I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.
Alexander Supertramp
I return to the digital detox ryokan that changed my life exactly six months later, with unfinished business.
Table of Contents
A Tipping Point in my Trip
Traveling for six months, the days begin to blur. Weekdays and weekends become one. Yet one date has been on my mind the entire time. I’ve been waiting for today for six months.
The last few days were irksome and interesting. Searing pain at the most poisonous and acidic hot spring in the world; bug bites; worsening fatigue; and a visit to a TV studio, to watch a live broadcast with a famous singer, and meet producers and TV personalities from NHK (Japan’s largest public broadcaster).
This, not to mention plans being changed without notice, again and again. The fact that I’ve finally begun working part-time (with a company too unprofessional for things to go the way they should) wasn’t even the main reason for my frustration.
Missing people who don’t give a damn about me; throwing time and money on people who make it all in vain. I can’t help but think again of the two most important sentences I’ve heard in six months of travel.
“If people want you in their life, they will make time for you.”
“The only person who doesn’t disappoint me is me.”
It’s not the time I’ve been wasting on too many buses and trains. I don’t care about that, when money is becoming so tight, that in two months or so I’ll have nothing in my bank account. I’ve been taking costly leaps of faith. Yesterday, they fell through in a way that would cost me even more.
All of this is exacerbated by my nervousness toward my next destination.
19-21 February 2023
Loneliness, Snowstorms, and Romance at a Digital Detox Ryokan
Between February 19-21, 2023, I stayed in an old ryokan in north Tohoku, quite literally in the middle of nowhere. It was known for having no electricity, Wi-Fi, and reception. You went there to disconnect from modern life, and reconnect with nature / yourself.
The city closest to it was Hirosaki, and the road leading up to it required multiple bus transfers, including a shuttle that was both fun and scary. Down a bumpy hill into a small valley, the snow piled up on either side was taller than the bus.
I don’t need to re-read my blog post about it to recall those forty-eight hours. They are etched into my mind. Including moments I didn’t share here, because they were too private.
The experience couldn’t have been more traditionally Japanese. My intuition had told me that such a splurge would be worth it.
Still, going there alone, there was nothing for me to do but journal about my boredom, and soak in the multiple hot springs of the ryokan. I chatted with guests every now and then, yet I distinctly remember my first day (Sunday) having 20 of them, and my second day (Monday), only 10. Between breakfast and dinner, I didn’t see most of them.
Where did they go, if not to the hot springs? I wondered, as I experienced two emotions hitherto unfamiliar to me: living in the present; and loneliness.
On my first night, I befriended a Japanese woman from Ashikaga in her seventies. She’d attended the oldest school in Japan. We kept in touch for weeks, until we finally reunited two months later, on April 20, in her hometown, when she and her husband took me on a 2-day road trip.
During my second day, I met a group of Christian missionaries who’d come from all over the world to work at a church in Hirosaki. They were day visitors at the onsen.
On my second night, my boredom and loneliness pushed me to resolve to return to the ryokan in the future either for one night only, or for two nights, but with a companion.
On the morning of the third day, I noticed a Japanese guy at breakfast.
“No way,” I thought. “A guest who’s my age…?”
I was immediately drawn to him for reasons beyond age. He was staying with a woman who, judging by her slightly graying hair, was older than him. I assumed she was a family member.
We exchanged a few words. Yet the shuttle bus was about the depart. So that was it.
Outside, a blizzard was roaring. Aomori Prefecture was infamous for being even snowier than Hokkaido. As a matter of fact, Aomori was the snowiest city on Earth. The Hirosaki Christians had told (and shown) me quite entertaining stories.
(The three cities with the highest snowfall in the world are Aomori (792 cm), Sapporo (485 cm), and Toyama (363 cm), all in Japan. Without knowing this, I visited all in winter.)
The bus driver hit the gas – I remember describing it in my original post as the Knight Bus from Harry Potter – and, five minutes later, got stuck.
The snow and ice up the hill were too much for the bus to handle. The driver performed careful maneuvers for ten minutes, followed by half an hour of shoveling. I exchanged a few words with the Japanese guy in this timeframe. He didn’t seem intent on having a conversation.
Finally, the guests grabbed shovels, and got to work. The guy and I, being the only twentysomethings, did so together.
We were stuck in an area with no reception. Yet I wasn’t scared for a moment. Our shoes sank into snow that covered our shins. Every now and then, someone lost their balance and fell on the ice. It was a memory forming in real time.
After an hour or so, a staff member from the ryokan came with juice for us, as we waited for a rescue vehicle from the city to tow the bus uphill. The ryokan must’ve used some kind of an emergency phone line; shoveling around the wheels hadn’t done the trick.
When the vehicle started towing the bus, the guy and I, still shoveling, broke into a run. Chasing the bus together, snow in our eyes. Our view was almost pure white.
