Roy Orbison Sings me Sayonara. Stealing WiFi. Finally, Some Practical Advice for DatingYourself

A Garden Past its Prime

I chose this photo for my final blog from Tokyo for a reason.  At the bottom of this page,  I'll tell you why.*

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Music to go Home to

Spotify is a wonderful thing.  It is delivering Roy Orbison's Last Concert album right here to my MacBook Air in my little Tokyo studio.  Me and Roy.  Nice.  Did you know he had perfect pitch?   Blue Bayou.  Just the right song to listen to when you're homesick.  And I am, alas, homesick and need to get back home.  ....Gonna see my baby again, Gonna be with some of my friends....

Really Dating Myself 
I  want to sleep in my own bed, put my head on a pillow that knows me, wear my old ratty housecoat, curl up in my worn sheets and smell the night air off the Pacific that finds its way into my bedroom window cracked just enough so that a  thief could not gain entrance and steal my Iphone and petite chef knife.   Did I mention it's crab season. ....I'm going back someday, come what may.....  I want a whole crab of my very own with a pot of aioli,  a side of sour dough, and a chilled St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc  to wash it down, if you want that much detail.   I need to  drink a whole pot of Peet's Breakfast Blend coffee in the winter dark with the fireplace going, catch up on all of the episodes of The Good Wife and  take the 23 MUNI to the Alemany Market on Saturday morning.  I need to resume eating green things I recognize; and fruit.   Only the Lonely know the way I feel tonight....Save me a place in line at Tartine.  Better yet, order me a loaf of their peasant bread.  I'll pick it up Friday.  I want to go Happy Hour bar hopping with my old-broad friends at the City's fancy hotels, get a little bit drunk and see the Christmas decorations.

Japanese taste in Christmas music god-awful

I want to hear Christmas music that doesn't sound as though it was recorded by my 94-year old mother's memory-care choir trying to sound upbeat.   I want to go to Yosemite and reacquaint myself with my own country's sense of sovereign majesty.

I've loved Tokyo, but I'm ready to go home.  I love you and I'm dreaming of you...

If It's Tomorrow Here, Then It's Yesterday There
The down side is that this getting-ready-to-leave  business seems to require some real planning and adjustments that'd I rather not have to endure.  First off, I need to take into primary consideration what time it will be in San Francisco when I get on the plane here in Tokyo. All of the best advice about  traveling outside of your time zone recommends that you board the plane and immediately assume the activity of whatever time zone you are going to land in. So if it's the middle of the day where you take off but the middle of the night where you're headed, take some drugs and a couple martinis before you board and conk out.  This would be the best-case scenario in my opinion.  (Some of those finer points are from my own operations manual.)

That  general time zone directive is all well and good but it gets complicated because it's already tomorrow here but when I get back, it will  not only be yesterday, but yesterday at a very different time.  I don't have all this nailed down yet, I'm still in the stage of just thinking about it and scaring myself.  Setting suns before they fall, Echo to you that's all that's all... 

I  remind myself that in the six weeks since I arrived here, I have mastered a lot of new skills and acquired a great deal of knowledge; some I had no idea I needed to acquire and others I acquired without my knowledge or consent.

Things I've Learned

• Metro train and subway lines are all different colors because colored circles are easy to follow.  Don't bother trying to learn the names.  It is a fool's errand.
• Metro train and subway exit signs are always yellow and numbered and there is a wall map of where they take you above ground.  Studying this map is a worthwhile exercise for navigational purposes.  This was a lately-acquired bit of knowledge.
• Best counter for fresh sushi at Tokyo Foodshow is under Shibuya station.
• Stealing wi-fi at Starbucks and Apple stores does not require a purchase; otherwise it's not stealing. (Starbucks Christmas Blend is $15 for 8 1/2 ounces and you don't get a free cup when you buy it or a free anything on your birthday and your Starbucks card doesn't work here.  Steal away.)   
• Decent French wine for about $8-14 is available at local convenience stores.
• Didn't need that jar of peanut butter hauled in luggage after all.
• Japanese platform beds only look comfortable.
• The stereotype of the Japanese tourist with a camera is not a stereotype.
• Just because you bought a purse in Japan doesn't  mean you have acquired the Japanese aesthetic.
• Bowing is a beautiful art form. 
• Expect raw eggs to show up with some hot rice dishes. You'll discover it's raw the hard way.  You won't know what to do with it.
• Stores, outdoor gardens and other places play what we recognize as "Auld Lang Syne" to indicate they are closing.  To the Japanese, this song is "Glow of a Firefly," a popular children's song whose lyrics are unrelated to those we sing. 
• Japanese  are master baggers.  Buy a small bottle of cold sake and when you get home, it will have one of those disposable ice packs tucked inside of the 5 yards of bubble wrap that's inside a plastic liner bag that's inside of the store's brand bag.  Resist fighting this excess. It's useless.  
• My favorite discovery:  a lot of Japanese are just as lost on the streets of Tokyo as you are. 

