Japan – Part 1: I could tell they were all terrified
It all started one sunny day in Tsawwassen… maybe it wasn’t sunny at all, but it was definitely Tsawwassen. The stress of the previous two weeks, which had increased exponentially every day, had caught up with me and I was at wit’s end. Normally that would not be any reason to worry, but at the time I felt like the half-wit that most of you are familiar with. There was just too much to think about! I wasn’t just moving to a new apartment in the black hole of Kitsilano, instead I was set on a collision course with the unknown. But how does one prepare to crash into a void? One doesn’t.
In the Vancouver International Airport I found myself transfixed on a massive Bill Reid sculpture and I realized that I was drinking perhaps my last tall Americano Starbucks style ever. It is not as though I was really worried about some Al Queda terrorists hijacking my plane or catching the plague from some contaminated bathroom doorknob, I just thought that I might not be able to get a good coffee in Japan. Laugh all you want, but coffee is essential to my lifestyle and to my self-image. OK, maybe not the self-image but… oh forget it.
Waiting for the plane I began to notice other people, about my age, with the same look of despair or half-wittedness that accompanied my forced smile and assumed air of coolness. They were also venturing into the void, and by the amount of sweat amassed under the armpits of Billy Watshisname from Whoreallycares, I could tell they were all terrified. That made me feel much better about my own situation. I wasn’t alone in this whole mess, I was with the only woman I have ever loved, the only woman who finds my idiotic quirks interesting and endearing. My assumed air became actualized.
They screwed up my meal on the plane. You’d think that if you pre-ordered a vegetarian meal two weeks in advance they would get it right. Fuck Air Canada! I wasn’t really mad though, I just like to say FUCK a lot. All the other fucking English teachers were at the other end of the fucking plane and they were all chatting about some obviously inane fucking subject and wandering around like a bunch of fucking sheep bleating all over over the fucking place while I was watching Spy Kids fucking 2 and trying to stretch the fucking cramp out of my fucking ass. Fuck Air Canada!
Kansai International Airport in Osaka is very modern and utilitarian; vibrant hues to impress the sleep deprived and travel weary. We had to catch a train to the main terminal to collect our baggage and meet our new employer, or at least the representatives of our new employer. All things said and done, they were quite efficient but I was totally annoyed by the whole situation anyway and can find hundreds of disagreeable things to say about Kansai for every one good thing I imagine.
Staring out of the window of the Shinkansen is like trying to read a subtitled Ingmar Bergman film on fast forward while the psychadelic drugs penetrate your ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. It was going about 300km an hour or some other absurd speed that isn’t worth looking up or caring about or even writing about. The Salarymen huddled around us were either finding us Purdy’s eye candy or they thought we were scum. If they were thinking the latter, they would have had me pegged. Alix was asleep on my shoulder and the black bags under my eyes definitely gave me a “mysterious stranger look”.
We were greeted in Okayama by some other representative of our employer who was either frightened by my “mysterious stranger look” or just a deer in the headlights of my aura of greatness. He was nice enough to show us our new apartment and as I stared at his pudgy form waddling down the stairs and gripped his business card in my sweaty and plague ridden hand, I knew that I had arrived in the void. We opened the new futon matresses and slept a malaria fever type sleep and awoke in our new apartment…
Stay tuned for more exciting adventures with: Captain Giant Waste of Skin and his trusty side kicker Gaijin Girl.
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