Frankie Goes To Onsen

Lauren deemed Saturday the kick-off to "Relaxation Weekend," so who am I to argue? The day (afternoon) started with a DS party, which is a very social way to describe a very non-social activity. Lauren, Dave and I gathered in my cold-ish living room to play the recently-released Mario Party DS. Nerds can't wait two weeks for the English-language version, so nerds play the Japanese version without understanding the rules. It adds to the suspense and gives the all-ages AI an edge! In related news, it has come to my attention that my droll, sarcastic gameplay trash talk would have a place in non-existent, perfunctory pornography. As a result, I am now self-conscious when I utter gems such as "Do you like that?," "Do you like what I just did there?" and "Why am I on top? Oh, because I'm dominating." Since we partied all afternoon, we met some non-nerds for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant.

The great thing about the JET Program is that it attracts such a diverse group of people. Among the particular diners, someone or another could speak English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Portuguese. And when I travel with a group such as this, the nice waitress will look at me and ask if I speak Japanese. Gabe turned it around on her and asked if she spoke Portuguese. The response was something along the lines of "Beautiful!" And then the rules were explained.

1. Various meats will come to your table for a duration of 90 minutes.
2. There's rice, salad, soup, etc. at the bar area. Help yourself.
3. The price for hombres is 2000 yen. The price for mujeres is 1500 yen. Sexist? Probably. Care? Care not.

I put a stop to the delicious tried-and-true pairing of meat and rice so that I could save room for more meat. Each selection tasted as if it had revolved and marinated on skewers for half a day, which is likely exactly what happened. By the end, there was really no other option but to veg-out at an onsen.

The onsen was located on the fifth floor of Hotel Crest. Like many establishments in Japan, you cannot pay the nice ladies standing directly under the large CASHIER banner. Instead, you must put money into a nearby vending machine and then hand your ticket to the aforementioned non-cashiers. They'll ask if you have your own towel. At this point, I will yada yada over the details of what goes on inside the onsen because it's really just a bunch of naked men sitting in hot water. There are different temperature pools to appease your nuanced desires. There is also a sauna room where men watch women's volleyball on TV, and I went in mainly so I could use the line "It's like a sauna in here."

The next day, I told Lauren I used the Seinfeld quote in the sauna. "Which one? 'They're real and they're spectacular'?" No. Because that would've been weird.