Sendai - A Homestay/New Year Holiday

On the 28th December I met Keiko in Tokyo station and boarded a Shinkansen bound for Sendai. There was so much I was uncertain about – meeting her parents who spoke no English, what I would be doing over the next few days, how Japanese families spend New Year, when I would be returning home – that it was almost too overwhelming not to worry about. I’ve been in so many alien situations this year that I’ve realised it’s better to not think about it and just see what happens.

With everyone returning home for the holidays, the 28th actually turned out to be the busiest day, with 130% ticket sales. Luckily, we found two seats, and after travelling 304km in under two hours, we arrived. Although Tokyo’s temperature had dropped, it still had that city trapped warmth that seems to happen in high density places. Sendai, on the other hand, was freezing being North-East of Tokyo.

Sendai has a population of one million, although spread out over a large area, so that it is vastly different in feel to Tokyo. People there lived in detached houses! It is also home to many delicacies; many of which I tried. The first was 牛タン (gyuu-tan) or cow tongue. In the station is a famous ‘road’ of these restaurants, serving strips or beef with dark sauce. It was Ok, but I wouldn’t rush to eat it again.

Leaving the station, we ascended a huge tower to see the view – it was clear that Sendai was quite well planned out – and much more grid-like than Tokyo. The centre is formed around three main shopping streets, with the outskirts being suburban in the same manner as Britain. However, the surroundings act as a natural barrier – with the sea on one side and mountains encasing the city the rest of the way around.



Keiko’s house is about 20 minutes outside Sendai city, so we took a city train (the most expensive in Japan) and her Mum picked us up from their local station. Tokyo’s train structure is incredible, and without it, daily living would be impossible. However, this was more like Bournemouth – a car is a near must. It was also at this point that I realised I hadn’t been in a car in Japan up until now (except for a few taxis).

At her house, I was officially welcomed by Keiko’s mum and their dog, Taffy – the craziest animal I’ve ever met. A peculiar problem arrived – what did I call her parents? In England, their first name or Mr___/Mrs___ are both acceptable. Here, Terui-San could mean any of the three, and they don’t feel so comfortable using their own first names; although they called me フィルさん (Phil-San).

The answer is that you call other peoples’ parents お父さん・お母さん (otousan/okaasan) – literally, ‘Father’ or ‘Mother’. This is culturally accepted in Japan, but made me, and I’m sure many of you, a little uncomfortable in terms of sounding much closer by name than by kinship. Eye contact seemed like my best option.

We didn’t do much that afternoon, as we were both tired from NOVA and the train, but we took Taffy for a walk. Sadly, there is a big market in Japan to dress pets up, and Taffy had his fair share of outfits.



The house was quite high up, and had a good view of the city centre as well as the mountains, some of which looked quite snowy already. Snow was predicted that week although the main skiing season begins in February.



‘Father’ returned home from his last day at work a little drunk. It’s customary to go drinking with your boss at the end of the year, even if you don’t want to.

I had already gained so many insights into Japanese life in such a short time, and realised this really was a great chance for a ‘homestay’, which I advise all my students to go and do. I’d taken my own advice without even knowing it!

We ate sushi for dinner, including some new fish. One, awabi - edible but I wouldn’t eat it out of choice - is famous for looking like a “lady’s tuppence”. It was cut up by this point, so I didn’t have a chance to find out first hand, but this picture seems to do the trick:



We ate so much, and drunk a lot of hot sake, which I’d never tried before. It was much better than when served cold. We also drunk it out these wooden ‘cups’ - a lot easier to drink from than it looks - which are typically presented to staff by their company at the end of the year. I never found out the meaning behind it, so if anyone wants to do some homework, maybe try wikipedia.

Although Takao (‘Father’) tried his best with English, which wasn’t bad, the Mother spoke extremely little for Japanese standards – another difference between Sendai and Tokyo: even if you don’t learn English there’s so much around the capital in adverts/programmes/shops that you pick up a lot anyway compared to smaller cities – that I had to use a lot of the Japanese I picked up with Keiko translating most of the conversation. This was difficult but I found I had enough to keep me going, for example – talking about when I came to Japan, past experiences, family and so on. It was great practice as a teacher as it showed which topics, phrases and vocabulary are actually useful in real situations. And, although still terrible, my Japanese improved dramatically.

It was also funny because, any other situation it’d be rude to almost ignore your friend’s parents or give one word answers, but here it became the norm for people to laugh at a joke, have it translated and then for someone else to laugh. There was a lot of smiling and patience involved, but it wasn’t half as uncomfortable as I expected it can be.

