Japan offers lessons in walking, eating and bridging the distance

They looked so innocent: planks of wood that attached to my feet with cloth thongs, like flip-flops. But their contact surface with the ground was two blocks of wood, neither of which was under the toe. I pitched forward with each step and felt like I might launch face first into the ground.

I had spent some 39 years of my life believing I knew how to walk, but click-clacking down the streets of Kinosaki, Japan, in geta sandals, I wasn't so sure anymore.

Over my clothes, I wore a yukata robe, or lightweight cotton kimono, that had been so complicated to put on that it came with illustrated instructions. A staff member from my traditional Japanese inn, Tsukimotoya Ryokan, tugged and tied it into place. "No, no, no," said the woman, who was half my height, as she put the right-side flap over the left. Then she reversed them, nodded, and cinched it all together with an obi sash, "OK, OK, OK."

As I ventured outside, I heard loud, assured click-clacking behind me — two women in the same outfit. They were sisters from Singapore and moved like gazelles in their getas. I wobbled behind them, and then nearly lost my footing as I took in the scene near the lantern-lit Otani River winding through the city. It was a veritable thoroughfare of yukatas and getas, in an array of colors, on visitors young and old, shuffling, striding and practically skipping through the night.

People come from all over Asia and beyond to soak in Kinosaki's seven onsen, or public hot spring baths, and pretty much everyone does it walking around in a robe all day. The city is one big inn. The ryokan you stay in is your individual room and the streets are like the inn's corridors. It's all very romantic until it hails and rains.

I had come to Kinosaki, on the western coast of Honshu, Japan's biggest island, though, not for dressing up, but on a kind of pilgrimage. As a Japanese friend put it to me in an e-mail, "Don't they have that Buddha that's only unveiled to the public every 33 years?"

The morning after I'd arrived, I took the Kinosaki Ropeway (a cable car) high up Mount Taishi to the Onsenji temple, home to the 1,300-year-old Kannon Buddha, the Goddess of Mercy. She has 11 faces, 10 in a crown to signify her wisdom, and was carved from the top of a mystical tree that produced three Buddhas, of which she is the only original one left. This April began her unveiling, which will last for three years, until she goes back into hiding for another 30 years.

Midway up the ropeway, hail had started coming down, and I rushed inside the temple. There, with the help of a translator, I spoke with Ogawa Yusho, the resident monk, who was born in the temple and is now raising his family there. He'd grown up hearing the legend of Dochi Shonin, a priest who came to this very spot in 738 and prayed for 1,000 days for the health of the people here — and on the 1,000th day, an onsen sprung from the ground. It is said to be Mandara-yu, the oldest of the seven on Kinosaki's onsen circuit.

Ill people would trek to Onsenji temple, pray to the spirit of Dochi Shonin, and then bathe, naked, with a wooden ladle in the hot springs. For those too infirm to make the trek, a string stretches from the arm of the Buddha all the way into town, so you can indirectly touch the Buddha as you pray. Ogawa Yusho gave me a bracelet of the string to bring me luck on my travels.

Once there, the ritual is to strip down, shower while sitting and then soak in those healing waters, surrounded by bodies of all shapes and sizes. Onsen are divided into all-male and all-female sides. I was struck with the ease of nudity, how young girls splashed around with their mothers and big sisters and grandmothers, and what an impact that must make on their self-image, to know that bodies are all different and we all have one. The hot spring water warmed away the foul weather.

As I left, I put on my yukata, thinking of the words I'd heard in the ryokan: left-side over right, "OK, OK, OK," and stepped out into the thoroughfare that seemed like a reversal of time. The onsen were a little hot for me, but I could walk around in a robe forever.

His name was Sushi Tiger. He was 76 and he'd been studying the art of cutting raw fish for 50 years. Why didn't I come in and take a seat?

I was the only person in his narrow restaurant, breaking a cardinal travelers' rule to follow crowds to the best food. But I'd been wandering the streets of Kanazawa for 20 minutes in search of sushi and a kind young man had brought me here, so who was I to mess with fate?

Sushi Tiger, who also goes by Takashi, wrapped a twisted white bandanna around his forehead as he prepared my dinner. He spoke little English and I spoke almost no Japanese, so we communicated by writing on napkins, pointing at a sign with pictures of sushi and Google Translate, which is even more hopeless at Japanese than it is at other languages. He brought out a book of cartoons used for teaching English to schoolchildren and taught me a few Japanese phrases, while serving me sake. I was glad to be his only customer.

