Saturday, December 19, 2015
Back to Montreal hr558
A trip to California I took in May changed my mindset. When I found
bargain fares online, I quickly decided to go to Montreal for the first
time in seven years by using my emergency savings. I felt it was
ridiculous to keep money in a bank although we are mortal and we don’t
know when our time is up. I once lived in Montreal for about a year in
total. I wanted to stay there, but I had to leave and come back to Japan
as my money ran out. Since then, I have always hoped to live there
again or at least to visit there as a tourist. What I like about
Montreal are its beauty, a relaxing atmosphere and people there who seem
to live to enjoy life rather than achieve success. I’m not sure if it’s
because of their ways of life or the French-spoken region of Canada,
but they are fashionable with excellent taste. For that combination of
the city and the people, just walking down the street is fascinating
enough. I took on a 12-hour flight to Toronto during which I happened to
find ‘Tomorrowland’ among the in-flight movies, saw it twice and cried
yet again. I went through immigration where an immigration officer gave
me lengthy, irrelevant, even harassing questions including about my pin I
was wearing on my jacket. It was a pin from ‘Tomorrowland’ and she
almost made me begin to explain the whole movie story. The airport
system in Toronto was somewhat odd. I was just in transit en route to
Montreal, but I needed to pick up my luggage, carry to the distant
counter and check it in all over again. Although I had already been
through the security checkpoint before I got on board in Japan and had
never left the airport, I had to do it again. I ended up gobbling a
whole bottle of water in front of the security gate, which was exactly
what I did on the last trip to California. After the security
checkpoint, I saw an information screen for departure to make sure the
gate number for my flight to Montreal. The flight was missing. There was
no information about my flight, no cancelled, no delayed, no nothing.
Among the long list of departing flights, my flight itself didn’t exist.
I was close to panic. And I realized we don’t have anybody around for
something like this nowadays. There is no information counter, airport
workers don’t know about flights, and airline personnel at the gates
don’t know other flights’ status. I had no one to ask. The only place I
came up with as where the airline personnel with flight information were
working was an executive lounge. I went up there and asked about my
flight. She glanced at her computer display and said, ‘It’s on time.’ My
flight did exist, but for some weird reason, the airport screen showed
information only for selected flights. I had scurried around the
terminal for this absurd system. I finally arrived at Montreal after a
one-and-a-half-hour flight. A cab ran on the freeway at 75 miles per
hour through the night and downtown Montreal appeared in 20 minutes. It
was the same freeway on which a cab carried me in the dark before dawn
seven years ago when I was leaving for Japan. I remember I wished upon
the moon that I could return here someday, as I had no way to find the
money to come back. The moon satisfied my wish, I supposed. I checked in
a hotel and looked out of the window. Beneath the window was Sherbrooke
Street where many people were still passing by. Above the town lights
of the city, I saw the cross on the Mont-Royal that was lighted up and
floated in the dark sky. It was a view that I felt like I was strayed
into a dreamland. I thought my bold decision to spend money for this
trip was right. It would be a big loss not to come to such a beautiful
place like this when it exists. I literally fell down to bed to sleep
since I was completely exhausted from the 24-hour trip from home to here
and the turmoil at Toronto Airport. Next morning, I woke up early
because of jet lag. The first thing I decided to do in Montreal wasn’t
to get a rest in the hotel room or to take a walk in the city. It was
going to casino to win back all the money I had spent there in the past…
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Saturday, December 5, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.557
At the end of my last homecoming day, I got into the cab heading for the
train station, saying goodbye to my mother who was merrily talking
about which condominium she would move in, to my father who was weirdly
cheery, and to the house and its land one last time. When I dropped out
college and left home for Tokyo to be a musician a long time ago, I
thought I would never come back to this house again. I have made
unplanned visits since then, but I assumed it would be the last visit
each time. I was accustomed to a farewell feeling toward the house in a
way and I departed with no particular emotions this time either. The cab
was running through my familiar neighborhood where I spent my entire
childhood. It was still shabby as it used to be. The cab drove through
old houses of my childhood friends where I used to play with them, and
under the overhead train bridge where I ran into perverts so many times.
From the window, I saw the elementary school I went to, and the
sidewalk my first song came to me while I was walking on. The bookstore
where my father bought me my first English dictionary and also where he
spotted his missing cousin. A place where a milk factory used to be that
I waved to its plastic cows beside the gate every time I passed by in
my father’s car. The old temple where my late grandparents used to take
me and let me feed doves. Then something struck me and I suddenly
realized. It wasn’t just the house I was losing. I was losing my
hometown and departing from my childhood. I would never be in this
neighborhood again because it was going to be an unrelated, foreign
place from now on. Although I had always hated my neighborhood, that
thought brought a lump to my throat and soon I found myself crying. I
was stunned at this unexpected feeling. If I hadn’t been inside a cab, I
would have wailed. The cab came near Kyoto Station that was my
destination. My late grandfather often took me to this area around the
station that used to be undeveloped, decayed and in the miserable
condition. But now, after years of intense redevelopment, it has become
an urban area with numerous modern buildings of hotels, fashionable
shops and huge shopping malls. It was a completely new different place
and I found no trace of what I was familiar with the area. The cab
stopped at the signal close to the station and there stood a new movie
complex by the street. I casually wondered if it showed ‘Tomorrowland’.
Then I felt I was actually stepping into it. Things and places I had
been with were all disappearing and a place I had never seen before
appeared in front of me. I saw a change more clearly than ever. I was
leaving everything old behind and going into a new world. The world I’m
walking in is unknown, but therefore there are full of possibilities…
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Saturday, November 21, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.556
As the house where I grew up was being sold, I came home in Kyoto for
the last time fearfully. My parents had been constantly sullen from
anxiety about money and their future since I left home. Now that they
gave up their house and our ancestor’s last land, I had wondered how
gloomy they were. On the contrary, I was surprised that they were
utterly in a good mood. They seemed at ease as if a great weight had
been lifted from their shoulders. I hadn’t seen them like this for a
long time. The main purpose of my visit was sorting out my stuff. To get
some keepsakes and mementos of my childhood, I entered my room for the
first time in decades. It had become my younger sister’s room, who now
lived abroad. Some of my old stuff was kept in the mud-walled warehouse
that had stood next to the house for several hundred years. This ancient
two-story warehouse that my ancestors used generation after generation
is also going to be torn down along with the house. The last time I got
in there was probably with my late grandfather when I was a child. So
this was the first time I got in as a grown-up, and also the last. I
found my first stuffed animal downstairs there and was about to get out
with it when my father told me to go upstairs with him. I climbed the
steep wooden ladder to the second floor that was more like an attic. It
had a small skylight on the plaster wall and tons of dust all around. On
the wooden shelves along the wall were an antique balance and bronze
weights that used to belong exclusively to a landowner during the
Japanese feudal times. There were also numerous coated plates, bowls and
trays with legs that my ancestors used for banquets. On the entire
floor were Japanese traditional huge oblong treasure chests called
‘Nagamochi’ that size was about two coffins. They had sit there keeping
my ancestors’ valuables all through the times of wars and my family’s
decline. My father once saw many swords inside one of them and wanted to
show them to me. I was keyed up about unveiling what my ancestors had
inherited for so many generations. We opened dust-covered chests one by
one, but every chest contained the same thing – futon. So many old musty
futons appeared from chest after chest. They must have been expensive
in the old days and my ancestors stored them for the house guests.
Everything in the warehouse told how prosperous our family used to be
and how low we have gotten now. It was funny though, that what our
family had inherited and preserved to pass on to the next generation for
years were mostly futons. I had quarreled with my parents over
succeeding the family all these years and had been on bad terms with
them for that because I had refused. Many ancestors of mine gave in to
unwanted marriages or sacrificed their lives to succeed the family. We
all suffered from the family succession and everything was for futon! I
wanted to tell my ancestors that futons of good quality were widely
available at incredibly low prices in the discount stores nowadays.
Succeeding the family turned out to be preserving what became worthless
today. That was ridiculous enough for me to make my anger pass into
laughter. At the very back of the warehouse was one chest that hasn’t
been opened for who knows how many years. It was practically impossible
to open it as other big chests were stacked up over it. Nobody had an
idea what was inside. I strongly hoped that wasn’t futon although it was
quite likely…
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Friday, November 6, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.555
On the answering machine, there was a message from my father that said
he needed to be called back immediately. I was chilled to the bone. I
have never received a single phone call from him that’s not disturbing.
