I’m at Narita airport and just sat down at a quiet bar as I’ve got two hours before my flight. Narita seemed dead until a few seconds ago when an older Chinese gentleman started yelling something then a whole school of young Chinese students came in and sat down in this bar. Needless to say it is no longer quiet at all.
I was lucky to get this ticket as I had planned to fly standby on the way home. Unfortunately so did everyone else. The flights I wanted to take were all oversold and had up to a 40 person standby list. I had actually gotten on the train to the airport when I used my phone to double check Zipair flights. I saw one ticket out of Narita for $1,000 and grabbed it immediately. All the other airlines were just about sold out unless you wanted to pay upwards of $3,000.
As I finished that last paragraph the 30 or so Chinese students suddenly departed. I’m assuming the guides realized ordering food for that many people isn’t really possible in such a quiet/small bar.
Another reason I’m so very glad I have a confirmed seat is it is quite a pain to go all the way to the airport only to wait around and most likely not get on a flight, especially to Narita which is in the middle of nowhere. It took me two and a half hours to get here from my in-laws which is a substantial amount of time.
Oh no, the Chinese students are piling in again. There goes the peace and quiet.
Back to trying standby, another reason it is tough is you have to go through immigration when leaving Japan so my temporary visa is cancelled. If I didn’t get on the flight I’d have to go back through immigration with staff to perhaps get my visa un-cancelled or a new one. Trying standby out of Haneda would be much less worse than Narita as again it is in the middle of nowhere. Tokyo is like a home to me whereas the countryside of Chiba is not.
Coming to the airport was a sad experience for a few reasons. The most immediate is that my vacation is over. I hadn’t been to Japan for three years because of COVID and it was wonderful to be back. Another reason is I hate leaving my kids and realize I’m getting farther and farther away from my family. The final reason is it is a bit sad to realize I’m now 46 and used to live here over twenty years ago. I’ve had many return trips since then and so much has changed. My father-in-law has passed away, my mother-in-law is much older and a few friends/acquaintances I used to know don’t respond to my group messages. Time passes too quickly.
As I mentioned in my previous post we visited many different places that I’m too lazy to list here so I’ll just mention my favorite. I went to a zazen meditation service at the local temple near my in-laws. At my father-in-laws “soshiki” (like a funeral but in the Buddhist religion) I spoke with the head monk as my relatives said I had a lot of questions. In their tradition you have lunch (with beer) right with the body and after a few I was in the mood to ask questions and let him know I practiced zazen by myself in the USA. He told me they do zazen every Sunday at 7:00 AM and I should come. Zazen is seated mediation where the focus is to empty the mind completely and think of absolutely nothing. The Japanese character is (無) and perhaps a better way to think of it is “nothingness.” Well, after a three year Covid hiatus I finally got to fulfill my promise that I’d come!
It was a wonderful experience and is exactly what I was expecting. Just like Catholicism in the states attendance at the temple is sparse. There were only eight other attendees, mostly older men. In a country where everyone is Buddhist you’d think there would be more attendees but it isn’t so. They were curious as to why I was there and we had some nice, pre-zazen conversation. There was some ceremony but the actual zazen was only twenty minutes followed by a very slow walk to waken the legs followed by another twenty minute session. I haven’t practiced my mediation for over three years and found that I was only able to achieve “無” for about two minutes in the combined 40 minute session. Too many thoughts came and went through my mind, especially regarding Minecraft.
“Minecraft” you say?
Yes, Minecraft. I’ve kept my own install on my server for the past four years and a few days ago my son couldn’t connect. So I thought it was probably due to the usual manual updates I need to do but I made a few mistakes as the entire operating system and Docker – now Synology Container Manager had updated. I pressed a wrong button deleting the container. I had backups of the files but not the container and I wasn’t astute enough to know exactly how it runs, if there are hidden folders, or where save data is located. What I thought would work kept rendering a brand new world – our four years of building/creating a world was gone! Well, after much stress I finally figured it out this morning and we got our world back.
Anyway, back to missing Japan. It is especially tough to leave this time since I haven’t been here in so long. However, I’ve had my fill. I visited my favorite bars, stayed in my favorite capsule hotel that has a sauna, communal bath ‘sento,’ and is cheap! I had all my favorite drinks, food and we traveled all over. Soon I’ll be home to an empty house quite sad that I won’t be in Japan again for another year. Another year where things will change and the things I used to know become only a faded memory. I find myself looking at my Google Photos for the past 15 years of Japan trips. My boys are growing up, my friends have gray hair, time changes everything. I pass by the Japanese graves on the train and at 46 realize I’m over halfway there. The people resting there had families, experiences, lives and now they are gone and their experiences as well as themselves my be completely forgotten. It is sobering to realize I’m halfway there where most of my experiences now rest in the past as well, kept alive only by my posts in this very blog. I wouldn’t even remember many of those experiences myself if it weren’t for pictures and blog posts.
It just occurred to me I can combine the above thought with my zazen experience. One aspect of the service was that we actually chant along with the monks. If you have never heard monks chant they hit each syllable hard and I learned that the words they use are ones the normal populace can’t understand. In fact they aren’t even in the dictionary! I was given the prayer book we used as a momento and inspecting it chose one word, “皆空.” This isn’t a word Japanese people use but I could understand the kanji. It is “Everyone and Emptiness.” To understand what we chanted I’m going to have to find a special Buddhist, Japanese – English dictionary which I’m not sure even exists.
In any case, all of my experiences here, all of the past is empty. It resides in nothing more than my mind and only for a very small amount of time. Yes, our experiences make us who we are but in the end time marches on and it is all forgotten. All of humanity will eventually die out and be forgotten in this vast universe let alone our individual experiences.
Deep thoughts indeed for an airport bar. I’ll be back in my house in 12 hours and back to the normal routine. Let’s end with a haiku.
Time is an illusion
Yet I continue to age
I need a haircut.
