An Odyssey, Of A Sort - Post No 24

Like many of our travelling friends and acquaintances, we set off for Japan this fall. It is a safe, orderly and relatively cheap destination because of favourable exchange rates. This was Janet's 10th visit, my 4th. The Japanese are, in our experience, polite without exception. There are 12 million people living in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and that politeness is invaluable in living in such close quarters. There is an interesting culture and history to explore, and distinctive food to be enjoyed or survived, depending on your spirit of adventure. The subway system is efficient and easy to understand, and most restaurants in central Tokyo have at least enough spoken English to be enjoyable and accessible. Sometimes, you see signs that must be photographed.

On this occasion we came by ship, highly recommended if you have the time and inclination. You arrive having already adjusted to the local time, 15 hours ahead of Alberta time. Going home is a different story, for another time.

Unlike our previous trip by ocean in 2016, this time the seas were mild - of the 7 day crossing there were only about 12 hours of moderate swells (about 15 feet). This is enough to have you lurching down the hallways and being mindful of the location of the floor when putting your foot down, but not enough to send things rolling around in your room or cause you to lose interest in eating. Most of the time though we were just chugging along, headed east and south, with not much more motion than a car on the highway.

In 1995 a teenager named Miki Suginome came from Sapporo to spend a year in Alberta as a Rotary exchange student. She lived with us for 3 months and a few years later our son Blair went to Japan for a year, also as a Rotary exchange student. Miki was 15 years old when she arrived, and now lives in Tokyo with her husband and 2 children. We have visited her on most of our trips to Japan, a friendship we have cherished and nurtured for the past 30 years. On this occasion we also visited with Miki's mother Atsuko, who still lives in Sapporo and came to spend an afternoon with us at one of our stops along the east coast of Japan. Miki's mother is about our age and still works nearly full-time in the family restaurant business. Her excellent English allows us to enjoy her company and her experiences. Next year she will come to Canada with Miki and her family, and we can hardly wait.

We arrived in Tokyo a day ahead of Typhoon Dujuan, which caused chaos for travellers and flood damage in places outside of Tokyo. In Tokyo it was blessedly anti-climactic. Rain, occasionally quite a lot of rain, a bit of wind, but nothing worse than that, where we were at least. The heat and humidity that comes with a typhoon at that latitude was startling, but not dangerous.

Miki's husband Ken works for a French champagne maker, representing their products in Japan. As it happened his company's champagnes were being featured at a small but distinguished French restaurant in a historic old part of Tokyo the night after we arrived, and we joined Miki and Ken at the dinner. The restaurant only seats 35 people, all there to enjoy a special set menu based on popular French dishes from the late 19th century (!) and 5 (!!!) different champagnes, one for each of the courses of the dinner. I won't describe the dinner in great detail except to say that it included foie gras, turbot (which is also called flounder, I think, but could also be called "fish"), veal, truffled mushrooms in a foam emulsion (a new food word I quite like) and caviar perched on top of a smoked salmon aspic salad-type thing, pictured above. The restaurant's 35 guests were spread out over two floors. This meant that for each of the 5 different champagnes being poured Ken was required to speak eloquently on two floors, in Japanese, French and English. He did not get to eat. He can describe the nose and taste of a particular champagne vintage in more ways, and in more languages, than I thought possible.

OUR QUEST - We had been assigned a Quest while in Tokyo by our grandson Charlie, who needed - I think that's the right word - a pair of running shoes that could only be purchased in Japan. For those of you unfortunate people not on top of the latest international fashion trends, as Charlie and his grandparents are, they are called Tigers, can only be purchased at the Onitsuko store in Tokyo, specifically the Mexico 66 model. Black with white strips, yellow with black strips, or white with navy strips, 28.5 cm. We had enlisted Miki's help in our Quest, and she had located the exact shoes we needed. We got off the ship, ditched our luggage and headed straight there to meet Miki and accomplish our Quest.

We got to the store 20 minutes before it opened, and were told we were the 35th people in line to get in, and should get in the door in about an hour with the numbered ticket we were given. Were we discouraged? Hell no, give us that ticket! What is a Quest without adversity? Having crossed 8,000 kilometres of ocean, Homer's Odyssey (and Matt Damon) was obviously relevant, although it took us 3 weeks rather than 10 years. While we were comfortable during the journey, there were hardships. The internet connection in the north Pacific was poor, to give but one example. We were determined to complete our Quest no matter the obstacles.

While we were awaiting our appointed entrance time, taking pictures, drinking coffee and generally goofing around, we got a call from Miki. Where were we? In line, we said proudly, clutching our entrance ticket with the number "35" clearly visible. At the wrong Onitsuko store, she said. Apparently there are THREE Onitusko stores within a few blocks in this part of Tokyo (Ginza) and we were at the wrong one. The one we were at is where you could to have your purchases embroidered with your name or the name of your tribe or favourite team. We needed to be at the one, about 5 minutes away, that specialized in Mexico 66 style Tiger shoes. What stupids we were! By the time we got to the correct store, Miki had found the object of our Quest, and all we needed to do was pay for it, which we did. Later during a FaceTime call with Charlie we were able to describe the challenge, complexity, even danger (there were streets to cross) of our Quest. We could tell he was impressed, although like all 15 year olds, he tried to be cool.

This trip was the last of our wedding anniversary events, but not likely to be our last trip to Japan. A more interesting and welcoming place would be hard to find, and I am now able to eat peas with chopsticks. Try it before you scoff. Like Charlie, you can't help but be impressed.