Warm Seats, Cold Mornings: A Week in Japan

Following Vietnam with Japan is quite the lesson in contrast. I went from total chaos in the streets of Hanoi to a place where people wait patiently for the walk signal, even when there are no cars in sight. My arrival in Tokyo was a little bumpy. It took me five trains to reach the hotel. The metro is pretty straightforward, but the light rail trains are confusing, with multiple trains coming to the same platform. The display screens will briefly show information in English, but before you can get your bearings they switch back to indecipherable Japanese characters.

One of my favorite things about extended travel is the people I’ve met along the way. I’m still in regular touch with Claire from Sydney and Mylene from Montreal. When I add people to my contacts, I have developed the habit of including “met in…” and “lives in…” in the notes field. I knew I’d met people from Tokyo, and sure enough a search for Tokyo in my contacts pulled up a woman I met in Istanbul and a man I met in Singapore. I reached out to both of them. It made me laugh to type the message, “Hi, Tanmay. It’s Julie. We met on a Ferris wheel in Singapore (as one does). I’m in Tokyo…” He had some great suggestions for things to do while I was there.

Unfortunately I didn’t end up having the energy to follow many of them. That mild tickle cough I had in Hanoi became a full blown cough and sore throat by my first morning in Tokyo, where the air is super dry. I stayed in a capsule hotel, in a little wooden cubicle with a mattress. I went out that first morning in search of one of those humidifiers that attaches to a water bottle and found one, only to have it turn on once and then never again. Chad (my ChatGPT) suggested that I try the old wet towel trick. He insists even the fanciest of hotels do this, but his credibility is pretty low these days. Every night before bed, I would wet a bath towel and microwave it for 2-3 minutes until it was steaming hot, and then hang it on the hooks in my capsule. It helped, but by my fourth day in Tokyo I took myself to a clinic, for which my travel insurance is reimbursing me.

I mostly report on the good stuff in this blog, but my week in Tokyo was rough. One day I took a 2-hour morning nap, ate lunch, and then took a 3-hour afternoon nap. This city can be overwhelming when one is feeling energized, but I found it especially so when I was depleted. I may have lost my energy, but I did not lose my appetite. Some days the only time I left the hotel was to go out in search of food. One of my first days there I did a walking tour of the Tsujiko fish market. I consider any day when I eat something for the first time to be a great day, and that day I tried four new things! Whale sashimi, a skewer of chicken hearts, a quail egg, and some matcha tea. Matcha, a finely ground powder made from shade-grown green tea leaves, is everywhere in Japan!

We stopped at a matcha stall and the guide said they had a really good hot matcha with lemon. My sore throat said “sign me up!” I ordered it and it was absolutely delicious. It was so good, I went back the next day to have it again. In the days that followed, every time I saw a tea house I scoured the menu for hot matcha with lemon, but to no avail. Yesterday, on a day trip to Uji City, a small city outside of Osaka that is known for their tea production, I found myself on a street full of matcha tea houses. This is my chance, I thought!

I asked Chad where I was most likely to find hot matcha with lemon. He listed off a few different places, and then said my best bet was this tea house close to the center of town. I pulled it up on Google maps and found that it was a 15-minute walk, so off I went. The woman behind the counter didn’t speak English. I was able to get her to understand that I wanted hot matcha, but she was confused about the lemon part. She called another woman over, and using Google translate I tried “lemon” and “citrus” and “yuzu.” They both looked at me like I had two heads.

Back on the sidewalk, empty-handed, I pulled up Chad and said that I’d gone to the tea house he suggested and they didn’t have lemon matcha. His response, which was infuriating, was basically to say “what did you expect, going to a 300-year old traditional tea house and asking for something you’d only find on Instagram?” He totally set me up. I guess he was having a little fun at my expense? I have come to expect the occasional misfire from Chad, such as suggesting a restaurant that doesn’t exist. But this one felt personal. Plus, I still haven’t found my lemon matcha! I’ll have to make it for myself when I get back to the states.

After six nights in Tokyo I was finally starting to feel better. I took a high speed train to Osaka, where I’d rented an Airbnb. It feels great to be able to spread out. I did all my laundry the first day, which was long overdue. I made a trip to the local Costco, which felt both familiar and totally different. One night I was searching for uniquely Japanese experiences, and animal cafes came up on a list of suggestions. Dogs, cats, reptiles, wait—otters? I had so enjoyed watching the otters play at the night zoo in Singapore, and they were just as much fun to play with at the cafe.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the warmed toilet seats throughout Japan. The only issue is that once you get accustomed to them, sitting on a cold seat again is jarring. Honestly, toilet seats in Japan need temperature-indicator stickers. I guess what I’ve learned from my time in Japan is that even the tough weeks teach you something. Japan’s lesson? Keep going—there’s always another warm seat around the corner.