Tokyo Notes

Spending the evening at Hanatsubaki hotel in Kagaonsen. The hotel is notable for its rather spectacular selection of baths. It has the standard indoor big bath, and, as is usual at hotels at onsen resorts, a rotemburo, a bath exposed to the air. Since the hotel is perched on the edge of a steep, wooded river valley, the views from here are rather good. The snow is still melting, and the stream is the deep green colour of meltwater.

Much more unusually, there is a yatemburo, a bath out "in the fields", which allows, almost uniquely, mixed bathing. The baths are next to the river, accessed by a steep staircase in the valley side, surrounded by cedars. The water is untampered-with. Some baths don't pretend to be onsens; others do, by putting onsen minerals in ordinary water, which is heated artificially. Real onsens use naturally heated water, but some re-cycle and re-heat it. Here, the water bubbles out of the ground, is pumped into the baths, and overflows into the river.

We arrived at the hotel mid-afternoon, and it was raining. It turns out to be very pleasant to be in a hot bath next to a river in the rain. We returned to the yatemburo after dinner, after dark, when the area had been lit by small lanterns, the rain had stopped, and the stars spangled the skies in the way that only happens far from city lights. We returned again the following morning, in the sunshine, and felt that we had experienced outdoor bathing under most conditions, except snow.

Dinner had been awesome. It was, I was surprised to discover, my first kaiseki, which is a style of eating in which one is presented with a very large number of very small dishes, each of which is delicious. It took us a couple of hours to get though everything. The kaiseki eating experience proceeds something like this: A) "Mmm, that was one of the best things I've ever eaten. If only there was another one." B) "Oh well, I'd better go on to the next thing." C) go to A.

Guy is in town. He is an old chum from school days - from before school days in fact. We have known each other for a long time. At school, you would have voted for Guy as "Boy Most Likely to be Visiting Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University", and your predictive powers would have been proved right. It was good to see him this evening: we went for some beers.

Rugby match: Japan v Korea. Dan had our tickets, but slept through his alarm, so we set off without him, bought our own tickets and settled down to the first half. Dan arrived at half time feeling hungover, foolish, and the price of two tickets poorer. Doh! Japan won 45-14.

The weekend passes far too quickly: it seems to be over already, and tomorrow morning I must return to the grindstone. Last week was unusually busy: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each featured an 11 hour shift, which was somewhat irksome. My employers take the children's spring holidays to be an opportunity extract more money from them by having sleepy teachers give them extra lessons at a time when they're usually still in bed.

Gareth, who, since Friday, no longer works for the above mentioned employers, popped round for a game of chess and the opportunity to drink in company the wine he was given when he left. It was the third game of chess I've played since coming to Japan, and I'm now 2-1 up. It was the first time I've used my balcony for any purpose other than hanging laundry: we took out cushions and played our game in the sunshine, sipping gin. It was close-fought, and not of the highest quality, with one horrendous blunder each, but I prevailed in the end, and we moved on to backgammon. I was taught how to play in a hotel room in Athens a long time ago, and had subsequently forgotten even the basics. But it's quite a simple game, and by the third, we were playing properly, for money. Gambling in a perfect world would end with no debts to pay, and so it was by the end of the evening: we were even, despite my having been gammoned once.

I have a acquired a printer. It's rather wonderful: I can print out pages from the Guardian, and read them almost like a proper newspaper. I can print onto photographic paper, and it looks just like a real photograph. Even better, it's also a scanner, and a photocopier, so I can print out things that I need for my day's teaching over coffee and toast, which is significantly more civilised than my previous habit of missing breakfast and rushing around head office. Further, I've been able to scan in large numbers of worksheets and handouts, and make a very satisfying trip to the recycling bin with a heavy pile of paper which I no longer need in physical form and which no longer needs to clutter my flat.

Today was spent in relative sloth, ending with the last of the winter stew from the freezer, and a birthday cake: sponge and cream with a number of strawberries. Last night saw a party of multiple celebration at Gagachiko, in honour primarily of that bar's entering it's fourth year as a popular hang-out for the young and trendy of Ōfuna, and secondarily of Joe's birthday (yesterday) and mine (today). Highlights included: the drinks system - everyone was presented with a mug on which they wrote their name, and which would be refilled, at no cost, at the bar. The name was essential because the people behind the bar couldn't remember whose cup was whose, or what they'd ordered. And included: being presented with a small, chocolate cake, and being sung "Happy Birthday" by a small, but choice, collection of drunken people. And included: having food spat at me by a Korean nurse, who was unfortunate enough to have a mouthful of rice when my Japanese let me down and I told her that my bowl of tofu-based dinner was eloquent, rather than spicy. I didn't think the confusion especially funny, although the two words are rather similar, especially to someone who's been in the presence of a free bar for an hour or so, but she exploded with laughter, messily, and in the direction of my face.