Masumi and I love to travel and have been many places around the world. To name them: Germany, Netherlands, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, USA, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, and South Korea. And of course, we’ve gone from one end of Japan to the other, Hokkaido to Okinawa and much in between.
But for four years, until this summer, we couldn’t travel internationally. Covid lockdowns and related travel obstacles put our wanderlust on hold. Our last trip was to Chiang Mai, Thailand, end of December 2019/beginning of January 2020. Now, with the fear porn of the “pandemic” at least temporarily suspended — I say that because I see their ramping it up again now targeting a return of many Covid restrictions in October — we boarded a plane late July and returned to Chiang Mai, I guess to pick up where we left off.
The trip was only eight days but it was action-packed and full of pleasant surprises. Maybe it was the rebound of being “let out of the cage” that created the perfect mindset, or maybe it truly was spectacular. Whatever the case, we both agreed that this was one of our best vacations ever!
To get things off to a unique start, the day after we arrived, we went to a Thai cooking school. We really lucked out and got the best instructor/stand-up comedian of the lot. That’s our class in the photo at the top and our instructor is the lady with the yellow apron bottom left. A lot was packed into six hours of hands-on learning the secrets of Thailand’s exotic, delicious, if sometimes way-too-spicy cuisine.
The school van picked us up at our guest house early in the morning. First stop: a local market to . . . well, I guess to shop.
Next we arrived at the school, and Masumi immediately made a new friend.
Anyway, back to the herb and spice garden. Our teacher took us on a tour, we pinched various spice plants, rolled their leaves between our thumb and fingers, smelled them, occasionally tasted them. Not much else to say about it. I guess it was a bit of an epiphany for yours truly that herbs did not magically appear on the shelf of a supermarket in bottles with fancy labels on them, stamped with an expiration date.
Without wanting to sound like a broken record, living in an agricultural region — and this could be anywhere in the world — is still an adventure for me, with fresh epiphanies and surprises a regular occurrence. Watching the cycle of plant, grow, harvest puts life on a unique timeline. I love it!
We live in the middle of farm fields. Most of what is being grown appears to be rice and soybeans, which are called kuromame [ 黒豆 ] i.e. black beans. Tambasasayama is famous across Japan for its black beans and the streets are packed with tourists at harvest time.
Little did I know that Hyogo Prefecture — the equivalent to a state or province — is among the top producers in a host of other agricultural products. As you can see from the mapping above, the abundance is astonishing. For the record, these are at the top of the list for all of Japan:
Why am I telling you this?
Darn good question!
Maybe a better question is . . .
Why are you reading this?
I’m really curious. So after I tell my tale, I expect some feedback from folks in other parts of the world, especially the U.S.
Very recently I had a relapse. It was a recurrence of something that first happened back in January 2020, when Masumi and I were in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It’s a sore throat from Hell!
The first time it happened, I thought for sure I had throat cancer. A huge lump made it almost impossible to swallow. Incredible pain. I can’t begin to describe what it felt like when the spicy Thai food hit the back of my throat. Think blowtorch and go from there. At least twice, I nearly passed out from the pain.
I didn’t say anything until I got back. We were guests of a very hospitable couple and I didn’t want to worry anyone or spoil the fun.
But the day after our plane landed here, I went to a throat specialist.
It wasn’t cancer. It was a TONSIL! At least part of a tonsil. Infected, inflamed, raising hell.
Now when I grew up, everyone had their tonsils removed at an early age. Standard procedure. I think I was four or five. Anyway, whoever removed mine must have been looking at the nurse across from him because he missed a big chunk. It’s still attached to the wall of my throat, ready to make trouble whenever a cantankerous virus or bacteria enters the scene.
The doctor I saw here was a genius! He diagnosed the problem and prescribed a cocktail of five drugs. I was already mending the next day. If five days, it was as if nothing had ever happened.
I had a recurrence a couple months ago. Same drug combination. Same immediate results.
Last week, I went through the same routine. Now we’re wondering if I should have the partial tonsil removed. We’ll decide next month. Ironically, Masumi and I are going back to Chiang Mai end of this month. We miss the elephants, hillside tribe people, and the night markets. We’re even taking a Thai cooking course this time around. So we’ll wait until we return before thinking about surgery.
