Part 2: Adventures With Food

30 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Cuisine, Tokyo and Aomori

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If I hadn’t kept a journal on this trip, I’d have little to say, since I wouldn’t remember anything. I was consumed with counting the gang, checking in with them, ensuring their passports were still in my possession, counting them again, going over and over the itinerary for the city part of our trip, convincing my internal clock to wake me at the right hour. Counting them again. I think, in truth, I was afraid to sleep. What if? What if? What if?

So when they knocked on my door that first night in Shinjuku (a section of Tokyo, like Brooklyn in NYC), hungry, as I’ve explained, I was glad to see them. If I could see them, I could make sure they were safe. Did I want to leave this hotel at this particular moment? No I did not. Did I want them to be alone, or to be alone, even less?

Off to the convenience store we went.

A first trip to an Asian convenience store is both fun and overwhelming. You want and need food. But you just aren’t sure what it is you’re buying. And even if you recognize, say, oreo cookies, something tells you they won’t be the same. It’s the design of the package: too light, too strange. Which is correct, says experience. Buy you it anyway. Unless it’s dried squid in a vacuumed package, indeed, I say, have at it.

Oh! By the way, Zima still exists in Japan! My host told me to take a picture because no one back home would believe me. And then we joked that it’s not fresh Zima, it’s just been on the shelves for, like, 10 years, which is untrue. They still make it in Japan! Anyway. I digress. 

I don’t know what all the students bought that night/morning in our bodies. Crackers, cookies, power bars, fresh fresh fruit, some juice. I’m not sure. Enough to quell their hunger. Enough to get them through the night/day in their bodies. Enough to start their journeys about being brave eaters, which they were going to need later, when at home stays, when dinner was offered and the only thing familiar was rice. Their love affairs with snacks had begun.

Look familiar-ish? Maybe some tic tacs? Some starbursts? A sandwich cookie? Gobstoppers? Would it surprise you to hear that none of these are remotely like any of those?

The adventure of food. It’s a huge part of travel. Snacks sustained our crew that first night. But then came morning.

We had a bus to catch for a day-long city tour, and we were going to miss the breakfast included for the price of our rooms (apparently for 4 out of 6 rooms, that is,) so we had to find something to eat. We saw a few restaurants with traditional breakfasts (and luckily, most restaurants have vivid pictures of what they sell outside) but the kids weren’t yet feeling bold about eating.

In their defense, this next pic is of a traditional Japanese breakfast, which may not be for everyone, and which was served to me by my host grandmother. I personally love this food, this light style of eating, all of it. The kids, however, found a McDonald’s not two blocks away, and they ate hash browns. From McDonald’s. In Tokyo. And were happy.

From left around to big plate: pork and scallions, greens, apple pie, boiled apricot pasta salad, a washcloth, and on the plate an egg, a tomato, and two types of fish.

Bellies full, we figured out the short trip to meet our bus (at the Hyatt, the very one at which we’d been dropped the night before.) We took the subway this time (no hour-long walk) just two stops, as one can think a lot clearer when one has had sleep, and can decipher just how to choose a subway line and figure out how to purchase tickets. For about $10 and in about 3 minutes we were there to meet our guide.

Into the heart of the city we went.

Adventure Part 1: Tokyo on a Friday Night

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Tokyo and Aomori

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The last time I posted I said I was restless, that I needed an adventure. My role as a chaperone of ten 8th grade students to Japan was to begin in a few days, and I’m here to tell you: the Universe answered in spades.

We embarked at 7am on Thursday, April 13th from Camden, Maine. We left Logan Airport in Boston at 1:20 in the afternoon, flew 13 hours, landed in Tokyo at 4pm Friday. The flight, landing, and luggage claim were uneventful, save for the fact the kids didn’t eat on the plane, and the masses of human beings crowding every inch of the airport, and our group moving like an amoeba in a petri dish, garnering our fair share of attention.

My co-chaperone purchased bus tickets to get us to the Hyatt in downtown Tokyo, 1.2 kilometers from our hotel (aptly called N.U.T.S) Which meant we needed to walk, twelve people as one, some of whom had slept a bit, and some of whom (ahem) had not, through downtown Tokyo crowds, on a Friday night, with a rudimentary internet map, no GPS, and no ability to read street signs in Japanese.

My task at the airport was to simply pick up reserved tickets for the JR Rail, which we were to use within the city for 3 days, then later to get on the bullet train to Aomori (and back) and also for an express train to get us directly back out to Narita Airport from Tokyo station. Clearly important. I had a nifty notebook provided to me by the woman who planned our trip down to the tiniest detail. In this binder were copies of the reserved tickets and a receipt of payment.

But no. No, dear readers, no. It was very much the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry argues that the ticket clerk knows how to take the reservation, but doesn’t know how to hold the reservation.

One hour. One hour of first waiting in line, then arguing, pointing, questioning, shaking my head, being yelled at, having the reservation banged out of my hand onto the counter in front of me. And no actual tickets given, until I paid for them with a credit card and left. I simply decided: she must be right. The louder she got, the more I believed her. ((Fast forward two days: the tickets actually were purchased twice. I had to return to a JR Rail Pass ticket office (while students were off on a ninja experience), find an English-speaking administrator and make it right.))