When he calls me, he does it to vent his spleen about his daily life and
about my career as a musician. What comes out from the receiver is his
lengthy verbal abuse. Nevertheless, I mostly return his call because
things get worse if I don’t. This time was no exception and I called him
back fearfully with trembling hands. Instead of a spurt of anger, he
told me to come home as soon as possible and stay for a few days. I
asked him what happened and he didn’t answer that. As his request
sounded urgent, I repeatedly asked for the reason. He just dodged and
kept saying that he wanted me to come home right away. I hung up and
felt alarmed. Something must have happened. Since he had never given me
good news, that something was most certainly a bad thing. My parents’
home is located in Kyoto that is 500 miles away from where I live. It
takes me over five hours to get there by bullet train. I don’t have so
much free time to take that long trip without the reason. Besides, such
an unusual request requires extra caution. I called my mother’s cell
phone and asked her what was all about. She told me that they had
decided to sell their house and move out. They were looking for a
condominium to buy and moving in as soon as the house was sold. The
house could be sold next month at the fastest, and they wanted me to
sort out my stuff and spend time together under this house’s roof for
the last time. The house was built when I was nine years old at the
place where our old house was torn down because it was too old to live
in. That old house was built about 100 years ago. My ancestors lived at
exactly the same spot generation after generation for over 1000 years
since my family used to be a landlord of the area. We are here for
around 65 generations. My father succeeded the family from my
grandfather, and I would have been the next successor if I hadn’t left
home to be a musician. Because my father failed the family business and
didn’t have the next successor for help, he had sold pieces of our
ancestor’s land one by one. Now his money has finally dried up and he
can’t afford to keep the last land where the house stands. When my
grandfather passed away nine years ago, he complained to me again about
financial help I wouldn’t lend. I promptly suggested he should sell the
house and its land. He got furious at my suggestion. He shouted, “How
could you say something like that? Do you really think it’s possible?
All ancestors of ours lived here! I live to continue our lineage right
here for my entire life! Selling the house means ending our family
lineage! It’s impossible!!” He bawled me out like a crazy man while
banging the floor repeatedly with a DVD that I had brought for him as a
Father’s Day gift. But nine years later, the time inevitably came.
Considering his mad fury about selling the house back then, it was easy
for me to imagine that he planned to set fire on the house during the
night I would stay and kill my mother and me along with himself. That
seemed the true reason why he wanted me to come back. Those
murder-suicide cases sometimes happen in Japan, especially among
families with long history. But the first thing that I felt at the news
was not fear but relief. As I had known my father wouldn’t sell the
house, I had thought that I would end up reaping the harvest of his
mistakes as his daughter even though I didn’t succeed the family. I
would have to liquidate everything in the house to pay his debts and
sell the house and the land by myself after I would argue with all my
relatives in the family’s branches who would most certainly oppose
strongly. That picture of my dismal future had been long hanging low in
my mind. But now, completely out of the blue, my father was taking up
everything and I was discharged! I took an enormous load off but didn’t
forget to be cautious. As there was still a possibility to be killed by
my father, I decided to make my last homecoming a day trip in order to
avoid spending the night there…
Friday, October 23, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.554
I hadn’t been to a movie theater for fifteen years. The film I saw at
the theater fifteen years ago was Brad Pitt’s ‘Meet Joe Black’. It was
surely a disappointing film but that wasn’t a reason why I stopped going
to a theater. Back then, I lived in the States and movie theaters there
were clean, modern and comfortable. They had also a reasonable matinee
price. And I moved back to Japan where the movies from the States became
the foreign ones. Movie theaters in Japan hadn’t been modernized yet
with cramped stiff seats, and didn’t have a reduced price like a
matinee. A ticket cost about $17 that was too expensive for me. On top
of that, every foreign film had Japanese captions at the bottom of the
screen, which obstructed each scene. Those theater circumstances in
Japan were the reasons why I stopped going. But I like movies and had
regularly watched them exclusively on the TV screen in my living room.
My partner loves movies much more than I do. When I asked him what he
wanted for his birthday this year, his answer was a movie ‘Birdman’ at
the theater. And for the first time in fifteen years, I got in the movie
theater. While I was away from them, Japanese theaters had been
transformed dramatically into modern, clean, gorgeous ones. The seats
were large with padded backs and arms. The rows were placed so steeply
that I no longer have trouble with someone’s head in front of me. They
were just like US theaters and I loved them instantly. They also had a
variety of tickets of a reduced price. Japanese captions were still
there, but I managed to ignore them. ‘Birdman’ was such a good film by
which I was moved so much, and I was completely awake to the charm of a
movie theater. When I was leaving, I found a piece of information that
said an advance ticket for a coming movie ‘Tomorrowland’ came with a
pin. The film was what I had been interested in and I’m a pin collector.
Since the advance ticket had a reduced price already, getting a pin
with it would make the price for the film even lower. I purchased the
ticket, got the pin, and set out for a trip to U.S. wearing the pin
before I saw the movie. In Disney Resort, quite a few people approached
me to talk about the pin. Most of them asked where I had gotten it. A
cast member told me that the park had carried those and they had been
sold out within a week. Those experiences made my expectations for the
film higher. I saw it at the theater after I came back to Japan. I was
deeply moved to tears that didn’t stop falling. It was so hard for me to
mute my sobbing. The last time I cried this hard on the film was when I
saw ‘Field of Dreams’. I remember that I wrung my T-shirt at the
bathroom that was soaking wet with my tears. Only a couple of weeks
after I saw ‘Tomorrowland’, I had an urge to see it again. As the
nearest theater from my home had already ended showing it, I went to a
distant theater. I was moved even more than the first time. I returned
to that theater a few days later to see it for the third time. Then, as
no theater around my home showed it any more, I took a trip to a theater
in Tokyo by bullet train to see it for the fourth time. Considering the
amount of money I had spent for ‘Tomorrowland’, I looked stupid myself.
Still, I couldn’t stifle my urge and saw it for the fifth time at the
same theater in Tokyo a few weeks later. A few more weeks later, I
happened to know that the theater in Tokyo was the only one in Japan
that still showed it, and would end that soon. If I missed this
opportunity, I would never able to see it at the theater ever again. I
felt I would be a fool if I didn’t see it one last time. I hopped on the
bullet train yet again. The last week’s schedule for ‘Tomorrowland’ was
moved to a late show slot, which meant a day trip was impossible for me
because I couldn’t catch the last bullet train home. I stayed at a
cheap hotel for the night to see it for the sixth time. My adventurous
summer of ‘Tomorrowland’ had thus ended. It reminded me of my teenage
time when I was hooked on going to concerts of my favorite band. I’ve
made an advance purchase of a ‘Tomorrowland’ Blue-ray and DVD set at
Amazon and now can’t wait for the release. One thing I don’t understand
is that it wasn’t a mega hit…
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Saturday, October 3, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.553
The frightening experience that I almost lost my precious wristwatch at
LAX exhausted me but I had to wait for five hours for my flight because
of the cancellations. I was allowed to use the executive lounge for the
compensation and stepped in there for the first time. It was located on
the second floor of the terminal and a totally different world. It was a
quiet, spacious place with large sofas and sparse people who all looked
rich. I was afraid that a person like me might be kicked out. There was
a buffet that laid out a wide variety of expensive hams and cheese that
I wouldn’t reach to get in my daily life. Since they were free here, I
mounted them high on my plate and repeated it as much as I could.
High-end gourmet coffees and teas were also free. It wasn’t the time for
me to care about embarrassment of my devouring. Out of the huge window
of the lounge, I enjoyed the view of planes taking off and landing. Out
of the opposite side of the window, I saw the downstairs of the
terminal. It was under construction and the walls were temporarily
boards of wood. The passengers were waiting in the crammed gate area and
some were sitting on the floor. Usually, that was me. Now I was looking
down from above. I felt sorry and guilty. But at the same time, I found
myself gloating. Five hours flashed by and I went down to the gate for
boarding. Although the gate was packed with passengers, I got on the
plane without waiting in line because I had gotten a free upgrade to the
business class as the compensation of the flight cancellation. I was
thrilled to sit in a full-flat seat for the first time in my life.
