I learnt the word for weighing scale in Japanese that day. I asked at the hotel front desk if they had one and explained that I wanted to weigh my luggage. The lady showed me exactly what I needed. “For your luggage” she confirmed before handing it over, clearly afraid that I would try clambering onto it.
The Virgin Atlantic website said that I could take two bags of 23kg each, as well as hand luggage of 6kg. I got my bags down to 23kg and 16kg respectively. Everything fitted and I didn’t need to post another box home. My luggage for the flight was sorted. Tick.
I dropped off photos to be developed and then took out all the money I could from my bank account. I had over a thousand pounds suddenly to stuff into my wallet; there were so many notes that I couldn’t close it – that’s never happened before. I knew that I should go to the bank and close my account properly but I was reluctant to. Opening the account in the first place was very complicated and no one spoke any English. I expected the problem to be even more difficult trying to close the account and I didn’t have the time.
I know people shouldn’t do this; the world is full of letters sent to addresses that people no longer live at, about accounts they no longer care for. My account is still open now, with 636 yen, and I know that for years to come letters will be sent to my name and my old address. They will pile up, first seen by people who remember me but over time I will be just another forgotten name; a 636 yen echo from the past.
But who knows, maybe one day I will return and close it properly.
When people ask me where my favourite place is in Tokyo, and I feel like replying honestly, I tell them Shinjuku Gyoen. Having said that I haven’t been there many times because it’s very exclusive. Not only does it cost 200 yen to enter but it closes everyday at 4pm.
It lies amongst the skyscrapers and busy streets of Shinjuku, one of the biggest wards in Tokyo. Laden with lawns, trees and lakes it is the kind of place Tokyoites have to go to remind themselves of what the world is supposed to look like. Inevitably it is full of couples walking hand in hand and groups of mothers pushing prams orbited by toddlers. For me I just like to be surrounded by trees and yet also skyscrapers, the sudden peaceful world amongst the chaos. It is a good place for reflection and since it was my last day in Japan I had a lot to reflect on. I ate some sushi while sitting on the grass and then took a walk and some pictures.
One of my favourite buildings in Tokyo is right next to the park.
It reminds me of the Chrysler building in New York but the windows on this building are better, see how they reflect the shape of the tower.
There was a beautiful light on everything and I took pictures of the tree lined pathways.
I thought about my time in Japan, tried to remember if there was anything else I needed to do in the short time I had left. There didn’t seem to be, it was time to move on. I left the park for the last time humming the Next Stage music from one game or another.
Heading down the street I saw this.
The sign belongs to a mall called Oicity, and this is the Men’s department, but metaphorically who knows what it really meant.
After wiring money home at the post office I headed for the office of J and F Plaza, whose accommodation I had been renting for over a year. I had actually moved out a month ago but due to some confusion I still owed them £40.
The thing was, I was leaving the country the next day and that gave me an invincible like status. There was nothing they could threaten me with, whether to pay or not was entirely my own decision.
I had been thinking about this dilemma for a few weeks and my eventual decision to pay up was for these reasons:
- I had the money
- It had been a brilliant place to live
- Japanese society, on the whole, has a negative enough view of foreigners being dishonest as it is that I don’t want to add to it. Actually, I want to actively dispel it in my own little way
I didn’t realise it until I got to the nearest of Shinjuku Station’s sixty exits, that the last time I had been to this part of town was the day after I had first arrived in Japan. Now I was back there the day before leaving.
The streets are very narrow, packed with tall buildings with business on eight floors or more. It’s very hard to find anything without a map or a guide. I stood and waited for the latter.
I was happy to see that my guide to the office was the person who had checked me out back in July. He had been stressed and anxious the last time we had met, having never checked anyone out before he didn’t really know what to do. Actually he had taken £5 from my deposit because I had been one minute late leaving my room, which he later returned to me after growing a sense of morality.
