This is the first of a series of posts about a 3 ½-week trip I took to Japan this summer with my wasband* and two sons, ages 15 and 19.

*a husband from whom one is amicably separated

Why Japan?

The wasband and I are big on international travel. Before becoming a parent, my travels were deeply intertwined with my writing. I wrote several plays based on my travels, and a memoir about a year spent volunteering and traveling in West Africa. I believe exploring other cultures builds flexibility, humility, and the understanding that just about every aspect of human life can be approached in a variety of ways. Because of this, I try to take my boys out of the country when possible. It’s also immensely fun.

The wasband, whom I’ll call D, works in international health care. He develops large-scale blindness prevention programs, as well as other medical programs, and helps set up manufacturing to make medical technology affordable for developing country economies. (Yes, it’s true, he’s out there saving the world while I’m here expressing myself—I try not to compare.) We both love wandering the wide, wide world.

My younger son, whom I’ll call E, was very keen to go to Japan, a place he found eminently cool.

D had been there many times for work and had even been featured in a national magazine. (D is big in Japan!) He had plenty of reasons to go back and could even hook us up with a free house in a beach town for part of our stay. So even though I’d been studying Korean on Duolingo for 278 days and would’ve loved to get some real-time practice (so close and yet so far), we decided to head to Nippon* (*Japan, in Japanese) for our summer adventure.

The elephant in this STORY

You may wonder, as many do, how it is that the wasband and I travel together.

It’s like this: We’ve been separated four years. We live five minutes apart, and he keeps an office in the house we once shared, where E, our three dogs and I still dwell. (Our older son, whom I’ll call C, is living separately.) We see each other almost every day. We’re co-parents to these two young men, and though we’re no longer a couple in the traditional sense, we’re still family. We care deeply. We have each other’s backs. And though travel can put even the smoothest of relationships to the test, most of the time we still like each other.

And so it came to pass that the four of us found ourselves at the Detroit airport one warm Monday in July, 2023, setting out for Japan.

FOOD AND GIRLS

Arriving at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, three of us get photographed and fingerprinted. E, fifteen, does not.

“Little do they know,” I murmur. E flashes me a wicked smirk.

Our taxi driver’s name is Yang Bo. He’s from China and has lived in Tokyo twenty years. He loves it.

“What do you like best?” I ask.

“Food and girls!”

“Oh?”

He nods. “Kawaii.”

I’m not sure what the Hawaiian islands have to do with anything, but with the help of Google translate, I discover that kawaii is a Japanese word that roughly translates to “cute” or “adorable.”

“Okay! Food and girls!” I say. “Anything else?”

“Ramen, tempura, sushi…”

“Any tourist sites you recommend?” E pipes up from the back seat.

“Disneyland!” says Yang Bo.

“There’s a Disneyland here?” asks C.

“Don’t even think about it,” I say.

ginza

Our hotel is called remm plus Ginza (with that precise capitalization pattern). It’s smack in the heart of the Ginza shopping district, surrounded by blocks and blocks of upscale boutiques and department stores.

If you know me, you know I’m more of a neighborhood-Airbnb type gal. However, when I ran the cozy places I was considering by D’s Tokyo colleague, she said the neighborhoods were “funky” and suggested we stay in Aoyama, Roppongi or Ginza. I’m not sure what a funky neighborhood looks like in the safest city in the world, but when I complained to my family that D’s colleague didn’t understand the way I like to travel, E rolled his eyes with scorn. Why did I think I knew better than a local, he asked—touché—and what was wrong with staying at a nice hotel if it wasn’t too pricey? (I’d mentioned that the hotels were surprisingly reasonable, the dollar being strong in relation to the yen.)

I caved, telling myself our time in Tokyo was my nod to E’s urban preferences. We’d do things my way later in the trip.

Hospitality

Our hotel is lovely. Shadow leaves swirl and dance across the subtly mottled beige walls of the lobby. I look around but can’t find the projector.

Entering the room I share with C after eighteen hours in transit, I’m delighted by two pairs of crisp white pajamas laid out on the twin beds, as well as a massage chair in the corner of the room.

Welcome to Tokyo!

toilets and showers and tubs, oh my!

No one does bathrooms like the Japanese.

A Japanese toilet is a lavatory, a bidet, and an air dryer all in one. A gentle spray of warm water cleanses your nether regions from the front or the back at your preferred level of intensity and, on the fancier models, a temperate breeze dries you when your mission is complete. It’s tempting to sit there all day.

After a peaceful night’s rest in my clean pajamas (alas, on loan only), I decide to bathe.

