During the last winter break, I went to Japan to help my aunt with my ill uncle and to work at a youth hostel in Kusatsu Japan. Kusatsu machi is a very famous hot spring town in Gunma prefecture. In the summer visitors can trek and in the winter, the ski resort opens and becomes a popular tourist destination. I was pretty reluctant in the idea of going to
Kusatsu, and wanted to go to Nozawa instead (I wanted to ski). I settled with the idea of skiing when all my work was done. My second eldest brother had previous experience in working at the youth hostel and was bringing some of his Keio university friends on a ski trip. He and I would work whilst his friends would ski or snowboard.
(My eldest brother also came along but as a guest.)
I remember clearly the moment I got off the bus and we arrived at Kusatsu. We all ran towards the snow and had a snowball fight. We got to the youth
hostel when it was around 11pm or later, and I slept at 1am. The next day we all had to move to another smaller building, away from the main building. It was called “Hanare”. I was told to sleep and wake up at Hanare, work, then if I had enough time, I would get the permission to ski.
When I was first introduced to the kitchen work, I couldn’t help a lot and had a strong desire to be useful.
I made a couple mistakes such as:
- Stacking the plates in the dish-washing rack inefficiently
- Forgetting to wash hands in between the cleaning and putting away plates
- Being too slow at work
There were other adults working with me (Mainly the hostel owner’s friends), which was intimidating for me, and some were annoyed at why I worked so slow. I had to quickly learn how to do all tasks given, in a short amount of time.
First day of working:
The first day of working mainly consisted of small tasks, some of which were: putting the dishes on the main table, helping clean the dishes and putting away clean dishes. Preparing for breakfast started at 7 and ended at around 10 or so. All of those who worked ate in the kitchen. By this time I was already exhausted. Standing up for long periods of time without sitting for a rest strained my back. Both breakfast and dinner (for us) was left over food from the buffet.
Right after we ate, we proceeded to clean up the all rooms, stairs and hallways. My brother was very strong so he could lift and move the futons with ease but I lacked physical strength and so he told me to just vacuum clean the place.
I would finish this part of the work at around 1pm. I then had some time to do whatever we wanted until we had to come back at 5pm to help prepare for dinner. After dinner, I took a shower and slept. I would get back to Hanare at 12 (midnight).
Other days of working:
I would wake up at around 6 am and help with the kitchen. As my working efficiency increased, I was told to use the very large dish-washing machine, cut up the cabbage using the cabbage slicing machine and to help open up the packets of food. I tried to finish up breakfast as fast as I could to do the vacuum cleaning.
Cabbage cutting machine
Large dish washing machine
I vacuum cleaned all the rooms and the hallway on the 3rd floor, as well as the 2nd floor hallway and the stairs. Because of the dust that accumulated from all the people that were staying, my nose would get stuffy which was a minor problem I had.
Some days my brother would invite me to ski with his friends, and other times he would go skiing but I would have to stay.I had to take a shower last, after all the guests had finished so it was inevitable that I would end up getting in bed at around 12 or 1 in the middle of the night.
Some memorable moments of living in Hanare was when I woke up to see the orange sunrise. (Here’s a photo on the right)
Things I did in Kusatsu:
- Go to ski resort and ski with my brother’s friends
- Extremely fun, all of my brothers friends were super nice people
- Go to the ski resort alone and ski alone
-
- I would rent out the ski boots and skis, walk in my ski boots for 15 minutes
- Arrive at the ski resort and buy tickets
- Ski alone for for a couple hours
- Go to onsen with youth hostel owner’s friend’s family
- Ate ice cream near the onsen called “Cremia” best ice cream I’ve eaten
- Look after owner and other worker’s children, both were daughters (baby sitting)
Things I found difficult:
- My knuckles would get damaged and bleed from washing the dishes
- Bored of doing the same job every single day with no changes
- Felt very lonely after my brother’s friends left mid way
- This impacted my mood, and I wished that they would stay for longer
- The rooms in Hanare were 4 to 6 degrees celcius, even with the heaters on
- Dusty rooms when vacuum cleaning led to sneezing and runny nose
- Not understanding some Japanese terms used in the kitchen
- Arriving late to the meet up time (most likely from lack of sleep) and apologising to the hostel owner
- Saying goodbye to the last two of my brother’s friends
- After they left, the cheerful atmosphere inside Hanare had completely disappeared
My parents had set a date from when I would return back from Kusatsu. However, my mother got really worried and said that I could come back earlier with my eldest brother. I thought about this option deeply with the opinions from my two brothers (opinions were completely opposite). I came to the conclusion that I would persevere and stay until my original set date.
Looking back, I would say that this was the loneliest time for me. All of my brother’s friends had left and even my eldest brother had left. My second brother didn’t really talk to me for the rest of the trip and so I had to keep telling myself that I had the energy to work one more day. In the end my mother made me go back a day earlier to help my aunt.
On the bus ride home I tried to stay awake so that I would know which bus stop I was at. I ended up sleeping the whole 5 hours because I was sleep deprived.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, this was really good experience. The work at the hostel required physical stamina and strength but I didn’t really have that so I would have to be mentally strong, not giving up and complaining about how I wanted to go home. This was a battle against myself. I wanted to prove to myself that I was strong enough to overcome this. And I’m glad that I didn’t give up mid way.