Safe and sound in Hirosaki station, it was just him and me now, out of the ryokan’s minimal clientele. His female companion had other plans. (“Where are you going?” I’d asked her. “It’s a secret,” she’d said. I’d forgotten the Israeli nosiness was intrusive in Japan.)
Both the Japanese guy and I intended to take the shinkansen from Shin-Aomori station bound south. I was about to make a detour to the Christians’ church for a short visit, when he expressed disappointment at our parting.
Needless to say, I went with him.
The snowstorm was still in full force, and I remember him taking some spectacular photos of the local train to Shin-Aomori with a professional camera. I took one on my phone. It’s a scene I hope to re-live.
I can describe every small moment from here on, during our time together. I remember them all. The point is, I felt something unfamiliar to me, yet again.
He did many, many things to send me a message. Various sentences, gestures, and presents. They all flew past me, as if I was the world’s biggest fool.
After five unforgettable hours together, he tried to make plans with me, both in Japan and Israel. Right before getting off at Sendai station, however, I thought: “If he didn’t ask for my number, there’s no reason for me to ask for his.”
It’s a moment I regret like no other, and it taught me to never repeat such a mistake. Since then, I’ve been asking people whose company I’ve enjoyed for their LINE, Instagram, or KakaoTalk. It has led to wonderful times on this trip. A few people, however, have wriggled their way out of agreeing.
The Japanese guy continued to Tokyo, where he lived, while I got off at Sendai. We waved at each other through the train window. I’ve been searching for him ever since.
All this time, I knew that day with him was singular. If I went back and re-read all my posts since late February, I doubt I would find someone I’ve mentioned on this blog more than him.
22 February – 9 May 2023
Searching Around Japan for a Crush
Two months later, on April 19, my first day in Tokyo involved visiting police boxes in Miitaka. I’d booked Ghibli Museum for that morning in order to ask police officers afterwards for guidance. I told them his first name and age. I showed them a picture of us together. Without a surname or a phone number, however, it was hopeless.
I spent the afternoon picnicking in Shinjuku Gyoen garden next to a wilting cherry tree.
The next day, I fled Tokyo, and reunited in Ashikaga with the woman from the ryokan and her husband. Flower festivals, a pop quiz at her school, and Nikko.
The day I returned to Tokyo, I went clubbing for the first time, met the British student while dancing, and attended my first Pride with him the next day. I was trying to move on; we spent my last two weeks in Japan together. It was a new and exciting experience for me. So many memorable, romantic moments.
When I left Japan to Korea, he stopped responding.
10 May – 3 August 2023
Moving on in Korea
Time went on. Korea was a difficult country for me, trying to fit in with the local crowd. For five and a half months, I did not re-experience what I had with the Miitaka guy, merely a week after landing in Japan. I was convinced that it was a one-time thing.
My last two weeks in Korea changed that. When I had least expected them to.
They handed me something I’d never held before, and made me forget about that day in Tohoku.
But then, again before expecting them to, they were over. And I’d never get to re-live them.
When I left Korea for Japan, he stopped responding.
19 August 2023
Back to the Ryokan
Now, I’m in Japan. On my way to the ryokan.
My decision to return there wasn’t about the Miitaka guy. After booking a flight back to Japan, I immediately resolved to return north, both to escape the heat, and to re-explore my favorite regions. My 11 days in Hokkaido and 4 days in Tohoku were too brief. Winter, snow, more nature than tourists – I barely scratched the surface of these two regions, partially because the snow made many areas inaccessible.
(I also love Shikoku and the Alps, but couldn’t fit them into my return trip.)
Knowing I’d start with the Tohoku region in August for the big three festivals, a return to the ryokan made perfect sense. Incidentally, I could do so precisely six months after staying there. And, to cap it off, I realized I could use this opportunity to ask the staff for the Miitaka guy’s number.
I made today’s reservation back in early May, two days before leaving Japan for Korea, holding on to the glimmer of hope that I’d be able to set foot in there again.
I already know what the staff is going to say. Chances are, my search will end in vain, and I will spend yet another two long days at the ryokan, sinking into spring water and sadness.
But I have to try.
I don’t know what will happen to me while I’m there and on what note I’ll return to modern society on August 21. I just know it will be either anguished or elated.
My first time at the ryokan was memorable for good and bad reasons. It led to several unexpected developments. I’m going back there with perhaps too many expectations, liable to burst in my face. Life has taught me again and again that what I receive is the opposite of what I crave. I just wonder if there will be more guests this time around, in summer, on the weekend after Obon. The holiday period.
If I end up even gloomier there than the first time around, I will try to appreciate this experience, too, knowing full well that I brought it on myself. If there was one moment in my past I could go back to and change, it would be from February 21.
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