The enclosure features a deep tub on one side (my photo does not capture the depth) and a showerhead propped in a wall sconce alongside it.

I submerge myself in steaming water. Surfacing, I make use of three pump bottles with Japanese writing on them lined up along the tub’s rim. Their contents smell of lavender. I float on my back and watch ripples of light flicker across the ceiling. I’m good, I think. I can die now.

I don’t. Reluctantly, I exit the tub and grab the showerhead from the wall. Thinking to do a final rinse, I flip the knob to redirect the water.

And…AVALANCHE! Suddenly I’m caught in a torrential downpour. I’d failed to notice the holes in the ceiling that turn the entire room into a shower.

“Oh my God!” I shriek.

“What?” C calls from the other room.

I don’t respond. Instead, I shriek “Oh my God!” again, and then I’m laughing and dancing in this spectacular tropical rainstorm, thanking the universe for small miracles and the fact that, after more than half a century on earth, I can still be mightily surprised.

Dress code

In my pre-trip research, I learned that Japanese women, for the most part, dress modestly, typically covering shoulders and knees. “Cleavage,” I read, “is frowned upon.”

When you’re constructed the way I am, it’s almost impossible not to show cleavage unless you’re wearing a turtleneck. (Thank you, zaftige ancesors.) Not wanting to be frowned upon in the soaring summer temperatures, I sewed a little “modesty triangle” into one of my favorite sundresses. I’m not the craftiest, so I was pretty proud of this accomplishment.

On our first morning walk in the Ginza neighborhood, we witness a sea of people in white button-down shirts, the men wearing dark pants and the women dark or beige skirts. Not unlike a weekday morning in San Francisco’s financial district, perhaps, minus the homeless people. C asks if they are in uniform.

I hadn’t thought it possible for me to stand out more than I did in West Africa, where I spent the better part of a year, but Ginza proves me wrong. At least in Ghana, I had the right clothes.

Clearly, I cannot look the part of a tourist any more than I do in this photo. And yes, my shoulders are bare. In my defense, all my research told me that, while Japanese women usually cover their shoulders, foreigners are generally given a pass. Furthermore, bare shoulders are not considered offensive per se except in temples. I keep a light cotton wrap rolled up in my purse for temple coverage. I always aim to be respectful.

OUT AND ABOUT

D goes off to meet some colleagues. The boys and I head to Takeshita Street in Shibuya, a neighborhood known for youth fashion. E is the fashionable one in the family. Things are a lot more colorful here. I even see some young Japanese women rocking bare shoulders and knees. And a whole lot of kitschy souvenirs.

Perusing the clothing stores, I notice the Star of David liberally applied here and there as a design element, with no apparent connection to Judaism. I also notice English feel-good aphorisms generously sprinkled across a wide array of garments. The sayings are sometimes taken apart and put back together in unusual ways, which leads me to think that they too, are there more for design than meaning, not unlike certain garments in my own closet that bear characters whose meanings may or may not make sense.

E admires a pair of white pants adorned with zippers and chains. I warn him of the inevitable fate of all white garments. He buys them anyway. What can I do but sigh in the face of such unsullied optimism? White pants are apparently one of those mistakes we all must make for ourselves.

Despite the humid, 93-degree weather, we roam Harajuku and environs, seeking out a hall-of-mirrors type mall entrance I’d seen pictured in a magazine.

After cruising a few art galleries (one out of two young men is bored), we pass through the iconic gateway into the forest surrounding the Meiji shrine, a Shinto shrine built in 1920 that honors the late Emperor Meiji. Emperor Meiji ruled from 1867 to 1912 and is widely credited with transforming Japan from an isolated feudal society into an industrial world power. Despite the dense crowd of tourists, the equally dense foliage has a marvelous cooling effect. Along the path we encounter a display of 200 colorful sake barrels, donated from breweries around the country as a tribute to the emperor. Opposite them is a wall of Burgundy wine barrels donated by French wineries, a custom that began in 2006. Apparently the Emperor had a special fondness for French wine. Not exactly what I was expecting at a Shinto shrine!

Back at the hotel that night, my phone says I’ve taken almost 20,000 steps.

Not bad for Day 1.

I don the white pajamas and slip into my freshly made bed. I’ve barely begun counting sake barrels when I fall into a deep sleep.

Thanks for reading Japan Journals 1! Check out the next installment, Japan Journals 2, on my new Substack, Tanya Shaffer’s Off-Leash Chronicles.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy Tell Me A Story and After the Giddy Plunge.

Off-Leash Writing

Japan Journals 1: Tokyo