The Onsen or hot spa bath occupies as important a position in Japanese culture as, maybe, the post pub kebab does in Britain. To visit a spa resort is a way of cementing communality, not least by being naked together in a small hot area, and thus like golf - which only differs in taking place (usually) clothed in a large cool area - it is beloved of businessmen, that most important element of the society. NB Sorry for these long, multi clause sentences - it`s the contagious Tristram Shandy effect... Anyway, we were not businessmen but Me, Yuuka, and Yuuka`s Mum, aptly named MamiSan. Men and women bathe in separate areas so that avoided any awkwardness... or so you would think!!!....

DRAMATIC PAUSE IN WHICH YOU MAY IMAGINE THE WORST

Bond. James Bond. Who was not, as a twelve year old boy, in love with those words? Especially if they were pronounced Jamesh Bond, by a certain Sean Connery, King of Scotland. It might be no small part of the reason I now have a Japanese girlfriend that my favourite Bond film was You Only Live Twice - the one where `Bondosan` goes to fight Blofeld in the most ridiculous volcano island hideaway doubling as a nuclear weapon launchpad ever created, and ends up snogging gorgeous Kissy Suzuki in the bottom of a small row boat while the whole damn pile blows up behind them. Yes, that one. The one where Sean wears sky blue pygamas and still looks cool.
Long intro. Sorry. The point is, Russian villains. The whole essence of Bond, and the reason we might be due a comeback, is Russian villains. The Cold War. Only in that era of ludicrous world domination plans, could Bond thrive and prosper. West v East, the Bear v the Whale, all that jazz. You see what I mean.
So, we`re coming near the point. We have the perfect setting, remember: dramatic forested mountainsides visible through steam rising off the heated baths; an opulent hotel resort of the kind where 007 invariably stays and meets his latest adversary. Me, the British (Scottish) hero on an as yet mysterious mission in a foreign land - at the precise moment of the story unrobing my kimono borrowed from the hotel`s own stock to enter a state of unaccustomed, but by no means uncomfortable nakedness in the pristine changing room. The kimono I then fold and place with my towel in a basket at the small central bench area, poised to take said basket and place it in one of the pigeonholes (is there no more glamorous word??) before striding through to the baths, the mountainsides, etc. But. BUT! I am not alone. A man is in front of me, a Japanese man it seems, combing his hair at one of the mirrors with a look of exacting concentration. So far so normal, yes, but then a voice from behind. `Uav oomun skula` says the voice, rich and strong. Do I turn? Of course not, the voice`s owner is addressing his friend in Japanese　- I will wait for the reply and try to gain a whiff of understanding. And yet - strange　thing - no reply comes. Is the man at the mirror deaf? Is the man behind mad? The first of these queries being impossible to answer I turn to investigate the second, only to be greeted by - before I even have a chance to absorb the puffy face, the shining blue eyes, the sinister hairless torso... - a repetition of the words I first heard.
'Uav oomun skula` - only now resolved miraculously, with the aid of a finger pointed at my basket, into `You have woman`s colour`. That conclusive. That final. That was what he wanted to tell me, from behind, with no prior introduction or warning. For a few seconds I say nothing - I just gaze at him, and he smiles at me, ruddily, if such an adverb is possible. Finally I realise the next move is, has to be, mine.
`Oh,` I say. `Really.`
`Yes` he declares, and points from the offending article to his own sober blue and navy robe. `This is man`s colour,` he concludes triumphantly.

TO BE CONTINUED!!