July 14 -- Today, I met up with Ema and her family-- Shin (husband), Yu (six-year old daughter), and Rin (four-year old daughter). The kids only know basic English, so it was quite a challenge to interact with them. But soon enough they were somewhat friendly, although perhaps still reserved, especially Yu.
We met at the subway station to take the bullet train to Atami. It's a seaside resort about 50 miles southwest of Tokyo. We started in a hotel that Ema characterized as being built in the sixties. There was a nice, shallow pool for the kids and then we went to Roman baths with water supplied by underground hot springs. It's supposedly medicinal, but it was definitely relaxing. The sauna was a cool 78 degrees... Celsius!
Dinner was an all-you-can-eat buffet. It was a mad rush to get food. There was a lot of seafood which I ate, but didn't know what it was! Decent food but the average American probably wouldn't try much of it.
There was an arcade that the girls loved. They especially liked a taiko (Japanese drums) game where you had to beat according to the song. Kinda like Dance Dance Revolution but with drums.
It was a very nice, relaxing weekend jaunt. The hotel had a feel of an old resort in the Poconos. But it was still fun. I saw one non-Asian while I was there. Almost everything was written in Japanese only, so it would have been hard to navigate on my own..
Oh, my injury was fine. It never even bothered me... It's amazing that not a single Japanese person has asked me about what happened, even if it's quite obvious and they're talking right to me. Let's see how it is in America when I get back, for comparison. (One Aussie did ask, but that was it.)
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