Some you may already know that I had a business trip to Japan in August. And I did not send a journal entry as is my custom. I have a good excuse for not sending it while there – I was sick over the only weekend I had to write. I do NOT have an excuse for why it has taken so long to write ANYTHING since then, so my apologies.
So here goes:
The company requires that my flights to Japan must go through either Chicago or San Francisco. To make that connection, I need to leave my house at 4:15 in the morning on Monday. A very early start to what will be a long day. It was a tough start as I knew I would be missing the funeral of a friend of nearly 25 years. My thoughts were with her and her family, and all those who mean so much to me.
The flight was smooth and the weather great and clear. We landed at 9:45 AM in San Francisco, early enough for me to get some work done in the International Business Lounge and meet up with my co-worker, Pat, who was going to Japan with me for this trip. We were both seated in the upper deck of the 747 (my favorite seat on these long flights). The new seating configuration of the 747 was impressive – pod-like sitting area, large digital screen, on-demand videos (which are great in that you “pause” the movie or video when you need to leave your seat rather than holding on and waiting for the end of the film), shelves in front of and storage area next to my seat. However the proof is in the comfort, and unfortunately, the lay-down flat seat had a side-to-side “ridge” where the seat folded. I didn’t sleep any better than when in coach with this lump mashing into my side in back all night. When awake the pod is great, but they still have got a lot of work to do if the intent is to help business travelers rest.
The last 1 ½ hours of the flight was rather turbulent, and we landed at a little before 2 PM on Tuesday afternoon. We had a short wait for the shuttle bus that took us to the hotel, and the bus ride was about an 1 ½ hours long. The total transit time from my front door to my hotel room was 22 ½ hours with about 3 ½ hours of sleep.
After we checked in before trying to sleep off the jetlag, we met two more of our co-workers, visiting Japan from our Singapore office, for dinner at a local sushi restaurant. Very local with low tables on raised platforms, no chairs, and removing of shoes before sitting on the floor pads. By the time I headed for home 11 days later, I was really missing chairs at dinner.
Speaking of jetlag, you really can NOT just sleep it off. At least not in one night. This first night I woke up at midnight, 3:30 and then 4:45. The latter is not that surprising as sunrise is before 5 AM so light was already filtering through the curtains, and I normally get up around that time for work when back home.
Our hotel is right next to the Tokyo Dome, home to the Japanese baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants (The Yomiuri Giants are the NY Yankees of Japan having won more pennants and Japan Series titles than any other team in Japan). During the week the Giants were playing one of their arch-rivals, and the hotel was packed most of the week and weekend. The hotel and the Dome seem to act as a buffer between a more traditional Tokyo and the young, hip, and Westernized Tokyo - near the Dome is an amusement park a mall, and several restaurants - Japanese, Italian, deli's, coffee shops, KFC, McDonalds, and Bubba Gumps.
Each day we had breakfast in the hotel executive lounge (usually rice cereal, yogurt, and fruit), and took a taxi to the office. The taxis are quite a cultural experience (they are in Houston, too, but for a different reason). The drivers often wear white gloves and the taxi seats have lace covers. The drivers can open the doors automatically for you with a level near their seat. All of the taxis has GPS Navigation systems, they always give you a receipt when you pay, and tipping (as for most services in Japan) is not expected.
But the best part of getting to the office was the Starbucks right next door!
Our hours were long – usually 10 hours or more. We would have lunch nearby – once a Italian noodle house, once a steak restaurant, once a Japanese noodle house – and they all had chairs. We chose to walk back to the hotel, which was about a 20 minute walk away, and stop for dinner on the way wherever it looked interesting. We found a tempura restaurant one night, and when we entered the cook (who looked like he was also the owner), said something and waved us back to the door. Before we could move, a woman who appeared to be his wife, said something sharply to him and then guided us to a table for dinner. Maybe he thought we were in the wrong place, but the tempura was good.