Numerous buttons were all around the seat and it looked more like a
console rather than a seat. As soon as the plane took off and the seat
belt sign was turned off, I eagerly pushed the button for a flat
position. With a subtle machinery noise, the back of the seat lowered
and my feet were drawn beneath the table of the seat before mine. It
slowly became completely flat. Because I’m short, there was still
surplus space and I lay down without touching anywhere. It was felt like
flying in a coffin, but for a person like me who had flown only in a
tiny little seat, it was unbelievably comfortable. Probably because the
flight time was less than three hours, nobody else made the seat flat. I
was the only passenger in the business class who was rolling over and
chuckling in the coffin. After I spent a night in Vancouver, I took an
international flight to Japan the next day. This one was a long-haul
flight of eleven hours. Quite a few Japanese families are usually on
board on the flight to Japan, and they are almost always in a bad mood
somewhat. The atmosphere on the plane is accordingly not nice. As I had
feared, there was a Japanese family with ill-mannered children this
time. The kids were noisy and disorderly, romping all the way. The
flight attendants often came to stop their dangerous behaviors, but the
parents ignored as if they were strangers, which is too much common in
Japan. I remembered how things were going in Japan and started having a
feeling of gloom. When the plane landed in Japan and I stepped out of
the plane, the first thing that crossed my mind was a strong desire that
I had been dreaming the whole thing and the trip hadn’t started yet. I
wished I got back on the plane and set off a trip all over again right
here, right now. The noisy family was walking ahead and the mother said
loudly, “Finally, it’s over! I’m so happy to be back in Japan!” I
wondered why they should have spent a lot of money and disturbed others
by taking an overseas travel in the first place if they liked to be in
Japan so much. Worn-out as I was, I already wanted to find the money to
go to North America soon again. I meant, I was supposed to go there…
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Saturday, September 19, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.552
After I got my boarding ticket at the check-in counter in LAX, I was
headed for the security gate. As a typical, old-fashioned Japanese, I
strictly separate the floor on which I step with my shoes off from the
one with my shoes on. Without my shoes, I wouldn’t let my feet touch the
outside or public floor where people walk with their shoes on. The
security gate where I need to take off my shoes on the dirty public
floor is a torture for me. My custom there is putting additional socks
as covers over the ones I’m wearing, and take them off when my feet
return into my shoes. By that way, my socks stay clean without touching
the dirty surface directly, which means my home floor also stays clean
when I come home and take off my shoes at the entrance. Because of my
peculiar custom, my preparation in the line for the security check is
quite hectic. I’m pulling a new pair of socks out of my bag, taking off
my shoes and my jacket, putting on the socks over my socks, taking off a
pin and a wristwatch, putting them in the basket along with a
smartphone. The security machine at LAX was state-of-the-art that I had
never been through before and had seen only in a news show on TV. When I
go through the usual security gate, a beep often goes off for some
reason. I wondered how many beeps would go off when I was completely
scanned with this high-tech machine. I went in the machine with spread
arms and legs tensely. Except that a security worker told me to turn my
pendants around to my back, I got through without beeping. I was
relieved and taking my stuff from the basket when I noticed my partner
had forgotten his pen and his money clip in the basket next to mine. I
scrambled his stuff and put back on my jacket and shoes at the bench.
Then, the scare hit me. My wristwatch was gone! My favorite, dear watch
that I had put onto my jacket was missing. I remembered a man was
looking around restlessly beside the pick-up lane. Did he take it? I
also remembered a young woman was looking into several baskets behind
me. Was it her? Or, one of the workers who scanned the belongings took
it while scanning? All at once, everyone around me looked like a thief
and I was surrounded by evil people. I had forgotten that this was Los
Angeles. Someone must have stolen it. The watch was not expensive, but
it was a rare Mickey Mouse one I found at an online auction site and I
was attached to it. This trip had been going so well without mishap, and
it was so close to be ended successfully. I was almost there. I was
shocked that something bad happened in the end and ruined the whole
trip. To me, what was gone was not just my watch but my good impression
for people here and this trip altogether. I was utterly disappointed at
this sad ending for the trip. I told my partner that the inevitable
finally happened and my watch was stolen. He suggested I should report
it somewhere. I had already given up but went back to the gate
reluctantly to make a useless attempt. In a jam of people around the
gate, I managed to talk to a security worker. Although I had expected an
indifferent response, he listened to me intently and showed sympathy
for me. He kindly figured out what to do and told me to go to the nearby
counter. A person at the counter showed me the lost-and-found items.
There was even a bunch of keys among them, but not my watch. She went
away to the distant shelves while I was standing dazed and faint with a
shock and despair. A different worker walked past beside me carrying a
basket. I casually glanced at it and couldn’t believe my own eyes.
Sitting on the bottom of the basket was none other than my watch! I
shouted, “That’s mine! That’s mine!” I was jumping, with my arms waving
high above me like a banzai-style. The workers gave a wry smile and
brought the basket to me. I uttered thank-you for a million times. It
wasn’t stolen but merely my fault. It turned out that I had paid
attention to my partner’s left stuff too much to double-check mine. The
watch had slipped from onto my jacket to the corner of the basket and
been left there. The basket then quickly had been returned to the
entrance of the gate with my watch in it, but no one took it. I was
ashamed of myself. I regarded everybody as a thief, even the security
workers who were very compassionate. I was surrounded by good people and
the most evil person at the security gate was me at that time…
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Friday, September 4, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.551
When I left Anaheim on my latest trip, I got up 6 a.m., took ‘Uber’
again and then caught a bus to LAX. I know so well that the bus to the
airport seldom comes on schedule here, which made me too nervous to have
room in my mind that should feel sad to leave California. I took the
bus because I had purchased the ticket by a round-trip discount, but I
thought I would most likely use ‘Uber’ for my next trip. That thought
told me I was determined to come back here. Actually, I was searching
for a way to move in and live here somehow throughout the whole bus
ride. After I arrived at the airport, I joined a long line for check-in.
I heard a conversation between a customer in line and an airline
employee. “Excuse me, I need to show this passport of mine for the
flight, right?” “Let me see, well, no, yours has expired.” “Whaaaat?” I
was envious of those easygoing people who hadn’t cared to see an
expiration date on their passport up until they got to the check-in
counter for an overseas travel. I started to prepare for this trip well
over eight months ago. A couple with a baby was checking in before me.
The counter person said to a woman, “You can’t check in as your name on
the reservation is different from the one on your passport.” She
replied, “That’s OK. I made a reservation by my maiden name, that’s
all.” “That’s not OK, you can’t take the flight.” “Whaaaat?” The couple
and the airline employee began to make numerous phone calls. At one
point, they were required a marriage certificate. At another, the woman
resorted to pity for an exception, saying, “We have a baby.” Every try
didn’t seem to work though. I was envious of those people who casually
made a flight reservation. When I made it online, I checked the spelling
of my own name on the screen at least ten times. As too many careless
passengers occupied the counter, it took so long to have my turn to
check in. I intended to show people how smoothly things could go by
careful preparation I had carried out. Then I was told, “Both your
flight and the next one on the schedule have been cancelled.” “Whaaaat?”
It was a clear fine day without a speck of cloud. I wondered when this
airline’s planes flew if they didn’t in such nice weather like this.
The good thing was, the flight was to Vancouver and I had purposely
moved an international flight to Japan to the next day so that I took it
with any delays since I didn’t trust this airline. Two flights were
cancelled altogether and the next one to Vancouver was five hours later.
The counter person told me that the larger airplane would be used
because of the two cancellations and my seat would be in the business
class. I was also allowed to use the executive lounge. To me, five-hour
waiting would be nothing considering the business class and the lounge. I
was even grateful for the cancellations. I was headed for the security
gate cheerfully with my head full of the coming goodies, and never
prepared for the biggest ordeal of my trip that had awaited me next…
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Saturday, August 22, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.550
I tried some novelty that people call ‘Uber’ for the first time during
my stay in California. I heard Japan also has it in the Tokyo
metropolitan area, but it’s unavailable in the remote mountainous town
where I live. Although I had some trouble signing up and using its app
at first, I was thrilled when I saw a car actually pulled up right in
front of me. I felt as if I was in a future world since I got a ride by
just tapping a smartphone for a couple of times. There’s no need to call
a cab company any more. No need to calculate a tip or pay to a driver
either. The car was clean and the driver was courteous. And the fare for
this safe, worry-free ride was incredibly low! I wondered what kind of
person had devised such a remarkable service like this and admired
Americans afresh. In Japan, there are too many government regulations or
restrictions or vested interests that prevent new ideas and services
from materializing quickly. That makes people in Japan give up easily
and reluctant to try something new. They are resigned to living in
patience. Compared to them, Americans are far more challenge-oriented,
which always impresses me. I have had some unpleasant experiences when I
used a conventional cab, but each ride of Uber was pleasant one during
this trip. I used it for several times and all the drivers happened to
have a positive attitude. One of the drivers immigrated with his family
from Nigeria and now lives in Anaheim. He told me he had thrown away
everything he achieved back in Nigeria for opportunities and
possibilities in U.S. With a twinkle in his eye, he said that people
could do anything here as long as they’ve got money and that he is
working hard for his children’s college tuition. I gradually understood
why I had to travel to U.S. by spending what little money I had and by
getting over numerous troubles. Hope still exists here. When I was born
in an old city Kyoto, hope had long gone. I left home for the Japanese
capital city Tokyo, but it no longer remains there either. But here, I
saw hope that makes people go forward. I got back to my hotel feeling it
was a right decision to take this trip. I watched a twilight view out
of the window. While Japan is densely populated with houses and
condominiums closely line back to back, houses here had enough space
between them and plenty of greenery with broad roads around. I was
imagining how comfortable it would be to live here when a siren of a
police car became louder and stopped right beneath the window. The
police officers began to stretch yellow tape that was familiar in movies
and TV shows. Many more police cars arrived and the road was blocked.
