Departures: Land of the Rising Sun: Part 0

April 10-22, 2000, I vacationed in Japan.

No Boy Scout

I didn't intend to go in unprepared.

Japan was different this time around. But it was mostly the same.

Getting to Asagaya: Easier than Alamogordo

Mon Apr 10 2000

Rode the streetcar, like any Monday morning. It was not quite rush hour, so there was plenty of room for me and my baggage; another half hour and things might have been dicey.

Onto CalTrain; in the seat behind me, a lady talked to her dad by celphone, explaining that his birthday present would be a mountain bike (all this still in English).

Quick jitney to the airport.

On the plane, the seat beside mine was empty, and I extended long legs and catnapped the way. Though the sun never set, Tuesday snuck up on me. When I filled out the quarantine form, I forgot to mention my cold.

At Narita airport, I caught the Narita Express train into town. Out the window, I saw the whole rural Japan thing: fields, roads, drab towns with tile roofs. My fellow passengers had a startling array of mobile phones.

At Shinjuku station, I had to ask a ticket collector to point me to the tracks of Japan Rail's Chuo-Sobu line. I caught a Rapid, and it was one, two, three stops to Asagaya; I snuffled a lot, as did everyone else in Tokyo. It was not quite rush hour, so there was plenty of room for me and my baggage; another half hour and things might have been dicey.

At Asagaya station, I tried to exit the station through the wrong door; the anguished guard was almost too upset to point me to the right one, but eventually succeeded.

I walked parallel to the elevated tracks until I found the entrance to the Hotel Sky Court Asagaya. They had a room, soon I took the elevator to the fifth floor, found the room, dumped the bags and I was in in in.

Am I Ready?

Tue Apr 11 2000

I stepped out. Wandering the narrow streets of Asagaya, I started to realize how much I'd forgotten, that there might be consequences. I looked at a skinny sign hanging on the door of a restaurant. The sign showed three kanji (pictograms). I was sure that this sign meant that the restaurant was open or closed. I wasn't sure which, though.

Nevertheless, I figured I would be fine. Open or closed, at least I was able to find restaurants. The neighborhood seemed to be chock-full of restaurants and little bars. It was amazing. Who patronized all of these places? Did all the sarariman (salarymen) totter off the trains and linger at these places before going home? The bars seemed to outnumber the homes. Were all Tokyo suburbs like this?

I remembered the Osaka suburb which I knew only as its train stop name, Soji-ji. Next to its train station, there had been a cigarette stand, maybe a couple of restaurants. Asagaya seemed to have a square klick of entertainment district.

I headed back to my hotel room. Attached to my room key was a plastic fob which enabled the room's lights. I had to leave the key in a special socket if I wanted the lights to work. Fortunately, the desk clerk had explained this to me, otherwise I would have been left in the dark. (I would run into this system in other places later, with clerks who were less ready to talk to foreigners, and would be glad I knew the score.) The quilt on the bed was of some strange, slick fabric. It looked stain-resistant, as if any stainy thing would roll right off of it and onto the floor. I tried not to think about why that would be useful.

[Photo: view from hotel window]
View from my hotel room window. Scenic, ne?

I looked out the window. There were the train tracks, perhaps 4m from my window. There was the train station; my window looked right out on the platform; and the platform, in turn, looked right in through my window. I closed the curtains. I ate some diem sum that I'd brought from San Francisco. I showered. I sat down.

The tracks were right outside, nothing between them and the hotel. They were elevated tracks, and this was an elevated room; each to an equal extent. Actually, the tracks were a little higher. I wondered if train noise would keep me awake. I didn't notice any train noise. I was abruptly asleep.

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