DAY THREE (06/11/08, 4:30am)
Dawn is rising as I sit on the couch of my 30th floor suite looking out over a panoramic view of Tokyo’s towering buildings fading into the distant fog. I woke up at 2:30am (1:30pm by Rhode Island time) feeling wide awake. I tossed and turned for a while, trying to force myself to rest more for the busy day ahead, but after half an hour I resigned myself to the fact that I was far too excited to sleep. By 3:00 I was standing on my bed, adjusting my zoom lens to capture this spectacular, sweeping view. The sky was still dark and lights glimmered in thousands of windows throughout the city. Flashing red lights marked the tops of all the tallest buildings, warning pilots not to stray too close, I suppose.
After photographing the view, my king-sized bed (I can stretch out sideways and still not reach either end of the bed with my head or feet!), and the toilet seat with its array of buttons for warming (the seat) and spraying (one’s derriere) and creating privacy noises (can’t have anyone hear you plop or tinkle!), I decided to take a shower. The many little bottles of body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion all say “Refrest”, perhaps easier for the Japanese to say than “refreshed”. Well, I must say I am feeling quite “refrest” at the moment, stretched out on the couch in a Japanese robe, watching the sky turn lighter shades of grayish blue.
Yesterday we left the Sheraton Hotel in San Francisco at 9:45am and caught a 1:00pm direct flight to Tokyo. The flight was a little over ten hours (my cracking knees insisted that it felt more like twenty, however). When not watching movies, eating, or sleeping, I read a good portion of Confucius Lives Next Door, a fabulous book by Tom Reid, a journalist for the Washington Post, who spent several years living with his wife and two daughters all throughout East Asia. Throughout the book he emphasizes what he calls the “cultural miracle” of the East—its strikingly low crime rate, strong family units, and world-renowned education statistics—and then explores why this might be and what he feels the West could learn from the East. His book is also full of funny anecdotes and history.
Once we arrived in the Narita airport I was stunned by how quickly and easily we all passed through customs. I don’t think a single suitcase was opened. There were dozens of smiling Japanese workers with white gloves and starched uniforms, bowing and gesturing the way to go. Most of our luggage had already been taken off the conveyer belts by the time we arrived, neatly stacked and waiting for us. Within minutes we were on a bus, headed on a two-hour ride to our hotel, the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka, in Tokyo.
On the way we passed Disneyland (a very colorful and ornate building modeled after the Disneyland in Anaheim, CA). Other than Disneyland, however, almost all of the buildings were a very modern style in varying shades of gray and brown. Tokyo seems to be a city of concrete and glass. And people, so many people! There are about 12 million people living in Tokyo. Many of them ride bikes or scooters or walk.
Almost all of the people I saw walking (except for foreigners) were professionally dressed, men in dark suits and ties and women in blouses, skirts, and high heels. I saw one woman riding by on a bike with a face mask on, much like a doctor wears when performing surgery, and it reminded me of an anecdote from Reid’s book about how in Japan people wear face masks not to avoid getting germs but to prevent spreading germs and getting others sick when they have a cold. It’s hard to even imagine such a degree of consideration existing in the US (at least on a large community scale, not an isolated incident).
Last night a few university students from Tokyo met a bunch of us JFMFers (Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund participants) at the hotel and took us out for dinner. The program gave us some money to pay for our own meals while we are here. My group, two young women from Tokyo and six exhausted Americans, went to a little restaurant that serves various kinds of raw meat which you then cook in the center of your table over a kind of indoor barbeque. We took off our shoes at a section beside our table and then stepped up onto a platform that had a table just a few inches above the floor but a sunken area for our legs beneath the table. I ended up trying a few pieces of the meat but for my main meal I ordered a sesame noodle soup which was delicious.
Our dinner hosts had prepared a packet for us with maps and recommended shops throughout Tokyo. One of the girls said that she would like to move to Spain eventually and the other spent a year and a half in Boston learning English and she plans to be an English teacher either in Japan or the US. We all conversed as best we could in our bleary-eyed, jet-lagged state, but it was clear that the foremost thought on everyone’s mind was sleep. By 10:45pm we arrived back at our hotel and I immediately crawled into bed and slept like a rock until 4:30 this morning.
Today we will be doing some sight-seeing in Tokyo, shopping, and going to a kyogen theater performance later this afternoon. I’ll keep you posted!
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