To Tokyo!

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 in: News, Travel

My last weekend in Iwakura. It kind of crept up on me like a calendar made out of ninjas. One minute I’m thinking I have all the time in the world, and the next I’m rushing to make some hard decisions about what to pack, making lists of things I need to do before I go, people to see, people to write to, and places I should’ve visited while I had the chance. I thought I would only have to do this once for this trip when I first left Sacramento, but the reality is, this entire trip is made of a series of departures. Packing, list-making, incomplete tasks and a promise to return. I’m going to have to get used to this because it will never end; life is full of endings, the only constant is constant change.

Hilary and Hiro are having a date downtown. They’d both been sick throughout the week, which has put a strain on communications and their plans for how her spring break would be spent, so it’s a good think they decided to have some alone time for each other. Jun and Shinya invited me to tag along to their friend’s skate shop opening in Sakae. We cruised down to the skate park under the freeway and hung out with the skater yo-yoers, all of whom were much better at the latter than the former, but I’m very pleased to see quality players with other interests; Shinya has me worried sometimes, he concentrates a little too hard on his yo-yoing! Some of the other skaters were impressed with the yo-yos and the guys put on a little impromptu show for an enthusiastic crowd. I can tell this is the kind of performance the guys prefer to put on; competitions are too stressful. I can see it on their faces. We go to the store opening, and I set up my slackline in the park across the street. The guys played around on it for a bit, then a small crowd of people came over from the store and I put on a little show for them and showed them how to get on the line. I do what I can to spread the good word of the gospel of slack.

After we’d had our fill of the scene, we headed over to an izakaya specializing in tebasaki (fried chicken legs, a Nagoya specialty), where we ate an obscene amount of chicken wings. I’ve definitely gained wait (I recently weighed myself and I’ve gained almost 2 kilos since I left the states, blubberbutt!)

My last two nights I spent in preparation of the coming journey. Tuesday afternoon, I carefully picked through my gear and selected the things I figured would most come in handy during my travels; seeing all my belongings neatly arranged on the floor, I suddenly took out my camera and started taping it all. I quickly moved through the items, resisting the urge to tell any long-winded stories about them all. The process helped me make a few decisions about what to bring and what to leave behind. I still ended up with 20 minutes of footage, and I had even forgotten to mention my jacket and silk travel liner. It’s amazing how much of ourselves gets caught up in the things we keep. Our stories wrap around the things we touch, searching for a tangible home in the river of time. So much stuff, so many stories. I remove some items from the pile, some because they aren’t tightly wound in sentimentality, and some because they are just the opposite; I don’t want anything to happen to them on my travels, so I decided to keep them safe by stowing them away in my Japanese home base.

I spent the rest of the evening talking to the guys and editing together my videos for the packing list entry. Shinya cleared the living space for some last-minute practice for the Asia Pacific contest in Singapore.

It rained through the night and into the next morning, softly tapping on the window, beckoning to me. Hiro roused me at 9 to go with them to the station. Hiro’s friend, Kei (whom I had met at Hans’s place after the 2007 Japan Nationals) had come to help run things with Noma-kun while the boys go to AP. It seemed like a natural time for me to depart for Tokyo as well, especially so I could go see my friends Teru and Aya graduate from Waseda on the 25th. Funny that I was the one “leaving,” and yet I was the one seeing them off. We made plans to meet up again for a yo-yo event on 4/4 (in Japanese, 4 can be read as yo or yon, so the event is called yo-yo day.

Kei and I returned to the house; he fell back asleep, and I set to cleaning up the room I’d been using the past two months. All of my remaining belongings were moved into a duffle bag, and I cleared away the bedding and things. The room was once again bare. I put the finishing touches on my packing and went for my last meal in Nagoya. Ojisan and Obasan didn’t disappoint; it was delicious as usual. I went downstairs and took a photo with them, repeating how much I’ll miss their cooking. 本当に言葉で通じないくらいおいしかったです。ありがとうございました。The words got caught in my throat; I was getting choked up over their meals, that’s how good they are. I will definitely be back, I reassure them. And I mean it.

I went back to grab my things and gave an awkward goodbye to grandma. Sometimes I can’t tell how the older generation regards me, so I just try to be as polite and positive as I can. I forget what I was going to say, but it’s ok, she smiles and nods as if I’m speaking a foreign language regardless.

On the shinkansen I take a seat between a couple guys. One is asleep in a mask. He stands up and steps out for a minute, returning with the smell of tobacco clinging to his clothes. He replaces the mask on his face. I revel in the irony.

The train is about to arrive in Tokyo. I’m looking forward to taking the next step in my adventure, and seeing all my family and friends here. まもなく、東京です。お忘れ物ないようご注意ください。うん、本当に忘れられない思い出いっぱい作ってきました。これからも、よろしくお願いします。

I lumbered around the trainstations with my daypack in front and backpack on back, both covered with my ridiculous green poncho. I feel like a muppet under this thing. When I see Kaoru I do a snuffalufagus shuffle. We stopped at the HIS travel center in Kichijoji to pick up my ticket to China. I had chosen a rather random day to go but I figured I might as well stick to it; there’s no telling what might pop up while I’m in Tokyo so it’s best to give myself a little time to breathe. The only problem with that is figuring out a place to stay! For tonight at least, I’m covered. Kaoru’s mom is as sweet as I remember, and made a delicious meal for us. Her brother hung out for longer than I expected, and offered me some advice for traveling around China before he excused himself and went upstairs. We spent the rest of the night hanging out with Yume, their tiny dog, watching the movie adaptation of 変身, the book Kaoru recommended to me back in San Francisco. I’m still carrying the book around, and watching the film gave me a little more incentive to read it. I’ll have to make time for it. My list of things to do lengthens ever so slightly.

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