Ticket to ride

"I want to do something fun this weekend," Lisa announced on Friday night, with the outrageous implication that we don't lead lives of constant excitement. We cooked and watched a movie, then stood in the kitchen drying dishes and musing that we could go out somewhere but probably shouldn't - it was approximately the most tragic scene that "married" life has to offer. Fortunately, the predictable didn't last too much longer - I've found a new friend in the automatic ticket machine and we're now booked in for every sporting and cultural event in Japan ever.

It turns out that ticketing in Japan is dangerously simple - event websites give you a little code which you can pop into a machine at a convenience store, or you can just annoy everyone in line by searching for things manually. We've been looking for a replacement for the lost baseball game for a while now and as luck would have it, I managed to find a big one on a Friday night in June with seats free. Tigers vs Giants games are particularly popular and any near a weekend tend to sell out instantly, but somehow I managed to snag some seats out in the bleachers where all the fun people are. Flushed with my success, I bought a couple of tickets to a Kabuki show in September and then we got carried away and bought some to an American Football game next weekend ($13? Bargain). You can even press a button on the machine that finds everything that's happening that day, which is the ticketing equivalent of hooking it up to your veins. This was how my idle hands spent most of their Saturday morning, having virtuously shown up to the gym at 10:30 and finding it closed until 11. None of this solved the problem of doing something fun that weekend of course, so after throwing around a few options we eventually decided to continue the splurge and bought discount tickets to Pirates of the Caribbean. After the movie we decided we couldn't be bothered going home to be good again, so we stayed out and had a bite to eat.

And then a whole cake

On Sunday we met Mel and Adam out for our final cheap trip to Arima Onsen. We needn't have paid to get wet though - the rain was monsoonal and we were soaked to the socks by the time we got to the bathhouse. Being creatures of habit, we had a bit of a bash on Taiko Drum Master before we went into the baths, which is particularly strange when you're in a dressing gown. With the last of our tokens I had a go on one of the UFO catchers - in an ill-conceived attempt to grab the bear on the right, I snagged the tag of the bear on the left and won it completely by accident. I tried to make it seem all part of the plan, but didn't do a very good job.

Is that a bear in your pocket?

The baths had been changed around this time to swap the male and female sections; this time our bit had a black granite bench with hot water flowing over it like little massage jets, along with all the different pools. As usual the "buckets" were the favourite though - big single wooden baths that look a bit like half wine barrels - and we spent most of our two-hour soak with our heads poking out of them.

Put me down this instant

When we got out into the town again the weather had made way for glorious sunshine, so we took the opportunity to have a good look around. Arima is an odd little town that's famous for two very unlikely things - calligraphy brushes and soda crackers. The brushes have pretty, hand-woven shafts and whenever you hold them upright, a little doll pops out of the top with an accusatory expression.

Warning: only suitable for coworkers you like

The crackers are very light, sweet wafers made with carbonated springwater; they're surprisingly yummy on their own but Lisa and Mel couldn't resist buying some that were sandwiched with ginger cream. We did a lap or two of the souvenir shops but didn't hold up too long before we decided it was time for a good sit on the bus home. As wholesome as it was, I think we can consider the weekend "fun", which is just as well because we're having our bathroom fixed this week and at least one of us is housebound from now on. I think within a few days we'll have had a gutful of it and be desperate to get out and about. I'm sure Mr Ticket Machine can help with that.