In my Kinosaki ryokans, at lavish kaiseki dinners, the learning curve was steeper. I'd sit down to a tray filled with 20 little plates and no one who spoke English to guide me through them. What order was I supposed to eat them in? Did any of them get dipped in soy sauce? So I'd try first and ask questions later. It turns out I am not a fan of preserved fish eggs melded into a rectangular cake, but I'm OK with tender fish intestines.

The big reason Kinosaki still has such a thriving Asian tourism business in the winter is that snow crab season starts in November and lasts only a few months. A good crab can sell for up to $300.

On my last day, I wanted to see the coastline — which I had heard was spectacularly beautiful along Noto Peninsula near Kanazawa. I didn't have the right paperwork to rent a car, public transportation seemed difficult, and there were no English-language tours. So I paid $66 to jump on a bus tour that was only in Japanese, hoping the scenery required no explanation.

Our route took us to Shiroyone Senmaida, a set of more than 1,000 terraced rice paddies on the seaside that has been registered as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System; and for a drive along Chirihama Nagisa Driveway, 5 miles of sea-packed sand, one of the few places where ordinary cars and buses can speed right along the shore.

But first thing was a visit to the 1,000-year-old morning market in the seaside town of Wajima. Locals bought fresh fish, and grilled it over coals in a designated area. I tried yuzu soft serve ice cream and maru-yubeshi, a local candy made of orange peel, and mostly wandered around in a mute, dazed state. I followed a crowd to a shop called Tohka-doha selling lacquerware chopsticks, a traditional craft, in which the artisan covers a piece of wood with up to 100 layers of lacquer, and then shaves off a portion of the surface to reveal a kaleidoscope of colors.

Before long, the 79-year-old English-speaking owner, Yatsui Kiyoshi, emerged. When he heard I was on a long trip, he pulled out a weather-beaten Rand McNally atlas and told me he had studied nuclear physics at Cornell, and driven across the United States to spend two years in Los Alamos, N.M.

My hometown.

He loved the mountains and the tequila but thought it was too hot, and he missed Japan and his family. So he came back to continue a life in nuclear physics and carry out his legacy as a fifth-generation lacquerware artisan.

His wife took some pictures of us, which he e-mailed to me with a note about what a small world it is and how wonderful it had been to find someone with connections to New Mexico. Then he reminded me, for about the fifth time, not to put the chopsticks I'd bought in the microwave.

Trains: Japan's network of trains is famous, and the JR Pass, which offers unlimited rides in cars with unreserved seats, is worth the cost. Purchasing the pass online and having it shipped to you is the cheapest option ($254 for seven days covering the whole country), but it's also available at major stations. If you're traveling only in a single region, you'll save money buying a limited version.

A word on exhaustion: Multiple transfers over a six-hour train trip meant no time for naps; I had to set alarms on my phone to make sure I didn't nod off and miss my stop. If you must nap, consider taking a bus.

Driving: Renting a car would have been a great way to see Western Honshu, but you need an International Driving Permit. It's cheap and not hard to get, but easiest if you obtain it before you leave on your trip.

Money: For a country that seems so futuristic, much of Japan outside Tokyo and major cities seems to be a cash society. I used my credit card twice. Hotels I'd booked online would ask to be paid in cash or with PayPal. ATMs are plentiful, but you must use the international ones next to post offices.

Rubbish: Japanese food is beautifully packaged, which creates a ton of waste. I was astounded with how many plastic bags I'd wind up with over the course of a day. Carry reusable bags.

Stay: If you can't stay in a traditional ryokan, consider a business hotel with an onsen, or a shared hotel, essentially a hostel. In Kanazawa I enjoyed my tiny capsule bed with a blackout curtain and locker in HATCHi Share Hotels; $20 for a 20-person dorm room. My experiences with Kanazawa guesthouses were very clinical; I never met another person, and let myself in and out via a lockbox. Not a fan.

Eat: Sushi and seafood are the main draw along the Honshu coast, but the Tajima mountain region near Kinosaki is where Kobe beef came from. Also look for Stork Natural Rice, grown free of pesticides that killed off Japan's wild Oriental white stork population. In Kanazawa, I was thrilled with the pizza and beer at Oriental Brewing, and a tiny ramen shop, Wakadaisho, with an ebullient owner serving up laughs and bowls of goodness late at night on the Asano River.