geothermal spa, we walked out refreshed and relaxed at 9:00 a.m., just as the tour buses rolled up.
The overplanning was justified, I told myself. I was freeing myself from figuring out logistics on the fly. Or worse. From making a newbie mistake.
“There’s no ferry service on Sunday,” I said smugly to the young woman standing on the dock in Korcula, Croatia, who was waiting for a boat that would never arrive.
Returning to our ryokan, or traditional inn, after Mt. Fuji, I soaked in the steamy communal bath, a cascade of water soundtracking the serenity of the moment. I wondered whether I could turn things around, whether I could back off the urge to be in control. I knew a group tour was convenient. A stellar guide, like Akane, gave significance to what otherwise would appear to be a pile of rocks. I also knew I had a strong desire to shape some part of my own visit to Japan.
Instead of fighting the group tour experience, I began to customise it with Akane’s approval. When the tour bus was headed to our last stop at a famous garden in the pelting rain, I asked the bus driver to drop me off at the corner so I could return to our hotel to luxuriate in a hot bath, sipping green tea. Instead of spending the full two hours at the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, trapped within stadium-sized crowds, I navigated to the exit and took a cab to the Philosopher’s Path, a stone walkway alongside a canal in a quiet neighbourhood, and joined my group later. Slowly, I eased into a new rhythm, balancing the full group itinerary with my own small discoveries.
The next day, we took a train to Takayama, famous for its architecture and Hida beef. As the train wound its way through the Japanese Alps, a fresh snow dusted the pine boughs and rooftops. Akane showed us storefronts and inns preserved over hundreds of years, which reflected the elements of simplicity and harmony with nature associated with the Edo-period structures.
That night, Danielle, my college friend who joined me on the tour, and I would be on our own for dinner. I chose a small izakaya, or pub, a good 15-minute walk from the touristy historic neighbourhood.
The fading purple light cast a dreamy glow on the puddles of melted snow in the deserted streets. We meandered the back alleys before dinner, the bracing air tickling my nostrils. Danielle and I walked in silence, a few lengths apart. Our tour group was a friendly one, but at the end of the day, I craved solitude.
I stopped in front of an old storefront, noticing for the first time the seemingly seamless carpentry, the perfect joining of two edges. Passing someone’s front yard, I puzzled at a Christmas tree-shaped structure draped over a tree. Yukitsuri, I’d later find out, is a scaffolding made of straw ropes that protects tree branches from heavy snowfall. These small wonderments made me feel like the veil separating me from Japan had parted.
After our walk, we stepped through the thin cotton drapes dressing the front door to our izakaya and into the warmth. The place was empty, except for a table of four quietly chatting in the back corner. A young man with sensuous lips and a generous topknot, whom I presumed to be the owner, was wiping down the counter. I headed to a stool at the gleaming, Verathaned bar directly in front of him, signalling to Danielle. My heart thumped as possibilities blossomed for a personal conversation with him.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked.
“Just water,” answered Danielle, the frugal and prudent New Englander.
“This is a bar. No water,” he grumbled.
A faint bat-squeak of caution echoed in my head.
“I’ll have a draft beer,” I piped up.
“Me, too,” Danielle replied, quietly.
Scanning the soy-sauce-stained menu, I noticed the warning: “No complimentary water or tea without drunk customer.” At the bottom, his signature “Hiroshi.” We ordered sashimi salad, fried tofu, vegetable tempura, miso grilled fish and Hida beef. As we sipped our beer, we watched Hiroshi deftly navigate his narrow kitchen, not a single movement wasted. I asked him where he learned to cook. Before opening the pub, Hiro had worked as a sous chef in Germany. English was his third language. He grew up in Takayama, and his family had owned an inn where he learned to cook from his grandmother. The hours were endless, but he still enjoyed it, he said.
As he dropped the perfect block of tofu into the sizzling oil, he told us it had no coating, no flour, no cornstarch.
“Japanese food is clean, not sauced, not hidden,” Hiro explained. Yet another example of purification.
The golden tofu was crowned with a thatch of shredded seaweed. The still life of glossy eggplant, frilled mushrooms and a shiny red bell pepper became our vegetable tempura. The marbled Hida beef, fanned on a blue and white porcelain platter belonging to his grandfather, was the finale. Since Danielle didn’t eat red meat, I finished the entire serving by myself.
“For my Beefeater friend,” Hiro said, placing an icy-clear martini in front of me.
Before we left, he spun sugar before our eyes, shaping the threads into a cylindrical nest that caged a dessert of fresh strawberries and ice cream.
As the sugar threads melted in my mouth, I congratulated myself for making the best of my first and last group tour. I no longer felt flat. In fact, I had never felt so full.
