A Yen for Zen

SAN FRANCISCO â€”  Selected memories of Japanese travels: the graceful arc of storefront ikebana blossoms; an unexpected whiff of incense on a Tokyo back street; the spontaneous offer of a small gift from a Kyoto merchant. Pleasurable memories, each of them brought back during a weekend trip to San Francisco’s Japantown.

Known also as Nihonmachi or simply J-Town, Japantown is where I come to renew the acquaintance with things Japanese that I first struck up during two visits to Japan in the 1980s. The trips were a revelation, opening my eyes to a culture whose melding of the traditional and the cutting edge I often found confounding but never boring.

Wanting to continue my Japanese education after the second trip, I began to make regular visits to Japantown’s ofuro sento (public bath) and to its village-like collection of small stores and restaurants. I discovered that these roughly six square blocks of “Soko�--a local nickname for San Francisco--allow me to keep in touch with old Japanese memories while adding new American ones.

The neighborhood, which lies just north of the Geary Expressway about a mile west of Union Square, has been a Japanese enclave since 1906, when the earthquake and fire dislodged the Japanese American community from its original south-of-Market and Chinatown locations. It is one of only three active Japantowns in the United States--the others are in Los Angeles and San Jose--and although the forcible removal of its residents to internment camps during World War II devastated the neighborhood, it is still a hub of community life for San Francisco’s roughly 12,000 citizens of Japanese ancestry.

At its heart is Japan Center, a five-acre complex of architecturally sterile, low-rise buildings that house most of the neighborhood’s shops and restaurants. Two of the main structures, the Kinokuniya Building and the Kinetsu Mall, are connected by an arched bridge. The AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, a multiplex cinema, anchors the western end of the center at Fillmore Street. The eastern boundary at Laguna Street is marked by the Radisson Miyako Hotel.

On my most recent visit, in late June, I decided for the first time to make an entire Japanese weekend of it, staying the night in a traditional tatami-mat room with a futon at the Miyako.

My visit began, as it always does, with a bath at Japan Center’s Kabuki Springs and Spa, which offers unisex communal bathing on a set schedule (Saturday is for men, for example, while Sunday is for women) as well as private bathing facilities, massages and spa treatments.

Inside, the Kabuki is painted in soothing tones of sage, mustard and muted brick red, and the decor is gently Asian rather than strictly Japanese: wide rattan chairs and rustic teak tables, white orchids in celadon jardinieres, a stone Buddha illuminated by flickering votives.

In the large slate-and-tile communal bathing area, I joined about a dozen other men who, following Japanese custom, had washed themselves thoroughly before using the hot soaking pool, cold plunge, sauna or steam room. I eased into the soaking pool, where the water is about 104 degrees. Between the heat and background sounds of trickling water and floaty New Age music, it’s virtually impossible not to unwind.

Two hours later, squeaky clean and utterly relaxed, I headed for lunch at a favorite noodle house, Mifune. The restaurant is popular with everyone from movie patrons and Japanese American shoppers to the many Japanese tourists who stay at nearby hotels. As I ate my niku soba (buckwheat noodles and beef in broth) and drank an icy Sapporo draft, I amused myself by trying to pick out the tourists.

That afternoon, as I poked around the neighborhood, I came across doll-making and aikido classes, kimono-clad folk dancers, 10-year-olds playing basketball, old photos of Japantown at the Japanese American History Archives, and obachans (“little grandmothers�) composing ikebana flower arrangements at the Ikebono Ikebana Society of America. In the community room of a local bank, where I viewed a one-day show of chigirie--pictures made with torn bits of rice paper--the artist presented me with a tiny, perfectly realized image of an eggplant.

Back in my room, I removed my shoes and donned a yukata (bathrobe) that I had requested from housekeeping before stepping onto the sleeping platform for a rest on the futon. The tatami have a pleasant smell not unlike that of dried tea leaves, and the platform is enclosed by sliding wood-and-paper shoji screens--aesthetically pleasing but, unfortunately, of no use in keeping out the roar of nearby traffic on Geary Expressway. Of the six Japanese-style rooms at the 218-room Miyako Hotel, I’d had the misfortune of getting one of the four that face a street instead of the hotel’s lovely Japanese garden.

I ate that night at Maki, a relative newcomer among Japantown’s nearly three dozen eateries. Maki is a pristine, 17-seat spot with pale green walls and a small blond-wood counter. It serves a range of dishes, including sushi and tempura, but the specialty is wappa meshi, a hearty northern Japanese preparation in which rice, vegetables and seafood or meat are steamed in a round wood box. After a cold appetizer of tiny smelt in a spicy marinade, I had the unagi (eel) wappa meshi, accompanied by dry, cold sake.

On Sunday morning, I was up early and had a light in-room breakfast before heading to the Soto Zen Mission for its 8:30 zazen, or sitting meditation. I’d looked at the exterior of the temple the day before, admiring its clean, simple lines and wide sloping roof. I arrived to find that the zazen had been canceled that day. But a young Japanese man allowed me to sit for a while in front of the altar, a tatami platform on which a serene seated Buddha was flanked by bronze lanterns, ikebana and candles.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled temple aroma--the slightly sharp smell of tatami mixed with the lingering perfume of old incense. For just a few moments, the vast Pacific shrank to a puddle, and Japan wasn’t so far away at all.

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Budget for One

Air fare, LAX-S.F.: $78.00

Airport shuttle: 22.00

Miyako Hotel, 1 night: 204.06

Kabuki Springs and Spa: 15.00

Lunch, Mifune: 9.21

Dinner, Maki: 30.29

In-room breakfast: 10.65

FINAL TAB: $369.21

Radisson Miyako Hotel, 1625 Post St., San Francisco, CA 94115; tel. (415) 922-3200. Kabuki Springs and Spa, 1750 Geary Blvd., San Francisco; tel. (415) 922-6002.