But in the meantime. Back at the airport. While I was re-purchasing tickets, we missed our bus to our hotel-ish. Remember this bus took us NEAR our hotel, not TO it. $350 wasted, and a second set of tickets for the bus now purchased. It was, at that point, 24 hours with no sleep.

We got off the bus at the Hyatt, and asked the doorman at that hotel to please set us off in the general direction of the NUTS hotel. Instead, he walked us to the subway station. Down a set of 30 stairs. Twelve people. Luggage. No sleep. We cannot figure out several things. One, which line to take. Two, how to purchase tickets. Three, how we let this guy motion for us to go down into the subway station and leave us there. Four, why our group of teenagers cannot, for the life of them, stand and wait patiently while we figure this out. They are loud, they’re standing in the way of other people purchasing tickets at the machines. They’re sitting on top of luggage, now bending wheels, and reminding me how I’ve not slept in 25 hours.

Back up Mt. Fuji to the street. We decided to stick with our plan and walk. 1.2 kilometers with a clear map would have been unfun enough. 1.2 kilometers, which turned into over an hour, was, well, rotten sushi. Eventually, somewhere in the center of downtown Tokyo on a Friday night, with crowds like none I’ve seen before, after schlepping luggage (some of it ridiculously oversized) and teenagers around (some of them ridiculously tired and at their wits end) we stopped and asked for help.

This is Shibuya, the busiest intersection in the world, which we later visited…on purpose. But it gives you an idea of the crowd situation.

Help arrived! A man from Okinawa (who had lived in Canada) used his GPS to lead us to our hotel. A half an hour – clearly out of his way – for strangers. We found NUTS.

There is, alas, a reservation for 6 rooms! There is not, however, a working credit card. Because I purchased JR Rail tickets that weren’t meant to be purchased, the limit on our usage for the account for this day is overspent. Also, the owner of the hotel speaks no English. (Note to self: “Speaks English” means “come stay at our hotel – we’ll tell you what you want to hear to get your business!”) She’s trying to tell us that only 4 of the rooms come with breakfast. This, somehow, really pisses me off. I think it’s the lack of sleep: at this point, 27 hours.

I use my personal credit card and pay for the rooms. The kids use the elevator, go find their spaces, and eventually, I find mine. It is 11am again in my body. I’ve been awake for 28 hours. I take my shoes off. I rub my feet. I relay the craziness of the past four hours over and over in my head. I realize I hadn’t even noticed the city, not a building, not a thing.

I wash my face, fight tears. There’s a knock at the door. It’s my gang.

They’re hungry.

The real adventure begins.

December Thru March Was Madness

02 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Beauty in the Dishsoap, Stuff I Want to Tell You About

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I haven’t written on this blog site in months. Tell me: where does the time go?

It’d be an interesting short story to personify Time. He resembles a tall, hairy Italian man in a speedo, who wears gold chains, I think. I could bring to life the places Time actually goes while a secondary character (fine, it’s me) is busy working (a simplified way of saying spending her days completely overwhelmed by work responsibilities), spending time with her family, planning a trip to Japan and generally trying to keep her head above water. Time, meanwhile, could be, maybe, floating along on a soft current in Maui listening to dolphins’ underwater communications or something, cocktail with a little colorful umbrella in hand. He’s doing something esoteric and much more important than bending to my will. He’s just gone.

As long as we’re agreeing to personify Time for a minute, I declare that Time would be an immovable, arrogant, untouchable being. Not mean, but a little obnoxious, unconcerned with the plight of any other force. Time, after all, does just whatever the hell it wants while I hang on its coattails like a small child begging please don’t go.

Time goes anyway, and sometimes you don’t realize Time is gone, and then, suddenly, you’re aware of him, like a 7-foot tall center on the opposite basketball team who subs in and scores twelve points before your feet move to play a little defense. Because you’re 44 and you have no coach to yell at you to hustle it up. Plus you’re fooling yourself that you can play basketball in the first damn place. You’re 5’2 on a good day, and Time, as I said, is 22 inches taller. You are never, ever going to win, no matter how fast you are. Time takes six steps and he’s down the court. You, not so much.

It’s an excuse, I know. Time passes too quickly for us all. Friends and family of all ages tell me that’s true. Lately, though, Time has returned from the vacation I thought he was on, and he’s doing a great deal of blocking shots and dunking the ball I mistakenly thought was in my possession. In short, he’s kicking my ass.

When I feel like this, I question everything. Is it possible to have a mid-life crisis at 44? I think it is. I don’t want a convertible or a motorcycle, but I do find myself thinking about that list of things I’ve always wanted to do. Here are three:

  1. write for a living
  2. live in a warm climate
  3. get paid to travel

The time has come when I’ve stopped wondering if Time is on my side. He’s wearing the opposite colored jersey now, scoring points against me, and it’s time to switch up my game. It’s a losing proposition, I know, but that doesn’t mean the game can’t still be fun, that I don’t still have a few moves left in me.

I’m inspired by people who zig when you think they’re going to zag. They change things up at a time it would be easy to get comfortable and enmeshed in routine. I can’t lie: too much routine bores me.

I’m restless, can you feel it? I’m seeking new adventures.