IMR: Entries: 2001: April: 12 — Thursday, April 12, 2001

The Return I think I'm the only one awake on the plane. The screen of my laptop is the brightest thing in the cabin. It's 2 a.m. Tokyo time, but 7 a.m. in Hawaii, and out the open window now I see the first deep hues of sunrise. I'll be home in a little under two hours. Exit row seat again, although this plane is configured differently and there are six more rows of Business Class than in the Reso'cha plane I took to Tokyo. Thus, not as great a view, but just as much leg space, which is what really matters. I just finished reading "Pagan Babies" by Elmore Leonard, the only book besides Harry Potter that I could find in the little store at the airport (apart from a vast selection of porn). I didn't like it half as much as Grisham. I also was able to nab a short nap on this flight, in part because of the full day I had before finally leaving Tokyo. It turned out our flight home wasn't until 9 p.m., so in fact we had most of today, Wednesday, to relax and get around. Of course, given last night, no one was to be found this morning, except David and Marvee, a staffer from our Philippine office, neither of whom participated in the wild revelry. Both Marvee and David had much earlier flights, so they were set on making the most of their last few hours in the city. So the three of us hit the town on our own. Or rather, I should say, Marvee and I frantically scrambled to follow David as he navigated his way through Tokyo's train system. We were literally running to keep up, leaping two and three steps at a time, dashing into cars just as the doors were closing, just like in bad movies. A couple of times, in fact, we almost lost him in the crowd, and let me tell you, that's a degree of "lost" you don't ever want to feel. Fortunately, a six-foot-tall blonde haole guy stands out a bit. We went from Daiba to Shinbashi to Akihabara to Asakusa (and there were probably a few more stops, I just lost track), jumping off one train, climbing up or down stairs, buying tickets at complicated machines, and jumping on the next. David's expedient manner paid off, though, as we made the trip in 40 minutes after being told to expect to spend just over an hour in transit. Our destination was a famous temple, flanked by an open shopping plaza apparently famous for its candy, trinkets, and other gifts. We happily lost ourselves in the little stalls all morning, picking up gifts for folks back home and, as usual, marveling at the depths of Japanese creativity (and obsession with all things cute). Eventually, it was time for David and Marvee to get back to the hotel to catch their airport shuttle, so we hopped the train and headed back. Ultimately, David was in less of a hurry than Marvee was, so he and I got off a couple of stops early in Yurakucho. There we tried to find a place to eat, and ended up in a hole-in-the-wall ramen place that really wasn't very good. It was neat buying food tickets from a machine at the door in advance, and squeezing into a row of seats fronting the street alongside several sweaty businessmen, but we didn't stay long to savor much more of the place's character. We decided to just walk the rest of the way to the last train station, and made our way down narrow streets, dodging delivery vans and uniformed women wearing face masks. We couldn't resist, also, stopping for a bit in one of many "nu-doo" magazine shops — a tiny cave packed wall to wall with porn, filled with guys in suits casually flipping through it like they were reading the Financial Times. Finally we got to the station, and took the last leg back to the hotel. I bid David a fond farewell, then wandered off to find the rest of the team. By then, they were all awake, checked out, exhausted but interested in at least having lunch together. But it was quite a task getting everyone in one place at the same time, individual folks wandering off now and then to run errands, talk to friends, or find people who'd wandered off earlier. It was 3 p.m. before we had our group collected for lunch. We ended up just walking across the bridge to Aqua City, and ate at a decent India place. From there, we all split up to do last minute shopping, with two hours left until our shuttle departed. Sylvia and I stuck together, though, with a joint mission of grabbing gifts for our interns who manned the office back home, and then Sylvia helped me shop around to find something for Katie. Not only did we see every floor of Aqua City, but every floor of Decks — the huge mall right next door — as well. Finally, we shopped at HMV, the music store, for ourselves. I picked up Pizzicato Five's farewell album, "R.I.P." We headed back, and caught our bus (a luxury coach chartered just for the six of us, actually), and slept the whole way to Narita Airport. And here I am again, listening to more JEN programming, sipping my sixth Coke. But we're going back to a considerably different world than the one we left. I'm sure what to expect of the future, so for now, I'm trying not to think about it. I just can't wait to see Jen and Katie again. Can't wait to see Hawaii again. Can't wait to sleep soundly again, preferably for four days straight.

Comments E kala mai! Comments have been disabled due to overwhelming abuse by spammers. Please click through to any of the video hosting services linked above to leave a public response, or feel free to send an e-mail. Mahalo! < April 11 · April · April 18 > © 1997-2008 Ryan Kawailani Ozawa · E-Mail: imr@lightfantastic.org · Created: 13 November 1997 · Last Modified: 14 January 2008