bad traveler, no sushi

(The title is meant in the sense of “bad cop, no doughnut”; I did have sushi one day for lunch.)

I am being a bad traveler this weekend. Kyoto is about an hour and a half away and I’m not going to go there.

(Commence whining – you’ve been warned.) It’s hot and it’s going to be hotter there, since it’s in a crater (or valley, the translation wasn’t clear). And I’ve spent about 7 hours on trains in the last 2 days. Also, I’ve been around people and talking all week, including dinners after work every day, and I ‘vant to be alone’. I’m tiiiired. (/end whine)

Instead I’m going to hang out around the hotel, explore the local area (mostly malls), watch the Olympics and knit, and check out the summer festival that’s going to be happening in the plaza next to my hotel. I have no idea what it entails, but the person who told me about it mentioned music and lots of girls wearing yukatas – not clear if the latter is a part of the festival or just what people are likely to wear to a traditional event in hot and muggy weather.

But I have been having new experiences. I wrote about the yakitori restaurant; the next night we ate at a restaurant with a do-it-yourself barbeque in the table – it was described to me as a Japanese version of a Korean version of BBQ. You order any one of many types of meat – they had Wagyu and Matsusaka beef, in varying stages of fattiness. I preferred the leaner ones, which is not surprising from someone who tends to order filet mignon in steak restaurants. They also had a few other things like shrimp and vegetables. Tasty. I’ve been eating much better this trip than usually in Japan; I’m here to train a new Quality manager, so we’ve been joined at the hip all week, including dinners – he’s just moved to Yokkaichi, where our main office is, and his famliy is staying in Tokyo for at least while longer. Having someone who knows the local restaurants and (most important) can read and understand the menu helps a lot.

Yesterday we took the train to Hiroshima, then to Saijo where our local office there is. (The trains – three legs each way – were also a lot easier when traveling with someone who is not functionally illiterate.) Normally I stay in Hiroshima itself, near the train station, but the hotel was full this weekend due to Memorial Day, so they put us in Saijo itself. (Probably not the best time for an American to be n Hiroshima proper anyway – Memorial Day = anniversary of the nuclear bombing of the city.) Hiroshima gets lots of foreign visitors; Saijo, not so many. We had dinner at a fairly traditional place, with a low table and hole underneath for your feet. (I suppose at a *really* traditional place you’d kneel instead.) We had some kind of small whole fish, salted and fried (sardine?), asparagus wrapped in thin slices of pork, a couple of very large fried and battered shrimp, and a “shrimp bomb”. This consisted of ground shrimp mixed with mashed potatoes, formed into a ball and then cruster with small fried shrimp. You’re supposed to eat the whole things, shell, head, tail and all. (The heads were actually not as bad as the tails, because the latter were just shell, and not really crunchy.)

I’m told the hotel we stayed at is the only one in town where they speak any English, but it’s still clearly aimed at Japanese visitors. The bed was very hard, and while there was one feather or down pillow, there was also a rack in the hall with different types of pillows available, all extremely firm and either grain-filled or foam. The best part was the ‘spa’ – not actually a spa but a traditional Japanese bath. I was very sweaty from the train rides and walk to the hotel, so after dinner I checked it out. You shower first, then get into the very hot tub. It was relaxing and peaceful, and I lasted a whole five minutes before getting a bit bored and retiring to the arms of the excellent massage chair in the same area. (They also had laundry facilities in there, very handy for guests.) I may get bored when I can’t bring a book into the tub with me, but I have to say that after a sweaty day, I felt deliciously clean as I went to bed.

After word, we headed back to Yokkaichi, another 3.5 hours on the train, and I’ll stay here over the weekend and through Tuesday.

One more confession: I had KFC for dinner tonight.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

and maybe this is why

Catching up with Bear’s post on why women react so strongly to even “minor” harassment has triggered me to think that there may be another reason I want to hang out and not go anywhere much this weekend. The thought I’ve been aware of and trying to ignore all week is that this trip is probably the most dangerous thing I’ll do all year. Rowing in a tippy single when it’s near-freezing is nothing to this.

I am in Japan to train a new employee of my company’s. I’m the logical person to do it, as I was covering some of the responsibilities of his position for the last year, until we could hire someone local. I’m also one of the people most familiar with the processes he needs to learn about. We’ve been joined at the hip all week, at work and in the evenings afterward. And here’s the thing: I didn’t know this guy until Monday. No one at the company knew him until the hiring process commenced. Of course he has a stellar resume, but so do lots of men you wouldn’t want to be alone with. He’s just moved to this city and his wife and kids are staying in Tokyo for a bit, and also I’m supposed to be not only training him but developing aclose working relationship, so we’ve had dinner together most days except Monday (I was too jetlagged) and today (tired after travel and used it as an excuse to get some alone time, since it’s been a talkative and busy week). Yesterday we traveled to another city and stayed in the same hotel, and went to dinner there in a tiny restaurant on a dark street.

Now, I’m not saying anything against this guy in particular. I like and respect what I’ve seen of him so far. As far as I can tell, he’s smart, has integrity and will be a good addition to our team. He listens intently to what I say and has treated me no different than male colleagues except for a greater tendency to insist he’s the host and should buy lunch (he did let me pay for a couple of meals after I not only argued but pointed out strongly that I will be reimbursed by the company) and to give me preference in seating on crowded trains. He’s been a kind and thoughtful guide to restaurants and in our travels. My instinct says he’s straight-up and trustworthy.

But what if my instincts were wrong? How could I know? No mutual acquaintances of more than a month’s duration. (No, wait, there is one he had some acquaintance with at a previous company, but they barely knew each other there.) Furthermore, we’re in his country, where I am very much a stranger who doesn’t understand how things work. If things went direly wrong, I think my company would believe me, but I don’t know what I could do to ensure allies at the local level. Of course my male boss doesn’t think this is a dangerous assignment or he wouldn’t have sent me. I don’t think it’s dangerous, either statistically or at the gut level. But other women will understand why that thought has lurked in the back of my brain all weekend. and why I didn’t make overtures to share activities over the weekend.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.