I think I flattered him by remembering his face and approaching him before he reached me. He asked me about my trip, he laughed a lot and told me that he was envious. Once inside the office though he became more serious. I was instructed to sit down at the same table I had sat at more than a year previously. They gave me tea and he and another man started fussing over writing me a receipt.
The other man seemed to want to practice his English, he asked me if I was a student. I explained that I used to be, “I studied Psychology.”
“Oh, you must be very clever,” my guide interrupted, they seemed to be competing for conversation.
“No it wasn’t that hard, it was more boring,” I said modestly, “I just had to stay awake.”
He thought about this for a second and then burst out laughing, the less serious part of his personality having survived from the street outside.
When it was time to say goodbye everyone in the office waved me off in that ridiculously rehearsed way Japanese companies do to try and make you feel like a king. At the travel agents I used to use all the forty or so members of staff are trained to react to the sound of the lift doors opening. Their group response is to yell out, “Goodbye, thank you” to whoever is about to descend. The people with desks nearest to the lift actually stand up and bow to you and the whole thing is so unsettling that it made me want to use the fire escape instead.
Heading out of the office and back to the subway I paused for a moment at the top of the stairs leading to the maze of corridors beneath Shinjuku. I imagined myself walking up those stairs a year and four months ago. At that time I had been early so taken a walk around Shunjuku for a while. I remembered being impressed by the wide streets, the tall buildings and large screens shouting out commercials. I remembered feeling nervous, everything was new and I was alone, I hadn’t even met Yan yet.
Now, having finished my job, taken a long trip around Japan and paid off my final debts I envied my previous self. The difference between us was simple. I had walked up those stairs a year before wondering what would happen, and now, I knew. There was no mystery left anymore, except for what would happen after all the goodbyes. Back then I hadn’t even said hello. It was the opposite journey for me now that contained mystery; back into the subway, back to Narita airport, back to Heathrow, back home and, only then, back into the unknown.
The light was fading on my final day in Japan. I walked for the last time from Minami Gyotoku station to the guesthouse, a journey I had done hundreds of times before. I decided that roads are roads except for the first and last time we walk down them, then, they are something different.
I was not in a sad mood as such, there was too much for me to think about. Leaving is always harder, at first, for the people being left; they are losing something plain and simple. For those doing the leaving there is a whole barrage of things to prepare for and worry about before, finally, in another place, you realise what you’ve lost.
I made my way quietly into the guesthouse and quietly into the living room. My friends were walking around busily, carrying plates of food to the table. It wasn’t a big event and it shouldn’t have been, no music or banners, just food and goodbyes.
The selection of food was tailored towards me; there was no meat at the table, just vegetable sushi, tempura and soba – all my favourites.
There is surprisingly little to say about that. We looked at photos from our escapades together on the big TV and Kizuna, seeing a picture I took of fireworks in Nagasaki, made a joke about mushroom clouds.
Goodbyes were said. Inevitably I didn’t know what to say, given enough preparation I could have found the words but I was lazy and tired and I don’t know; a goodbye is a goodbye no matter how grateful you are to someone, how much you like them and have appreciated them. When you are standing in a group of people gazing at you the words just don’t come.
I got back to my hotel exhausted. My luggage was all unpacked after I had been frantically looking for things earlier in the day. I had weighed everything previously so I just needed to put it all back together in the morning, one bag of 23kg and one of 16kg. I was fine.
On the Internet I read some news and checked my flight details. I checked again the baggage allowance and then my sense of security exploded in my face. The baggage allowance I had previously read (two bags for 23kg and one hand luggage bag of 6kg) was not relevant to my flight; it was only for flights to America. For Asia the allowance was just one bag of 23kg and a 6kg hand luggage bag. My hand luggage bag was 10kg over the weight and guess how much they charge per kilogram? That’s right a fortune: £40 per kg.
It was 1AM, my flight was leaving in 10 hours and my bag was 10kg overweight with a potential cost of £400, or getting rid of a lot of stuff that I wanted to keep.
I didn’t sleep well that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment