Same Old, Same Old

What a surprise that my first day in Tokyo had its fair share of minor travel mishaps. I should have known things were off on the wrong foot when we were scheduled to depart from the the infamous Terminal 5 at Heathrow. It's actually a beautiful, spacious concourse but they clearly don't have everything down pat. I was on a jam-packed flight from London to Tokyo, but they chose to have us embark from a tucked-away lower ground terminal, distant from the main gates. They then put several hundred of us on buses and drove us to the plane sitting on a far away tarmac. Not only did this set us back more than an hour, significant further delay was caused when they realized that the mobile stairs they used to get us on board were stuck to the carrier's side. "We have to call a mechanic, sorry," the pilot announced. Good grief.

Thankfully, the flight itself was uneventful (I'm embarrassed to admit which movie I watched, so I won't) and having not checked bags, I zipped through customs and had no problems locating the fast train toward Tokyo Station. That's when my luck began to change a bit. Me being the travel genius I am, I missed the frigging stop. Yes, there was a stop that said "Tokyo" but weren't all these stops in Tokyo? Anyway, I ended up 20 minutes down the line at Akihabara station and had to take the subway back, via Ochanomizu and Kanda (?). It was about 90 degrees with 90% humidity and these trains were packed. I did make it to the hotel, where I'm sure I won the prize for today's most disgusting patron.

Despite the mugginess, I needed to go for a run to get the airplane air out of me. The Imperial Palace is just several blocks away so I thought I'd go check it out. Beautiful grounds and a perfect running path that bordered it. The only odd thing I noticed was that I was the only person running counter-clockwise. You wouldn't think much about a handful of people going in the opposite direction, but I passed maybe 100 people and I was the only one going this way. Not a soul, even walkers. It was like a G-rated (but just as sweaty) version of Midnight Express. For all I know, I violated some sort of Buddhist principle on my path (or technically, their path). The ugly American is perhaps alive and well (and still in need of losing 10-15 pounds).

And what would an evening on the town (even by oneself!) be in Tokyo without getting hopelessly lost within a several square block area for which I had clearly marked map? I asked the hotel to suggest a really good but low key sushi place in the Ginza neighborhood, right down the road from my post in Marunouchi. No problem - Sushi Zanmai was their suggestion and with my print out map I was on my way. In fact, according to the arrow pointing to a precise pixel on this map, it was on the same street as the hotel, down about 10 blocks. Yeah, right! I went to that spot, walked around for 15 minutes, and ended up on some side street completely turned around. A nice young lady whom I asked for directions walked me the final 3 blocks in a different direction and there it was under a bridge. Of course it was under a bridge. Through this whole exercise, I so sweated through my orangeish shirt that it was rendered largely dark brown. A real sight to behold. I don't think I saw another American anywhere today and certainly not at Sushi Zanmai, where I sat at the bar and ordered by grunting and pointing at pictures on the menu. I think I ate mostly tuna. I don't think the chef liked me.

This town is unbelievable.