By the second day, my allergies were becoming worse and had developed into a sinus infection and possibly a cold. So Friday afternoon I left the office early and went to a doctor recommended by the American embassy. His office was on the top floor of a non-descript building in the Akasaka district of Tokyo. The office was rather small with two “rooms” for examinations. The rooms were divided only by temporary partitions that did not extend all the way to the ceiling. In Japan, pharmacies are not segregated from the medical profession as they are in the U.S. and in other western countries, so the cost of my visit included the doctor’s examination and all medicines he prescribed. He ordered up for me an anti-biotic, two kinds of decongestants, a cough syrup, and a gargle for sore throat. He also had to double the prescription for it seemed that I was just a “little bit bigger” than the size of the average Japanese male. I need to work on that. I did not have any problem conversing with the doctor – his English was quite good – but I was glad to have an interpreter with me for the nurses/pharmacists did not speak any English and I would not have had any idea of how often or how much medicine to take without her. The total cost – examination and prescriptions - was around $80.
We finished more quickly than expected so we walked around the district for a while. The Akasaka, which means "Red Slope", district is a residential and commercial area near some of the government buildings and the U.S. embassy. It is the area where the President would likely stay when visiting Japan. There are very many hotels, stores, and restaurants in the area, including many that specifically cater to the western expatriate community. We passed one pub that could have been plucked right out of Dublin and dropped into Tokyo. One of the hotels in the area has as part of its grounds a large Japanese garden, and we spent a while walking through there and getting some fresh air. Also in the area were several small shrines and one large Shinto shrine and a Buddhist cemetery in the midst of the high-rises.
That evening we met the rest of our work group for dinner at a place called “Ninja”. This was a theme restaurant where the hosts, servers, and entertainers (including a magician in our room) all dressed as Ninja warriors. We were guided through several ninja challenges to see if we were worthy to pass deeper into the restaurant – winding passageways and stairs, hidden doors and bridges, and finally arriving at our special dining room. We had to remove our shoes before we entered the room, which overlooked a secret cave and “underground” river and treasure.
The real treasure was the dinner, which was served in the Kaiseki manner - a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. Each item served as a "course." We had eight courses: Foie Gras with crackers shaped like “ninja star” darts ; tuna sashimi with avocado; tofu and bamboo soup with soymilk; noodles; tempura; grilled fish (the entire fish); sushi; and dessert.
Saturday morning when I got up my throat was quite sore and my voice very hoarse, but I did not have a fever. We decided on a very simple day with just a little shopping and sight-seeing. All three of us had been in Tokyo before, so this was not a problem. We went to the Asakusa district, where I had visited twice before but neither of my co-workers had ever been. The district is home to the Senso-Ji Temple, the oldest and most sacred Buddhist Temple in Tokyo. A large gate marks the entrance to the Temple grounds and is called "Thunder Gate." It features a massive paper lantern painted in red and black, and this image has become the symbol of the temple. The street between the Thunder Gate and the temple itself is called "Nakamise-dori" and is lined with shops selling souvenirs to pilgrims and tourists. The shops sell fans, key chains, cups, dolls, vases, plates, toys, bread, snacks and other sweets, clothing (kimonos and T-shirts), swords, hair combs, jewelry, purses, cell-phone attachments, you name it and there is probably a shop that sells it. The place was packed, but fortunately because of the summer heat the street was covered by a retractable awning.
As you enter the temple grounds itself, the smell of incense fills the air. A three-foot diameter incense burner dominates the central square and worshippers wave the smoke over themselves for healing. A five-story pagoda towers over the grounds which include the main hall decorated with art and flowers, and several smaller shrines scattered around the complex. Near the entrance of the temple is are omikuji stalls where for a small donation of 100 yen (about a dollar), visitors may consult the oracle. You pick up an enclosed metal container, shake out a labeled stick which contains a number from 1 to 100, and read the corresponding fortune from one of 100 possible drawers. One co-worker received a “bad fortune” warning her of sickness and advising not to travel or to “build a house,” the second co-worker had a sort of good fortune promising good health (she got sick two days later) but warning against travel (she had to fly home to Singapore because of her illness). My fortune – the one who WAS sick – was a VERY good fortune promising good health to come, a safe journey, and good time for business and for “building a house.”