Finally, a SWAT team showed up with a big black van. I turned on TV for a
local evening news show, but it didn’t mention anything about this,
which meant it was too small and usual to be covered. Thinking I might
witness something and be murdered for it, or a ricochet might hit me, I
drew the curtains and pulled away from the window…
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.549
During my latest trip to U.S., I visited Disneyland Resort on Friday of
the Memorial Day weekend. The reason that I chose this date was because
it was the first day of Disneyland’s 60th anniversary celebration event
and the parks opened for 24 hours. It was a special day that new shows
and parades started and we could stay there for the whole 24 hours with a
regular one-day ticket. Considering both two different parks were open
for 24 hours, getting the ticket for hopping between both parks was a
great money-saver rather than the ticket for each park on separate
regularly-operated days. I felt lucky that I could save money by staying
in the parks for 24 hours and got in one of the parks called California
Adventure right after it opened for the day. I was going to get a
commemorative pin and T-shirt that were limited and available
exclusively on that day, but the long line for those items had already
been formed and I gave up. I don’t like thrill rides but I had decided
to try them on this visit because it would be even harder to try when I
got older. Before I was headed for the thrill ride that featured the
film ‘Cars’, I got on an easy tea-cup-style ride for small kids, as
there was no waiting line. Although those who rode it were all small
children and their parents, the ride had speed and wild moves, and was
actually scary. It spun and jolted violently and made me scream while
other kids were having fun. Now I wasn’t sure if I could ride the Cars
attraction that was clearly labeled as a thrill ride. I’m timid but also
cheap. I had to ride the main attraction not to waste money I had paid
for the admission ticket. I mustered up all the courage I had and got on
it. The former half was fun with showing the story of ‘Cars’, but the
latter half was ferocious. The ride plunged into a race, zipping up and
down at breakneck speed. I was scared to the maximum and just kept
screaming with my eyes shut until the end. The photo was taken and
showed at the exit, in which I gaped my mouth to the full on a contorted
face while others were smiling. Needless to say, I didn’t purchase a
copy. My throat ached from too much screaming and trembling didn’t stop.
I learned I wasn’t cut out for a thrill ride after all and retracted my
decision to experience all the thrill rides. After I was impressed by a
superb show of ‘Aladdin’, I moved to Disneyland where I enjoyed seeing
Darth Veider beaten by kids and rode a submarine. As the park was
getting very crowded, I moved back to California Adventure to see a
fountain show that premiered that evening. By then, the park’s
congestion had become terrible. There were no empty benches and every
shop and vendor cart had an extremely long line, not to mention
hours-long lines for the attractions. I couldn’t get even a cup of
coffee or popcorn unless I joined those eternal lines. I tried to get
back to Disneyland after the fireworks display to avoid excessive
congestion. At the exit, they told us that Disneyland had stopped
admittance due to dangerous congestion inside. Also, once we got out of
California Adventure, we couldn’t get back in unless we waited in a line
at the entrance for at least two hours. I was stuck in the extremely
crowded park that more people still continued to flood in. I couldn’t
eat, drink, or even sit down. The only option was standing and waiting. I
gave up staying for 24 hours and decided to go out. Instead of 24-hours
fun, I exited the park earlier than its normal closing time. I didn’t
get to see the new nighttime parade in Disneyland and hop between the
parks as I had planned. I surely enjoyed seeing people having fun in the
special festive atmosphere. But it didn’t go according to my plan that I
would save money by getting in the both parks as much as I wanted. I
still grumble about it now back in Japan, thinking that I should have
been there on a normal day…
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Sunday, July 26, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.548
After I landed on Los Angeles, I took a bus to Anaheim from LAX. It was
playing outdated rock music on the stereo and running on a patchy
freeway that had eternal traffic. Out the window were rows of shabby
houses along the freeway. Everything was so familiar that I felt as if I
had been here last month, not ten years before. It seemed that I had
just awoken from a long dream of ten years in Japan and actually never
left here. I thought nothing changed after all, but realized I was all
wrong about it afterward during my stay. The biggest change that
surprised me most was people. Until ten years ago, I had lived or
visited regularly here, and people weren’t nice. At a fancy beauty
salon, when a receptionist was about to lead me to a seat, a manager
stopped me and asked me to leave. I was told that the seats were full
although the salon was apparently empty. At a deli, a salesperson
ignored me and wouldn’t take my order. She took an order of a white man
who was standing behind me in the line instead. I used to encounter
unkind people with horrible attitudes and racism almost every day. For
those experiences, I had braced myself for similar bad treatments on
this trip. As it turned out, what awaited me was a miracle that I never
had them at all during the whole trip this time. Every single person I
met was nice and kind. When I took a local bus and was standing, a man
offered his seat to me, saying his stop was next. I have a storage unit
here and went to open it for the first time in ten years. Because I paid
late a couple of years ago, the lock had been changed. I explained the
matter at the office and the man with a Southern accent pleasantly came
over to my unit. He didn’t mind extra work inflicted by me and cut the
lock with a circular saw for free while burning his fingers a little,
smiling and laughing all the way. I was wearing a pin of a movie
‘Tomorrowland’ during the trip, and seven or eight people who spotted it
talked to me. Everybody was smiling and friendly. I’m not prettier or
richer than I was when I lived here. While I remain the same, people’s
attitudes toward me have dramatically changed. I wondered where those
then-mean people had gone. They might as well have been abducted by
aliens who in turn put down new nice people. As the trip went on, I had
been getting more and more in high spirits. It had seemed silly that I
spent months ahead of the trip worrying so many things. I was elated
enough to get a lot of souvenirs. At the checkout, a salesperson, who
needless to say was polite, said to me smiling, “It seems your card
can’t be processed. Do you have a different card?” Everything in my eyes
suddenly went black. My charge card was maxed out, which meant I
completely used up my entire budget for the trip. I paid with my
emergency-only credit card and my shopping spree came to an abrupt end. A
new worry that I would manage to cut and contrive expenses when I
returned home grasped at me. I felt an urge to be drunk…
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Saturday, July 11, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.547
When I lived in California and flew from Japan to LAX regularly a long
time ago, its immigration was like procedure for getting in a prison.
