JAPAN DAY 1

My plane left Hong Kong just after midnight. I spent my last hours in China wandering the halls of the Hong Kong International Airport. The shops were all closed, the lights were dim, the cast cosmopolitan. I should have taken more pictures, but I wanted to find an outlet to charge my batteries and spend my last few precious minutes online, since I had no idea what my access would be like in Japan. The smoking room at HKIA was small and filthy, but it also had the highest ratio of beautiful young women to lonely old men I’ve seen. Near the smoking room was a prayer room, where I snapped this.

I landed at Haneda at 5 am, after passing by Mt. Fuji just as the sun was rising. It was beautiful.

The international terminal at Haneda is tiny, no more than two dozen chairs in the waiting area. I made it through customs quickly and looked around for Kosuke. I didn’t really know who I was looking for, but I didn’t see anyone who looked like they were looking for me. After a few laps around the terminal I decided to find somewhere to hang out for a while. I sat down and made myself visible and failed to find a wireless signal and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I went to the bathroom, which had both a traditional Japanese toilet and a robotic toilet from the future that was clearly labeled “Western Style”. The fact that I was in Japan with no idea where I was going and no back up plans or internet to coordinate any back up plans suddenly began to sink in.
Around 6am I started worrying that either Kosuke showed up at the wrong terminal or expected me to meet him somewhere else, and started thinking about whether I should venture away from the terminal to find him and risk never meeting up. I had a phone number, so I decided to trade in my last few Hong Kong dollars for some Yen to see if I could make a call. The tones on the Japanese phone lines could have meant anything (dialing? busy signal? fire?), and eventually I made it to some automated voice that could have been a voice mail account or could have been an operator telling me that I dialed the number incorrectly or needed to put in more money. I tried this twice, failing to suss the meanings of anything happening on the phone lines, and decided to ask the information counter to make the call for me just to be sure. I basically held out a pocket full of change in various denominations and pointed at the phone number like a helpless child, and they made the call for me. I ended up at the same automated voice, and decided to cut my losses and go back to waiting for Kosuke.
Later, Kosuke told me that all 3 tries were successful, and that he was unable to answer while he was driving and parking, and unable to call back to a payphone.
Later, once I figured out the money, I realized I spent over 5 dollars trying to make this call.
On the subject of money:
The conversion rate is about 1 Yen = .0116 US Dollars, or basically a yen is worth just slightly more than a penny. The ¥1000 bill is worth just over $11, but functions psychologically as a $20, in the sense that ATMs dispense money in ¥1000 blocks and it was the currency I passed around most often. Going out for the night usually meant taking out ¥10000, or just over $116, which was about enough to pay for a meal for two and a few rounds of drinks.
Kosuke often used the heuristic that ¥1 = $.01, (he would point to an object marked as ¥500 and say “five dollars”) which was a good estimate of the perceived cost of goods and services in the sense of the psychological value of a specific coin or bill and the general rhythm of trading in the currency, but was actually a pretty significant underestimate when you started dealing with larger value amount. This made everything in Japan more expensive than it seemed, and it already seemed pretty expensive. I’ve learned that psychological value has relatively little to do with the actual value of the good/service, so just knowing the conversion rates in the abstract doesn’t really tell you too much about what you will be paying.
Kosuke (pronounced: “Koh-skay”) showed up around 6:30am, hugely apologetic, and helped carry my bags to the car. His English was not quite fluent but it was enough to relay the plans for that day and the rest of the trip, to work out the fact that we were second cousins but didn’t really know anything about our respective families, and to have some slightly strained conversations about the popular music he had on his iPod. Kosuke has spent a few months in Texas a few years ago, and he wanted to practice his English and generally refresh his sense of American culture.
I still do not understand that Japanese conception of American pop culture. His iPod, clearly playing from an “American Music” playlist, moved fluidly between Lady Gaga, the Spiderman theme, The Beatles, an old Mighty Mighty Bosstones song, and ballads from Disney’s Alladin. There is no conceivable person in the US who would have a playlist of anything comparable.
Kosuke was also quick to swear and generally try to remember all the slang he had learned he learned in America, especially from the movie “Wanted”, which he referenced multiple times during my stay.
His favorite word was “bullshit”, followed closely by “bitches”. I tried to teach him “deez nutz” but I don’t think that took. I also took the opportunity to run through Carlin’s seven dirty words, some of which he wasn’t familiar with. The conversations were all eerily reminiscent of the scene in Terminator 2 where Eddie Furlong is trying to explain to Arnold the phrase “Hasta la Vista”.
There were a few conversations about the word “nigger”, which he had a number of questions about. I was completely incapable of explaining the appropriate and inappropriate uses of this word.
It took about an hour to get to Kosuke’s home in Minami-senju, a tiny, cramped, unairconditioned two story house on the outskirts of Tokyo.

[Google Maps]

If you look around the house, it appears to be located on a narrow alley way. In fact, this was a two lane street. I encountered two cars facing each other down on this road a few times, both barely able to fit on their own and certainly not small enough to pass each other by, forcing one of the cars to back up and let the other one pass, all amid a sea of bikes and scooters obeying no discernible laws.
All roads in Japan are organized like this. There are major two way traffic arteries, but off these major roads are tiny networks of alleys and side streets, usually covered by pedestrians and bicycles, but which also are meant to accommodate cars in both directions. I would have never been able to find my way around without a guide, since most places required going down ‘streets’ that, were I in the US, would not be roads you want to walk down, and certainly wouldn’t have had restaurants or homes lining the path
I sat around sweating and generally uncomfortable from traveling, and I was told that I would be going to my Uncle’s house on the beach with Kosuke’s mother and step dad, and that I should pack for a night out in the country. I was told there would be fireworks and other relatives to meet, but that no one there spoke English. Kosuke said he wouldn’t be coming, because he found the conversation of old people boring. I was told we would be coming back the next day, where my uncle would let me stay in his small apartment in Aoi, a few station stops away from Kosuke’s house in Minamisenju. I emptied out my backpack of electronics, and packed two day’s worth of clothes just in case. I decided against bringing the small package of toys and other gizmos I brought for children, figuring that old people wouldn’t be as impressed with Silly Putty and that I should pack lightly. Before we left Kosuke and his father had some errands to run, so we jumped back in his van and left. I brought along a Rubic’s Cube I bought in Hong Kong that Kosuke was interested in, and it was easier to bond over the toy than struggle with the language.

Kosuke, his father, and I picked up some man a few miles away, dropped a package off in a warehouse, and then dropped the man back off. We then headed out to the countryside to an old and cluttered building, rickety and in various states of use. People lived in most of the rooms of this hall way. Kosuke’s father collected some tools and Kosuke picked up a beat up old scooter he was planning on repairing.

Kosuke then took me for a walk around the block while we waited for his father to finish up. We walked down to the canal, and threw stones in the water. He challenged me to a stone skipping contest and won.

I started falling asleep as we drove back, and woke up to groggily grab my already packed bag and wait in the car for Kosuke’s parents to pack. We all went out for lunch at a Chinese chain restaurant, then dropped Kosuke off. I was now with my Great Aunt and her husband, driving off somewhere in the back of a van. I slept for most of the drive, and started feeling a bit nauseous from the travel, so I slept in the back of the car and listened to the Japanese TV playing in the dash board. When we drove over the Rainbow Bridge, Kosuke’s parents gestured, and I snapped some bad pictures.
I decided to upload the majority of these pictures to Facebook, mostly because I don’t know the names of most of the people I met. But I’ll try to keep narrating here. Next up: my stay in Onjuku.