It:`s a new day (though I`m not quite sure which one, since we hopped over that damn date line) but for the first time since I arrived in Japan it is morning and I don`t feel as if I`m ready for dinner.
I have already made several discoveries during my time here. One, I am a bit too old for three plane rides and then a bus ride to get to a place where I cannot even read the street signs. My son must have been terrified when he saw the broken old creature standing and looking for him in front of the Mister Donut at the bus station (the only place we could identify), and his sixteen year old sister wasn:t looking to spry herself.
Two, I am a bit too old for a lot of things. I have become the one who everyone clears a path for when a seat opens up on the subway (in all fairness, my complexion was a bit green and I was literally drenched in sweat after a day wandering around in -- and I am not exaggerating here -- 300 degree heat and 300 per cent humidity). I have become the one who can barely lift herself onto the tatami mat in a tea house much less scoot over to the cushion toward the back and sit cross-legged. Most frightening, I have become a person who can skip dinner because she is just too friggin tired to open her mouth (other than to beg for water).
Three, I am officially a bit too old to backpack through Europe, so I might as well strike that off my bucket list. Time has crept up on me -- and not just because the damn date line makes tomorrow come so much faster. When people stare at me on the street, it is no longer because I am hot. Well it is, but hot and smelly does not evoke cat calls, just some muffled gasps. In any language, those are not lost in translation. Nope, I will never carry a Euro Pass in my pocket.
My tiredness did evaporate briefly after the initial journey when I first caught sight of my son, looking happy and healthy (and quite tall) and smiling the same warm smile that has warmed my heart for twenty-two years. Yes, somewhere in this whole international date line mess, he turned twenty-two. Twice, I think. He wrapped me and his sister up in a huge hug, and the muscle cramps and watery eyes and the all around gross feeling we had from flying so long (all of which pale in comparison to the way I felt when I collapsed from sightseeing last night) seemed to fade. My son was fine, we had arrived, and there was a hotel with a tiny toilet and an even tinier bed with my name on it just a short cab ride away. Life was good, or it would be after about eighteen hours of sleep.
`Are you hungry?` he asked. Maybe he had not, after all, noticed my sagging shoulders and my dull expression. Even his young sister looked like she had been through a war. We both stared at him as if he had spoken in Japanese. It was ten o`clock at night and eating was somewhere at the bottom of our wish lists, along with being among other humans. Nonetheless, when his work colleague suddenly bounced out of the driver`s seat (on the wrong side, naturally) of an impossibly small car and grabbed our suitcases and stuffed them, somehow, into a trunk the size of my purse, my son explained, a bit apologetically, that he could not miss dinner since it was a surprise party for his birthday. Obviously, the surprise was certainly not on him.
Well, having lived a somewhat landlocked (and stifling, but that`s another story) existence for more than a quarter century, I had almost forgotton how good shrimp tastes when it literally walks down the street from the sea to your plate. My tastebuds awoke, and I followed suit. All it took was a nice authentic Japanese meal to draw me out of my near death stupor. Okay, and a big hug from my son. And okay, the restaurant was actually Vietnamese, but this was good shit!
Yes, good shit, and it totally made me forget how excited I was about the tiny bed and tiny toilet awaiting me in my hotel, which is a good thing, since tiny would have been a gross exaggeration. Had our ankles been any more swollen, we would have been unable to walk between the bed and the wall.
It`s been a few days, and we have grown accustomed to our dollhouse sized accommodations, which make more sense now that we have attempted to get our massive western feet into shoes they sell here. I`ve been feeling like one of Cinerella`s hideous stepsisters. Stuck with our own big shoes, we have wandered around a little town called Himeji, and, so far, visited Osaka and Kyoto. Each day, we have collapsed on the brink of heat stroke into our minute bed, and, to look at us, you would think we had spent our days laboring in a death camp. But the small chunk of this country we have seen so far is nothing short of magical, if anything for itss sharp contrast to the places we know. Our treks have been physically draining, to be sure, but it`s an experience I will surely write about one day, as soon as I figure out how to get on the Internet for more than a half hour.
Today, even my son -- who is no longer a stranger to the heat and humidity and the amazing capacity of the people around here to keep moving and not break a sweat -- decided a day of rest would be good. Our most arduous decision will be where to eat lunch. Our most arduous walk will be the one back to our rooms, mid-afternoon, for naps. And then there will be dinner to look forward to, and we will pack up for our trek to Tokyo tomorrow. It will be cool there -- only about 250 degrees -- although I suspect the crowds will add to the humidity.
Can hardly wait. No, really, I can hardly wait. This place is amazing!
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