Going through it had been tense confrontations with an arrogant
authority at a dark place. The immigration at Vancouver Airport is
distinctively different from that, which is the main reason I purposely
stop over there on the way to LAX. It’s a bright, cheerful space with a
waterfall, streams and greenery. It looks like a shopping mall rather
than the immigration. Another reason for me to stop over and stay the
night in Vancouver is the flight time. It takes ten hours from Japan to
Vancouver, which is one hour shorter than to Los Angeles. In my
experience, this one hour is decisive for the amount of fatigue. After I
got off the plane in Vancouver on my latest trip, I bought food at Tim
Hortons in the airport. There was a line at the counter and I joined it
watching the menu board above. Because I’m short and my eyesight was
blurred from a long flight, I had a difficulty to see the menu. A woman
ahead of me in the line noticed and kindly suggested stepping off the
line for a moment and getting closer to the menu. As I hesitated, she
insisted saying, “That’s okay! Go ahead!” I thought she implied that she
would save the position in the line for me. By the time I was getting
back to where I had been, more people had joined the line. I was
standing in front of the kind woman expecting she would let me cut into
the line. She said nothing and ignored me. I looked into her face and
she avoided an eye contact by looking around and staring at the ceiling
in an awkward way. People in the line behind her looked at me dubiously
to see if I would cut in. I felt deceived and went back to the tail of
the line. When I was finally handed what I had ordered, two muffins were
missing. I told the salesperson and he stared at the register that I
had no idea told him what. He grabbed a muffin and gave it to me. Still,
one more was missing. The same process was repeated and I got the right
order. Kind, but unreliable. That’s Canada I know, all right. As a
result of my choice for a cheap hotel, my sleep was disturbed by a loud
noise of the air conditioner. I turned it off, and then there were
noises of cars running on the street right down the window. I woke up
every time a big truck passed by. I got up 3 a.m. next morning, packed
and checked out. The hotel boasted its free hot breakfast but my
departure was too early for the serving time. Thankfully, there were
bags of to-go-breakfast at the front desk and my partner and I grabbed
one for each of us. Back at the airport, we checked in and I checked my
suitcase. Then I realized we were having the security check right after
that. In front of a ‘No liquid, No produce’ sign, I opened the bag of
breakfast. It had an apple and a bottled water. I just couldn’t stand to
throw them away, but wasn’t allowed to go back to the concourse to have
them either. My partner offered our bottled drinks to the airport staff
who walked by. They thought about it for a while but declined politely
due to the rule. My greed for free breakfast made us gobble them in a
hurry in front of the security check. I had never had one apple and 500
ml of water that fast. I got on the plane to Los Angeles and was taking
breath in my seat when a flight attendant spilled orange juice all over
my partner’s brand-new pants. They were his favorite pants that he would
wear all the way to the end of this trip. His face looked both crying
and laughing. The plane approached Los Angeles and the familiar sight of
brownish, scorched-looking land came into my view. Good and bad
memories flooded into my mind. Right before the touchdown, I saw the
signature structure of two arches and the control tower of LAX. Totally
unexpectedly and suddenly, a surprising feeling seized me. I felt I was
home. I felt as if I had returned from a long trip of ten years to my
hometown that I had given up coming back again. It was a warm feeling
that I had never had before. My eyes were filled with tears. I had never
understood those who talked about how wonderful homecoming was. I
didn’t know what they were talking about though I was born in Kyoto and
have lived away from it. I have never felt anything special every time I
go back to Kyoto. I just feel indifferent or rather disgusting. Coming
back to Los Angeles, I understood what homecoming is all about for the
first time in my life. If I had been traveling alone, I would have cried
out loud. I was stunned at the discovery of my hometown. The plane
landed and a tear of joy was on my face as I finally came home…
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Saturday, June 27, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.546
The flight to Vancouver where I stopped over on the way to Los Angeles
was unexpectedly comfortable. The plane wasn’t crowded and the flight
attendants were all nice and attentive. In my old days that I had
traveled between Japan and U.S. back and forth every three months, I
used to fly an awful airline that I chose for its cheap fare. That
airline’s flight attendants were generally terrible. They were chewing
gums and walking with stepping on the back of their pumps. They threw a
bag of peanuts at a passenger and a requested drink was often off. I
once witnessed they crammed a large number of cans and bottles of drinks
that they hadn’t given out the passengers into their own bags right
before landing. They must have had a spree with them in a hotel room
that night. When I asked for a small bottle of brandy once, I was told
it had been all out. A man sitting behind me asked for it right after
that, and the same attendant pleasantly handed it to him. I asked my
partner if it was racism. He told me that it wasn’t a grave thing like
that but the attendant simply couldn’t lie twice in a row and had to
give it unwillingly. That airline no longer exists after it went
bankrupt several years later and was taken over by a rival airline. The
flight I took this time was completely different. Adding to the good
service, it wasn’t a bumpy flight and I didn’t feel sick as I had
worried before. The only glitch I had was when dinner was served.
Although I had requested beef beforehand, an attendant said to me, “We
have extra chicken, too. Would you like it?” I reckoned that I could
have chicken added to my beef and said yes. And I ended up having just
chicken, not beef. Beside that small thing, I had enjoyed the flight all
the way, which was quite rare to me. It almost blotted out all the
unpleasant happenings before departure and I even got to like this
low-cost carrier. But as always, nothing goes so well without an
incident when it comes to me. It happened when the plane landed on
Vancouver. The seat belt signs were turned off and the attendants were
preparing for the doors. The passengers were standing on the aisles with
relieved expression on their faces and their bags in their hands,
waiting for the door to open. As the door opened, instead of the ground
staff, half a dozen men and women dressed in black rushed inside the
plane. They were wearing bulletproof vests on which the letters POLICE
were written and carrying weapons that seemed firearms and others. The
air inside the plane instantly froze. The flight attendants looked
surprised too. One of the police shouted “Everyone, go back to your seat
and stay there!” We all sat in our seats again, with a straight back
for some reason. No one was talking and they were just looking ahead
with shifty eyes. The plane was filled with extreme tension in a
complete silence. I remembered a news sequence I watched on ABC World
News a couple of weeks ago. It eerily looked just like this situation.
The police rushed inside the plane aiming guns and it also occurred in
Canada. I began to feel panicky, imagining that a shootout would start
in any moment or a plane would explode. I thought I knew something bad
would eventually happen. I would have never set my feet on North America
with this trip after all as troublesome preparation had hinted. As I
was being swallowed by fears, a young woman appeared from the back of
the plane. She was walking with both her arms held by two policemen,
accompanied by another policeman who was carrying her bag. After they
left the plane, the rest of the police asked some questions to the
flight attendants and got out. Then all the passengers were allowed to
get off the plane. My partner and I finally reached North America and
took in air of Vancouver. I wasn’t sure what happened to the woman, but I
was pretty sure it wasn’t easy for me to get here…
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Saturday, June 13, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.545
I woke up at 5:30 a.m. on the day that I set out for my first travel to
U.S. in about ten years. Some last-minute preparations before going to
bed and tension granted me only a three-hour sleep. Considering the
coming ten-hour flight and the time difference, my next sleep in bed
would be 30 hours later. I remembered my old days when I had been to
U.S. several times a year. I always departed with lack of sleep and
arrived with a strong headache or vomit. I was afraid of being sick
again this time and added a new item to my bursting worry bank. I set
off on foot to the train station near my apartment. When my partner who
accompanied me on this trip bought train tickets, he found a 100-yen
coin left in the ticket machine. He told me excitingly, “Look at this!
100 yen! You hardly ever pick this big amount!” He was all smiles as if
the 100-yen coin would promise a successful trip. After the local train,
I took the bullet train to Tokyo and arrived at Haneda Airport two more
transfers later. My connecting domestic flight would depart from this
airport that amazed me with the new convenient technology. There was no
need to check in at the counter. We just went straight into the security
gate without boarding tickets, had our mileage cards scanned with a
device that gave us a piece of paper like a receipt on which our flight
and seat numbers were printed, and went on to the boarding gate. It was
as easy as getting on a train. I flew to Kansai Airport that I had never
been before. After I received my suitcase I had sent beforehand and
dollar bills I had exchanged online, I was headed toward the check-in
counter of the airline I had booked. The airline has two brands, the
regular one and the low-cost carrier. My flight was the low-cost one
called ‘Rouge’. Although their website said we could check in with a
machine, those machines were deserted and lines of people were formed at
the counter instead. I had prepped for a use for the machine online,
which was a waste. Since the airline has two brands, I wasn’t sure which
line I should join. The airline worker approached and asked me which
flight I would take. When I said “Rouge,” she repeated dubiously,
“Ro..u..ge…?” She sounded like she heard the word for the first time. I
was alarmed. Those who were checking in here now were most likely on the
Rouge flight. But the airline worker apparently didn’t know her
company’s flight. As she directed me the wrong line any way, I looked
for the correct one by myself and my turn to check in came. I handed
over my passport and my reservation was on the computer screen. Looking
at it, the woman said, “You’re going to Las Vegas, right?” My blood ran
cold. My destination was Los Angeles. What had happened to my
reservation? Was there neither ‘Rouge’ nor Los Angeles? I said in a
trembling voice, “No, to LAX.” She made sure of my reservation in her
computer screen and said again, “Your destination is Las Vegas.” When I
froze at her words, she threw me another blow by saying, “Oh, I see.
You’re going to Las Vegas the next day!” My worry bank ruptured and I
felt I was going black. The whole itinerary was disrupted and I couldn’t
avoid going to Las Vegas. I regretted from the bottom of my heart that I
had chosen this airline. I braced myself to end my trip even before
leaving Japan. Then, beside me who was knocked out and almost
unconscious, my partner said to her calmly, “We’re going to Los
Angeles.” She looked in her screen again, nodded, gave us boarding
tickets according to my reservation as though nothing had happened. The
fact was that she thought LAX stood for Las Vegas International Airport.
She was a professional sitting at the check-in counter and seeing
customers’ reservations every day, and yet didn’t know LAX. I was about
to leave Japan and cross the Pacific by a plane of an airline like this.
