Don’t I Look Japanese?

Time is constant.  But the perception of how much we have at our disposal can fluctuate wildly.  I went to bed sure I had an 8:30AM flight.  And I got up early so I could be ready to leave for the airport at 6:30AM.  There’d be no time for the gym.  Goodbye’s would be to people fast asleep.  I knew all this was so.  I’d checked the email from Ctrip before I went to bed.  And upon closer look I’d read an old email, from the last time I’d flown Asiana a year ago.  My flight was actually, at 10:40AM.  Amazing.  Great.  I have plenty of time.

I went to the gym.  Great to be there.  Came home and got the kids up.  Had a cup a coffee and a bowl of fruit with them all as I’d normally do.  Waved everyone off.  Got a few more emails done.  Packed up what I had to and all the while allowed a sense of broad calm as it concerned time, to govern my consciousness.  When it was time to call the car, I was considering just how I’d spend all the extra time I’d have this morning in the airport, after I arrived ahead of time.  

Cab came.  Off I went.  It was a bit later than I’d suspected but not by much.  I still had an extra twenty minutes from when I’d likely get there and when they’d say it was too late to check in.  And about four minutes after leaving my home I ran right into concretized traffic on the charming little lane I live on.  There is an automobile show on at the nearby convention center.  I knew that.  We’d be here for a bit.  Yes indeed.  My driver boldly cut up into the oncoming lane, advancing ahead about one hundred yards.  And then, had to cut back and we sat. I craned my neck and sat up in my chair.  Nothing was moving up ahead. Time now registered itself all rather differently. 

Ten precious minutes into the wait, without ten yards to our name, I told the driver to do a U-turn.  We’d try another method.  Perhaps I should have gotten out and walked the kilometer or two up passed the convention center.  Perhaps I should have tried to swing around to the north and cross Tianbei Lu and Jing Mi Lu to swing back around.  But This convention center would be tough to get around no matter what I did.  His GPS said to use Gao Bai Lu and go down to the elevated high way.  And as he turned right to do so I knew there would be no way I would ever make my flight. 

Called.  Cancelled it.  There was a one-way direct that wasn’t so expensive that would get me in earlier and to Haneda rather than Narita, which was preferred.  A happy ending except for the fact that this Friday is the beginning of Golden Week in Japan.  Everyone would be leaving.  I will need to be leaving and now all the one-way flights back home are appallingly high.  “No.  That’s too much.  Huh.  No way.  That’s insane.  What about the flight I just gave up?  Really?  No longer available?”   I’m juggling for how I’d get home.  There’s a 2:00AM fight on Saturday morning that may be the pick of the littler. 

Now I’m laptop up on the commuter rail into Shinegawa from Haneda, digging all the Japanese business traffic. “Mamanaku  Shinegawa Eki.”  I managed to get a SIM card from a Swedish lady at the Softbank counter.  I asked and she mentioned she wasn’t particularly interested in visiting China.  Befuddled I adopted a veteran’s posture, suggesting this was all rather misguided.  She asked whether Hong Kong might not suffice.  I asked her colleague where she was from in China.  I’d asked in Mandarin.  “How did you know?” She replied in Chinese. “Don’t I look Japanese?”  “I don’t know.” I replied.  I merely know that there probably aren’t many Japanese customers looking for SIM cards and if they staff an English speaker they probably staff a Chinese speaker as well.

Wednesday, 4/25/18