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and the cabbie nodded vigorously and pointed at the building next to us. He didn't bother to speak his Japanese words if we were not about to understand them.

We got out, allowed the cabbie to choose a selection of Japanese yen from my open hand, and approached the building. In the back of my head, I was wondering how we might get back to the station if we were lost.

We pushed open the door and entered a foyer of bare cobbles, shining gray with water as if it had been raining. Around the stones was a wooden ledge and our luggage had arrived. The two cases sat there looking comfortably foreign.

As we were wondering what to do, the proprietor emerged and knelt before us on the wooden ledge. She smiled, chatted away, and pointed at a line of slippers at the back of the ledge. All was well, we were now reduced to sign language but we knew what to do. Take off our outside shoes and don slippers. From now on, in the ryokan we clopped around in heelless slippers, which were far too small my heels overlapped onto the floor.

The proprietor showed us to our room and there we again changed from house slippers to room slippers. They were even smaller.

The inn was built around a central garden with a small lawn edged by carefully manicured and supported trees and a small rivulet with a tinkling fountain. Our room looked out over the garden.

Paper screens enclosed our rooms, so that when they were slid back the rooms would be fully open to anyone. Slid closed they provided private spaces.

The rooms were large and virtually empty, one had a table about ten inches high with some cushions around it and a small vase holding a single flower gracing its surface. The floor was covered with straw tatami mats. The next room also had tatami mats on the floor but it was completely empty. We found later that the tall brown maple cupboards that formed one wall of the room also contained our beds futon rolls that were stored away during the day.

At the back of the second room a low window showed a rose garden at the rear of the ryokan. The whole atmosphere was of openness and calm we had gardens on both sides of our space.

As the proprietor left she gave us two yukatas and taught us a phrase to use. When the maid came with breakfast or to set out the futons she would knock and then we could repeat the phrase to invite her inside. Both Emmy and I repeated the words over and over to get it correct and soon it became second nature. We were ready.

Now we needed to change out of traveling clothes and while Emmy went to investigate bathing facilities and our oforu or private bath, I stripped off.

I was stark naked when I heard a tap on the edge of the screen door, and obedient as ever I spoke the phrase we had just learnt without thinking what it meant. It meant, "Please come in."
The door slid aside and a young girl entered.

In a flash I had slid the door between the rooms open, leapt into the second and slammed the screen shut. Desperation makes one really fast.

When I had put on my yukata and reentered the first room, the girl had gone leaving a tray. It was out welcoming green tea. I suspect that she must have left quickly too a large naked American is not the sort of thing you want to contemplate for long even if it was rapidly disappearing behind a paper screen.

On our visit we both experienced Japan as well as introduced a few Japanese into the vagaries of American habits.

In summary however Japan is an elegant and courteous country. It is crowded and so its privacy is well protected. It takes a little study to travel around the country confidently but when you do every minutes of study is repaid a thousand times over.

Learn more about this author, John Graham.
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