One more difference – the Japanese family is very old-fashioned in terms of each family member’s role and duties. Mrs Terui was definitely treated as cook and cleaner. It took me a while to get my head around the way she was spoken to and how pleasantly she replied, but that was the way Keiko explained things work, and that there wasn’t much animosity about it. She didn’t eat dinner, and Keiko said this was for dietary reasons, but I have a feeling that with all the to-ing and fro-ing she was doing, she probably wouldn’t have had much chance even if she wanted to.

I drifted off well that night, with the warm sake in me; my last thought being how quiet the neighbourhood was.


--
The first whole day in Sendai, Keiko and I actually left the city to travel 40 minutes to an area of coast, known as being one of the “Three Views Of Japan” – Matsushima.* The area is famous, consisting of about 300 small islands erratically spread out over the bay. The most famous Haiku suggests that the poet, Matsuo Bashou, is lost for words:

Matsushima ah, Matsushima!
Ah, Matsushima, ah!
Matsushima, ah!

The area was, as expected, beautiful. And each step along the coast presented a slightly different view of the islands than the one before, so the camera remained firmly in my hand.






We walked over some bridges to the main islands for a view over the water, and then caught a boat which would take a cruise around many of the islands. 松島 (Matsushima) translates as “Pine Islands”, which was evident by a) the number of pine trees covering b) the number of islands.

Unfortunately, as soon as we stepped on the boat huge grey clouds rolled over. Not the greatest weather to be viewing one of Japan’s most scenic areas. Still, it was a nice ride, and one of the attractions was buying packets of shrimp-flavoured crisps and feeding the seagulls. I know seagulls seem to pop up wherever I’ve been recently, but this was in a league of its own – hundreds trailed behind the boat, swooping down each time a crisp was thrown. The pesky birds were fun to watch but made taking photos without a wing or beak featured wasn’t as easy as it may sound.







When we got back to land, the rain had already started falling. The silver lining was that although it pissed it down for the next two hours, this was the only bad weather all week – so it could’ve been much worse. Braving the rain, and noticing the sudden lack of tourists on the streets, we crossed the largest bridge (250m) to the main island, but it was a little miserable, so we waited in a ramen restaurant for the rain to stop.


The rain eventually stopped as we walked around the main temple – not very interesting, although the tombs outside were kind of cool.



After this, and with the sun setting, we climbed to the highest area of Matsushima. Although the view was spectacular, sun rise is the time when the sun is at the horizon on the side of the coast. We decided that before I left Japan, we should return there one day to watch the sun rise.




We met Keiko’s parents in Kokubuncho, the nightlife area of Sendai for dinner. This strip of road is home to a crazy 3000 pubs, clubs and bars; I don’t know where you would begin, but it seemed like a student haven. We walked down an old Edo style road – the real-life version of the ramen museum!


They took me a British style pub – Coopers – a bit like ‘Spoons. They had episodes of Mr Bean playing on the screens around the place – I can’t believe how much of it I remembered, especially the scene where he gets dressed in his car. Her parents were very apologetic about the weather, but I wasn’t concerned; I was just glad to have been there. I also bit down on a chilli pepper which to my surprise was crazy hot, a bit like the time my school friend Jon Fry ate a Jalapeno pepper and spent the next 10 minutes with his head in the freezer. I bravely sat there, tears rolling while the other three were chatting. I don’t think anyone realised, and my masculinity remained intact. However, at this point Mr Terui decided we should all go to the onsen tomorrow – umm… I wasn’t sure about this, but didn’t look as if I had much of a choice.

After the meal, we walked along one of the three main roads, to view the Christmas lights – known as ‘The Pageant’ every year in Sendai. Was actually better than anything I’d seen in Tokyo.


--
The next morning, I had a fantastic breakfast. In fact, every morning breakfast was amazing – always a mixture of things. The main theme of meals in the Terui household was that food just kept coming; every time you thought you’d finished some more came. Breakfast could be soup, toast and jam, and some salad or meat based dish. I felt that this was a special effort for our visit but Keiko reassured me that she ate like this every day when she was young. The jam was especially delicious – a cherry, strawberry and home-grown blueberry mix that, to my embarrassment, but to Mrs Terui’s pleasure, I ate the entire jar of over my time there.

