From Sendai to Tokyo

I got up early to catch my coach from Sendai to Tokyo. I was happy to be getting out of the hostel but it felt strange to just walk out the door with no one behind the desk, no key to return, no linen to put in a bin, no goodbyes or come again. Not that I would, I was leaving forever when I stepped out that door with my life on my back again.

I made it to my coach. Sat on board feeling excited to be going back to familiar territory. Travelling is tiring in subtle ways, there’s something about always moving and everything being unfamiliar that gets to you after a while.

When Tokyo loomed out the windows I kept looking for places I knew, sights I recognised, but there were none. Tokyo was still full of things I hadn’t seen before. I got off in Ikebukuro and went down into the subway. There were police everywhere, and just like in Hokkaido the coin lockers were all sealed off from public use. Bloody G8.

A tough looking looking policeman was standing next to the ticket barrier and I went to ask him whether the lockers were unusable at all the stations or just the larger ones. His face turned into a smile and although he didn’t know the answer to my question he was extremely friendly. It’s nice to know that in this paranoid age when a policeman is given the responsibility to prevent major terrorist attacks while G8 world leaders discuss our impending environmental doom, he can still be friendly to wayward tourists.

I called my hostel in Asakusabashi, which rolls off the tongue after a few practices, to ask if I could leave my bag their early. The woman on the phone had a cheerful voice and said it was absolutely fine.

A few hours later I was back in Minami Gyotoku and walking to my old home, where I would see my old room as someone else’s for the first time. Walking the streets my mind was full of comparisons, I had seen more of the country and somehow things made more sense to me having seen their different incarnations. Like phone boxes, convenience stores, signs, people’s accents - they weren’t just Japanese anymore, they were this region of Japan.

The door code hadn’t changed to the guesthouse and Yoko had left me her key in her shoebox. I was a guest for the first time. Although she was at work she was their to welcome me in spirit. She had left her air conditioning on for me, left a plate of pumpkin rolls, homemade cookies and a bag Chocolate Pillow cereal for my breakfast, lunch and snacks.

I sent her an email called, “I’m in your room, is that scary?” and she quickly replied from her desk saying “no.”

The compressed mountain of my belongings under Yoko’s bed had not subsided over time and I hacked away at it again, filling another box to send back to the UK. Sweating I took my load down to the post office and waved it goodbye.

It was already feeling like a long day, but the main event had not happened yet. As well as seeing Yoko, Kizuna, Kosuke and Il Heung from the guest house I was also going to see Yang who I had not seen since Australia. The last time we saw each other was on the bus to Sydney International Airport when we were too rushed for a proper goodbye, both because we had different planes to catch and because we were living one hour ahead of everyone else (we got Sydney time wrong).

But for a few days he was returning to Japan to see Kizuna, his now girlfriend, a few other people and
me. I was meeting him that day, just waiting for his call.

And waiting

And waiting

Then Yoko came home. I welcomed her back to her own room like a polite squatter. We sat around her kotatsu (small heated table you kneel at with knees under cloth which hangs down) and talked the tales we had to tell. Though it had only been a week.

Around 7PM there was a knock on the door. It was Yang. He beckoned me out and we spoke in whispered hellos outside her door. Yoko opened the door and suddenly his performance began.

He was different. His Japanese accent had changed, he sat with a straightened back at the table, spoke very politely and I sat between them watching the whole thing. When they had nothing else to say to each other they would look to me to fill the void. Yoko was as surprised as I was, but she punctured his demeanour by embarrassing him in her cheeky way.

We went downstairs to have food with the others and it was like old times. I had my story to tell and myself, Yang and Kizuna had tomorrow to plan. We were going to go to Fuji Safari, a large safari park next to Mount Fuji. For various reasons I was not planning on visiting Mount Fuji on my trip but I wanted to get a better view of it and the Safari park would do the job. It was also roughly half way between Tokyo and Nakano, my next destination.

Amid beer, sushi and three languages it was time for me to get to my hostel. Yang wanted to walk me to the station so I bid Yoko a, “see you in Nagasaki” - the final destination of my trip which seemed an impossible distance and amount of time away.

Yang and I worked out where to meet the next day and then I made my way across town to Asakusabashi. It was already 11:30 or so but Tokyo rarely feels dangerous.

In the hostel they gave me a pile of linen to fit around futon number 3 in the room 4. Again there were no keys, just a piece of plastic to prove that I had rights to futon 3 of the room 4.

The room was dark when I got there but I could see bodies lying around the edges, some more asleep than others but there was a civilised silence. Each futon was divided from its neighbours by free standing wooden screens that could be folded up or opened out depending on how sociable you were feeling.

By the light of my phone I found futon number 3, took off the sign and fumbled around in the dark trying to put the sheet on, then the duvet and pillow case. I changed and went to brush my teeth.

Being the last one to go to sleep I closed the paper door and the rest of the light was extinguished. In the darkness I arranged my things, set my alarm and lay my head down to sleep.

I hadn’t quite fallen asleep when something landed on me. It had a distinctive feeling of being large, flat and not very heavy and I knew immediately that it was the wooden screen of the person sleeping next to me. He sprang up instantly and picked it back up saying, “Sorry” in a Japanese accent with a hint of panic.

Had he been able to see my face he would have seen that I was laughing. “It’s OK,” I said. New experiences, new experiences.