Life in the fast lane

8:35 pm, Tokyo, July 12, 2008
An interesting story about the trip I took today. We went as a school on a tour of Tokyo. I left home especially early, around 7:00 am. I only had time to surreptitiously wolf down some cereal (if that image confuses anyone, you aren’t alone), while Daisuke was happily sleeping on the floor of the living room, oblivious to my munching less than ten feet away. As long as I’ve stayed here, a week as short a time as it is, I have yet to quite get used to the fact that first thing I see in the morning, sliding open my bedroom door, is Daisuke lying prostrate right outside. I don’t mind, certainly; in fact, sometimes it becomes very funny. I’ll be in the middle of breakfast, around seven am, usually, and Daisuke will, seemingly like clockwork, wake up and pronounce “goodmorning” (Ohio, おはよう) in his deepest, groggiest baritone. The next thing I know, though, he’s washed and in a suit and awake as a bird, but I never see him move from his sleeping spot behind me to his room at my fore in the first place! Conclusion: sorcery. Anyway, I had to leave early, so everyone was still asleep. I got to the tour launch spot, where we piled in to four coach buses and drove to the Imperial Palace, Asakusa, Odaiba, and Tokyo Tower.
The imperial palace was impressive, certainly; The trees popped out perfectly from perfectly tended grounds, but we never got past the front gate, so I never got a full impression of the place. At Asakusa, though, we got to wander around for an hour. Asakusa is a preserved part of town from the Edo period, with a large shrine and shopping street at its center; very interesting place, but the shrine seemed especially tuned for foreign tourists, and the shops didn’t sell much but marked up chintz, so I mostly reveled I the old architecture and stifling heat. Odaiba is Tokyo’s waterfront district, home to its main TV stations and any number of shopping centers. It was beautiful to look at from a distance, all silver and new and fashionably designed; spheres and suspended cubes and other forms of geometric whimsy all culminating in a seemingly lifeless husk on the Saturdays. We spent most of our time in the shopping center, marveling at the prices; I thought to myself, though, that what differentiates Japan from China is that the prices may be just as high here, but Japanese people actually go here for everyday shopping, unlike in China, where such luxury is far beyond the citizenry’s grasp. Tokyo Tower, however, was the most exciting part of all. The view from the observation deck was spectacular, showing Tokyo in a huge urban Panorama. What struck me, though, was far beyond the view. Somehow, I managed to use my English, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese, all in the confines of that building, in a forty minute period, with students from all over the world who were studying at my school. The Lingua Franca for the students amongst themselves is English, of course, but everyone takes any chance they can not to speak it; good time to be a polyglot, I suppose. There is this feeling of internationalism that pervades every pore of this place, every person in this school; a unique feeling.