My Truck Ride to the Airport. Also, Tokyo.
For the exceptionally out of the loop, I just moved to Tokyo to help start up the Google R&D Center we have out here. I’ll be in Tokyo through December.
Many thanks to those of you who emailed or sent me messages making sure I was still alive and well. I hope that you are also alive and well! As for the rest of you, I could go either way.
Short version
Rode with a crazy man to the airport, made it to Tokyo ok, being illiterate sucks, mangoes too expensive.
Absurdly long version
I called the cab company to pick me up, but they apparently had better things to do. Damn you, Luxor Cab! While waiting on the street for the taxi, I was struck up in conversation by Paul, whom I have elsewhere referred to as “That crazy guy with a megaphone who lives across the street.” Paul offered to give me a ride to the airport for $25, which I politely declined. After about 20 minutes of waiting for the cab, I got nervous and took Paul up on his offer. He threw my bags in the back of his truck and off we were.
Indulge me while I describe Paul’s ride…
I’ve always thought Paul’s truck looked ghetto from the outside, but it is so much worse on the inside. Paul, who somehow lives in San Francisco on $800 a month in disability payments, likes to collect junk. He bragged about the red wicker basket he had just picked up, and I must admit, it was as fine a wicker basket as I had seen that day. I put on my seat belt in pantomime – anything more substantial would have required an actual seat belt. Paul had keys, though they were apparently symbolic, since he started the ignition with a pair of pliers. Of course, side-view mirrors are a luxury he can’t afford on a fixed income, so I had to stick my head out the window and check traffic every time we changed lanes.
I sat facing a bumper sticker of The Rock on the glove compartment and a “Big-Mouth Billy Bass” Paul displayed on the dashboard because it apparently looked too classy on the wall at home. When Paul dropped me off at the airport, he shouted, “Don’t I get a hug!!” I knew I wouldn’t be able to take a shower for many hours, but the man still had my luggage, so I had no choice.
Off to Tokyo!
I promise this will get more succinct now. I felt the experience deserved that.
Getting to Tokyo and the apartment went off without a hitch. The apartment is actually really nice. It’s not big by any means, but as long as I keep it clean, it’s very presentable. Keeping it clean is unlikely, though. And if people want to come visit, there are extra sheets and room on the floor, or, if you’re very small, room on the couch.
So far not a whole lot of speaking Japanese going on here. Well, not by me. People either speak English perfectly or are embarrassed about their English and don’t want to talk to me in either language. I can tell one thing: being illiterate blows. Those after-school specials were not joking around.
I went to the grocery store last night and made sure to pick up some snack food with visible suckers. I decided to pass on the mangoes, though, since they are $8.
Yesterday some people in the office ended a sentence with, “… and it’s only a $50 cab ride.”
I rode to work on the train for the first time on Wednesday, shoved onto a train car with five hundred of my closest friends. I was on the train for fifteen minutes and didn’t hear anything louder than the squeak of the handholds. Very, very creepy.
I went all-out when buying a cell phone. It has a 2MP camera and a compass built-in. It can scan bar codes, watch TV, and raise the dead. I haven’t figured out how to use the address book or hang up.