A Training Expedition

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In one of the peculiarities of the Japanese system is the singular oddity known as the “kenshu ryoko,” literally translated as training trip although that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Lest anyone be deceived, this brief journey into the known but exotic of Japan doesn’t have the slightest hint of education or job development. It is simply a time for all the teachers of a school to pack their things, hop on a bus, and have an extra opportunity to bond besides the 10 or 12 hours at school they spend every day.
Happening to spot a questionnaire asking about desired locations and times, I volunteered that I was going to accompany them this time. They didn’t have the heart to turn me down so they said, “Sure, that will be $320. Please pay up.” Granted the trip was only an overnight for the amount of money I spent in a month in Boston, but it was another chance for the experience of a lifetime. The specifics: it was a trip to the nearby island of Kyushu (third biggest in Japan) for a bit of relaxation, hot springs and elegant cuisine at a Japanese style inn as well as some cultural interludes. .
Last Saturday, we set up for our “training exercises.” They consisted mainly of drinking as much beer as possible, a routine I only improved marginally on. To help us out, we rented a bus to get to our destination. Thanks to the limitless supply of booze, we must have made a rest stop every half an hour. Even on family vacations when my siblings and I were really young, we didn’t stop nearly so often. After what must have been six rest stops, we arrived at our lunch spot, an eel restaurant. I was pretty hesitant, but some of the teachers managed to convince me that eel is kosher. I have given birth to 4,000 rabbis in my town, apparently. A teacher casually pointed out to me that eel has fins and scales, a prime consideration for being kosher. Whether or not eels have those attributes or they just wanted me to try it, I don’t know, but they certainly chose a persuasive technique. Still, I couldn’t stomach the thought of an all-eel lunch so I satisfied their curiosity with a sample from a fellow teacher. All I can say is it was quite soft and not totally disagreeable.
Our next stop, not counting the next five rest stops, was a village formerly inhabited by ninja, expert spies who lived here several hundred years ago. I tried my hand at tossing daggers as well as archery in carnival-like games. As for the latter, I spent a good five minutes figuring out how to fit the arrow to the bow without it slipping out when I pulled back the string. When I finally mastered that, I was ready to shoot. My first few shots hit a good two or three feet of the target, much to the amusement of my fellow teachers. Belatedly, I realized a little directional compensation might be in order, and I lowered the bow and proceeded to miss the target by mere inches. A bit closer, and my name would have been inscribed in the wall for all eternity. Actually, I would have been more disappointed if I knew I could have won a giant Woody Woodpecker. For good or for bad, there were no cartoon characters in sight.
We then left for our lodging for the night, a ryokan, or Japanese style inn, my first visit. A ryokan is not just a place to plop down on a bed for the night in front of a TV; it is a culinary, physical, and aesthetic experience. From the onset, the twelve of us were assigned a hostess who saw to all our needs, served our meals, and even came onto the bus when we were leaving to wish us a safe trip home.
The most notable aspect of the ryokan is the ofuro, or bath. Japan was partly formed by volcanoes, and virtually anywhere you go there are natural hot springs. The Japanese people being the natural born entrepreneurs that they are, have developed a whole industry around the baths. People go to ryokan like the one we visited just to eat the food and luxuriate in the natural hot springs. The entire vacation revolves around the lodging.
This occasion marked the first time I went to a hot springs with people I know. The second morning of our trip, I went down to the baths with a few teachers, carrying our yutaka, or bathrobes, and a towel. Outside of the bath, we stripped naked, only covered with the tiny towel with which we were permitted to enter the baths. The routine familiar by now, we sat on stools and washed ourselves clean, and proceeded to enter the steamy waters. I think by now I have gotten over being embarrassed by talking to people while naked but it is still a little strange, especially when it is people you know. Soon however, the soothing waters allowed me to clear my mind of such thoughts and I was carried away into a temporary nirvana.
We left the ryokan, and departed for our penultimate stop, a brewery. Thinking we were going to see how they produce beer, I was a bit excited. To my mild disappointment, however, all we did was eat lunch and drink tons of beer. The lunch was pretty special, though. It was the Japanese culinary tradition known as shabu-shabu in which there is a boiling pot of water at every table. You get unlimited strips of beef and vegetables to put into the boiling water. There was only one serving of vegetables, but the beef just keep coming and coming. I complained about having only beef and beer to the bemusement of the other teachers. How can there be too much meat? I swear, sometimes the Japanese are the biggest anti-vegetarians I have ever met. The vice principal and a couple of other teachers were there the entire two hours, eating strips of beer and chugging down steins of Asahi beer to the very end. I had left earlier in pursuit of other amusements.
Finally, we ended up at an enormous shopping mall, easily the least interesting stop on our trip. I chatted briefly with some fellow English teachers I ran into, but it was people I barely knew. Oddly, I feel infinitely more comfortable talking to random Japanese people than foreigners I hardly know. Soon we headed back onto the bus for the long ride home. Tired of beer, I stuck to tea. Because of the training trip, a better beer drinker, but drinking my friends under the table is not one of my ambitions in life.

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