Tokyo: warm-up, or Airport Terminals, Power Lines, Toilet Seats and Helpful Students

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There was no one waiting for me. Here I was, alone at Narita airport – alone in foreign Tokyo, alone in foreign Japan. I’d say I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, but then I’m the sort of person this sort of thing regularly happens to. There I was, on a train somewhere in Barcelona, without a ticket and without the members of my scout troop I’d gone on the trip with. There I was, locked in a toilet with a jammed door in a train somewhere in Romania. There I was, somewhere in the mountains in Norway, realising that I’d just left my wallet – and passport – on the train that we could still make out in the distance. It always worked out somehow in the end, and if I never learned how to avoid such misfortunes, at least I learned how to face them without desperation. (I also learned to always feel a little uncomfortable in the vicinity of trains.)

My first thought was to find an internet cafe and write to our organiser – perhaps he had mobile internet and would be able to receive my message (my phone didn’t work in Japan, and even if it had, I didn’t have his number). Having successfully done that, I began to think a bit more clearly and concluded that that step had probably been unnecessary and that the replacement flight (for the full story, see my previous post) must have landed at a different terminal. I asked the lady in the information booth about the British Airways terminal, and she confirmed that it was Terminal Two rather than One – and that there was a free coach going there. I was saved.

Out the window of the train heading towards our hotel, Japan’s novelty beckoned me to look in all directions at once. There was a thickness, a depth, a lushness to the vegetation here, an exotic elegance to the shapes of trees and the shapes and shades of their leaves.

As we neared more central Tokyo, the vegetation gave way to mazes of streets, houses, skyscrapers, power lines, people. All I’d heard about a city of many faces effortlessly combining the traditional with the contemporary now stared me in the eye. The skyscrapers were not afraid to grow straight into the future – or rather to slalom their way into the future along fantastic, colourful paths. But neither were the little houses with their curved oriental roofs worried that they would not reach the future by staying right where they were, resting their backs comfortably against these young, eager skyscrapers. And the power lines knew that they would always be needed to tie the view together with their myriad ruffled tangles.

After about an hour’s drive, we arrived at our hotel. For Japanese standards, I suppose, the room (which I was to share with a student from New Zealand) was large. For the standards of someone who knows no non-zero lower bound for the time it takes to make a mess, it was minuscule. There was no closet except for a space with a couple of hangers near the entrance; a sign informed you to put your bags under your bed. The one round table standing near the window was not much larger than my laptop. Still, the room was rather elegant, and we were given clean pyjamas (that custom came as a surprise) and Japanese green tea (and this custom made me pretty happy).

Our hotel on the inside

Those easily offended are advised to skip the following paragraph.

You might have heard of crazy Japanese toilet seats, with more functions than a computer. Indeed, our hotel bathroom was equipped with one which, on request, heated up, washed your bottom and had a “strongly deodorizing” function. There were also ones which played back a recorded flushing sound to drown out other toilet noises. Now before I came to Japan, my thoughts were the same as the ones some of you might now be entertaining: What nonsense! Why invest so much technology into toilet seats? But now – and it only took a week in Japan to change my mind – my opinion is more like: Why not? Frankly, these toilet seats are pretty darn useful, and the only reason they haven’t caught on here is because Westerners are too narrow-minded to admit it.

The squeamish can now resume their reading.

After we (two students from Trinity College, New York, and I) dropped our things off at the hotel, one of the students and I were showed around the neighbourhood by a couple of students from Technos College. I was struck – and would be many more times on this trip – by how incredibly nice they were. I had grown up to a stereotypical and outdated view of the Japanese as a somewhat reserved nation – but there was absolutely nothing reserved about the students I was to meet during Japan Tour. They were more smiling, talkative and enthusiastic than Americans, always trying to please and help. During our stay, we were to be treated like royalty, given presents, made to pose for countless photographs, showered with attention and appreciation. But more on that in my next post. For now let us leave me to my exploring the neighbourhood of the hotel, eating a wonderful dinner in a Chinese restaurant (all the meals were paid for, of course), and catching up on much-needed sleep.