Now I realized that I was standing on the edge. It was time to jump…
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Sunday, May 31, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.544
Every major holiday, my apartment building in the rural mountains is
packed with families and groups from the city who want to spend some
time in nature. They use this apartment as a vacation home and the
regular residents, one of whom is me, call them ‘Visitors’. Most
apartments in the building are used by Visitors and usually vacant.
Since only few apartments are occupied by permanent residents, we have a
quiet living environment. But once a holiday comes, Visitors that are
four times as many as the residents rush in and destroy serenity. They
are exceedingly in high spirits on the day of arrival, talking and
laughing loudly, and their children are running tirelessly at the
hallway. Both the communal spa and gym are full. The jacuzzi is crammed
with shrieking kids. My usual heavenly jacuzzi turns into hell. When I
once heard a mother who was soaking in that hell cry out ecstatically
“Oh my, I am so happy!”, I felt pity wondering how disastrous her daily
life was. Visitors, especially families from the city, wouldn’t obey the
rules here. They often have a barbecue or light hand-held fireworks at
the parking lot and are stopped by the caretaker. They let their kids
use machines at the gym although a notice tells machines are adult use
only. At the spa, they let their kids swim under big no-swimming
stickers. They let them dive headfirst in a shallow stone tub over and
over again. Needless to say, they let them pee on the floor inside the
spa like animals instead of leaving for the bathroom at the locker room.
A group of young women drink cans of beer in the jacuzzi. Visitors also
take their pets here although this building is no-pets-allowed. They
unleash a dog at the nearby park. They even dump cardboard trash beside
the street. There is no end to their lawlessness and it’s hard to tell
they break rules intentionally or they just can’t obey them. It seems to
me that they come here to enjoy breaking rules. They annoy me so much
in so many ways that I always wait for a holiday to end and for Visitors
to return to the city. The closer the end of a holiday comes, the
quieter Visitors become. In the end, they go back to their city life
dejectedly with their head drooping. They pay an upkeep fee of this
building every month to use it merely for several days in a couple of
times a year. The total amount of money they spend for what they don’t
use regularly is huge. And with their money, this apartment building is
well maintained and the communal facilities are operated, which I use
every day. Since I’m an accustomed giveaway-taker, I have no right to
complain their bad manners. After they’re gone, I monopolize the whole
spa and have the gigantic tub to myself again. I spread my limbs in the
jacuzzi alone and say out loud “This is the life!” On my face is a
malicious smile like a villain…
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.543
I purchased air tickets to California six months before departure when
they were on a limited-time discount sale. Two months before the flight,
I received an e-mail from the airline company. It said that the
schedules of my flight had been changed. The changes were whopping six
hours for both departure and arrival. I was very shocked. I had already
booked and bought tickets of connecting domestic flights because the
earlier I booked, the more discounted the tickets were. Six hours was
too big to adjust my existing reservations and I had to cancel them and
get new tickets for the altered flights. Six hours late for arrival
meant that I couldn’t catch the last bullet train to ride home after
flying domestically, and had to stay at a hotel near the airport to take
the domestic flight next day. Those new domestic flight tickets were
priced higher as the dates were closer. Added cancellation fees to them,
I paid $200 more to what I had originally paid. The hotel stay added
$150 to that. One e-mail cost me $350 in total. A month before the
flight, I received another e-mail from the airline. It said that the
flight schedules had returned to the original ones. I almost fainted.
All the fuss I had made was completely unnecessary and I had just thrown
money away. It nullified $350 and time I had spent a month before, and I
had to go back to my original plan of the connecting domestic flights. I
cancelled and booked all over again, with the higher cancellation fees
and the higher-priced tickets as the dates were even closer. The total
extra cost soared astronomically. I had flown overseas many times in my
life, but an outrageous thing like this had never happened before. My
partner who will accompany me on my trip to U.S. called the airline.
Their phone line was an information number that a caller needed to pay.
They made us pay even for complaint. After a long argument, the airline
reluctantly agreed to pay for half of what we had paid extra. But there
were neither apologies nor recompense for the trouble we had been
through and the time we had spent. They didn’t let my partner talk to
the manager for the reason that he or she could be reached by a fax. The
flight is only a few days away and I’ve been praying not to receive any
more e-mail from the airline about another schedule change. Since I
will fly across the Pacific by this ‘Air Shambles’ soon, so many worries
have mounted. Do they maintain their airplanes properly? Do they
examine their pilots’ mental states? Do they let their cargo handlers
nap inside the plane too? My overseas travel has officially begun before
the actual departure with exhaustion from arrangements and troubles.
And I know I will pile up mountainous absurdities and problems during
the trip, and will have a simper smile on my face as a result of excess
anger by the time of a return. It crossed my mind that I’d better cancel
the flights and the hotels and call off the whole trip. That would save
a lot of money and energy. But something in me constantly shouts I need
to go. Something tells me that if I got cozy in an easy Japanese life,
my brain would die and my life would be over here. The sense of taking
action and moving forward feels so good. That’s why I like to go abroad
despite all those difficulties…
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Saturday, May 9, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.542
These days, I’m busy preparing for a trip to the U.S. that I will visit
for the first time in ten years. Although the destination is the same
area as I used to live in, ten years is long enough to change everything
dramatically and make my knowledge obsolete. Numerous new hotels have
opened and their rooms are WiFi-ready. The transportation from the
airport has changed. Since it’s now a smartphone era, check-in for the
flight and the hotel is done by it. We don’t need to carry a digital
camera anymore and it turned out that an app for a smartphone dispatches
a hired car instead of calling for a cab, which I’ll definitely use
there. I got a gizmo called an overseas SIM card that converted my cheap
smartphone into an essential companion with which I could make a phone
call and get data communication in the U.S. The biggest change I noticed
above all was price hikes. Inflation in the U.S. and depreciation of
yen has soared all the prices and I won’t feel like buying or eating out
there when I think of the price converted to yen. But there are some
things that haven’t changed. A copy of an itinerary of a return flight
is necessary for the immigration at the airport to prove that the return
flight has been booked and paid. They check an itinerary copy instead
of a physical ticket, which can be forged easily if someone wants to,
and is therefore meaningless. Even so that system stays unchanged, and
I’m pretty sure so does an arrogant attitude of a US immigration
officer. I turned to my journal of ten years ago and I had written there
that I wish I could come back to the States before I die. It’s good the
wish did come true. It’s even better that my motivation to go to the
States no matter how costly it is didn’t disappear. People can become
their different selves in ten years either by dulling themselves or by
growing themselves in it. In my case, I live a life with so many changes
that I wouldn’t have imagined ten years ago. But on the other hand, it
remains the same that I’m cheap and desperately make ends meet every
day…
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Saturday, April 25, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.541
I came across a very nice restaurant that served an incredibly
money-saving all-you-can-eat lunch buffet on weekdays, and I have been
frequently there lately. The restaurant is inside a thrifty hotel but
its interior and food is gorgeous since the hotel is also used as a
wedding ceremony hall. The lunch buffet has mainly Japanese dishes that
other buffet restaurants usually don’t serve because they are costly and
time-consuming to prepare. In addition to common buffet items like
curry, fried chicken and pasta, it has a wide variety of expensive
dishes such as seafood, tempura, chirashi sushi and beef stew. They are
laid out on the beautifully decorated buffet table in a luxurious
atmosphere. Amazingly, the price is only $11, including soft drinks and
desserts. It’s so unreal and I feel I must be in a dream or something
every time I eat there. Maybe because of the surreal price, a line of
customers is often formed in front of the entrance before the restaurant
opens. It happened once that I couldn’t get in when the table got full
in the middle of the line. About 70 percent of the customers are
seniors, which is peculiar for an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant and I
guess is due to Japanese food. As seniors are getting healthier, or
they have too much time to spare, or human greed never decays, or for
whatever reason, they devour and enjoy lunch immensely. Come to think of
it, Japanese society has been aging rapidly and shopping malls and
cafes are filled with seniors. Japan has a crazy pension system that
seniors receive what young people pay. The demographic change of more
seniors and less youth causes a serious shortage of the pension and the
government makes up for it by a debt. Japan is tumbling down a steep
slope by keeping such an unsustainable system. Thinking this country
might be eaten up by senior citizens soon, I match them with my appetite
at the buffet and eat gasping for air even after I’m full. I stay on
until the lunch time ends and the place closes, and by the time I’m
leaving, I end up running toward the bathroom. I have an upset stomach
almost every time because I eat far too much there. The super-saving
buffet may work against me after all, but I will feel like going back
there by the next day…
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Saturday, April 11, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.540
My grandfather and I used to go to the department store together when I
was a small child. He had a pass that entitled senior citizens to a free
ride of the municipal streetcar. He usually said, “Not using the free
pass is waste of money,” and tried to take the streetcar as much as he
could although he had no place to go. As part of his useless effort, he
often went to the department store where he didn’t have to go at all,
and made me accompany him. While he didn’t have anything to buy, he
strolled around all the floors. To get only one different floor he used
the elevator that had an operating girl inside who would push the
buttons and say the floor information, and the other girl outside who
would close the outside iron door manually. It seemed he enjoyed the
ride as a free attraction. His typical behavior was to ask a salesclerk
the price whenever he spotted something expensive that he had no
intention to buy, and to exclaim loudly, “How expensive!” He often
looked into the costly merchandise that was on display in the glass
case, asked the price, cried his ‘how expensive, and just walked on.
