Our plan was to meet
for a bowl of ramen near Meguro Station.
“Let’s meet at the Starbucks there.”
The Starbucks is under renovation but a small street side mini-bucks has
been opened while the main shop is made over.
There are four small bench seats available and they are all taken. Uncharacteristically, I am early. I practice my onigaiishimas with the young fella who takes my order and look
around for a place to stand and sip. By
the bicycle rack there is a wall at chest height that I can lay my coffee and my
book down on and resume my read while I wait.
Mid way through “The Passage Between the Seas,” by David McCullough The French have failed to build the Panama
Canal. Corruption and ineptitude have
all been exposed. Teddy Roosevelt enters
the scene and the pace of the narrative suddenly becomes dynamic. I learn that Teddy claimed to have read two
books a day, as a routine. I think about
this for some time. I will return to it
a number of times during the day and I will mention it to more than one person. The only way such a thing might be possible
is if you have an ability to, or a tolerance for skimming material. But even if you could the time required would
be a rather significant indulgence. How
could someone with the schedule of a US President allow for the requisite time?. But if . . .
if you really could read at that pace, think of all that you could
fortify yourself with. I confess I did
count once. I had a year where I read over fifty books, which casts
things at one-a-week. Not bad. But at two a day, you’d polish off seven
hundred and thirty books a year. That
would require a significant book budget and many, many storage rooms.
My friend arrives and we set off for ramen. I’ve eaten in dozens of places around this
train station over the years. He has a
place in mind I’ve never dined in. The
décor is simple, unpolished. An older
lady whom I assume is the proprietress serves up our brimming bowl and plate of
gyoza and my friend and I recap on family, on business. I try my best to ignore it but the television
is in my line of vision, straight above the proprietress. There are tranquil, country scenes and then
kanji I don’t recognize flashes and there is a burst of canned laughter. I don’t want to care what happens next but my
eyes keep darting up to see what the canned laughter is laughing about. This broth is delicious and the soup seems
distinct because it is served in an odd, oblong bowl. Old men with leisure hats come and go from
perches at the adjacent counter.
We want to keep talking and consider the Starbucks next
door. But its packed and there don’t
seem to be any but the tightest places to sit.
“I know a place, would you like to go to a . . ." I know what he is going
to say: “Japanese style coffee
shop.” These too, are
anachronistic. Japanese coffee shops feel
like retro salary-man Formica.
“Yes.” The place we head to, I have visited before and it is quirky and delightful. The
word Turkish Coffee catches my eye on the menu.
It ain’t cheap, but somehow that sweet cardamom taste, has lodged itself in my mind’s eye and I will order it. The proprietor comes and reaches out for the orange
rice cooker upon which my canal book has been resting. I excuse myself and raise the book up off,
noticing now that "The Passage Between the Seas" is rather hot.
On the way out we bid each other farewell. My friend references our conversation and
points to an advertisement across the street.
“You see, a three bedroom apartment in Meguro, 750-K-US. Japan is a truly reasonable place to live”
I’ve long toyed with the notion of living here.
Now it appears that homes are less expensive here than both Beijing and
New York. He points my eyes towards a
new construction going up eight or more stories on the neighboring lot to the
station. This is notable. Major new buildings are not commonplace. “You see, you should get an apartment in
there. That will be a nice building, right here at Meguro Station. I begin to consider the view that it will one day
enjoy.
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