Japan Report: Day 1

I never want to sit on my ass that long again. The flight from San Francisco to Tokyo took 10 hours, followed by what was supposed to be a one-hour bus ride to the city (the airport isn't actually in Tokyo, or even that close to it). Due to hitting the city limits right about rush hour, though, it was more like a two-hour ride.

When we got to the hotel, I was exhausted. It was quite smoggy and dusty, so my nose was all stuffed up. I had a terrible headache. My right ear never came back to life after pressurizing on the plane's descent. But the only thing I wanted to do was stand up and walk around on my legs for a while. Also take a shower and brush my teeth.

John and Paul (names changed) and I each went to our own rooms. We'd agreed to meet back in the lobby in an hour to get some food, but once I'd settled in and freshened up, I realized that I couldn't afford to wait the remaining 40 minutes. I felt much better. My headache was gone, I could hear again, and I'd just had the most needed shower of my life. But I knew that if I stopped moving, I'd be out like a light.

I walked over to John's room a few doors down, and told him that I didn't want to wait to meet Paul in an hour. We agreed to call the whole thing off, and I set off to find some food while John went to bed.

Stepping out of the hotel was, mind you, the first time I'd really bothered to look at anything. On the bus ride to Tokyo I'd been too busy brooding to look out the window at anything. We must have been staying in a not-so-touristy part of town, because I really didn't see any other non-Japanese people around. Suddenly I knew how the illiterate must feel.

The only other countries I'd been to before this had been Mexico and Canada, and Canada doesn't really count. In Mexico you could at least remember the name of the street you were on five minutes ago. But when you're wandering around a country that uses a different set of characters for their writing, it's not so easy. There was no way I'd have been able to say ?OK.. I'm on the street that's spelled with the letter that looks like the little Christmas tree with a hook in it, and the curvy cross, and the capital G except it's got that big slash through it...? Before the trip was over, I would get lost no less than four times, all within five blocks of the hotel.

I'd eaten in San Francisco's Japantown many times before, which I think lulled me into a false sense of security on how easy it would be to go out and find food in Tokyo. Everywhere in Japantown, you see, has colorful plastic sculptures of the food they serve situated in their windows. You don't need to know how to speak any language at all. You can point to what's caught your interest in the window, and then if that's not enough, point to your mouth and rub your tummy while making a ?Mmmmmmm? noise.

In Tokyo, there's just a bunch of signs. Signs written in funny little symbols that I guess make up words. Where were the statues of the food? God damn it, Japantown had led me astray. There were no statues. No English menus. There was a McDonald's, but I'd rather take my chances ordering some completely random dish than go there. Nine out of every 10 Japanese dishes I'd ever seen seemed to involve either fish heads or tentacles. Fish heads and tentacles I can handle. McDonald's I can't.

Finally I found one place that had pictures on the menus. I went in. Yakitori! I knew what that was.

Ah, yes, Yakitori, the eastern equivalent of our hotdog on a stick. Upon walking in to the restaurant, I noticed that the room was bordered by a raised area with low tables and sitting mats, and a bunch of loaner sandals, I guess for people who didn't bring their own. In the middle was a bar you could sit and eat at.

Being that I wasn't familiar with the rules for the tables and the shoes, and also that there was only one of me, I took a seat at the bar. A young girl behind the counter approached me.

?NIHOKI MOKI AKADAKI TA YAKI DAKI?? she said, or something similar.

?Uh... I don't speak Japanese,? I replied sheepishly.

?DA DAKI NIKOKI MIOKI DAKA??

?Uh...?

I noticed that they had menus with pictures. Thank God.

?I'll just point to what I want on this menu here,? I said, and then immediately pointed to what I could identify as chicken before giving her a chance to respond verbally.

?Chicken?? I said, pointing.

?Chee-kahn? she repeated after me. Excellent. Now we were cooking with gas.

?And rice?? I said, pointing to another picture.

?Rice,? she said, a little too well to make me believe that I was giving her any kind of lesson in English. Or, uh, whatever language ?rice? comes from. Hell, maybe it's a Japanese word. But that's the kind of information you don't need to know when you come from the most powerful nation on earth.

She asked me something in Japanese again. I responded by staring at her with a dumb look on my face. She probably assumed it was some sort of stupid tourist thing, but in actuality my face sports that look on a regular basis even when I'm in my native country.

She shouted something to one of the cooks in the back room, and he came out and said to me, very slowly, ?Would you like something to drink??

I said I'd like some tea, and he said, ?Green tea? Japanese tea??

For some reason, it's never just called ?green tea? in Japan. Every time I heard it, from the plane ride there to the plane ride back, it was ?Green tea. Japanese tea.? As though people might know it as one or the other, but would be unable to figure out what it was based on just one of those names.

I said yes, I'd like some green tea, and in a moment they brought it to me.

I ate my yakitori. It was tasty. A lot like yakitori back home, except they don't use the part of the chicken that's, you know, chewable. It was rubbery. Difficult to bite through. It looked like meat, and smelled like meat, but it wasn't chewable like meat. When I think back on it, I get scared what what part of the chicken that was that I may have actually been eating.

I finished my meal, and my tea, and counted out the coins to pay. The price was on the menu, so I knew how much I owed for the food but not the tea. I signaled that I was ready to pay by showing the stack of coins to the girl.

?I'm ready to, uh... pay? I said, holding up my money. She nodded, comprehending what it was I wanted to do.

?But I don't know how much I owe for the tea,? I said, holding up the tea cup. She smiled and nodded again, and shouted something to the cook. A few minutes later, there he was with another hot cup of tea for me.

?Uh... thank you,? I said, and took a big grateful swallow. ?Can I pay now??

I gave him my money, plus few hundred yen extra hoping it'd cover the tea. He brought me back my change, which consisted of a few of the coins I gave him in the first place, making me feel most intelligent, and I left their fine establishment.

I walked back down the unrecognizable streets until I somehow, through sheer dumb luck, wound up back at the hotel. I ran into Paul in the lobby, who looked hurt that I'd gone out for food without him.

?How you feeling?? he asked me.

?Better,? I said. ?But pretty tired.?

?Yeah,? he said. ?If you're feeling bad, you should go get some drinks and snacks. There's an AM/PM just down the street.?

?Yeah,? I said. ?I think I'm going to try and get some sleep.?

?OK. Yeah, well if you need anything, the AM/PM's right there. I went there all the time last time I stayed here. You should go get something now if you're not feeling good.?

It was pretty clear that Paul wanted to go to the AM/PM. So I said I'd head down there with him.

It was like pretty much any AM/PM, except it had different stuff. Strange Japanese foods with which I was not familiar. All sorts of different types of candy, including types of Snickers bars that aren't available in the US. A variety of beverages by Kirin and Asahi, which not only make beer as I'd previously thought but are sort of like the Coke and Pepsi of Japan.

I grabbed a big bottle of Evian, and a Japanese tea soft drink that my best girl back in the states had introduced me to. Back home, I think it was called ?Happy.? In Japan, it just had some Japanese writing on it that I assume translated into the same name. I also picked up a Snickers ?Mild Crisp? bar, which you all should know is about a thousand times better than regular Snickers bars.

I took my items to the register and paid. ?Hey,? I said to the clerk. ?Can I have my receipt? Work's paying.? I don't know if he knew what the hell I was saying, but what else could a stupid tourist that can't talk be hassling him about after he just rung me up? He handed my receipt, and Paul and I went back to the hotel where I ate my Snickers, drank my tea, and slept better and longer than I ever had before.