A Whirlwind Trip To Tokyo, Japan
Sunday, the trip home (and some concluding notes)
Sunday morning I build my schedule with *LOTS* of extra time, as I was
taking an unknown train to the airport to catch my flight. This being the
beginning of Japan's national holiday Golden Week, just about every flight
was booked solid, and I didn't want even the slightest chance of missing
my flight. I'd built an hour into my schedule, even though the station
for the Skyliner was only five minutes away from the ryokan, which had
me cooling my heals in the station for an hour. No big deal, really, as
today will be mostly sitting and/or sleeping anyway
I found my way to the JAL lounge nearly painlessly - Japanese airport
security found the tiny pocket knife I keep in my overnight pack (primarily
for it's corkscrew) - this pack has been through airport security at least
100 times, and never before raised an eyebrow. The security agent opened
the knife, measured the blade, and handed it back to me after determining
that it was of an acceptable length (whatever that means).
Once inside the lounge, I sat down at a worktable that offered large
window with a panoramic view of the tarmac and a bunch of 747s. And a 10-base-T
ethernet connection to the internet - a welcome discovery after two days
of non-connectivity.
The flight back was long, and uneventful, pretty much as expected. In
this direction we get a quick (4 hour?) night, and then land at JFK about
an hour before we took off.
Conclusions
I'm an adventurous type. For me Tokyo was sort of like a giant theme park.
I'd head back in a heartbeat, for a few years if the opportunity presented
itself. But if you like familiarity and predictability, this is the wrong
place to visit.
There is one pair of truths that I fortunately discovered pretty early
on that made the entire trip more manageable. Your mileage may vary, but
for what it's worth, here they are:
In the United States, two things we take for granted are:
-
Reading/writing and listening/speaking are suitable tools for communication
-
You can identify food by looking at it.
In Japan, I found the best tool for communication is the index finger,
for pointing. And about the food thing, well... you're best off just giving
up on trying to identify what you're about to eat. You're not gonna be
able to, and even if you somehow do, it'll probably just upset you anyway.
But once you get past those two simple things, you'll have a blast!
-Larry Rachman, May, 2001