Before leaving, I was handed a small white-towel to cover my man-bits (don’t focus on the ‘small’ part please) and we went on our way to the onsen. The place was up in the mountains, there was snow on the ground and the air was fresh. We separated from the girls and went to the changing room. Not really changing, of course, as there was nothing to put on. I hesitated but with Mr Terui whipping off his clothes and knowing that this was my only option too, I got naked. We walked to the onsen, and contrary to all the rules and warnings I’d been given about the importance of cleaning before entering, he went straight in. I thought I’d follow suit and put my towel on the side. For modesty, you can walk around with the towel in front of you, but in the confusion and mild embarrassment I’d put my towel next to an identical one and had no idea which was mine, so for the rest of the time, I was stark-naked. It was a little strange sitting down next to him, with him chatting in broken English, and I’ll admit it wasn’t so relaxing. I’m sure if I do it enough times I’ll get used to it, but I definitely was the least comfortable person there.

However, we ventured outside to the Swedish style hot spring, and I found myself much more relaxed in a natural setting. Amazingly, it started snowing. I wish I had pictures to show you but the no camera rule didn’t need to be explained to me. However, you can imagine being up in the mountains, in hot water, the snow falling, and overlooking the city in the background.

We didn’t do much else that afternoon – everyone wanted to relax; the purpose of this holiday wasn’t to go exploring madly. We did go to the local supermarket, which as Keiko had told me on numerous occasions, overlooked the sea. I didn’t really understand what she meant until we got there. The place was huge, and her Dad had been involved in designing and building it through his company. It was more like a shopping mall in layout and contents and we ate ice-cream and played in the amusement arcade for a while. I bought some flowers for Keiko’s mum, as I didn’t think the presents I had already given were enough. She seemed very appreciative.


That evening, Keiko’s father showed me all of his prized possessions. He seemed both excited to own them as well as to show them off to me. I think he was quite taken with me as he gave me one. I was reluctant to accept at the same time as not wanting to seem rude, so gratefully thanked him. The beautifully decorated box was made in Kyoto.



I was able to forget about work for a week and wind down. I did a lot of reading which, as you can see, I took very seriously:



--
On the 31st December, excitement filled the air. I was intrigued to see how we would celebrate the start of the year that night, but so far had not been informed of any plans. I didn’t like to ask in case nothing was happening and I was expecting something out of nothing.

Another delicious breakfast later, Keiko’s dad drove us around Sendai to see the main sights. There is a tour bus – the Loople – that stops at the main places, but seeing as most things were closed and we could get a free ride it seemed like the more sensible idea.

The first stop was to Hachiman Shrine, which was busy with people setting up stalls for the next day. Every year, on average 200,000 people came to pray at the shrine. We decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and today was a much easier day to have a look.



The next place was to the old castle ruins. In fact, the castle was so ruined, there were no actual ruins there. Instead, it marked the place where the castle stood, and conveniently allowed for a nice view of Sendai. There was also a statue of the daimyo (feudal leader) Date Masamune, who founded the city in 1600.


It was here that I saw the coolest おみくじ (fortune-telling). Instead of just taking a piece of paper, this monster took one and dropped it into a slot for you. Of course, mine was ‘semi-bad luck’ for next year.




Ignoring the bad omen, onto the Mediatheque, a hugely impressive resources building which has largely been a source of inspiration for the new London version.



A few more ingredients were needed for the evening’s meal, so we went to a department store. More specifically, to the デパ地価 ‘depachika’ – the basement floor.** These are quite a source of fascination. A whole floor of restaurants, stalls, fresh fish markets, grocers, and a supermarket. Due to the day, the place was packed. I had a quick walk around while the others were finding what they needed. There were so many types of fish that I’d never seen before. I have no idea what they were, but I have to admit most of them looked gross.

Mrs Terui cooked a selection of dishes; the centre-piece being her scrummylicious hamburger made from meat and bean sprouts – a lot more appealing and intricate than it sounds. I got a little drunk from the combination of champagne, beer, wine and hot sake that seemed forever to be reappearing in my glass.

A famous tradition that I’d been looking forward to was the main television programme that night. 紅白歌合戦 (kouhaku uta gassen) translates rather sillily as ‘red and white song battle’. Silly is the word I’ll stick with. Every year, all the famous singers and bands in Japan compete in a contest – the males on the white team and the females on the red team. A vote at the end determines who wins.*** As I learnt from a personal viewing experience as well as the insight of the Terui’s, there are many problems with the programme. Firstly, it was over 4 hours long, so I lost interest very quickly. Secondly, although it’s good that J-pop artists perform alongside the older Japanese classical (Enka) artists, the second group of artists have been singing the same song every competition because they don’t work anymore; making the freshness of the show extremely dated.