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
We sent the remainder of the afternoon at Ueno Park. Ueno Park is a large public park which occupies the site of the former temple closely associated with the Tokugawa shoguns. It was also the sight of one of the final battles that reestablished political domination of the Imperialists and emperor over the shogun. In the park is the statue of SaigÅ Takamori, the samurai featured in the movie, “The Last Samurai”. He is honored, for while he fought against the Emperor’s army to preserve the samurai way of life, it was his military leadership that helped place the Emperor in power.
The park is now home to many museums, shrines, the zoon, and many homeless people. We also saw many entertainers throughout the park, including Andean musicians. I have been to Peru before, so this was a familiar and welcome sound.
On Sunday, we left the hotel and headed for the train station. I had hoped to attend the English speaking church in Tokyo (I had visited there before in 2007), but they did not start services until 11 AM, and we needed to leave the hotel by 11:30 AM. We boarded the Shinkansen “bullet” train for our trip to the office in Omaezaki about just before 1 PM. The train travels at spends that top 160 MPH on several occasions. They are traveling so fast that when a train goes by in the oppostite direction, you can feel the wind effect and still see the countryside through the windows of the passing express. The interior is as comfortable, or more so, than many airplanes. The seat could be rotated so you could face another party, so the four of us traveling sat face-to-face and visited most of the way.
We passed through a region called the Japanese Alps, and stopped at a station very near Mt. Fuji. The weather was great and we had a fine view of the top of the mountain. We entered a region called Shizuoka and the view was great of the farms and tea plantations on the hillsides.
We arrived at our stop at Kakegawa about 2 hours after we left Tokyo. We were met by a driver from the office and traveled the next ½ hour to our hotel. Being a Sunday AND a holiday weekend (the holiday celebrates the ancestors whose spirits are said to return home for time with their families), most restaurants were closed. So we took a cab to Shizouka Country Hamaoka Course and Hotel - a huge country club – for a Japanese dinner. The server spoke no English, but she had a Japanese/English dictionary so she could read to us what she was serving for each course.
Courtesy to guests is a very big deal in Japan and not only did our server bow deeply to us as we left the restaurant that evening, but even on the trains the conductor will bow as he enters the car and as he leaves.
Omaezaki is the area where we were staying and working for the week. It is on a peninsula jutting out into the ocean, so the sun rises and sets over the Pacific (and we have had some great sunsets). The surfing is supposed to be great, tea and strawberries are common crops, a nuclear plant is along the coast on the way to and from the hotel, and there is an old lighthouse still in use at the tip of the peninsula that dates to the 1870s. We ate dinner one night near the lighthouse – another multi-course Japanese style dinner, including green tea ice cream.
Omaezaki has also experienced seismic activity recently. The day we arrived in Tokyo, but before we had landed, a major earthquake had occurred, centered off the coast in the Pacific Ocean. Our office and many of the structures suffered minor damage – broken roof tiles and things falling off of the shelves – but nothing major. Throughout the week, both in Tokyo and in Omaezaki, we felt tremors or the building swaying at least three times. A bit unsettling experience.
Our last night in Omaezaki we dined at another fancy, “Kaiseki” style restaurant and our courses were: Sea snails (only our Japanese hosts tried these), sashimi of tuna, squid, snapper, and a local fish; roasted potatoes; salad; tempura of fish and vegetables; soup with rice; and green tea ice cream (I really like this stuff).
We took the train back to Tokyo on Thursday evening and had dinner at a hamburger place near the hotel. Ahhh! – hot grilled food and chairs!
I have some pictures of the trip at http://scottshots4.shutterfly.com/393
Sorry I was so late in sending this. Thank you for your interest, love and friendship.
Alan
