One Year Ago (1)

Hi future me, it's been a while. I hope all is good on your side right now.

Do you remember what happened around one year ago? To be precise, between 03/07/2018 - 08/07/2018? It's the days spent in that place that you had always wanted to visit.

I've been thinking about the trip, and to be honest, I'm afraid that I might have forgotten bits and pieces of the experience, so before its memories become much further muddled and embellished, I've decided to write down as much as I can remember now.

Touched down at the Narita International Airport around noon. The immigration staff there were professionally cold, something that I find odd and also relieved. It means that they have been doing their job a lot that oftentimes their responses are already hardwired into their behaviours and thoughts. One of them seemed surprised when he saw the name of my country of origin, though. It puzzles me to this day, but it might have something to do with the stereotype the Japanese has attached toward my people, in which they assume everyone from my country is filthy rich (this is incorrect, mind you). After passing though the checkpoints (I remember in particular the one where I had my picture taken and fingerprint scanned), I went through a long hallway that has a very high ceiling and transparent glass walls on the outer side. Summer has just started then in Japan, so the weather was a good one. I can still recall that moment, when I got onto the horizontal escalator that seemed to go on forever, the feeling of the warm foreign sun as its ray touched the bare skin of my arms and the mild hum the machinery underneath my feet gave out as it carried me to my destination.

Reaching the main area, I begun to realize fully that I was in a country that vastly differ from my own. If my country gives out a feeling of relaxation and laid-back easefulness, Japan gives out a feeling of a proper machine where everything has been accounted for and each served a purpose that it can fulfill efficiently. I wanted to change my clothes then, but it seemed that all the changing area closest to me was occupied, so I decided to just bear with my slightly sweat-drenched, two-day worn shirt and jeans. I only hope that I at least didn't emit any kind of embarrassing odour.

There was a train station in the below-ground levels, and that was where I boarded the train to where I would be staying for the duration of the trip. Since Narita is located quite a distance away from Asakusa, the train ride had a duration of around 30 minutes. The view was quite wonderful, however, so it was not as boring as I initially expected. For the first 10 minutes or so, we passed through a rural environment where farms lined up almost constantly one after another, with individual houses squeezed in between or smack-dab in the middle of the field. The train track was elevated to a height where I could see pretty much everything below us. On occasions, when another train passed the one I was on, there was a roar-like sound along with strong vibration that shook any minute drowsiness away from me as the trains slipped past each other with only a small precise gap in between. After the rural area came the suburban ones, where at the beginning there were only individual houses, each with their own charms, and slowly replacing them were the modern-style houses that barely differ from each other. A housing estate, I think they are being called. Past that, we entered a small town where I could recognise department stores from the way advertisements were plastered onto their walls and billboards. The train, ever so punctual, stopped at every station along the way.Once, I got onto the wrong stop due to being confused, and ended up asking for directions from one of the station staffs in crisp blue uniforms, ivory-white gloves and shiny jet-black shoes, and he kindly advised me on which trains I should change to and which stops I should disembark on. Oddly at that station, I saw a wall that very much resembled the one from a place I usually frequent to back at my hometown, and staring at it made me reminisced a little, and frankly speaking it was quite a dissonance of norm as there I was at a foreign country and I had something of a deja-vu of some sorts.

Finally getting off at the final stop, the one thing I immediately feel was the cool air, courtesy of a great number of air-conditioning units installed on the ceiling above us, and as it was summer at that time, I greatly appreciate it. Dragging along my luggage, in which one of the bags had a faulty wheels which resulted in it moving awkwardly, I went around the immediate area around the train station. It was clear that each buildings there were built in accordance to a block system where the roads cleanly divide each area into squares and rectangles where the buildings are built on.  A stark difference from back home. There were some rickshaws with the drivers, dressed in an almost skimpy tight white shirt and super-short, blue low-waist trunks that showed their powerful-looking calf muscles, waiting for any potential customers. While waiting for further directions after asking some policemen,  I saw a middle-aged woman pushing a large stroller, in which her three dogs comfortably sat in, looking excited as how dogs ought to be.

The next hour went to dragging the luggage around while occasionally looking at the hand-drawn map provided by the policemen, navigating through the the city under the merciless summer heat. After arrived at the hotel where I would be staying, I learned that check-in time was designated to 2:30 PM, and at that time it was barely past 1:00 PM. Slightly annoyed and uncomfortable in my now totally-drenched-in-sweat shirt, I had no choice but to keep wandering around to kill some time, as the lobby area of the hotel was too small to loiter around. I was grateful for the fact that there was a Starbucks a few blocks away, which meant I could cool down there. After receiving an exceedingly cold cappucino, I made my way to the second floor of the store and took a seat that faced the windows to enjoy my drink while observing the outside. I must've spent around 45 minutes there, as I remember that my body started to get stiff sitting down in the same position right before deciding to go and wander around some more.

I bought a bottle of cold drink and some packaged rice balls from a convenient store nearby and made my way to Asakusa Temple, where I sat down under one of the large tree and ate lunch. One thing I remember was a couple of father and son, where the son carried something in a white Styrofoam container, and accidentally dropped it down due to a sudden strong gust, and that was when I found out that inside the container were some ready-made okonomiyaki, now wasted on the ground. The father seemingly nagged at the son while they cleaned up, then he lightened up and gave the son a playful smack on his back.

Around 2:30 PM, I finally managed to get into my room, where I almost immediately took a cold shower. After that, I took a nap until around 6:00 PM, when I awoke feeling hungry. I went to a ramen shop that I passed by on the way to the hotel from the train station. It turned out that I had to place my order from a vending machine that dispenses tickets according to which buttons, each representing a specific dish with pictures printed on it, I pressed. I ordered a Shio Ramen, and some Tori-karaage along with soda to wash them down.

After that, i went to the train station and bought tickets to go to Akihabara to look for a power adapter for my laptop. There was a huge department store there that I was told to look around in, named Yodobashi. Sure enough, I found the adapter in the second floor, but only after asking for assistance from one of the staffs. He expressed some confusion, as the verb for 'laptop' there was 'Pascom', short for personal computer and spelled in katakana. Despite that, I managed to get one for a price of 3,000 yen.

I headed back to the hotel around 9:00 PM, and was mesmerized on how the city looked different from how it was under the sun. The buildings, decked in their own fluorescent lights, fought for prominence in the eyes of passersby, each buildings seemingly trying to fight another for attention. I bought some light snacks at one of the convenience store close to the Starbucks from earlier before calling it a day.

So that's it, future me. Do you ever head back to Japan? I find that their clockwork-like environment quite comforting, as it really contrasts the one we have back home. As some people say, you need to experience something else to feel refreshed on another that you have been doing repeatedly.