Last weekend, my parents came to Kitakami. We've been working out the kinks of their long visit to Japan and every step of the way, I've been working myself into a frenzy of anticipation, excitement and concern for their well-being.
My mother finally caved into the technology black hole that is Apple and got herself not only a nice new phone but a tablet as well! She's pretty proud of both. Thanks to our mighty soul-sucking overlords, we were able to finally text each other with What's App. One of our neighbors uses it to talk to her son who lives overseas, so Mom was pretty excited to give it a shot. After some issues, we finally got it up and working.
Naturally, the first day they were to arrive in Hanamaki, they missed their shinkansen from Nikko. I assured them I'd meet them when they arrived...and didn't hear from them. All night. I was worried that they might have left the phone somewhere or something catastrophic happened. Maybe they decided to chase down the shinkansen they missed and met with a messy end.
I decided that in the morning I would go to the ryokan they were to stay at and see if they'd seen two foreigners. But that morning, my phone started barking (makes me feel like I have something keeping me company here). I answered it and heard some shuffling Japanese on the other end.
Then... "Marta?"
"MOM!" I sat upright, so relieved! Apparently, they got in late to Hanamaki and weren't able to contact me because Mom had somehow recorded my phone number wrong. Anyway, when they arrived at the ryokan, they were greeted by a grim procession of employees in stark, black suits, bowing and looking close to tears. They managed to tell my parents that because of someone getting sick off the ryokan's food, their insurance provider said they had to close the kitchen and they couldn't accept guests that night.
As this was being explained, a tiny little female employee was dragging my parents' luggage off the shuttle bus to the lobby.
In beautiful Japanese courtesy style, an employee told my parents another reservation was made for them nearby and he would drive them.
And so the little female dragged it all back to another car and they all set off down the road. They said the strangest part was how very apologetic the employee was. They offered to just ride the bus back, but he insisted on carrying their bags. He insisted on driving. He insisted on showing them around the ryokan and introducing them to the owner. All the while bowing and apologizing. They were a bit embarrassed, but understood his position and offered him a gift from Maryland as a thank you. It was a shot glass with a crab etched in it.
It turns out, the new ryokan was a favorite of mine, and their rooms were even better than the previous ryokan. That's right. "Rooms." Plural. They had a few tatami to spare!
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