Anyway . . . here’s my question. At the top of this article is a photo of the “drug cocktail,” a 5-day regimen combining powerful, latest generation antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory, a pain killer, and an ulcer-preventative (the anti-inflammatory drug and pain killer can be rough on the lining of the stomach). So there were FIVE drugs in all.
My cost was 480 yen for the entire package. That’s $3.47 USD.
I’m really curious. What would this cost say in the U.S. or Canada?
By the way, the bill for the doctor was even less expensive. 340 yen = $2.46.
I’ve written about health care here before. Obviously I’m very impressed.
So what is it? Socialism? Not really. It’s just a system strictly regulated by the government, which puts people before profits, which values the health of the population over the value of corporate holdings or stocks. Should it be any other way?
I’m trying to remember what adventures I had in America typically on a Sunday. It was so long ago, and involved so many different places, it’s hard to sum it up. I know in Portland, a day off usually involved riding my bike. If there was something going on downtown — street fair, art exhibit, parade — I’d drop by. I know that visiting Saturday Market, which stretched over into Sunday, was part of my routine. In the 80s and 90s when I was living in Los Angeles, I would often go to Venice Beach to look at the weirdos, roller skate, just stroll and people watch.
Whatever I did, it was nothing like what I do now here in Japan. This past Sunday was pretty typical. So here’s how it went.
Masumi found a park not that far from us — about an hour drive — which she had never been to. It consisted of 1000s of lavender plants. She also found a very unique restaurant nearby, a Persian restaurant. I have to say this came as quite a surprise, though it really shouldn’t have. Of course, you expect big cities to have a wide selection of international cuisine and our area is about as rural as it gets. Even so, we have a French restaurant right in Tambasasayama that is world-class, and our favorite Thai restaurant is similarly situated in a relatively tiny rural village about an hour-and-a-half away. I’ve not had a lot of Middle Eastern food, and certainly don’t ever recall eating Iranian. I was definitely looking forward to the adventure!
However, before we made it to lunch, as we were driving a curvy country road, Masumi spotted a truly spectacular Shinto Shrine. What made it such a breathtaking site was that it was tucked in the midst of majestic, 1000-year-old trees that reminded me of being among the redwood trees in California. I’ve been to many shrines. The setting of this one took my breath away. We had to explore!
Okay . . . we finally made it to the Persian restaurant. It had a very interesting genesis. Japanese wife discovers husband is cheating on her. They divorce. She looks online and meets a man living in Iran. She visits him and his family in Iran. They hit it off. They get married and return to Japan. (And they say Japanese people are timid and unadventurous?) They start a Persian restaurant. He cooks. She serves and collects the money. Now if that isn’t a truly charming, fairytale romance, I don’t know what is.
The bonus was that the food was not only authentic, it was extremely delicious!
Bellies full, smiles all around, we headed to the Lavender Park.
I’ll be honest. I’m not very fond of lavender. It’s not my favorite fragrance by a long shot. In fact, for me it generates images of old ladies with hairnets and orthopedic shoes. Not quite sure why. Bad childhood experience?
Even so, the park was phenomenal to visit. Lots of lavender for sure. And since it was high up on the side of a mountain, we had a wonderful view of a small town situated in the valley below and the terraced rice farms which surrounded it. The sun was extremely intense. I’m sure glad I had my new straw hat with me.
So there you have it, a typical Sunday here in Japan . . . which will likely never be repeated.
Because it’s about improvising and just seeing what’s out there. And of course having fun!
I continue to be amazed at the level of education here in Japan. While test scores are falling in the West, those here and in China continue to rise.
Most concern about academic performance focuses on math and reading ability, but since my wife, Masumi, is a music teacher, I get to take a close look at music education. Schools here consider music an important part of overall development, realization of full human potential. I’m always astonished at what Masumi gets her students to do, culminating in a concert each year, attended by proud parents. Though she teaches 2nd through 6th grade, the musical pieces the kids master are by any stretch not simple.
It starts as soon as the kids arrive at school. Kindergarten is two years here, for four and five year olds. The following videos are from a school in Tokyo. We’ll start with a performance by five-year-old Kindergarteners.
Pretty amazing, eh? If that didn’t blow your mind, here are FOUR-YEAR-OLD kindergarteners from the same school.