Thursday, August 21st, 2008
My gypsy blood keeps me moving around. I love Toronto, but I do miss the other cities I’ve lived in, for various reasons. If I could combine all the best bits from these cities to make one big mega-ridiculously-cool city, well, then I’d really be onto something.
Here’s what I miss about my homes away from my current home:
Things I miss about London
- My friends.
There’s just no one quite like them.
- Portobello Market
I love the sights, sounds and smells of this place. Rarely did I miss a saturday here. Start at the Ladbroke Grove end and wander through the streets to finish with lunch at Manzara in Notting Hill. Perfect way to kick start the weekend.
- Marketplace on Thursday nights
Great music, great people. great vibe. And the cheapest night out you’ll ever have.
- Roti Hut on Shepherd’s Bush Road
Roti for £2.40! And it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. I recently had a roti in Toronto that cost me $8. What kind of shit is that?! I realize it was Caribana, but c’mon Toronto, that’s just wrong.
- The ‘don’t be a sinner, be a winner’ guy
This dude would stand at Oxford Circus with a mega phone, trying to preach to passersby. ‘Don’t be a sinner, be a winner.’ was his line of choice. I always intended to get that printed on a T Shirt.
- Topshop
Can’t even reminisce about this one too much – it brings a tear to my eye.
Things I miss about New York
- 110th Street
and all the craziness that came with it.
- The Holy Trinity
Me, The Koom and Nat Nat – three in your face British chicks. We toughed it out together through thick and thin, when no one could understand us and when we just couldn’t get our heads around Americans. I don’t know how I would have made it through without them.
- Crazy people
New Yorkers are balls out crazy and I love it. People in Toronto preserve their crazy. If we had a higher proportion of craziness here, it would give Toronto a lil more zing. Let the crazy go!
- The Vibe
can’t be explained. It is what it is.
- The summertime
and the guys who play basketball on that court by West 4th, oftentimes shirtless – thank you.
- $2 pepperoni rolls in Coney Island
worth the 2 hours and price of a subway ride to get there.
Things I miss about Tokyo
- The hilarious situations that ensue from the language barrier.
Like one of my students who told me he was going to ‘eat out’ his wife that weekend. Several embarrassing moments later, I realised he meant eat out with his wife.
- Nads.
My partner in crime. It just wasn’t the same after you left homie.
- That certain someone.
He knows who he is.
- Daikanyama.
My favourite area to just roam around in.
- The 7th floor of Tower Records in Shibuya
The only place to get english language books and magazines. It’s like Mecca when you first move there.
- The peace and quiet of temples and shrines
Proves that religion has nothing to do with it. I had some fairly profound moments in Japanese shrines.
- Heated toilet seats
Best. Thing. Ever! I fully intend to import these bad boys. With how cold it gets here in winter, a heated toilet seat that warms your tush and plays music could be just what the doctor ordered.
- Being a celebrity
Being a foot taller and ten shades whiter than the rest of the population garnered some attention. People would stop me in the street and take my picture, or sneak one on their camera phone while on the train. Frankly, I’m disgusted I don’t get the same treatment here in Toronto.
When I get ‘home sick’, I think about all these places, people and things. And I guess I’m pretty lucky I can.
Tags: city living, london, new york, tokyo, toronto, urbanite
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Thursday, November 29th, 2007
When I was in Japan and heard about Onsens, I immediately wanted to go. Outdoor hot springs just sound so relaxing. Then my students told me you had to go nude. This threw me off somewhat. It seems very un-Japanese to get butt naked and frolic around in water. But whatever – I was down to nude it up.
So, on our day off, me and my roommate, Nads, decided to venture to an Onsen. Our new roomie had just moved in, so we invited her along because we thought nudity would make that whole ‘getting to know you’ thing easier.
We caught a train to Hakone, which is a couple of hours outside Tokyo. Once there, we found out the Onsen was up in the mountains so we had to catch a bus. We were told to wait in the middle of this bridge and the bus would be along in about 10 minutes. As none of us had planned on ending our lives that day, the ‘middle of the bridge’ instruction lacked appeal. But we walked there and waited. Cars whizzed past us as we huddled at the edge of the road (of course, there was no sidewalk). We started to think this was a cruel joke the Hakone natives played on foreigners.
