Dear Tony,

Here’s two cities I’d bet you haven’t been to.

Maebashi is like the Stony Brook of Japan. I see a very similar scene in Tsukuba. All three towns are an hour from a major international city; Tokyo for Tsukuba and Maebashi, New York City for Stony Brook.

That hour difference makes all the world. It’s a buffer against the crazy pace of the cities. It’s a filter against the tourists and travelers. It gives space for towns to form their own identity; independent of expectations of both the travelers and the country.

For example; Stony Brook, out in Suffolk County, votes Republican in national elections; against the expectation of the large public university and its proximity to New York City, a liberal stalwart so strong, it pulls the entire state in general elections.

Tsukuba is also home to a major university [Tsukuba University] focusing in science and technology and is home to JAXA, the Japan Space Agency. There is a massive rocket replica. Science museums and libraries. Parks filled with statues to their Nobel laureates and science notables, and enthusiastic challenges to their citizens to do their best. The town is also brilliantly filled with stars at night. The handful of bars become crowded with local and foreign students, drinking, dancing, and hooking up. [Ah, college… Well, not so much the last part for me. Not for a lack of effort, but definitely a lack of success.]

I’m here to visit some friends I made in the Sapporo Hostel, a group of graduate students who are studying at the school: Meryem, Meriem, Fatima, and May. They are from [respectively] Morocco, Tunisia, Morocco, and Malaysia. Exactly the type of people you’d meet in Japan! Fatima is graduating and heading back to Morocco/France after 4 years, so it’s a big celebration. We’re out until 4am, easily.

The meal here that is most memorable is a simple one. We wake up around noon, despondently hungover. A friend comes through, bearing ice cream. We make a quick grocery run while the ladies start cooking. Armed with bread, beef, oil, and cigarettes plus some grapes that looked good; we arrive back to a spread in the midst of being prepared. We await our meal with delicious Moroccan tea, poured from a height to make bubbles. [It’s authentic!] The tea is very sweet and very tasty, a combination of mint and black tea.

There’s also strong black coffee. A hard cooked egg omelet. Beef and cheese on toast. Tunafish and a scrumptious spicy harissa[?] It is amazing on toast. Grapes. 3 types of honey including a honey butter that is fantastic. Plus juice and green health juice.

We eat slowly, chatting and drinking lots of coffee and tea. It’s cool how the exchange students bring their own culture with them. And even better because they share it so proudly with me. I’m forever grateful for Meryem, Meriem, Fatima for the kindness and inclusion.

Later that day I’ll watch Avengers Infinity War in the local mall theater, and I’ll make spaghetti bolognese for my friends for dinner.

A week later Meryem and I will meet up in Tokyo to tour the zoo.

These collections of connections that make up our lives are flush with synchronicities.

Maebashi is the hometown for a close friend and teammate who has moved to Japan as part of the JET program to teach English. He’s since moved into a more administrative role with the Gunma Prefecture Government to increase the effectiveness of their English classes and has found much success translating his American background into the Japanese classroom and mentoring other teachers and students. He lives in a town. It’s not crowded but it’s lively. People here aren’t used to tourist or foreigners coming to their tiny pocket of Japan.

We sit down to a new yakitori place in the neighborhood. It’s one of those places that opens, you never get around to going, even though you pass it consistently.

No photos, we just enjoy the memories. A lightly battered and deep fried chorizo on a stick, as excellent as it sounds. Fried green peppers and eggplant. A tofu, tomato, and pork mix was the lowkey star of the show. We finished with a fried pork ball and ginger was good, but a bit unexciting.

[Fun fact! The Gunma Prefecture supplies a large majority of the cabbages to Japan. In tradition for the prefecture, the seat charge comes with unlimited cabbage to munch and miso and mayo on the side for dipping. I thought it was really weird at first but it’s delicious. Crunchy, salty, creamy, satisfying.]

We were tipsy on oolong whiskies [my forever go-to in Japan] and high on edibles. And our friendship easily fell into place. Old reminiscing, and truly interesting/interested conversation of our lives since then. An echo of 5 years ago, the bowl of ramen [and the happy-hour half-off Sapporos and porkbuns] we had at Hide-chan on East 52nd in Manhattan that marked Shohei’s last days of New York and the first of his time in Japan.

There’s truly something magical to friendships. The more good friends you have, the better your life is. It’s pretty simple math.

Psst, Tony, secret: I’m not good at math.

But I have stumbled into some excellent friends. I’m supremely grateful. I got to see more than the tourist path of Japan. These two towns hold for me special experiences and memories. Things I was truly searching for while traveling. Weird; unique, irreplaceable meals with new and old friends.

Yours,

Winston