All those moments

A collection of things I’ve wanted to write about over the past couple of months, but have never got around to. Here they are in delicious jumble vision.

Riding the GK

It’s Sunday afternoon and Glebe and I are in Fukuoka, the biggest city on Kyushu. We’ve decided to scrap our original plan, attempting to hitchhike back across Honshu, and have instead grabbed discount tickets on the bullet train. Before we head through the gates, we do a quick split, Glebe to grab food and something to drink and I head off to the nearby “buckets ‘o kitsch” store to pick up some Omiyage.

When we meet back, we realise three things. One, the omiyage in Hakata is awful. Two, it’s really hard to find a convenience store when you need to. Three, we have only two minutes until our Shink takes off. We belt it up to the platform and climb aboard. The carriage is empty, bar one person way up the other end, hunched silently over a laptop. This is a Shinkansen. Shinkansens are never empty. What the hell?

It turns out we’ve boarded the Kodama, the slow train to hell and Honshu. Sure, it still goes at 200 kilometres an hour, it just stops at every. single. station. along the way.

So, we christen it “The Ghettokansen” and crack open our large bottle of special sake we bought at a temple that morning. It doesn’t take long until we have devised a drinking game involving the many dings, dongs, chimes and announcements the train makes while stopping and starting. Given the rapid succession of stops and our complete and utter lack of food it’s not long until we’re both quite pissed. We need some food.

This is quite a problem because there’s no food service on the Ghettokansen. Most of the stations along the way don’t seem to have food either. Eventually, we find a subtle flaw in JR’s plan to starve us to death. Every fifth station or so, the GK has to stop and wait while other, faster, trains go past it. This gives one of us a four minute window to sprint out of the train, down the stairs and try and find something to eat. I volunteer and begin the harrowing mental preparation for what lies ahead.

At Fukuyama, I get my chance. Four minutes to be on and off the train. I belt out the door and down the stairs. Oh glorious beacon of shining drink fridges and stacked onigiri: there’s a convenience store directly outside the ticket gates. There’s also a very grumpy looking ticket man standing at the ticket gates. This is not looking good.

“Can I go out to the store and then come back?”
“What?”
“Can I just go and get some food?”
“What?”
“I’m on the train that’s waiting up there. I’ll just be a second”
“That’s completely impossible”
“Uhhhhhh…”
“Completely impossible”

At this stage he raises one hand and begins waving me through. I stand, confused. Is this like one of those Japanese porn flicks where they say no but they really mean yes? Is there some subtext here I’m not understanding? Am I going to go out, only to be denied re-entry and trapped in the middle of nowhere? The drunken stomach rumbles take control and I decide to take my chances. I dash out, grab the sole remaining food item in the store, and return to the ticket counter.

“Thanks”
“Your train leaves in 2 minutes”
“Uh, thank you.”

The GK, for when style never factored into the deal.

Just a Camera

Ruwan and I have just fought our way out of the thronging crowd around Hachiko in Shibuya and we’re headed up the road toward Tower. There’s a couple of foreigners standing near the edge of the road looking sheepish. One of them has a fairly serious looking camcorder.

Suddenly another guy wanders out onto the road and the pair shift their gear into position and start filming. The other guy casually wanders up behind a bus, grabs the bottom of the rear window and spread-eagles himself against the rear of the vehicle. He’s completely suspended and there’s no way the driver can see him.

The bus takes off and disappears down the road, guy still hanging onto the back and all the while his friends are filming him. The weird thing is, it all happened so fast it felt like it was choreographed. Camera. Bus. Drive. Go.

I wonder what the hell they were doing?

Posted in Japan on Monday December 5, 2005.