Sylvia's Journal

My first breakfast in Japan was a treat. I mind mapped the various items in two categories: Japanese and ‘western.’ Western included various breads and croissants, yogurt, frosty cereal and cocoa puffs, canned fruit salad, a green salad with a choice of dressings, orange juice, bacon, sausage and eggs and coffee. The Japanese breakfast consisted of rice porridge, various kinds and colors of pickles, fermented soy beans, miso soup with sea weed and other add-ins, steamed rice and green tea.

I tried everything, including the fermented soy beans. This was the most difficult item to eat as the fermentation had produced long thin (slimy) threads that strung between my mouth, the rice gruel bowl and the plastic cup with the beans like a sticky spider web.

A thin blond woman sitting next to me took what looked like lemon wedges that were set out at the buffet table. I thought that was weird but later I discovered they were grapefruit wedges something that I am not allowed to eat anymore because of my cholesterol lowering medication.

I watched the woman closely as the invented an interesting fusion breakfast. First there was with rice gruel to which she added the contents of a small packet of blueberry jam and another of strawberry jam. For her second course she filled up her bowl with steamed rice and added two pieces of gourmet chocolate (judging from the wrapper) that she had brought herself. No wonder Japanese are confused about what westerners eat for breakfast.

My co-trainer met me in the lobby of the hotel and we set out for the training center where we met the person we had been corresponding with. We walked through the notes, made adjustments here and there, divided roles and organized the room and flipcharts. I was also given earthquake instructions (away from windows, under the tables) and was told there had been an earthquake (3-Richter) last night. I had slept right through it and was grateful for that.

The plan for a Thai lunch was nixed when I told my hosts I would like to have as many Japanese meals as is possible during my short stay. And so we had noodles for lunch.

After the workday was over my colleague took me to a Kabuki-like theatre performance of her guru. This relationship allowed us a peak backstage and a greeting from the actress herself, still in her scary spider woman (no, not like the American version) costume with heaps of long monkey hair and enormous brocade robes, a fancy wig and hard and angry make up. Her grandchildren stood nearby gaping at grammy who made them run away shrieking with a playful growl now and then. We received gifts, candy in a fancy box (the Japanese have mastered the art of gifting and packaging) and a symbolic spider web, a small version of the spectacular one she used on stage to cocoon a hapless prince whose sword she was after.

The theatre show runs the entire day and into the night with people showing up at various times to see their favorite actors, teachers, friends or relatives – producing a lot of comings and goings back stage and a general fair-like atmosphere in the lobby. Most of the women in the audience wore their finest kimonos and there was a lot of bowing all around me. I had to keep myself from saying ‘salaam aleikum’ – my brain had not quite made the switch out of Dari – but I mastered the slight bow of the head quickly.

For dinner we met up with another ex-MSHer who is now teaching at Nagasaki School of Public Health. We feasted on sushi and sake in a busy restaurant section of Tokyo and had years of catching up to do.

The old 747 had some troubles leaving Detroit. We returned to the gate to get something fixed. Better on the ground than in the air I thought. I used the time to fill in the empty spaces on Sita’s cross-stitch sampler, long overdue for the first wedding anniversary and now also overdue for her birthday. It will be finished and framed next week. When I ordered the frame I discovered the empty spots.

Maybe it was to make up for lost time that we flew in the direction of the North Pole rather than going west. We never quite lost daylight, first heading north until we went over the top and then heading south. It took out the confusion of crossing the international dateline. Still we skipped a day and my morning and evening pills are all messed up now.

As we made our way up north, after Michigan and then Canada, I watched land turn into water turn into ice and frozen tundras, then high mountains in a vast expanse of white with only the sun’s shadows providing contrast. We were too high to spot any sign of life but I kept looking, wondering if anyone or anything lived down there. For six hours we flew over white.

The plane was only half full in economy, dashing my hopes of an upgrade. The first row comfort seat has fixed armrests. Even without someone sitting next to me I couldn’t annex the seat except to use it as a storage place. But the ‘comfort’ seat was indeed comfortable and I managed to sleep the first few hours of the trip, before total whiteness came into view. After that I followed the changing textures of white with awe.

The movies screen was so positioned that I got the negative view making it impossible to make out who was who. This was an old plane with no personal screens so the option to kill the 12 hours by watching movies was lost. I finished knitting the first of many baby sweaters I expect to be knitting this winter.

The food reminded me of the days when airlines didn’t bother to please their customers. I thought the really bad stuff had been thrown out but I guess I was wrong and they kept it in coolers in Detroit.
It was practically thrown on our tray tables by a hurried flight attendant who had very few people to serve. The quality of the food, announced on a printed menu with choices (we are special in the Comfort class after all), was also thrown together with little eye for aesthetics, in tiny quantities that left me hungry throughout the flight. It was also different from what the menu had promised. I stilled the hunger pangs with chewing gum – holding out for something spectacular once I arrived at my destination.

Tokyo airport, I had forgotten after two years of Kabul, felt like a hospital, all spic and span and aseptic. It was practically empty.

When I last went to Japan I had studied Japanese – completed the 10 half hours on the Pimsleur CD. It didn’t help that much but at least I could say hi and bye and thank you. Now I am completely lost. So far only the foreigners appear to speak English – airport personnel admitting they only speak a little.

I did manage to find the skyline train that takes me to Ueno station. Everything is organized according to one Big Plan. My ticket settled me in car 6 seat 11D – it would be too naughty to sit anywhere else.

A robot trying to sound like a man spoke to the passengers in Japanese from time to time and a more friendly human voice (female but canned as well) reminded everyone repeatedly of the two next stops. A large digital powerpoint slide show provided some diversion from the otherwise not so interesting ride through miles of suburbs. It told us what I already knew, that all seats are reserved and where the bathroom and vending machines where and that one should get a visa card to enjoy the luxuries this country has to offer.

I followed the last of the three options the hotel had provided me for getting from Narita to my room. This required switching from the fast airport line to the local metro in a Union Square kind of station (again not so busy because November 3 is a holiday).

If you look carefully you can find some signs in English but I was too tired to look carefully and approached people in uniform with key words (rather than asking them if they spoke English because I already learned the standard answer is ‘no.’). instead I pronounced the name of the metro line and the station. It work, I got there.

The hotel room was, as I had suspected, tiny – it made me think of those drawers where tired passengers slide into at airports for an hourly fee. My room is only slightly bigger. The toilet is worth a separate blog entry but suffice to say it does much more than being a receptacle.

After depositing my suitcase I returned to the metro where I had spotted a lively tapas place underground – livelier than any of the places I passed by above ground. I had a beer and a plate with a selection of tapas, a reasonable alternative to sushi (all sushi places I spotted were closed). I ate fast, pining for my bed. It was a very long double day and it is time to collapse them back into one very good night.