Skills I've Acquired

• Navigate Tokyo metro system without causing system interruption.
• Except for those little copper colored ones with the holes in them that vending machines won't take, have almost mastered Japanese coins.  
• Walk on the left.  But sometimes on the right.  Stairs at Metro stations observe inconsistent walking patterns. 
• Can say following phrases in Japanese:  Hello; Excuse me; Thank you; What do you recommend?; Delicious.  See no need to add to this list. 
• Expect to wait in line.  Start at the back.  Don't push or elbow anyone, even if you're taller and you know you could take them.
• Do  not give money directly to sales clerk. Place money on that little plastic dish with the fake grass surface.  

If you have been reading this blog hoping to get some practical advice about what to bring on your future trip to Tokyo, here it is. Don't get used to it.  I'm not the travel tip sort.

Things I'm Glad I Brought With Me

• Long sleeve house sweater
• Sheepskin-lined slippers, even if they took up precious space in suitcase
• Multi pocketed travel vest bought at the Embarcadero day before I left 
• Two good scarves
• Mostly black clothes
• Two Tokyo specific guidebooks
• Small notebook for planning and note taking
• Small to medium size purse/back pack for hands free touring.  Easier on back than shoulder purse.
• Small but real camera with big-bite memory card 
• MacBook Air laptop,  SKYPE-ready
• Iphone set on airplane mode for stealing wi-fi when not at apartment
• Ipod Touch for back up
• Electric toothbrush
• Chargers for all of above
• LOTS of cash

So that's all of the new stuff I've learned,  followed by a list of things  I can do that I couldn't do before I got here,  and, finally, what you need to bring along if you want to try DatingYourself in Tokyo.  

*Blog Photo Backstory

Koishkawa Botanical Garden in late Fall

Yesterday I visited the Koishkawa Botanical Garden that belongs to the Tokyo University Graduate School of Science.  I only had an hour before they closed, but it was the final garden on my list.  It clearly was a garden in seasonal decline.  The flower beds were gone, the pond lilies were sad and broken,  canopies of ancient cherry trees planted to show off their Spring foliage were barren.  Thick layers of dead leaves covered the pathways beneath the maples, sycamores and ginkgoes.  "How disappointing," I thought.  "This garden was designed to look good in the spring and summer."

Youth always appears more beautiful and easier to enjoy than the product of maturity and old age.  It's also more photogenic.  So I headed back to the entrance, trying to picture the flowers and trees in bloom, buzzing with life, erupting in color, capturing the attention of thousands of Japanese with cameras.  I had come wanting to find something special to look at and found instead, just an old garden.

Signs of shedding

Ginkgo's glory days

Layer of Maple

I didn't want the day to end in disappointment, so I began looking at what was there, rather than what I had missed had I been here in May.  A few minutes walk among these faded beauties found me under the tree whose photo appears at the top.  It wasn't much to look at from a distance but the closer I got, the more intrigued I was with the fineness of its features and the small, exquisite seed pods that remained from its former glory days.  In its time, it must have been a real stand out.  A show off among the other specimens vying for attention in this botanical bonanza.

Just an old tree

How much older women are like this tree, I thought.  We are invisible to most people, not worthy of a photo, having passed our days of youth and beauty.  But after the blooms are gone, there is a possibility, if we are lucky and have taken pains to prepare ourselves, to still have something to offer anyone who takes the time to stop and study us. I took the photo, previewed it, and made my way contentedly back to the Metro stop.

Worth a closer look

Later today I'll board a plane and tomorrow I'll be back in California where I'll continue DatingMyself and keeping my own company, as best I can.

For now, a Sayonara to all. California blue,  dreaming all alone,  nothing else to do, California blue...  Oh, Roy! Sing it out!