Soon enough, the bus came. As if waiting for the bus wasn’t hazardous enough, the driver had a death wish and drove like Mel Gibson on a bad night up the steep, narrow, winding streets.
Ten minutes later, we arrived and got off the bus, a bit shaky from the wild ride we’d been treated to.
It was the equivalent of $5 for a whole day at the Onsen. On the way to the changing rooms, they gave us towels and robes. We stripped down, donned the robes and began to walk outside. An employee stopped us and started babbling. She was an older Japanese woman and we couldn’t understand a word she was saying. We looked at each other and shrugged, then realized she was speaking Portuguese. Great. As if the English/Japanese language barrier wasn’t enough to burst your brain. Yet the more she talked, the less the words mattered. It became clear she was trying to tell us we couldn’t wear the robes outside – we had to parade out there in the buff.
This woman became a kind of ‘house mother’ to us due to our complete and very obvious lack of knowledge of Onsen etiquette.
So, slowly we disrobed and readied ourselves for our nude debut.
Now, I’m not body conscious, but letting all my alabaster skinned goodness hang out in front of a bunch of Japanese women, who are bones with a little skin wrapped around them, was a little daunting. Nads and I (who are normal sized people, I might add) thought we’d look like a couple of heifers. (The new roomie was Asian, so her tiny frame would blend right in).
The towels they gave us were no bigger than dishrags. You could cover one nipple at a time, your groin or half a butt cheek.
Brave Nads led the troops to the great outdoors. Once outside, we were greeted with the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was nothing short of breathtaking. [Cue harp music] We were up in the mountains, pools of hot springs dotted about, trees and flowers everywhere to shade you, steam rising from the water and rays of sunshine peeking through the trees – it was like something out of a fairy tale.
After taking a moment to absorb all that, we got in one of the hot springs to relax. But then, something became increasingly hard to ignore – Japanese women have never heard of bikini waxing or a good ol’ Trim ‘n’ Shape.
‘Holy Jesus! What is going on with the pubes?’ I say to Nads.
‘I know!’ She says while averting her eyes from some woman’s offending jungle. We then hatch a plan to import Trim ‘n’ Shapes, become traveling saleswomen and sell them at Onsens.
We laze around at the Onsen for a few hours and then decide to take the bus back down to the town and have a look around. We explored and did a little souvenir shopping then got on a train that’d take us on a tour up in the mountains.
The train didn’t seem to go anywhere. It just zigzagged up and down the mountain. People were getting off at the stops as if this was their regular route. Every time someone got off, we debated; ‘what are they doing? Who the hell lives here? There’s nothing but hill and trees damnit.’ We put this down as another conspiracy theory to confuse the hell out of foreigners.
People neglected to tell us that Onsens make you very lethargic, so when we were on the mountain train to nowhere, it was all we could do to keep our eyes open. The higher we got, the more intense my headache. Since we didn’t know where the hell we’d end up, we thought we should get off at the next stop, cross the platform and go back down.
On the descent, there were a bunch of schoolgirls in the next carriage over. (Where the hell was this mountain school?) The girls saw us and started giggling and waving in true Japanese schoolgirl fashion. We waved back. Then they started rummaging around in their bags. A couple of minutes later, they had written a note and held it up against the window between the carriages.
“You are cute,” it said.
We found some paper and wrote back. “So are you.” This was greeted with fits of giggles and bows from the girls.
“Where are you from?” They wrote.
“England, Canada and Australia”
“Do you like Japanese food?”
This conversation went on for an age. We were scribbling on random scraps of paper (they were much more organized with a seemingly endless notebook specifically reserved for meeting random foreigners on mountain trains).
At one point, the whole of our carriage seemed to be involved in our note passing. There was a group of Chinese tourists sitting near us. As I was writing and my pen seemed to be running out, new roomie, who can speak Cantonese said ‘This guy says he’s got a pen you can borrow if you need one.’ Go team!
The never-ending train ride finally came to a halt and the schoolgirls took some pictures with us on their cell phones.
We boarded the train back to Tokyo, refreshed but exhausted. We hit Tokyo just in time for rush hour. Ahh, how we’d hate to miss that. While on the subway squished between an armpit and a briefcase, I fantasized about my new life as a Trim ‘n’ Shape saleswoman. I’d bring pubic jungle freedom to all and be hailed as a Japanese national hero.
Tags: Japan, Japanese chicks, nads, onsens, tokyo, trains
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