It is 8:44 PM in Tokyo, Japan and I’m at one of my usual bars (The Hub Ikebukuro West Exit Park). It is 4:44 AM for my body which still thinks it is in San Francisco. However, I am excited to be back not only in Japan but also in this particular bar. This is the place I even filmed part of my class project back in 2003. I come back here just about every time I’m in Japan but sadly Google Maps is telling me I last visited 4 years ago. Twenty years, four years, what does it matter, time is a blur.
The flight over was extremely long. I never forgot how far away Japan is but I didn’t remember how long that flight feels. That was also the most expensive flight I’ve ever taken as I played the standby lottery and lost. Being in the travel industry has its benefits and flying free – space available – is one of them. There were plenty of seats just three weeks ago but those evaporated with all the flight cancellations caused by weather. Four days before I panicked with thoughts of going to the airport day after day, waiting for hours on end but never getting on.
So I bought a ticket for $2,200. When I say ticket I am literally referring to one ticket, a one-way, not a round trip. That was also the lowest ticket available as they jumped to $7,000 after that for business class. The good news is that it was for Premium Plus which offered plenty of room, reclined a lot, had a leg and foot rest as well as plenty of amenities. It was the most comfortable flight I’d taken since flying business class on a work trip.
Arriving in Japan for the first time in three years it took half a minute to get my bearings. I usually like to fly into Haneda but that wasn’t an option due to sellout with only First Class available. Narita it was, and I was slightly confused by the Skyliner train (the name I remembered) and the Keisei. The Skyliner requires a special pass whereas I could have used my Suica on the Keisei (I think). Before I knew it I was at the Skyliner desk asking to use Suica and they told me a special ticket was necessary. Being impatient to get to Tokyo and not wanting to waste time I bought the ticket.
Flying along the rails and seeing the large bamboo trees made me think of riding it back in 2003 and wondering where the hell the last 20 years have gone. On that ride I had a clunky laptop with an air-card which meant I could use a very, very, slow internet, on a train, in Jaan, going around 150 miles per hour. I thought I was James Bond! The future was wide open and very exciting.
Well, just after I wrote the paragraph above I saw my colleague was going to arrive at the hotel in nine minutes. NINE MINUTES! He is not a punctual person but I think I may have made him feel a little guilty as I hadn’t slept at all and I would have to wait for him a long time. But instead of arriving at 11 PM as I had factored in, he was arriving at 9:30. I had just started drinking another beer and had to chug because he knows nothing of Japan. Furthermore, he was going from a touristy hotel where most speak English and there are plenty of foreigners to a straight salaryman capsule hotel. No foreigners, no English. So I drank that beer quickly and made my way back to the hotel.
Digressing back to my arrival I made my way to my hotel and the first thing I did was take an ‘ofuro.’ The English word for ‘ofuro’ is bathing. For me in this hotel it means sitting down to shower/wash on a plastic stool, getting into the communal bath which is extremely hot, taking a cold plunge, spending about five minute in the sauna, then back to cold plunge. I repeat those last two steps a number of times and always feel reinvigorated.
I then went to Ikebukuro station to get my colleague a Pasmo Passport. Pasmo and Suica are metro cards and I learned that they’ve created the “passport” for tourists. This was something I really wanted to do so he didn’t have to buy an individual ticket each time and he could keep the card as a souvenir. I also needed to find the JR Rail office and found a large office in the middle of the station. The line was about an hour long so I left and went to Mejiro.
Mejiro is where I lived while studying at Waseda. Every time I come to Tokyo I enjoy walking down the main street and reminiscing. Much has changed but many things also remain the same. I’m still sad that one of my favorite bars “East-Bourne” has been entirely knocked down and replaced. It was a dimly lit bar with plenty of wood and leather which gave it an air of refinement. The bar tenders wore those sophisticated barman uniforms and would pure each beer so meticulously. I loved that place so much I wrote a tribute to it in 2019 which is below.
Many memories have faded and more foreigners have appeared. I walk to my apartment, cross the street and walk back. Heading back to the station I stopped at my all time favorite restaurant CocoIchibanya which serves Japanese style curry. This chain opened up when I was an English teacher in 2002 and all of us gaijin agreed it was “masterful” as one Irishman put it.
I then walked to the tracks and decided I should just walk to Ikebukuro which was only 15 minutes on foot. There is a restaurant along the way called Mac’s Carrot which used to feature live music and was a place we would go when in the mood for Italian. That’s one great thing about Tokyo is there are hidden gems all over the place, be it along train tracks in-between stations, a small little nook 15 floors up, or even a seemingly run down shack nestled between apartment buildings in some inconspicuous neighborhood.
I went into Ikebukuro station back to the same office I had been before and the line was now only 30 minutes. I waited only to find out I was in the wrong office! The place which served my needs – to exchange a rail pass – was on the edge of the station and only during a short window of 10 – 5.
So, being slightly disappointed I went to The Hub Ikebukuro which also has wonderful memories. It was in this bar that I had filmed part of our final Japanese class project back in 2003. In that scene there are ten of my old acquaintances, my girlfriend (now wife) old buddies and so on stuck in time. We were all young, full of life and excitement for the future. Now, some marriages are broken, kids are all over the place and many have had ups and downs. The scene depicts a moment in time twenty years ago forever preserved in a computer file. I’m sure almost everyone except me has forgotten about it and I only remember thanks to the video. Time passes too quickly and I’m reminded to appreciate every day as it will soon be nothing more than a memory.
It was at The Hub I began this post. It is now Wednesday and now I’m behind a day in capturing these experiences as a new day of adventures is beginning. My friend Peter is also on a flight and arriving at 1:55 PM. I hope he and my colleagues get along otherwise the next two days might be long ones.