The other big shock of the night was that at about 11:30pm, Keiko’s parents went to bed. It appeared that in Japan, midnight is very unimportant.**** Still, I waited up and celebrated it with the famous line:

明けましておめでとうございます

--
The 1st of January , 2007 began early for me for two reasons. Firstly, it would be a long time until you all brought in the New Year too (some of you, ahem – Elliot, a looong time). Secondly, we woke up early to see the sunrise. This was how the Japanese brought in the year. None of that silly staying up late malarkey. No, of course, waking up at 5am is so much more sensible. Regardless, we left wrapped up warm and went to find a good spot. It seemed like everyone else in Sendai had the same idea, and the number of people made me feel like I was a) a penguin huddling for warmth, and b) back in Tokyo. Which I guess is what happens to your imagination when you wake up at 5am.

The sunset was quite extraordinary, and although just as beautiful as from the top of Fuji, I hadn’t really earnt it as much as I had previously.




We had a traditional New Year’s breakfast – a selection of sushi-type items alongside a soup with a sticky rice-cake in it.



Mochi is actually a safety hazard; many old people are rushed to hospital because it gets stuck in your throat easily. I was continuously warned to eat small bits at a time. One of my students who is a nurse says it’s a busy time for the hoover at work! Seriously! Here’s a few New Year’s charms around the house:



The rest of the day was so different to anything I could’ve imagined. First we went for a walk in a park quite far from their house, although we diverted off the course and ended up crossing muddy ponds on broken tree branches. Was very Indy Jones. And then, Mr Terui suggested we go see the snow, since I’d been so excited about it in the onsen. Vocally excited, I should specify.



We drove high into the mountains. Luckily for me, the snow wasn’t thick enough for skiing yet, so we hired a toboggan and played around. It was amazing, and I had such a fantastic time. At one point, we hit a bump and went flying down the slope all the way to the car park, balancing on the 4 foot drop. Fortunately, we didn’t fall. Well, I didn’t; Keiko stepped back, forgetting there was a drop and fell. The perfect gentleman, I of course laughed.



That evening, we had a really good meal: a huge Nabe dish (a pot of many ingredients on a portable heater in the centre of the table).



For practical reasons, Keiko’s parents wanted to know when I was leaving, which led to a bizarre conversation between them about something in Japanese, Keiko and I discussing in English and Keiko mediating between us. As long as it was Ok for them, I wanted to stay as long as possible. They seemed delighted. Overly so, and I wasn’t sure why. I found out the next day.

--
The 2nd marked the first day sales, and we jumped in the car to Sendai centre. Not a big fan of shopping, especially on such a busy day, I found something that fascinated me. 福袋 (Fukubukuro) – lucky bags – are an important feature of the sales. The first day, shops offer mystery bags, normally with decent products at a heavily discounted price. Depending on the shop, the price changes but the bargains are renowned for being exceptional. It was pretty incredible realising that near enough every type of shop had fukubukuro on offer – from clothes shops to jewellers and from McDonalds and Starbucks to pharmacies and electrical stores. I didn’t buy any, but it appeared to be the norm to carry around 3 or 4 such bags. However I bought a really cool book, about the evolution of man and the shared ancestors we and other species have evolved from; an epic pilgrimage in much the same style as “The Canterbury Tales”.

We had lunch at a ramen restaurant before returning home. Keiko’s dad had bought a golf set, at a very big discount and, her mum, a coat. They presented me with a gift:


This type glass is famous in Japan for altering the taste of a drink. I’m not sure how, why, or if, but I was really honoured that they put effort into buying me something. Keiko told me that was why they were so happy I stayed, because they wanted to get me something but didn’t think they’d have time if I left straight away.

I also received おとしだま (otoshi dama) – a lucky coin, and some (Year of the) boar sweets:



--
The final morning in Sendai was just sitting around the house and packing before heading to the station. About 11am, we left for the station after some goodbyes and returned to Tokyo.

I want to say that I will be eternally grateful for all the food, time, patience and presents that I received over the holiday. I had such an amazing insight into Japanese family life and couldn’t have wished for anything more. It was a priceless experience that I’ll always cherish. I only wish I could’ve explained that in Japanese to Mr and Mrs Terui. I hope they realised.

*For the other Two Views
**Depato = department store, and chika = underground, as in chikatetsu = subway
***The men won this year.
****Even my friends that went to clubs in Tokyo said there wasn’t really much in terms of a countdown.