When he was looking into the glass case of fountain pens intently one
time, the salesclerk asked if he wanted her to take some pens out of the
case and show them to him. He pointed out one by one and the clerk put
them out on a sheet of velvet. He asked the price each time and at each
answer he exclaimed, “How expensive!” “Outrageous!” “That much for a
pen?”“Really, really expensive!” His loud remarks rang out through the
quiet, elegant floor. After five or six pens were laid on the velvet, he
just thanked the clerk casually and left the counter as if nothing
happened. Even as a small child, I duly sensed his behavior was
fundamentally embarrassing. That was why I hated to go out with him so
much. In the lunchtime, he would order the most inexpensive noodle at
the food-court-like restaurant on the top floor of the department store.
He always ordered one dish for two of us and asked for an empty small
bowl to divide the noodle into two. While I ate the smaller portion, he
eagerly poured free tea, saying, ”Make your stomach full with free tea
if that’s not enough!” We usually had a lot of free tea since we were
hungry with only one noodle, and the huge kettle on our table went empty
fast. The table was shared with eight people and each table had one
kettle. He would start going around other tables for a full kettle. Many
kettles were sometimes empty and he would go to the far end of the
restaurant for free tea while checking the remaining content of every
single kettle along the way. He would loudly say, “Those who pay for a
drink are crazy when they have free tea!” right next to a customer who
was drinking a glass of soda. In those cases, he would return to our
table with a kettle in his hand as if he had hit a gold mine. Even a
small child like me understood that his habit was extremely embarrassing
and I really hated to go out with him. He did all of these things so
happily by wearing tattered clothes and shoes with a hole, and he
clearly enjoyed it immensely. I grew up and noticed there was a
terrifying thing such as atavism. When I visit an outlet mall, I first
go through price tags to see the percentage of discount, and if the
percentage is big enough, start looking the merchandise itself. Last
time, my partner asked me to quit that habit of mine. He wants me to
look at the merchandise first, then the price tag. I don’t order a drink
at the food court because it has a free water server. I also bring an
empty plastic drink bottle from home and refill it with the free water
for later breaks. “Those who pay for a drink are crazy when they have
free water,” I usually murmur in my mind…
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.539
I was walking beside the math teacher on whom I had had a crush, on the
day of a school excursion when I was a sophomore at high school. He
asked me which university I was applying to. When he heard my answer, he
asked me again, “Do you think you can jump across this paddy field to
the other side?” The paddy along the path was over thirty feet in width
and I dismissed it as absolutely impossible. “That’s exactly what you’re
trying to do for the university,” he said. I resented as I thought he
would encourage me since I had gotten full marks in almost every math
test. But he was right. I eventually failed all the universities I
applied to and my dream to work as a super businesswoman at the leading
company was shattered. I lost confidence in myself, lost sense of
purpose in my life, and ended up being a freshman in the women’s college
that belonged to the same school I attended when I was in junior high
and high school. The entrance examination of that college was the only
one I passed although I hated to go there and took the exam for my
worst-case scenario. Students from the same high school were entitled to
get in the college without entrance exam if they didn’t apply to other
universities and colleges. While I endured three years of studying for a
different university, my classmates just had been having fun, and I
settled in the same college as them who didn’t have to take the exam. I
was humiliated every day when they spotted me at the campus and asked
me, “What are you doing here?” or said, “I thought you were going to the
better school!” Everyone in the college including faculty seemed dumb
to me in those miserable days. Even the slip-on sandals that the
president would neatly leave in front of her office door made me furious
and I kicked them away to the hallway with all my force. One day I was
called into the school office. The staff told me to see a psychiatrist
who was temporarily assigned to the college. I had no idea why I needed
to see a psychiatrist. I entered her small office and she welcomed me
with her warm smile. She just kept saying to me, “It’s all right.
Everything is all right. You don’t have to worry anything. It’s all
right.” That was all she said. Only two freshmen including me were
called in and I asked the other girl what it was all about when I bumped
into her. She guessed that had to do with a survey the college had
conducted for all freshmen. She suggested that we were called in because
we checked yes on a question whether we ever want to commit suicide. I
was astonished at the fact that other students except two of us had
never felt like killing themselves up until in their late teens. I
strongly felt they were the ones who needed to see a psychiatrist, not
us. I was slowly, gradually coming to grips with who I was. I wasn’t
made for a businesswoman to begin with. Being a musician seemed much
more like myself…
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.538
In the time of my school days, women in Japan were mostly housewives. It
was considered that women quit working when they get married. One of my
mother’s old female classmates stayed single and had an administrative
job at IBM in Tokyo, which was so rare at that time. To me, continuing
to work after marriage was more natural than being a housewife since my
mother went to work every day. Only, I didn’t want to be like her who
worked as a farmer in a country. I would rather have become a
sophisticated businesswoman like her old classmate at IBM. It was
necessary to graduate from the first-class university to be hired at a
large famous company like IBM. I started to study for the university’s
entrance examination when I was a freshman at high school. My daily life
had inevitably changed. I had gradually distanced myself from my cool
friends with whom I used to hang out all the time, and spent much time
with my new would-be-a-doctor friend. She introduced me the whole new
world. She was sincere, courteous and refined, and respected her parents
who were both doctors. My study days were troublesome. Because I tended
to listen to music instead of studying in my room at home, I studied at
the library as much as possible. There, I spent the time solving math
problems that I loved to do so much. Although Japan used to have a
stupid system for the university entrance exam that the high average
mark of all the seven subjects decided the school, I didn’t feel like
studying other six subjects beside mathematics. I just studied math day
and night, even floating a sheet of a problem in a plastic bag in the
tub while I was taking a bath. I knew I needed to study other than math,
but I didn’t realize my biggest weakness back then – I can’t do
anything I don’t like. As the exam drew near, pressure had begun to
seize me. I pulled out the plug of my stereo not to listen to records
and stuck the plug to the wall with a note of ‘Patience!’ A small thing
provoked my fury toward my sister with no reason one evening, and I
found myself gripping her by the throat. I came to myself when I
realized I was choking her. She told my father that I tried to kill her
and he suggested to me that I should see a psychiatrist. Every practice
examination showed I wouldn’t pass the university I was applying to, but
I relied on my IQ heavily. I believed that if my brain ran at full
blast on the very day of exam, my high IQ would wring out a high score
by recalling what I didn’t even remember. Otherwise, it would be proved
that my high IQ was a worthless, useless, decorative-only nothing
although my whole life had depended on it. I couldn’t possibly accept
that kind of notion. I refused, by any means…
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.537
The snows reached eight feet high on the ground in a mountainous town
where I live, which is customary every winter here. I began to feel
suffocated and decided to get away for a few days. As I came across the
bargain price for a moderate hotel adjacent to Tokyo Disney Resort, I
took a trip there with my partner. Only after a couple of tunnels on the
bullet train, snow disappeared and a blue sky spread out. It was
already another world. We arrived at Tokyo station and found people
there weren’t bundled up, some of them were even without coats. We, on
the other hand, were wearing hooded down coats and I additionally had
long winter boots on. Winter in Tokyo was warm and it felt hot to us
whose bodies have been adjusted to the cold of our town. We were sweaty,
and I was walking around with my folding fan flapping. When you stay
away from a city life in a remote town and go back to the city after a
while, you notice a change in the world clearly. It happened to me this
time and I was surprised at the speed of changes. I saw many large
strollers inside the train that were obstacles to other passengers. It
was frequently a man who pushed a stroller. People wore mean, rough
clothes. I used to be annoyed so much every time at an all-you-can-eat
buffet restaurant by swarms of housewives and their shrieking children,
but not a single kid was spotted when I had lunch at one of those
restaurants. All those things were uncommon when I lived in the city.
Although women’s positions in Japanese society had stayed lowly no
matter how long and loudly clamored for improvement, the number of
housewives in Japan dramatically decreased so easily once the economy
continued to decline. It’s merely four years since I moved out of the
city, but with many things I had never seen before, I realized Japan has
changed. At a hotel where we stayed, there were many elegant guests
from Asian countries and less Japanese. It was supposed to be a decent
hotel, but a group of the guests staying in the rooms around ours were
noisy at the hallway. My partner had to call the front desk for
complaint. I tried to enjoy the stay at least for the value for what we
had paid that wasn’t a small amount to me. At the end of the trip, I was
exhausted by my own effort to get the trip pay our money. On our way
home, we waited in line for the train to Tokyo. When we got on, young
men cut in and snatched the seats. I was convinced Japan has become a
poor country…
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.536
As a two-year contract on my smartphone expires soon, I decided to
switch to a low-cost plan of a new phone company and to get a new
smartphone that can be used both in Japan and US. I had been looking
into the market for about six months and learned that choosing a plan
and a phone was really cumbersome nowadays. The price is changing almost
every week, the new feature is being added all the time, and the new
model is coming up one after the other. To keep up with that speed was
so hard for me. It would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t been a cheap
person. I would have just sat at the counter in a phone shop and gotten
whatever a salesperson recommended. Unfortunately I don’t trust a
salesperson and I’m not rich. I simply can’t satisfy myself unless I
find the best buy on my own and get it during a special promotion. That
required an enormous amount of research, patience, and energy, not to
mention time. After all, I got a satisfactory model and signed up for a
low-cost plan. The phone came with a USB charger, but I needed one more
for travel. The phone maker’s website told that its charger is
exclusively made and a mass-market charger can’t be used. I bought the
relatively-high-in-price charger that I still can’t see the difference
from a common charger, which makes me feel that I lost money. I started
using my new smartphone full of glee anyway. It’s bigger than my old one
and has a better view on the screen while I’m afraid if I don’t get a
good grip and drop it. I needed a case but couldn’t find one that
perfectly fits because it’s not a major model. Cool cases for iPhone are
everywhere and I now realized how popular it is. I settled on a
pouch-type iPhone case that had a bargain price, and squeezed my phone
into it. I mustered all my ideas and devices to get and use a new phone
at the lowest price. Looking back the long, troublesome process, I’m not
so sure if I saved money or it was costly in various ways…
Friday, January 30, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.535
Since I booked a low-cost carrier flight to LAX from Japan, now I’ve
looking for a hotel to stay in California. The best scenario is to find a
high-class hotel at a bargain price, but it’s not easy to come across
such a good deal. I have to decide between a cheap hotel and a moderate
one. My partner and I happened to stay at a low-class hotel in Japan the
other day to shop at the outlet mall that is far from home. The stay
cost $45 per room including breakfast for two. The room was very small
and there was hardly any space to put our bags and stuff. It had two
beds and the smaller one was set above the bigger one like a bunk bed. I
was going to sleep in the upper bed, but couldn’t climb the ladder
which too-slim, round pole rungs hurt the back of my feet unbearably.
Although my partner managed to reach the narrow bunk bed, he was afraid
of falling all night long and woke up exhausted with a shallow sleep.
That hotel boasted a huge bathtub. In their website and on their
signboard out front, they clamorously touted the size of a bathtub and
the comfort of the bath time. Because I saw the description of their
bathtubs that they said are so huge and we could stretch our legs in
relaxingly so many times, the tub had grown gigantic in my imagination.
Then I found just a normal-sized tub in the room. The restaurant to have
a free breakfast was a small space, looking like an old cheap food
court. TV was on instead of the background music like a cheap bar. But
there I showed my real ability as a cheap person to enjoy a free food.
It was an all-you-can-eat breakfast with a wide variety that was
delicious. I literally ate all I could eat and felt full and almost
sick. But we were the only ones who appreciated it so much. It was a
weekday and almost all the guests were businessmen on a business trip.
There was no female guest except for me. It seemed they didn’t have
enough time for breakfast in any case. Some of them just gulped orange
juice and dashed out. Some sat on the tip of their chairs and swallowed
down food on their small plates hurriedly. Aside from the breakfast, the
cheap hotel deprived us of sleep and exhausted us for this stay. When I
stayed at a hotel like that in Florida a long time ago, I had the
biggest fleabite in my life. These experiences may tell me not to choose
a cheap hotel for a trip to US. On the other hand, the cost of staying
at a moderate hotel gives me a headache…
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.534
The news told the other day that it snowed unusually heavily in Kyoto
where I was born and grew up, and ten inches of snow covered the city.
Only ten inches made the news since it snows in Kyoto merely once or
twice a year. For that reason, snowing was an exciting lucky event for
me when I lived there. White snow covered the old, brownish somber city
and made it look a little better. I vividly remember the fun I had as a
child when it snowed and covered the ground rarely thick one morning.
The front yard of our house turned into a vast white mattress, which was
a view I had never seen before. I had a snowball fight with my father
who hadn’t been hostile to me yet like he is today. He deliberately took
my snowball attacks in his face and yelled repeatedly, “You got me! I
surrender!” My younger sister was still a baby and I was able to
monopolize the fun and my father for once. My mother usually didn’t
allow me to make a racket but snow softened her and she took photographs
of our snowball fight. It surely was one of the happiest moments of my
childhood. Heavy snow came again when I was a high school student. I was
riding the local bus to school with my friend and other students,
feeling gloomy as I felt every time I was on my way to school. When the
bus arrived at the bus stop near the school, we saw a teacher stand
there. As soon as the door of the bus opened, he told us that school was
canceled due to snow. The bus I took ran a loop route around Kyoto,
which meant it eventually returned to where I got on. My friend and I
didn’t even have to get off the bus and went straight back to home. It
became a magical ride by snow, with us feeling over the moon and
giggling and laughing all the way. I was walking with my partner when
the next heavy snow hit Kyoto. Only a few months had passed since we
first met and we were just friends then. I was uplifted by snow and
caught him a surprise with a snowball. It directly hit his face and I
burst into laughter. What I didn’t understand was his look. He was
stunned, rather shocked, with his eyes bulged. According to his theory,
adults don’t have a snowball fight and I was the first and only one who
broke his theory. I just loved snow so much. Now, I live in a town where
it snows all day every day during winter and snow mounts up on the
ground higher than my height. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the
night by a sense of claustrophobia. If I had seen my future living like
this when I was a child in Kyoto, I would have thought I would move to
Alaska or the North Pole, or the earth simply would have the glacial
period. Life turns in an unexpected way. People who live in this town
greet each other saying unpleasantly “Here it comes again!” when the
first snow falls. I still feel joyful for snow, and I guess I haven’t
become a local yet while living here for four years now…
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.533
New Year’s Day is the biggest holiday in Japan. It’s as big as
Thanksgiving and Christmas put together. It’s a day when millions of
people visit shrines and temples wearing kimono or their best clothes
and pray for good luck by offering money into the boxes. Before
midnight, shrines and temples begin to seethe with people. I used to be
one of them when I lived in my hometown, but now I just watch the tumult
on TV at home every year. I recall New Year’s Day of 2011 as my
merriest one. Back then, I still lived in the apartment in a suburb of
Tokyo. The plan to move into this rural town had been already arranged,
but I hadn’t moved out yet. From the last minutes of New Year’s Eve to
the first minutes of New Year’s Day, shrines and temples all over Japan
ring the bell 108 times. 108 represents the number of worldly desires of
each person. The bell ring is supposed to take them away one by one for
the new year. I was listening to the faint sound of the bell that a
temple near my apartment was ringing when 2011 arrived. I opened a
bottle of champagne, which is too expensive for me to drink except on
this day every year, prepared the New Year’s meal that’s not traditional
but of my own style, and had it with my partner who looked somewhat to
be in bad shape, while watching a comedy live show on TV. After I
watched the first sunrise of the year over Mt. Fuji on TV, I turned on
my PC and found that my new song that I had spent several years to
complete was put up on i-Tunes and Amazon for the first time. I felt
like a new life for me had started with the new year and it would get
better from now on, with my new apartment in a new place in the wings
and my new song made public. I guess the reason why New Year’s Day of
2011 was the merriest for me isn’t just an expensive champagne or the
New Year’s meal or the comedy show. It’s because I felt so much hope. I
continued watching comedy TV shows until noon that day feeling so good,
and when I was about to go to bed, my partner confessed that he had
caught a cold and was undoubtedly sick…
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